A Better Entertainment Is Possible.
… And the fourth and last instalment of 2018’s best tracks begins with one of the three songs by Janelle Monáe featured in our list, Pynk, a collaboration with Grimes which marked her public coming out as queer.
Among our favourites this year also featured more LGBT anthems; indie kiwis; female songwriter supergroups; country stars; flamenco trap; nordic pop; rap latino and a controversial indictment about the state of the (US) union.
Check out our songs of the year here:
The third part of our Top 100 favourite songs of the year begins with SOPHIE, the Glaswegian electronic artist who has shaped the sound of Today’s most adventurous pop.
In this block we will also find British icons; Spanish trap; astonishing soundtracks; gay idols; French songwriters; jazz renovators and the year’s most publicised pop break-up.. Check it all out here:
101-LADY GAGA & BRADLEY COOPER
Shallow
(Interscope)
After our favourite albums of the year, it’s the turn to look back at the songs that made an impact on us during the last few months, headed as the tradition mandates by the symbolic number 101; a guilty pleasure of sorts that also represents the state of mainstream music in 2018. This time the honour falls in Lady Gaga, who is back on a high, aiming at the Oscars, thanks to Bradley Cooper’s fourth take on the classic story of ‘A Star Is Born.’ A film that, albeit not quite deserving of those masterpiece-like reviews, surprises for not being half as terrible as the audacious idea may have suggested. Musically, it panders to traditionally earnest rock and roll values against the soul-destroying ones in Today’s pop music with a soundtrack that rescues the most terrible brand of anthemic, old-fashioned AOR whose standout ‘Shallow’ is both one of those tunes that gets stuck in your head forever and a good single-word description for the current state of popular music.
Inescapable stadium-rock aside, the year was packed with excellent pop, even if -or perhaps because- the genre’s shiniest stars were on hiatus or not on top form, that reached far into other genres (country, jazz, flamenco…) and brought diversity and surprise into its tried and tested formats. In a year where genre equality and representation was still at the top of the cultural agenda, female vocalist reigned supreme. Subject-wise, politics seem to be making a welcome way back into pop in the wake of the right-wing populism that is conquering the globe, as some of the best songs of the year tend to prove.
In the first quarter of our Top 100 tracks of the year recap you’ll find new jazz and old soul legends;a hip-hop street collective; R&B’s most renowned powercouple; Flamenco dance and female rockers. Check The Top 100-76 here:
We begin our annual end of the year music review with our favourite albums. In the coming days we will be also checking the Top 100 singles, making a brief analysis of what’s been going on during the last twelve month and will finish with the announcement of our 2018 Rober Awards nominees. Stay tuned!
The Rober Awards Best albums of 2018 are…
Italian auteur Luca Guadagnino completes a trilogy dedicated to human desire with ‘Call Me by Your Name.’ The follow-up of ‘I Am Love’ and ‘A Bigger Splash’ is arguably the best of the three. A tender, finely observed gay tale of first love between Elio, the son of an Archaeology professor- a revelation-like performance by Timothée Chalamet- and Oliver, the doctorate student who comes to help the academic with his research and archives, played by Armie Hammer. Both leads initially rejected the roles, but the director convinced them to take the challenge.
Like the rest of his work, this romance is imbued in sun-bathed Mediterranean sensuality, social gatherings over food and the everyday summer activities typical of a town like Crema, part of the Italian Lombardy region, which provides a strong sense of place that becomes instrumental to the development of the story. The cast during the press conference recalled the memorable immersive experience that preparing for the role for weeks in such great location turned out to be.
The London Film Festival is now in full gear and this edition is being particularly good to discover the work of up-and-coming or under the radar filmmakers from all over the world, offering very personal visions. Among them a Mexican documentary about drug-related violence; an irreverent revision of French Noir; a Palestinean road movie; a Spanish “social” horror; a look at the Belgium Justice system; an experimental doc about illegal immigration through the Sonora desert and a harrowing Polish drama set against the backdrop of the Rwandan genocide. All of them very worthy of your time.
The band which began as Beach Fossils’ Zachary Cole Smith side project, DIIV , is the new #1 in our loop with their recent single ‘Dopamine’.
