Another year end, another Best-Of list.
A memorable album has two qualities: a majority of the songs on the album are worth multiple listens, and at least one song is a song that you’re happy to share with your friends and hear over and over, now and years into the future. Here, in no particular order (as far as you know) are some of those cuts from the albums that I spent the most time with in 2018:
Bodega – Endless Scroll
I came THIS close to taking the bus to NY to see the band. Here’s hoping they show up in Boston soon. This is a cool 360° VR video that works best if you use the YouTube app on your phone or Chrome on the desktop.
Wussy – What Heaven Is Like
The only thing better than finding a new great album is finding a new great album by a band with an excellent back catalog that I haven’t heard before. And the Ass Ponys (Chuck Cleaver’s previous band) have some really good music too. Biggest disappointment of 2018: the Wussy show in Cambridge was cancelled.
Ural Thomas & the Pain – The Right Time
I gave this to my brother-in-law for Christmas.
77:78 – Jellies
Orange jelly vinyl!
Shame – Songs of Praise
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I don’t buy a lot of major label music. And I’m firmly in the Bandcamp camp in the Bandcamp vs. SoundCloud debate.
Salad Boys – This Is Glue
The downside to a lot of indie records is production quality. A lot of them are mixed by some guy sitting in his bedroom wearing headphones, and it shows when you play the music on a good system. But when the music is this great, who cares?
The Nude Party – The Nude Party
Since I am an old, a lot of the music I like sounds like it could have been made years ago.
Pistol Annies – Interstate Gospel
Not all major label music sucks.
Of course, I listened to a lot of older, yet new to me, music in 2018 too. These albums stood out:
Lui Collins – Baptism of Fire (1985)
This is one of my wife’s CDs. Now that we’ve been married for 10 years, we’ve merged our record collections. Fun fact: I went to high school with Lui’s sister.
Travis Meadows – Killin’ Uncle Buzzy (2011)
12 steps in 10 songs.