best of 2018: songs

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Wednesday, December 19th, 2018

best of 2018: songs

a couple days ago, i started my best-of-2018 lists. it’s been fun so far. here’s the plan for this week:

monday: cover songs
tuesday: new music discoveries
today: songs
thursday: albums

this week’s theme continues with this list: it’s been a really great year for music. it’s never easy to narrow down a list of the best songs of the year, but this year was particularly difficult. even as i prepare to post the list, i think there’s probably a couple songs that made it that could easily be replaced by others.

there’s a little bit of everything here, which is always something i’m hopeful for. i think there’s an opportunity for a broad spectrum of music interests to find something they like.

with all that said, here’s the 28 best songs of 2018:

    28. MØ: blur
    27. eminem: the ringer
    26. noah kahan: hurt somebody (ft. julia michaels)
    25. hippo campus: bambi
    24. toro y moi: freelance
    23. sucré: inside
    22. the lone bellow: pink rabbits
    21. kids see ghosts: freeee (ghost town 2)
    20. brandi carlile: the joke
    19. punch brothers: jumbo
    18. lucius: something about you
    17. børns: second night of summer
    16. justin timberlake: say something (ft. chris stapleton)
    15. ella mai: boo’d up
    14. childish gambino: this is america
    13. travis scott: sicko mode (ft. drake)
    12. brandi carlile: sugartooth
    11. anderson .paak: who r u?

    10. pusha t: if you know you know

    9. justin timberlake: sauce

    8. janelle monae: i like that

    7. syvlan esso: parad(wm)e

    6. janelle monae: make me feel

    5. kids see ghosts: 4th dimension

    4. dirty projectors: break-thru

    3. sigrid: high five (faith no more)

    2. kanye west: ghost town

    1. kacey musgraves: slow burn



    if you would’ve told me at the outset of 2018 that my favorite song of the year would be by kacey musgraves, i would’ve told you that you were insane. i’m a bonafide country music-hater, but kacey musgraves does something that isn’t quite country… but isn’t quite anything else. ultimately, i loved this whole album and the opening track is my head-and-shoulders favorite from the album.

so, what did i miss in 2018? let me know what i should go and check out before 2019 gets here.

as a bit of a end-of-the-year gift, you can download a mix with all the tracks.

download the zip