Erykah Badu‘s surprise comeback covering one of Drake ‘s latest smashes is this week’s highest entry, followed by another avalanche of new songs with the latest by WOKE, a new supergroup formed by Flying Lotus; Thundercat & Shabazz Palaces who debut in style collaborating with funk master George Clinton; The Chills; Miles From Kinshasa; Dënver; Arca; Dawn; Fetty Wap; Isaiah Rahad; DJ Paypal; Sophie; Jeff Lynne; Robyn teaming up with a member of METRONOMY under the alias Tony Primo & Nixxie for an Aussie soundtrack and another collaboration, Los Pilotos & La Bien Querida, in one of the standout moments from a tribute album to Spanish pop starlette Jeanette.
Check our brand new loop here:
Italo-American songwriter, Porcelain Raft is back with his strong new EP ‘Half Awake’, from which the standout cut, ‘All In My Head’, takes over the latest edition of our loop.
Another renowned alt songwriter, Sun Kil Moon, is the highest entry, followed by the latest offerings by Hot Chip; Mac DeMarco; Tame Impala; Sufjan Stevens; Sharon Van Etten; Nao and Prince‘s new song dedicated to ‘Baltimore’, where he recently organized a ‘rally for peace.’
Check the new loop here:
As a sign of things to come, Kendrick Lamar stormed straight into our loop’s #1 taking over Kanye West with ‘King Kunta’, a P-funk infused highlight from his winning new album, currently doing the same in every chart across the globe. Kendrick has deliver a politically charged, musically astonishing work with ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’, the best album we have heard since his former classic ‘Good Kid, M.A.A.d City’ and one that establishes the Compton rapper as the best hip-hop artist in the planet. Kanye is going to need a truly ace new record to be able to match Lamar’s indisputable brilliance.
Apart from ‘King Kunta’, Django Django lead the new entries contingent, which also features the latest tracks by Blur; Jill Scott; Sheer Mag; Grimes & Bleachers; Nils Frahm and a catchy new single by Chilean alt pop star Gepe, joining forces with former Peruvian novelty act,Wendy Sulca who seems to be leaving behind her little countryside girl tacky antics and having a go at artist respectability.
Check the new loop here:
The list of six promising talents shortlisted for the rising star Rober Award 2014 features Canadian teenager Antoine-Olivier Pilon, who gave a stunningly intense performance as the troubled, ADHD suffering child of a widow struggling to get by in Xavier Dolan’s best film to date ‘Mommy’; Ellar Coltrane, the kid whose path to adulthood we witnessed in the intimate ‘Boyhood’, one of the cinematic achievements of 2014 and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, impressive as the he illegitimate mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy admiral, brought from the West Indies to England and raised as an Aristocrat in ‘Belle’.
Also in contention are
Michael Gira’s second coming with his veteran band Swans is not giving any signs of fading away; about to release their thirteenth studio album ‘To Be Kind’, after the widely acclaimed ‘The Seer’ brought them back amongst Today’s critical darlings. They head our loop this week with the mindblowing album’s first taster ‘A Little God In My Hands’.
A soul-infused edition with new stars of the genre SZA and Jesse Boykins III being the two highest entries; next to new tracks by How To Dress Well; Lana Del Rey; Thee Oh Sees and the main theme from the next Superman sequel, performed by Alicia Keys with Kendrick Lamar.
Check this week’s edition here
Seattle trobadour Damien Jurado is number one track in our loop this week with the superb ‘Jericho Road’, one of the highlights of his acclaimed eleventh album, “Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son”.
In another debut heavy week, Medusa produced by The Knife’s Olof Dreier is the highest, followed by new songs by the likes of Bishop Nehru & Disclosure; The Cloud Nothings; Banks; CHVRCHES and the duet between Beyoncé and her famous husband, which finally makes it into our chart.
Check this week’s edition after the jump.
Our favourite moment off Daft Punk‘s world conquering new album, in which the popular Gallic robots team up with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear for the irresistible ‘Doin’ It Right’, takes over the honour position this week.
Kanye West‘s first taster from his new work is the highest debut, next to brand new tracks by the likes of Neon Neon; Chvrches; Disclosure and the reunion of Goodie Mob helped by the always lively presence of Janelle Monáe.
Check this week’s edition here.
Glasgow based, young electronica artist Lewis Roberts, under the moniker Koreless is getting compared to James Blake or even Talk Talk for the finely atmospheric tracks of his Yugen EP. “Sun”, the record’s standout moment gets on top of the Loop this week.
A bunch of surprising collaborations make the strongest new entries with the likes of Daft Punk and Panda Bear, Mount Kimbie and King Crule or Patti Griffin and Robert Plant teaming up with notable results. The returns of Raekwon; Queens Of The Stone Age; Kim Deal and Islet also debut.
Check the new edition of the loop here.