As far as I am concerned, 2018 was one outstanding year for music and in a bizarre way, I am wondering if we may happen to have ax exceedingly deplorable reality television star in the White House as a reason to thank.
Not to go towards a more politically fused rant or anything, but to have something to potentially thank the current President for is a concept that I absolutely positively never, ever and never again ever thought that I would have within myself. But who knows? There is a first time for anything, right? In the case of this figure and the downward spiral he has placed upon us all, perhaps the cultural anger and anxiety that has permeated our collective state of being has also propelled itself into our musicians as 2018 was a year that found all of the artists featured on this list working more feverishly than ever, as if the proverbial clock was ticking and with whatever time we have allotted, it cannot be wasted on frivolity. So, with that, the music contained here possessed a greater urgency than in years past--a distinct need to be created and released to the world and the feeling contained was palpable, to say the least.
And now, I am happy to present to you the first half of this series celebrating and compiling my favorite music releases of the year 2018...right now in no particular order other than their release dates...
CHRIS DAVE AND THE DRUMHEDZ
Released January 26, 2018
-The very first new release I heard in 2018 remains one of the very best as well as one that signified a startling era within music that merges the landscapes of jazz, fusion, art rock, R&B, hip-hp and even ambient into a vast musical gumbo that is completely immersive in its simultaneous amalgamation of 70s era aesthetics and Afro-Futurism. Led by top tier drummer Chris Dave, he and his musical co-horts created a true headphone album that dazzled me upon the very first listen and sustained greatly throughout the year.
MGMT
Released February 9, 2018
-After a third album that went so far down the rabbit hole that it seemed they would never re-emerge, MGMT, the collective made up singers/songwriters/multi-instrumentalists Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden, returned with their best work since their second album "Congratulations" (released April 13, 2010). "Little Dark Age" found MGMT re-discovering their love of melody and more traditional song structures although this aesthetic did not dampen their more esoteric qualities whatsoever. In fact, they probably found their most exquisite balance between the accessible with art-for-art's sake experimentation. And hey, album opener "She Works Out Too Much" was one of the most addictive songs I heard all year.
AUGUST GREENE
Released March 9, 2018
-The triumvirate of rapper/lyricist Common, pianist/keyboardist Robert Glasper and drummer extraordinaire Kareem Riggins joined forces brilliantly with their new supergroup August Greene and their self-titled debut release early in the year. Focusing itself thematically upon themes of a post-Obama America without ever mentioning the name of a certain figure that currently sits in the White House while delivering soulful meditations about and promoting Black Excellence made for a soul stirring experience that not only spoke directly to our socio-political landscape, it also threw down the gauntlet to the current state of hip-hp and R&B, much of which remains creatively and culturally stagnant.
MESHEEL NDEGEOCELLO
Released March 16, 2018
-I am typically not the biggest fan of top-to-bottom covers albums but Meshell Ndegeocello's "Ventriloquism" is enthralling, immersive and intoxicating. In her fully innovative re-creations of songs from Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, Al B. Sure!, Janet Jackson all the way to brazen risk taking stabs at the works of Tina Turner, George Clinton and nothing less our dearly departed Royal Badness himself in Prince's transformative elegy "Sometimes It Snows In April," Ndegeocello miraculously makes these songs sound (nearly) as if she had composed them herself. One of the year's boldest strokes.
A PERFECT CIRCLE
Released April 20, 2018
-21st century protest music arrived with a powerful solemnity with A Perfect Circle's "Eat The Elephant," the band's first album in 14 years. From the clearly politically tinged title to singer Maynard James Keenan's empathetic, sobering and at times venomous lyrics all set to multi-instrumentalist Billy Howerdel's meticulously arranged and performed soundscapes, this album worked as the perfect sequel to the band's previous release, the all cover songs "eMOTIVe" (released November 1, 2004). While some may have been disappointed by the lack of actual mart-metal body slammers, "Eat The Elephant" displayed a larger growth and maturity as the band faced down our modern day horrors with grit and elegance, making this collection songs for the end of the world.
JANELLE MONAE
Released April 27, 2018
-A work of astounding personal and artistic emancipation, Janelle Monae's 'Dirty Computer," again an album blurring the musical worlds of pop, R&B, funk, electronica and hip-hop, was a head spinning release that took Monae out of her ArchAndroid persona and humanized her to her audience, as well as herself on levels racial, sexually and politically, as never before. Less a tight collection of songs and functioning more as an album length manifesto, Janelle Monae raised her out bar triumphantly and unapologetically...as the explosive, ruthless "Django Jane" attests: "Hit the mute button/Let the vagina have a monologue." 'Nuff said!!!
GENTLE BRONTOSAURUS
Released May 12, 2018
-The musicians of the Madison, WI music community strike again with one of the year's brightest, shiniest pop albums...yet a bit deceptively so. Gentle Brontosaurus' "Bees Of The Invisible" is a gorgeously written, produced, performed and yes, sequenced 12 song bouquet of melodies and jaunty rhythms that truly evoke the sound of Spring time. However, the album is not all fizzy lemonade drinks and swirling polka dot dresses as the band delivers tales of heartbreaks and heartaches, self-imposed masochism, crippling depression, the failings of an aspiring actress, long enduring yet uneven friendship reaching breaking points and with the outstanding "track1.mp3" and the stunning album closing epic "Hobo Signs In The Liner Notes," twin tales of celebrity based obsessions. Lyrically multi-layered, musically addictive with bubblegum melodies that stick firmly to your brain, Gentle Brontosaurus created the very type of pop music that fully showcases the genre at its finest.
