#Bestof2018: Top 100 Tracks (100-76)


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:

100-THE CARTERS
APESHIT
(Parkwood)
99-YOUNG FATHERS
Toy
(Ninja Tune)
98-TEYANA TAYLOR
Rose In Harlem (K.T.S.E. EP)
(Def Jam)
97-SOLEÁ MORENTE
Baila Conmigo
(Sony)
96-ELOHIM FEAT. YOSHI FLOWER
Panic Attacks (DEMN Remix)
(BMG)
95-GEORGE CLANTON
Livin' Loose
(100% Electronica)
94-HANA VU
Shallow
(Luminelle)
93-AURORA
Churchyard (Infections Of A Different Kind - Step 1 EP)
(Glassnote)
92-VINCE STAPLES
Feels Like Summer
(Def Jam)
91-CHAKA KHAN
Like Sugar
(Diary)
90-PROTOMARTYR FEAT. KELLEY DEAL
Wheel of Fortune (Wait EP)
(Domino)
89-ICEAGE FEAT. SKY FERREIRA
Pain Killer
(Matador)
88-SONS OF KEMET
My Queen Is Harriet Tubman
(Verve)
87-COURTNEY BARNETT
Need A Little Time
(Marathon Artists)
86-RICHARD SWIFT
Broken Finger Blues
(Secretly Canadian)
85-YAEJI
One More
(Self-Released)
84-LIZZO
Boys
(Nice Life)
83-AMEN DUNES
Believe
(Sacred Bones)
82-CUCO & CLAIRO
Drawn
(Self-Released)
81-LUCY DACUS
Nonbeliever
(Matador)
80-GEORGIA ANNE MULDROW
Overload
(Brainfeeder)
79-AMBER MARK
Love Me Right (Conexão EP)
(PRM)
78-DJ KOZE
Seeing Aliens (Extended Breakthrough Listen)
(Pampa)
77-BROCKHAMPTON
Boogie
(Empire)
76-WYE OAK
It Was Not Natural
(Merge)

TOP TRACKS (75-51)

TOP 100 TRACKS (50-26)

TOP 100 TRACKS (25-1)