My Favorite Ten Records of 2018.
By: Adam Amanse
Tags: Reflections, Music, Album Review, Albums Of The Year, Art

I really enjoy making my top records of the year list every year because as I look back at all the new music that comes out each year, I’m always struck by the thematic pattern of the albums that tend to resonate with me.

This year, my list has multiple genres, languages, and worldviews, but each record in some way speaks to the theme of endurance. I’ve felt the need to have to endure a lot this year, and all these records accompanied me in exploring what that means to be. Whether it’s endurance falling apart, endurance being built, or questioning whether trying to endure is even a worthwhile pursuit, these records explore that theme as well as being my favorite records in general of 2018. Let’s get this thing rolling!

10. Everything was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt / Moby

While overall a pretty bleak record, Moby uses his poetry and soundscapes to throw splashes of hope where there seemingly should be none. Although a lot of the album touches on his societal woes, his introspection provides a great tether for listeners to connect to, a little sense of solidarity in all of this madness.

Favorite Track: This WIld Darkness

9. FOLK 2 / HUMBERT HUMBERT

This record made a glorious last-week push into my top ten, and I’m glad I was able to spend enough time with it for it to make it here. Anybody that is unfortunate to be within earshot when I talk about music is probably familiar with my claim that the Japanese alternative scene is going criminally underlooked by the music listening world at large, and I still stand by that. To me, there’s something great at listening to music that isn’t in your native tongue. This Humbert Humbert record (celebrating their twenty year anniversary) is a great collection of “folk” inspired tracks. Don’t let the language barrier be a deterrent if you can’t speak Japanese. The duo’s harmonies are delightful, and the record will make you feel like you’re hanging out with friends on a long car ride or in a basement just singing songs together.

Favorite track: Tora

8. KIDS SEE GHOSTS / KIDS SEE GHOSTS

I got into hip-hop thanks to a posthumous 2Pac release (lol) and College Dropout by Kanye. I remember listening to Dropout for the first time and legitimately having my mind blown. The quintessential “chop-up-the-soul” Kanye, I could say, opened my mind up like it hadn’t been before. It gave me an insight into a world that I didn’t know anything about. Fast forward several years later, and this dude named Kid Cudi is exploding on the scene. I don’t even feel like I have to rep Cudi because we’re both Clevelanders, I just have genuine respect for his desire to be uncompromising, and his example of transparent artistry.

The two of them doing a full project collaboration was long overdue, and despite Ye’s public antics and cries of Cudi being way past his prime, this record was a huge success. The thing I appreciate best about this project (and keeping on the theme of endurance) is that both Kanye and Cudi are alive. Cudi had checked himself into the hospital a year previously to stop himself from committing suicide, and Kanye had teased out since 808s that he had wanted to die. This record, despite either artist’s public reputation, is a monument to enduring that horrible, isolating, destructive battle of just trying to stay alive when all you want to do is end it. It comes through in the music too. We get some “old Kanye” bars, that classic Cudi sound that we know and love, and some cool moments of experimentation. I get weirdly emotional listening to this record because in some ways I feel I’ve been reborn with them.

Favorite track: Cudi Montage

7. qp / Ichiko Aoba

I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve fallen asleep almost every night for the past three years to Ichiko Aoba’s music. Hardly boring or sleep-inducing, her music is the soundtrack for solitude. Whether I’m feeling overly melancholic, nostalgic, lonely, content, etc., her music is best experienced at a quiet hour of night when you are alone. Her new record qp doesn’t see any major departure, rather its a continuation of what makes her music special in the first place.

When I think of endurance in my own life, the majority of the how of endurance came in solitude. It’s a lot of painful and solitary struggle that feels endless. Ichiko Aoba’s music is both a breath within the struggle, and an acknowledgment of it.

Favorite track: No One’s World (this one wasn’t on Youtube, so here’s a music video of a different track from the new record).

6. You Won’t Get What You Want / Daughters

The new Daughters record will make you take multiple showers to get all the dirt off of you. If the new Ichiko Aoba record was the record to lull me into dreams, this record is the record to throw me into my nightmares. You Won’t Get What You Want is abrasive, dirty, unsettling, but also cathartic as fuck. It’s a sonic fever dream, and is a great companion to when the fight to endure pushes the edges of sanity. It’s an experimental noise punk record to unsettle you, and to be honest, some days it’s just what I need. Existence is messy, and it hardly ever manifests itself in the way we hope. I’ve listened to this record a ton since it came out. It grabs your attention and refuses to let you go, no matter how much you want to look away.

Favorite track: The Reason They Hate Me

5. Sister Cities / The Wonder Years

The Wonder Years’ last record The Greatest Generation was the soundtrack to my first real existential crisis. It was anthemic as fuck, and I’d yell choruses like “I just wanna sell out my funeral” like it was the only thing I’d ever believed in. The new record is basically a more mature existential crisis, and one that I relate to yet again. To me, one of the hardest things about building endurance in myself is that I never feel like I have a true center, a tangible place to call home. I have my birth town where I grew up, I have the other side of the country where I truly came into myself, and I have the other side of the world where I threw myself into the unknown, into a giant risk and a giant adventure. Sister Cities is a great companion to that feeling of homelessness. It speaks of how that puts a strain on relationships and hope in general. It’s cathartic pop-punk at its finest.

