Critics' Top Albums of 2018

30 Kali Uchis - Isolation

703 PointsIncluded on 26 ListsAverage List Placement = 19.73

"Kali Uchis, born Karly-Marina Loaiza, is only 24, but Isolation contains the sounds of decades of music. The first proper full-length from the prolific artist has rightly been coined, endlessly, as genre-defying. And while that’s fun as a gimmick, it’s also untrue: Uchis does not defy genre so much as redefine it, cramming the sounds of salsa, ‘60s girl groups, twee indie rock, and ‘90s R&B into one perfectly executed piece of work. (It’s even got Damon Albarn!) That her pop music veers into the political (“Your Teeth In My Neck,” about greedy label execs) as deftly as the personal (“Dead to Me,” about someone — an ex? — who is obsessed) further proves that she’s the pop star we need in 2018. Our idols can no longer afford to be just one thing or the other; luckily, with Isolation, Kali Uchis proves that she’s everything."

-via Flavorwire

29. Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar

704 PointsIncluded on 22 ListsAverage List Placement = 18.14

"In Cocoa Sugar, Young Fathers use antagonism as a source of inspiration. The trio often assumes fictitious roles for the sake of making a more forceful point, and when they step out of them, they go against any moral rectitude to sound off on their opinions. But the one defining factor that elevates it above their previous two records is how it welcomes a warm, inviting exterior instead of polarizing their audience. It's easy to dismiss how it also works as a fun diversion, as every abrasive electronic embellishment pulls you in with a mysterious force. Cocoa Sugar is an invigorating listen from beginning to end, and it's hard to imagine any other band making a musical work of art that's as visceral this year."

-via No Ripcord

28. Let's Eat Grandma - I'm All Ears

705 PointsIncluded on 25 ListsAverage List Placement = 20.72

"'Weird pop' is easy enough to celebrate—pop itself is a genre of nebulous definition, so any subversions or diversions into the odd or absurd should feel right in place with the most populist examples of the genre. What makes I’m All Ears different from most avant-pop is that it successfully channels pop’s weirdest tendencies through the lens of modern pop’s most commercially successful fare; imagine Katy Perry singing over Kraftwerk. The history of music has been altered on the strength of subversive stuff like this, and I hope it’s only a matter of time before Let’s Eat Grandma are cleaning up at the Grammys."

-via Earbuddy

27. Father John Misty - God's Favorite Customer

727 PointsIncluded on 29 ListsAverage List Placement = 21.28

"Inspired by a phase in which Tillman’s life temporarily imploded, God’s Favorite Customer is his most beleaguered and honest work yet. It’s also often his most moving. Since rechristening himself Father John Misty in 2012, Tillman has built up one of the decade’s more enviable bodies of work. And he’s still on a roll, with tracks like “Mr. Tillman” and “God’s Favorite Customer” and “Just Dumb Enough To Try” amongst his best. These songs depict spirals and wreckages, but you can’t argue that Tillman is reveling in the destruction anymore. Instead, God’s Favorite Customer acts as a conclusion to a four album arc, a reckoning seeking potential redemption, a turning point that might just open the door for yet another version of Josh Tillman."

-via Stereogum

26. Soccer Mommy - Clean

740 PointsIncluded on 27 ListsAverage List Placement = 19.93

"From the first strummed guitar note to the last, there is probably no recent album as simultaneously casual and catchy as Soccer Mommy’s Clean. The first studio-shiny release from 20-year-old Sophie Allison, who cut her teeth releasing music from a four-track Tascam cassette deck on Bandcamp shortly after high school, Clean offers higher fidelity but the same angst and hook-laden songwriting fans have been latching onto for years. This is pop from the grainy, hyper-personal universe of Elliott Smith, and it retains its honest reality even when given fully fleshed arrangements."

-via Digital Trends

25. Yves Tumor - Safe in the Hands of Love

765 PointsIncluded on 28 ListsAverage List Placement = 20.00

"Yves Tumor turned themselves inside out on Safe in the Hands of Love, a work of vaulting pop ambition that put them on the same rarefied plane as darlings of the avant-garde like SOPHIE and Oneohtrix Point Never. Turning to make-up artist Isamaya Ffrench for a grand-guignol makeover on the sleeve, Tumor swapped the witchy abstractions of 2016’s Serpent Music for a more direct, distressingly hi-fi vision, holding a funhouse mirror to the all-pervasive anxieties of the age. Tracks like “Recognizing the Enemy” and “Noid” – with its insistent refrain of “911! Can’t trust ’em!” – throb with a rising sense of panic, but it’s tribute to Tumor’s strange gifts of alchemy that they make it all sound so beautiful."

-via Dazed

24. Tirzah - Devotion

804 PointsIncluded on 25 ListsAverage List Placement = 17.88

"Turning away from club-ready UK grime and garage sounds, Devotion redirects Tirzah’s grainy vocals and Levi’s destabilizing production into an extraordinary set of pared-down and scuffed-up R&B reflections on adult love. With its unvarnished loops and disarmingly blunt lyrics, Devotion dreams up a unique space somewhere between the lo-fi cello epiphanies of Arthur Russell and the digital pop futurism of Kelela. The album varies impressively within its distinct niche, finding room for crunching distortion, sad-robot vocal textures, and gritty drum shards. Devotion truly is like a prayer, a hushed offering from Tirzah’s private world."

-via Pitchfork

23. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Hope Downs

817 PointsIncluded on 23 ListsAverage List Placement = 14.96

"Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever build themselves around a well-rounded core, a setup that goes against today's less-is-more indie rock approach. What ultimately gives Hope Downs its character is how it settles into settings both familiar and exotic. There's the reference to the rural town of Bellarine - which comes across as the most exciting fishing retreat put into any record - though it expresses all-too-familiar feelings of escapism and discontent. ... ... Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever leave enough ambiguities within their literary and personal accounts, and though the songs on Hope Downs are instantly serviceable, they do acquire more depth the more you read into them. The destinations they trace may be unknown, but paths they take are quintessentially human."

-via No Ripcord

22. Shame - Songs of Praise

852 PointsIncluded on 28 ListsAverage List Placement = 19.29

"Like lice from the grimy undercrackers of Fat White Family dropped the next generation of South London gristle rockers. Shame: sweaty, gnarled and chronically allergic to shirts. Yet the airy, amphetamine indie rock of debut album ‘Songs Of Praise’ allowed listeners a (slightly) less slimy passage into the scene, with glistening tracks like ‘Dust On Trial’ and ‘Tasteless’ counteracting the grot rock gore of ‘The Lick’ and the like. Imagine if The Bunnymen ended up as roadkill, crushed beneath the wheels of Idles’ tourbus."

-via NME

21. Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs

854 PointsIncluded on 29 ListsAverage List Placement = 17.03

"Though primarily written and recorded before his father’s death in January, Some Rap Songs is a profound and often pointed rumination on connection, and in turn a searing personal statement. Few rappers possess Earl’s natural lyrical acumen, but even fewer possess the penetrating, perceptive gaze he has developed over time. Most rare are those who would use such insightfulness to work through their own issues. On “Peanut”—half eulogy, half psyche autopsy—he unscrambles the complex emotional brew that comes with mourning a distant parent whom you barely knew. On “Nowhere2Go,” he burrows through depression and seeks fulfillment. As Earl considers his poetic birthright amid a tangled personal history, things start to come into focus, and he begins a healing process."

-via Pitchfork