Music in 2018 • Brady Salz

List season is here and it's hot y'all. I use Google Play Music for my music streaming and it doesn't have any fancy schmancy Spotify features that tell you how your year in music was. What it does is an excellent library that I can fill basically endlessly, so I'm happy with that. Still, can't help but be a little jealous of everything they have over their on that green grass…

Someone online wrote an awesome little tool start closing the feature gap. It's pretty fascinating to see my results, although I don't think they're fully correct. Some gaps seem to be present in the export, or rather the collection of said export? Regardless, it's super fun to see. Below, I've listed my top 100 Artists and Songs that I listened to in 2018. I'm hoping I can parse through and turn this into “Favorite Albums of 2018” thing later, but this will do for now. Note The Song was not written by The Artist. They are two parallel, separate lists.

Takeaways at the bottom.

Lists

Rank	Artist	Song
1	The Menzingers	On & On
2	Direct Hit!	Transgender Dysphoria Blues
3	Against Me!	White Robes
4	RVIVR	The World Is Ending (No One Cares)
5	Mitski	Buried Alive
6	The Dopamines	I Don't Wanna Be An Asshole Anymore
7	The Naked And Famous	Bank of Elevators
8	Andrew W.K.	We're Fucked
9	The Joy Formidable	Heaven Is a Black Hole
10	Kanye West	Getting What He Asked For
11	Green Day	Dimed Out (Single Version)
12	Dear Landlord	Crash
13	FIDLAR	Damn You, A Box
14	Modern Baseball	Fast Slow Disco
15	The Hotelier	My Body's Made of Crushed Little Stars
16	Spraynard	Home to You
17	The Front Bottoms	I Told You a Lie
18	Tiny Moving Parts	Back to the Tower
19	PUP	Shut Up Kiss Me
20	Jeff Rosenstock	Baby, I'm an Anarchist!
21	blink-182	A Message to the Angels Pt. II (Brainless God)
22	Titus Andronicus	In Remission
23	Rainer Maria	Thrash Unreal
24	Hop Along	You'd Make A Good Horsecop
25	Antarctigo Vespucci	Sometimes
26	The Go! Team	High Fives
27	Grimes	Get All Your Ducks In A Row
28	Sorority Noise	Cincinnati Harmony
29	Dirty Projectors	EH4-800 Phase Shifter
30	Frankie Cosmos	I Am a War Machine
31	Lemuria	Irish Goodbyes
32	Remember Sports	Black Me Out
33	Joyce Manor	Landlocked
34	CHVRCHES	Fireworks
35	LVL UP	Bad Things
36	Free Throw	Kill V. Maim
37	Star Fucking Hipsters	A-Punk
38	The Strokes	Trouble
39	Passion Pit	Inside The Rain
40	Vampire Weekend	Grandma
41	HiNDS	Two Beers In
42	Screaming Females	Guilt Trip
43	Waxahatchee	Borne On The FM Waves Of The Heart
44	Parquet Courts	Rodent
45	Worriers	Secret Makeout Factory
46	Wavves	Rosa
47	Mixtapes	Park Bench
48	Diarrhea Planet	Soup's Whatever
49	El Ten Eleven	California
50	American Steel	Real Mean
51	Banner Pilot	October 24th
52	Japandroids	Night Vision
53	Metric	Melos
54	Palehound	Your Deep Rest
55	The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die	The Talk
56	White Reaper	Voice Of The Turtle
57	Bully	Floating in the Forth
58	Beach Slang	Kids
59	Kero Kero Bonito	June 4th
60	Diet Cig	Straight Papers
61	Modest Mouse	Public Domain
62	St. Vincent	No Going Back
63	Laura Stevenson	Last Time I Checked
64	Pkew Pkew Pkew	Zombie
65	Tigers Jaw	A Lesson In The Abuse Of Information Technology
66	Shakey Graves	Intro
67	Julien Baker	My Friend Kyle
68	Cap'n Jazz	Basket Case
69	Iron Chic	Apocalypse
70	Latterman	A Heavy Abacus
71	Cults	If You Met Her
72	Múm	Back Against the Wall
73	The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die	Minneapolis
74	Greta Van Fleet	Music Is Worth Living For
75	Sleigh Bells	SCREAM
76	Skating Polly	Edge of Living
77	The Sidekicks	Smells Like Teen Spirit
78	Beyonce	Lost Cause
79	And The Kids	Thankyouverymuch
80	Pinegrove	Dick Simmons
81	Japanese Breakfast	My Friend Chris
82	KIDS SEE GHOSTS	The Scope Of All Of This
83	Fleetwood Mac	In Framing
84	Municipal Waste	Mabu
85	The Cranberries	White Noise
86	Moose Blood	Two Cups of Tea
87	Soccer Mommy	Immigrants & Hypocrites
88	Thin Lips	Cradle
89	Cloud Nothings	Nothing
90	Frightened Rabbit	When You Died
91	Kali Uchis	Sentimental Physics
92	Dollar Signs	Pints of Guinness Make You Strong
93	Carly Rae Jepsen	40oz. On Repeat
94	The Flatliners	Good Things
95	Giraffes? Giraffes!	Say It Ain't So
96	David Byrne	The Knock
97	Chumped	WTF Is Sleep
98	Snail Mail	I Was a Teenage Anarchist
99	Slaughter Beach, Dog	Joe Gallgher's Fantasy Fun Camp
100	The Album Leaf	Homies Where the Heart Is

Takeaways

Well, it basically speaks for itself. Lots of tightwound, anxious, music. Some people think punk music is just all about shouting, but where is that shouting coming from? For me, that's usually pent-up frustration that you just need to get out. I hope you didn't come down here expecting some big old piece of wisdom, sorry!