And so we’re up-to-date: the most recent completed year 100 Albums covers, not to mention my first full year of streaming (as opposed to digital downloads.) I wrote about a dozen of these songs last December and referenced a few more via the year’s top ten albums.
That leaves a number of leftovers (Neneh Cherry, Brian Fallon, Inara George, Paul Frickin’ McCartney—at least he’s still good for one great track per LP) and late discoveries, like Tracyanne & Danny (first overheard in a Pier One Imports!), an isolated track from former Vampire Weekend member Rostam, a lovely, lucid new song from the former singer of Concrete Blonde (which I can’t believe currently only has 3,149 streams on Spotify) and sharp ’90s-revival alt-rock from the awesomely-named The Beths.
I’ve chosen to highlight another leftover from Eleanor Friedberger. Over the past decade, she’s quietly established a pretty neat solo career that sounds very little like the ambitious (and in my mind, often irritating) stuff she used to do with her brother as The Fiery Furnaces. It took awhile for “Make Me A Song” to register as strongly as past singles like “When I Knew” and “He Didn’t Mention His Mother”, but it eventually did with its simple, indelible hook of “I could love you more” (among an excess of other hooks.)
Go here to listen to my favorite tracks of 2018 on Spotify:
- Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, “Talking Sense”
- Kacey Musgraves, “High Horse”
- Sam Phillips, “American Landfill Kings”
- Neneh Cherry, “Kong”
- Lake Street Dive, “Shame, Shame, Shame”
- Chaka Khan, “Like Sugar”
- Brian Fallon, “If Your Prayers Don’t Get To Heaven”
- Inara George, “Slow Dance”
- Christine and The Queens, “The Walker”
- Paul McCartney, “Dominoes”
- Troye Sivan, “Bloom”
- Metric, “Now and Never Now”
- LUMP, “Curse of the Contemporary”
- Roisin Murphy feat. Ali Love, “Jacuzzi Rollercoaster”
- Janelle Monae feat. Zoe Kravitz, “Screwed”
- Sunflower Bean, “I Was a Fool”
- Jessie Ware, “Overtime”
- First Aid Kit, “It’s A Shame”
- Gruff Rhys, “Frontier Man”
- Twin Shadow, “Too Many Colors”
- St. Vincent, “Fast Slow Disco”
- Florence + The Machine, “Patricia”
- Lana Del Rey, “Mariners Apartment Complex”
- Calexico, “Music Box”
- Rostam, “In A River”
- Natalie Prass, “The Fire”
- Ray LaMontagne, “Such A Simple Thing”
- Johnette Napolitano, “Riding The Moon”
- Eleanor Friedberger, “Make Me A Song”
- Years & Years, “All For You”
- The Beths, “Not Running”
- Lord Huron, “The Balancer’s Eye”
- Ezra Furman, “I Lost My Innocence”
- Amen Dunes, “Believe”
- Field Music, “Daylight Savings”
- Robyn, “Ever Again”
- Neko Case, “Bad Luck”
- The Decemberists, “Once In My Life”
- Tracyanne & Danny, “Cellophane Girl”
- Tracey Thorn, “Dancefloor”
Haunted Jukebox 