Top Tracks of 2018

Told you about my Top Ten favorite ALBUMS of this year a short time back (10-6) (5-1) - BUT as there are loads more EPs and just singles released these days, while I do like to honor the album, highlighting Top Tracks, too, gives a bigger picture of the Year in Music. My usual warning - this is all highly subjective, blah blah blah... this is what I liked!

Why 15 Tracks? Because I had more than 10, and I like nice round numbers. If you were wondering, I am including tracks from my favorite albums in this list - this could be a playlist of my favorite songs of 2018, and I wouldn't want to leave them out. Wait. It IS a playlist! Posted after the list…

15. Dan Wilson "We Ain't Telling" - With a Semisonic reunion underway and new music promised in 2019, leader Dan Wilson has been releasing some solo singles, just putting some music out monthly, not a "formal" album in the works, seems. Another track, "Uncanny Valley", came out recently. Dan released "We Ain't Telling" in late September, a tale of two colliding at times over time, with a certain sweet secretness not to be shared. Wilson writes beautiful pop rock. So good!

14. Gin Wigmore “Girl Gang”  - New Zealander Wigmore has never quite caught fire in the States the way I thought she would. This is one of a few tracks you’ll find on this list that wasn’t released as a single. If it were my call, it would have been. This, to me, sounds like a great pop song — a hit! It’s fun and wry and nervy and cool… Gin kicks ass, and so does this tune.

13. Lord Huron "Vide Noir" -  My favorite track on their 2018 album of the same name. Though the singles released hearkened back to their hit, the album's title track and a couple others possessed more power and mystery. I love the way this track sounds like it could be an old episode of the X-Files…

12. Ty Segall "I'm A Man" - Could have picked his cover of "Every 1's A Winner" from one of his other 2018 albums, Freedom's Goblin, or singles "Alta" or "My Lady's On Fire". But this cover of little Stevie Winwood and The Spencer Davis Group's classic - off Segall's 2018 covers album Fudge Sandwich - kicks a special sort of fuzzy ass.

11. King Tuff "Psycho Star" - Erstwhile Vermonter Kyle Thomas - a.k.a. King Tuff - delivered a lopping, funky psychedelic romp with this track from his The Other. A fun little ditty about chaos and confusion, how we're all mostly made of nothing, and other trippy, heady concepts. Great live at Higher Ground, too!

10. Jonathan Wilson "There Is A Light" - In a year where uplifting music was welcome and helpful, this tune echoing the positivity of George Harrison still makes me smile. Doesn't hurt that it's a little arch in its observations as well. Wilson is certainly mining the Harrison vibe, but he's doing his own thing with it here, too, a bit more sunny California than India-via-Liverpool.

9. Kyle Craft "Heartbreak Junky" - The year I've had? This song just worked! To me, it evokes old Small Faces and the era when Brits were bringing some hony-tonk into Rock'n'Roll. Yet there's a personal raw emotion and a contemporary edge. Another great Higher Ground show this year as well!

8. Lo Moon "All In" - Album-closing track from this California-based trio, from their self-titled debut album out in the first part of the year. The ringing keyboard tone reminds me of So-era Peter Gabriel, and I kind of love that. Lead singer Matt Lowell doesn't sound like Gabriel - his vocals are sometimes favorably compared with Mark Hollis of Talk Talk. Indeed, sometimes sonically Lo Moon mines the eighties, but they ultimately create their own thing.

7. Million Miles "Something Good" - Million Miles might be my favorite new artist. There is something about Sophie Beaudry's voice that just gets to me, melts right through my jaded exterior. Great nuance and sophistication in her delivery, colored by subtle emotions, with her beautiful timbre... Last year's "Ice Cream & Cigarettes" was the first thing I heard from her this year, and "honey" is her EP's lead single, but I love this one just a little bit more.

6. Jealous of the Birds "Marrow" - when she soars into the chorus, Naomi Hamilton takes us with her into the clouds! The lyrics, introspective and thoughtful, still sparkle with an intellectual playfulness and a love for language and words. The bridge becomes hushed and intimate, only to explode into the chorus once again. Majestic tune!

5. The Record Company "I'm Getting Better (And I'm Feeling It Right Now)" - You know what they say - fake it 'til you make it. This tune helped me do just that! Some days I could sing along true, other down days, it perked me up and set me on a better path. Can't ask a song to do much more than that! Kicked ass when they played it live at Higher Ground, too - love this band!

4. Villagers "Trick of the Light" - An ethereal song of hopeful longing and patient faith, of the power of love and will, of signs in the sky and heads in the clouds, and yet, a certain sense of unease... Conor O'Brien - another single artist "band" - creates a haunting vibe on this lead track from his The Art of Pretending to Swim. The video is sort of perfect as well...

3. A Perfect Circle "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish" - An upbeat tune about the world ending in grand atomic nuclear annihilation is not usually my thing... but I do love this song! Musically well-constructed, with beautiful tension and release throughout and an almost theatrical, over-the-top glory and grandeur completely at odds with the grim lyrics. The title comes from Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which called to me - they raised and waved the science fiction geek flag. And those mentioned, like Bowie, Gene Wilder, Carrie Fisher and Muhammad Ali - "Willy Wonka, Major Tom, Ali, and Leia have moved on... " - would appreciate the way they've been irreverently memorialized here. Also? It was released the day I was let go without cause by The Point after eight years - BOOM! End of one world, anyway. Timing was perfect.

2. The Moondoggies "Underground (A Love Sleeps Deep)" - "Easy Coming" made me anticipate A Love Sleeps Deep, but it was the almost-title track that truly blew me away. Grandeur. Power. Beauty. So good. Just listen.

1. Frank Turner "Be More Kind" - Man, Frank, talk about hitting the proverbial nail on its proverbial head - how'd you do that? An IMPORTANT message for these times. My favorite song this year, in a year when more people needed to hear this message than ever before. It was - obviously - nowhere near popular enough!

That’s the list! There were a few more tracks considered, some mentioned before, those by artists above where I had to narrow down my choices. Others worth seeking out include S. Carey “More I See”, Stone Foundation “Sweet Forgiveness”, Hozier “Nina Cried Power”, Matt Simons “We Can Do Better (Acoustic)”, and Phosphorescent “New Birth in New England”. You’ll find a Spotify playlist with all 20 tunes Here: