I’m still soft, I’m still in my prime — Grofrock 2018
Having the entire recorded history of music at your fingertips literally 24 hours a day comes with an odd sort of pressure. It’s easy for me to get caught up in the performative aspect of broadcasting out what I’m listening to. 40-years old and still crafting a persona around the music you listen to is regrettable and yet here we are.
In 2018, the musical pillars of in my life are secure. They aren’t likely to change much, but I like to think there’s plenty of room under the tent posts holding this thing up.
My favourite things in music this year are the same as my favourite things in music last year, and probably the year before that. I’m happy to discover new bands doing new stuff and I’m happy to hear old bands doing the same stuff, provided they’re doing it well and with passion.
Much of what you see below is informed by the good people at Spotify and their “2018 wrapped” data, which creates my top 100 songs playlist. Much, but not all. As before, these classifications are meant to amuse only me.
Off-brand albums and singles
Foxing, the ludicrous Carly Rae Jepsen single and the sonic heart-eyed emoji that is CHVRCHES Love Is Dead all warrant special mention here.
6. Buzzy hardcore bands
Turnstile put out a record that a lot of people really liked. I don’t think I liked it especially, but I also listened to it a lot. There are some very fun songs and the vocal performance is fantastic, but most of the genre-bending elements were too conspicuous and served no purpose other than for someone to wonder if they really just heard handclaps or a barber pole flange effect on a single snare hit.
At least they look like they’re having fun.
Candy is a good band that I like listening to. Vein…less so. We’re less than two years away from some post-ironic hardcore band taking a DJ on tour.
Mil-Spec put out a record you should listen to.
Cult Leader is not really a hardcore band but MAN that record is heavy and also very good, with moments that really stand out for what’s not happening as much as what is.
New release see also: Baptists, Harms Way, Gouge Away
5. Hardcore Adjacent Bands
“You should come to the Fiddlehead show.” That was my introduction to Fiddlehead. It was a “pay what you can” show on a Saturday night in the west end, so all the pieces fit. I wasn’t familiar but dove into Springtime and Blind and now I’m very, very glad I did. The record is great and the show was a lot of fun, too.
Gatecreeper is a metal band that I understand to be made up of guys who used to be in hardcore bands, which is probably why I like this band so much more than others with a similar sound. They put out a split with pizza metal legends Iron Reagan and produced one of their best songs in the process.
New release see also: Listen to Riley, listen to Pianos Become The Teeth. Young Widows, Lifted Bells,
4. Vince Staples Takes the Piss
Last year I said I liked Vince Staples because he is a “compelling individual who makes the music he likes.” That’s still true, but he took time out of his busy schedule to create a perfect record that is also a massive fuck you to just about everyone who tells him what to do.
Criticized for picking the wrong kind of beats and making more challenging songs, Staples made a record that seems to me to demonstrate just how easy this all is for him. If we wanted to make extremely commercial songs with big guests and enormous beats, he would.
He did so with FM!, squeezing about eight real songs into a 20-minute concept album that would be perfect zany zoo crew FM radio satire were the songs not so undeniably great.
Extra points for the best video concept of the year.
New release see also: I liked Pusha T’s Daytona in tiny, Kanye-restricted doses.
3. Songs I sang while driving
For a long stretch of this year, I drove to work. It was a very short drive, which assuaged my transit-related guilt. But driving affords different opportunities than travelling by bus or subway, such as the chance to sing very loudly in the privacy of one’s own vehicle.
This time behind the wheel, coinciding with a very memorable live show with some very old friends, thrust Iron Chic to the very extreme front of my mind. Without the opportunity to belt out these insanely singalongable songs, I would not have listened to You Can’t Stay Here nearly as much as I did.
But I did see Iron Chic with Hot Water Music. And they did put out a fun, shout-yourself-hoarse record towards the end of 2017. So they ended up as one of my favourite discoveries of 2018.
Friends swear by Car Seat Headrest but I was indifferent or uninterested. Until car-based listening allowed Twin Fantasy’s many ear worms access to my sing-happy brain. So now I understand Car Seat Headrest, and I didn’t need to be a drug-addled teen to make it happen.
New release see also: The Alkaline Trio put out a new record, which is to say I listened to the Alkaline Trio a lot in 2018. Often, the aforementioned new record!
2. The Sad Girls prepare for world domination
Names have been removed to protect the innocent, but this was one of the first recommendations I received for Phoebe Bridgers.
And then I listened. And was bored. I didn’t like it. This wise influencer was right.
But I listened to Stranger In The Alps again. And then again. And again and again and again. And then I became a hopeless nerd, obsessed with this young woman whose ability to write sad girl anthems is exceeded only by her ability to use Instagram.
And then she joined with the other robot programmed to appeal to the sensibilities of middle-aged men to become 2/3 of boygenius. Oh, the fun they had. And oh! The songs they wrote. And they played the songs and it was good. And one night, 1500 stiff Torontonians were transported somewhere else entirely, and none of them ever forgot what they saw.
1. The very unlikely Hop Along love affair
If you were to ask me how, or why, I came to care so deeply for a band called Hop Along, I don’t know that I could answer properly. It might have been an act of an enlightened peer or just the algorithm at work, but Painted Shut landed in my lap a few years ago and blew my mind. It stands as one of my favourite records I’ve heard probably ever.
But then I was made to wait. Playing Painted Shut over and again, waiting patiently by the phone.
And then the day came.
And Bark Your Head Off, Dog was wonderful. It was everything I needed it to be, as evidenced by the astonishing number of times I played it. Over and again.
They’re probably my favourite band in the world right now. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to move me. And that it does.
