Skip to main content

12 BEST SONGS OF 2018 SO FAR

THEY LISTEN TO MUSIC
Eyewear likes to make lists of pop songs that can be found on Spotify, and share the news with you, our dear readers, every so often. Here is our brief summary of the 12 best songs of the year so far, as we move into the start of summer. I was sad to leave off Drake, Goat Girl, La Luz, Simple Minds, Ezra Furman, St Vincent, Iggy Pop, US Girls, Beach House, etc - all top candidates with great new songs - but this was the winnowed, ultimate list. And as always, this is a personal selection, but I think you will find a fair balance of American and UK tracks, with gender balance maintained, and most contemporary genres included.

There is a clear frontrunner, and it is the most significant video/single so far of the year -

1. Childish Gambino - 'This Is America'
Impossible to forget the images of the dancing, prancing, weirdly killing figure in the video, which seems to represent the mercurial intemperate low-attention span of American culture - his "I'm so dollar" is deeply unsettling rhymed with "guns in my area". A classic.

2. Janelle Monae (with Brian Wilson) - 'Dirty Computer'
In any other year, this might have been first. It is hard to imagine a song more compelling than one featuring the genius behind Pet Sounds, inspired by Prince, and performed and co-written by a pansexual African-American genius, exploring female desire. Brief but unforgettable.

3. The Breeders - 'MetaGoth'
Anyone who loves late 80s, early 90s indie knows The Breeders - the Pixies offshoot sometimes better than Pixies - and their unexpected comeback is cause for great joy. This homage to early 80s indie is sublime.

4. Johnny Marr - 'Walk Into The Water'
Speaking of 80s indie guitar - no one represents that time better than Smiths co-conspirator Johnny Marr, whose playing style is second only (perhaps) to The Edge as summing up the decade; here he is is with a new album and single ambitious enough to try to recreate the high points of his youthful greatness. Haunting.

5. Kacey Musgrave - 'Slow Burn'
For a contemporary guitar twang song (that mentions '88 though) find this Texas/Tennessee country single, that is as light, sweet, sad and poetically erotic as any in living memory. Crystalline,  refreshing, with the 70s production values of James Taylor. Just right.

6. Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats - 'You Worry Me'
Few songs with a country/rock basis feel so urgent, and anxious - here is the anthem for an opiated, broken, Trumpified America of struggling lives. Praying "for what the future may bring" indeed. Beautiful and frightening.

7. Zuzu - 'Beauty Queen'
Wonderfully English indie rock, with a great sense of humour and killer hook - "I've got no chance/ because I can't sing and I can't dance". As if The Smiths were fronted by a young woman. Really fresh.

8. Shame - 'Lampoon'
Speaking of English music, and indie, no recent release came with such buzz as this raucous post-punk single - energetic, frenetic, driven, and thrash-worthy. The future will be revitalised.

9. L7 - 'I Came Back To Bitch'
Few come backs are as rock and roll and angry as this attack on Trump - "everything is going to shit" - I love the "you're not a rock star/ but you're looking at one" - one of the best attitude-heavy ripostes to a dumb man songs ever penned or performed - and great it's by a girl band.

10. Camila Cabello - 'She Loves Control'
Is there a finer pop song so far this year, one that is more erotic, danceable, and memorable? No, this is gold standard modern pop - perfectly sung - a 'La Isla Bonita' for our age.

11. Hall & Oates, with Train - 'Philly Forget Me Not'
Hall & Oates are two of the best songwriters of the past 40 years - their hits came like bullet trains ever on time, for decades - but this is their first new single in about 15 years. And wow. They have weaponised their style and signature elements, to forge a song so catchy, you may well find yourself singing it endlessly for days. I kid you not.

12. Twin Shadow, feat. HAIM - 'Saturdays'
Homage to the second great decade for rock after the 60s, the 80s, and especially homage to Bruce Springsteen's 80s hits, are a dime a dozen these days - but these cats are incredibly adept at making the sound and vibe their own - a huge hookworm of a song that encapsulates every thing fun and uplifting about pure radio pop.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....
3 comments
Read more

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".
1 comment
Read more

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise...
1 comment
Read more