the top 50 best songs of 2018 (VIDEO)

Honestly, I forgot to post both the videos here, but I'm generally pleased with how all of this came together. Hope y'all enjoy!

trailing edge - episode #012 - december 2018 (VIDEO)

And now it looks like I'll be able to leave 2018 behind me - thank god, this all took way too long.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 29, 2018 (VIDEO)

...knew I was forgetting something in my stream of updates - sorry this is out of order, folks, it's been nuts the past few weeks...

the top 25 best albums of 2018 (VIDEO)

And that's the last of year-end list promotion...whew.

Next up... honestly, no idea, we'll see - stay tuned!

the top 25 best albums of 2018

Normally this is the list that feels like the greatest relief to make - it's the final moment where we can lay a year to rest chronicling the best of the best, the sort of release that comes with it being the last list but also one that feels the most professional, for lack of better words. I'm having fun with the lists of the best and worst hits, I'm getting more personal with the overall songs list - this list for critics is staking claim, drawing our lines in the sand, and as such, it's normally the most professionally rewarding.

But I have to say, in comparison to previous years, this list was not that hard to make. Even though I covered far more albums in 2018 than ever before, it felt like I hit greatness less often on average. Which is probably not completely true, but it sure as hell feels like it, especially given that the cuts weren't that painful this year, or it certainly seemed like there was less of them to make. And while I don't do an Honourable Mentions segment for this list, I will say I'm a little regretful that I have to leave Rolo Tomassi and Against All Logic off this list, and I'm sure I'm going to surprise some folks by saying that Beach House and Kacey Musgraves also missed the cut - sorry, but especially in country, Kacey had stiffer competition. But really, if we're to highlight a genre that turned out in spades in 2018, it was hip-hop - and no jokes here, this is more hip-hop on this albums list than I think there has ever been before... which yes, means that there were two painful cuts in the form of Marlowe and Armand Hammer. But you know, let's start off with hip-hop here...

the top 50 best songs of 2018

The tagline that I've always had with this list is that it's the hardest to make, but let me qualify it: it's the one that easily requires the most work. And considering this is the year where I reviewed more albums than ever before, you'd think for the sheer volume of material this would be excruciating to assemble...

But in truth, this top 50 list actually fell out pretty quickly, at least with respect to the volume of music I've consumed. It still takes a lot of refinement to go through the best songs of any given year, but the truth about 2018 was that for as many songs as I loved, most of them were concentrated onto specific albums, which might lead to a slightly less diverse list as a whole. And if there was a year where my qualification that I can only put up to three songs from any given album on this list was tested... yeah, it was here. And yet even with that qualification, this list is kind of all over the place - little more hip-hop heavy than previous years and we'll get into why on my final list - and I'll freely admit there isn't quite as much metal or electronic music I'd prefer, but I needed to be honest with this one. Keep in mind songs from albums I covered on the Trailing Edge are eligible, and that if you don't see any songs from an album I loved earlier this year, there's no guarantee it won't show up on a different list - some albums don't put out the best individual songs and vice-versa. 

But no more wasting time, let's get this started!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 29, 2018

So look, I didn't expect this week to be that busy. We're in the middle of the holiday season, most people are settling and relaxing, and I didn't expect much activity within the Hot 100. Hell, I didn't even expect it to drop yesterday on Tuesday because normally they skip over holidays, but not only did it come out, but it was actually a pretty busy week... in a manner of speaking, because while some of this I predicted, any changes felt kind of blocky and misshapen all over, as if they weren't really supposed to happen... but did anyway.

the top ten best hit songs of 2018 (VIDEO)

So that's the next list out - okay, Billboard BREAKDOWN and two lists left to write (plus the last episode of Resonators for this season), so my work's cut out for me. Stay tuned!

the top ten best hit songs of 2018

So here's where things get hard - I already said in my last list that 2018 was a pretty bad year for the Hot 100... but was it, really? When I started putting together this list, I actually found a pretty sizable list of pretty good songs where I actually had to make some cuts. But note my choice of words: there were plenty of good songs, but very few great ones, especially if we're going to make any comparisons to previous years, and that makes the flagrant awfulness stand out all the more starkly. But to explain why... well, the bad songs were execrable results of gross trends and chart manipulation, but I honestly couldn't get too mad at the latter because if the songs were good, nobody would be complaining about it.

