I have been writing about records since I was 13, and have never enjoyed it more than I have this year. Love and gratitude to all who have encouraged me in these weekly, deep-dive reviews. I hope you’ve found it even half as worthwhile as I have.

I’ll be back with more in 2019, after a brief Christmas sabbatical. But first, a few closing remarks on this past year’s new releases. For those who want a long list of albums without my annotations, here are 50 albums I cherish and whole-heartedly recommend. (Of course you can find the commentary track here.) You’ll note that some of these I never reviewed, but only due to time restrictions—not a dearth of enthusiasm. 

50 Favorite Albums from 2018

1. Golden Hour | Kacey Musgraves
2. Interstate Gospel | Pistol Annies
3. Look Now | Elvis Costello & The Imposters
4. Honey | Robyn
5. All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn’t Do | The Milk Carton Kids
6. Historian | Lucy Dacus
7. Streams of Thought Vol. 2 | Black Thought & Salaam Remi
8. This Too Shall Light | Amy Helm
9. Thelonious Sphere Monk | MAST
10. Love in Wartime | Birds of Chicago
11. Sparrow | Ashley Monroe
12. Time & Space | Turnstile
13. World on Sticks | Sam Phillips
14. SASSAFRASS! | Tami Neilson
15. Dirty Pictures Pt. 2 | Low Cut Connie
16. Isolation | Kali Uchis
17. 13 Rivers | Richard Thompson
18. Be the Cowboy | Mitski
19. See You Around | I’m With Her
20. Cusp | Alela Diane
21. Room 25 | Noname
22. Invasion of Privacy | Cardi B
23. Ventriloquism | Meshell Ndegeocello
24. Between Two Shores | Glen Hansard
25. Beyondless | Iceage
26. Desperate Man | Eric Church
27. Whistle Down the Wind | Joan Baez
28. Tree of Forgiveness | John Prine
29. Hell-On | Neko Case
30. My Way | Willie Nelson
31. Out of Nowhere | Steep Canyon Rangers
32. Vanished Gardens | Charles Lloyd and the Marvels with Lucinda Williams
33. Full Circle | Eddie Palmieri
34. Sun on the Square | The Innocence Mission
35. The Messthetics | The Messthetics
36. Currents, Constellations | Nels Cline 4
37. Seymour Reads the Constitution | Brad Mehldau Trio
38. Last Man Standing | Willie Nelson
39. Heaven and Earth | Kamasi Washington
40. Port Saint Joe | Brothers Osborne
41. Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides | Sophie
42. Broken Politics | Nenah Cherry
43. Wanderer | Cat Power
44. The Prodigal Son | Ry Cooder
45. Whack World | Tierra Whack
46. Still Dreaming | Joshua Redman
47. Bugge Wesseltroft & Prins Thomas | Bugge Wesseltroft & Prins Thomas
48. Cry Pretty | Carrie Underwood
49. boygenius | boygenius
50. The Window | Cécile McLorin Salvant

Disappointments

The most important decision a critic makes is on what he or she chooses to cover, and for me that means curating records that are worth the listener’s time and attention. There were, however, a few 2018 albums I ended up liking far less than expected; the following are all albums I had intended to write about but ultimately didn’t justify the effort, for one reason or another.

Ye | Kanye West
Man of the Woods | Justin Timberlake
Nasir | Nas
Colagically Speaking | R+R=Now
August Greene | August Greene
The Now Now | Gorillaz
Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino | Arctic Monkeys

I will also register some mild disappointment with Teyana Taylor’s album, KTSE—though it’s not disappointment with the album’s quality so much as its brevity and its botched roll-out. She deserved much better.

Re-Issues and Older Music

Deep immersion in new music means I haven’t yet gotten to all of the year’s big archival roll-outs—not to the anniversary edition of Beggars Banquet nor even to Bob Dylan’s More Blood, More Tracks. (I will confess to some mild Bootleg fatigue.) I have listened to the deluxe edition of The Beatles, a joyous revelation not necessarily for the bonus material so much as the chance to hear such richly imaginative and playful material come spilling out of my speakers in clarion sound. A couple of other new/old releases to note include John Coltrane’s Both Directions at Once—a transitional album that nevertheless sounds sure-footed—and a sublime anthology called Gumba Fire: Bubblegum Soul & Synth Boogie in 1980s South Africa, so indelible that my six-year-old son has requested it on more than one occasion.