COURTNEY BARNETT
Released May 18, 2018
-The illustrious DJ Nightway of Madison, WI's WSUM-FM introduced me to this artist and I have not looked back ever since. Once again, we have an artist who is magically able to blend the very best of the alternative rock scenes of the past and the present into a fully idiosyncratic sound and artistic vision that feels fully formed and livid in through her unique artistic lens. Wielding her guitar, invitingly ragged vocals, pointed lyrics and melodicism with confidence and rock star swagger, Barnett commands you attention throughout. And for me, the terrific "Need A Little Time" somehow evokes the image of Courtney Love fronting Tom Petty's Heartbreakers while simultaneously advancing Barnett's own aesthetic grandly.
FATHER JOHN MISTY
Released June 1, 2018
-I know...I know. The social media persona that Josh Tillman a.k.a. Father John Misty has created and coveted for himself, the uber white male hipster-than-thou contrarian, is insufferable beyond measure. Many times, I have been ready to leave this figure far behind in the dust and then...he releases a new album. Following his previous two jaw dropping epic releases, including "Pure Comedy" (released April 7, 2017), on which he took on nothing less than the state of existence itself, Father John Misty returned with "God's Favorite Customer," a more intimate affair and yet no less staggering as his peerless songwriting often recalled early 1970's Elton John and John Lennon in regards to scope, melodicism and at times, a harrowing level of self-examination. Remember, for as much as we all may love to hate him at times, there is nothing more vicious than Father John Misty's own blistering, bruising and luxuriously written, produced and performed self-lacerations.
R+R=NOW
Released June 15, 2019
-Robert Glasper returned alongside powerhouse musicians keyboardist Terrace Martin, bassist Derrick Hodge, trumpeter Christian Scott aTundeAdjuah, synthesizer player Tyler McFerrin and drummer extraordinaire Justin Tyson as the jazz fusion supergroup R+R=NOW. Their head spinning debut release, which exactly like Chris Dave and the Drumhedz and August Greene, is a fully genre blurring and genre bursting album that functions as an unabashed love affair between musicians and their instruments, and therefore, the love affair between musicians and the art of music itself as they are clearly enraptured with what occurs through human collaboration in service to the art above commerce. Absolutely superior musicianship on a gorgeously recorded release.
NINE INCH NAILS
Released June 22, 2018
-Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross bring their EP trilogy, which began with "Not The Actual Events" (released December 23, 2016) and "Add Violence" (released July 19, 2017) to a close with "Bad Witch," a 30 minute submergence into the band's trademark atmospheric, textured dissonance yet with some new, darker avenues to visit, including Reznor's return to the saxophone as well as some surprisingly rich vocals on which he dons his finest Bowie inspired baritone on the thrilling "God Break Down The Door." Reznor and Ross only continue to record and release with an increasing alacrity as their idiosyncratic film scores chase down their official Nine Inch Nails works, making it just a privilege to try and keep up especially when they remain this frighteningly consistent and compelling as they sound on "Bad Witch."
GORILLAZ
Released June 29, 2018
-After the massive, guest star laden "Humanz" (released April 28, 2017), our favorite animated band, created by illustrator Jamie Hewlett and journeyman musician Damon Albarn, return with their finest work since "Plastic Beach" (released March 3, 2010). The guest stars are kept to an absolute minimum this time around, leaving Albarn as the signature musical force throughout the album, which almost functions as a travelogue ("Hollywood," "Kansas," "Idaho," "Lake Zurich," "Magic City") and features some of his most sparkling and soulful dreamworld electronic compositions that speed along concisely yet connect instantly and firmly...like the finest pop music should accomplish.
POST SOCIAL
Released June 29, 2018
-The young yet seasoned Madison, WI music veteran quartet returned this year with their fourth album that celebrated all that has arrived before and simultaneously blew it all apart with their most ferocious, furious work to date. Guitarist/singer Mitch Deitz, guitarist/vocalist Shannon Connor, bassist Sam Galligan and drummer Brendan Manley not only continued to raise their own bar artistically, they have done so with a previously untapped sense of aggression, anxiousness and anxiety which made the new album serve as a two clenched fisted counterpoint to their more esoteric third release "Casablanca" (released July 30, 2016).
Opening themselves up to greater collaboration with Madison, WI folk musician/guitarist Ritt Deitz, and jazz composer/pianist Wilder Deitz (Mitch's Father and brother, respectively) as well as Isaac De Broux-Sloane of the rising force that is Madison, WI's Disq plus a wider, more confessional emotional range lyrically, Post Social's "Major Congrats" is a tougher, darker yet joyously realized album that further confirms that this band not only continues to sound like no one else other than themselves, they represent the wealth and riches of the Madison music community at its absolute peak.
Stay tuned for SIDE TWO...
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