Favorite track: We Look Like Lightning (this one wasn’t on Youtube, so here’s a music video from my second favorite off the new record)

4. Haru to Shura / Haru Nemuri

Haru Nemuri is one of those groups that, after I listened to one of their songs for the first time, I just went “uh, that was… a thing.” Sometimes the instrumentation belongs on a La Dispute record, sometimes it’s a noise punk record, sometimes it belongs on a powerpop record. The vocals are a blend of spoken word/hip-hop, and the dynamics are insane. The only way I can describe how this record makes me feel is in film terms. It feels like the audio equivalent of a montage with quick cuts. I often see a lot of images in mind’s eye in quick succession while listening to this. It’s a weirdly hopeful listen. I listened to it a ton on my various (and way too long) commutes this last year, and sometimes it would be a source of passion and energy for me during the days I felt passionless and drained. I PROMISE you this will be one of the most interesting listens of the year.

Favorite track: lostplanet (this track isn’t on youtube, so here’s a music video of the lead single from this record.)

3. Nearer My God / Foxing

Nearer My God feels like a big departure for Foxing. They’ve always had a certain catchiness to their music, but this record is nearly a full-blown pop record. The insane bubble-gum catchiness to this record doesn’t even come close to erasing the sadboi and sadgirl vibes you come to know and love from Foxing. There are so many moments on this record that get stuck in your head, whether it’s the end of the opening song Grand Paradise’s blown-out-of-the-fucking-roof climax, or the resigned and extremely painful “I wanna drive with my eyes closed” chorus of Five Cups, it’d be a real achievement not to walk out of this record without something from it latching on to your mind. In that, the catchiness acts as a vehicle for the sad, lonely, and painful sentiments of the record to drive down the highway of your psyche.

Favorite track: Five Cups

2. Shrine / The Republic of Wolves

While I’m not gonna give my number one record away, it really isn’t going to be a surprise to anybody that knows me. So, one of the highest praises I can give The Republic of Wolves’ latest record Shrine is that even with my number one record being released this year, Shrine almost took my number one spot. I cannot run out of great things to say about this record. It’s a concept record set in Japanese folklore about the sun goddess Amaterasu taking the soul of a wanderer, and asking him to follow her to retrieve it. While you don’t have to give a shit about any of that to lose yourself in this record, it’s a cool stylistic flair that frames this album beautifully. The production on this thing is next level — each drum hit pounds right through your chest, each lead line picks you up as it soars. This record shreds and then soothes, and I’ve listened to it at least once every day since it was released back in like February.

On the theme of endurance, this record embodied entirely my feelings. It’s the story of someone far from home, looking for something they didn’t know they lost, and doing it on their own. “There’s no one to collapse beside,” is sung on the track Colored Out, and every single time I hear that line I feel it so deeply. I could spend pages talking about the one-liners on this thing, but just know that they’re everywhere. It’s an existentially lost record at its core, set to ridiculously good instrumentation. If you want an insight into my internal narrative throughout this entire year, you don’t have to look any farther than this record.

Favorite track: it’s so hard to pick, but probably Birdless Cage (also an easy Contender for Song of the Year)

1. [untitled] & [Untitled] / mewithoutYou

No surprise here, folks. The new EP and LP by mewithoutYou (I’m counting them as one entity for the purpose of this list) is my album of the year. This wasn’t an automatic number one, and like I said earlier, Shrine was a strong contender for this spot, but my all-time favorite band came through and produced one of those most chaotic, harrowing, unhinged, and heart-breaking records of their career. I could write a novel about what this album has meant to me since it was released, but I’ll boil it down to a few themes: mental health, weariness, and the unknown.

This record shows vocalist and lyricist Aaron Weiss at both his most cryptic and most devastatingly personal:

“The best anyone could tell, Dad tried his best but finally fell apart at just around my age.”

“Anyone listening want a brain washed like mine?”

“Michael won’t you row that boat ashore? Your little brother can’t paddle anymore.”

“Have I established a pattern, perhaps a bi-annual mental collapse? And is every day a thousand years for anyone with ears to hear?”

“… to drown in doubts the future needs us, if by chance it should arrive.”

This is just the surface of the lyrical themes of this record. It’s an album revolving around collapse and weariness. It’s a future I fear for myself, and in so many more ways than one, this record almost feels like a premonition of what is to come both in my life, and societally. It’s an embodiment of the question I fear most regarding endurance, namely; “will this even be worth it in the end?”

This album has made me wrestle with myself unlike any previous album ever. It’s given me a soundtrack to my fears and anxieties, as well has given me a spiritual companion. As hard as it is to think through problems like my struggles to stay mentally healthy, my isolation, my weariness with relationships, this record has made me feel seen. The entire band is completely unhinged on this record. Whether it’s the pure banshee-like screams and instrumental chaos of Wendy & Betsy, the ominous and brooding [dormouse sighs], the “seconds before the bomb drops” narrative of August 6th, or the real-time fever dream collapse of a human’s psyche in Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore, this album is the epitome of grasping at straws. It’s years and years of immensely difficult internal and relational work, with no pay off. But it ends with a breath, an enduring hope. In that, I find hope as well.

“Someday, I’ll find me.”

Favorite track: August 6th (also my Song of the Year)