Sadly, this is where the second part of the album bomb conversation comes up, and how they can prove surprisingly detrimental to more than just the album itself. Sure, it might give promoters a clue how to push certain songs to become sleeper hits, but it also can burn people out on potential singles faster, and limits their chance to rise within the top 40 - you only need to look at how Post Malone mismanaged 'Candy Paint' for an example of that. And while the radio will occasionally get onboard with late album singles, in order to maintain relevance they wind up pushing the most stale and broadly sketched music imaginable to satiate as wide of an audience, which doesn't always align with quality. But what's perhaps most damaging about an album bomb is the aftershocks around it, where potentially weird or obscure tracks riding a slow groundswell might get knocked aside, especially if you're not a megastar or you're in a subgenre that doesn't get mainstream attention anyway! The one thing I could say about 2017 hits is that they brought an uncommon wealth of talent and critical acclaim to bear where they could wind up on both my list of hits and songs proper - 2018, not even close, especially when you consider how many artists disappointed or outright fell off this year.

And yet by some miracle, I've got a list of songs that debuted on the year-end Hot 100 in 2018 that I can credibly call the strongest of this year, even if they don't hold a candle to the best of, say, the majority of this decade, so let's start with our Honourable Mentions...

the top ten worst hit songs of 2018 (VIDEO)

Well, the lists start off strong - the Premiere really was fun to hang with y'all, might have to do that again soon...

Also, just addressing this here because some people are bitching about me interjecting some relevant social commentary: 

a.) if you're angry about me calling Juice WRLD a misogynist and are instead throwing out the 'he's a confused kid just expressing how he feels', otherwise known as the 'boys will be boys defense, the problem is you;

b.) Lil Dicky is not funny, and I can make the credible argument he's never been funny. And frankly, I don't care that it's been years since what Chris Brown did - I have a long memory and I don't have to forgive him or like his artistic output, and considering he references his own life in the song, I'm well within my rights to bring it in;

c.) If you think Kavanaugh's confirmation wasn't anything but a gross abuse of procedure, bastardized political flailing, a compromised investigation, and the continued enablement of the lack of accountability for rich, spoiled frat boys, maybe consider the fact that he's now on the Supreme Court, and Christine Blasey Ford can't still return home. I'll insult that beer-soaked abuse of privilege for all its worth, especially because the same dismissive defenses of him come from the exact folks who think Lil Dicky is worth defending.

Next up, the list of the best hits of 2018 - stay tuned!

the top ten worst hit songs of 2018

So I'm not going to mince words or waste your time here: 2018 was not a good year for the Hot 100. Perhaps not as bad as 2016 given how many songs were outright atrocious that year, but 2018 was not only an eventful and exhausting year, but it was one where the Hot 100 as a singles chart didn't even seem to matter. And yes, success on a manipulated ranking scale like the Hot 100 is always a bit of a shell game that most discerning artists recognize, but on some level we convince ourselves that it matters - you know, like the Grammys.

But here's the funny thing: as much as I've characterized 2018 as the year of the album bomb, where thanks to playlist payola - no jokes anymore, let's call it what it is - an entire album will overrun the Hot 100, the songs rarely last, which means when it comes to making the year-end list you run into a weird split: the streaming hits that cling to relevance just long enough, usually hip-hop and trap, and the pop- and pop-adjacent songs that receive regular radio and sales promotion that hold up long enough to weather the storm. And of course there is some overlap, but I was actually a little surprised how despite streaming hits getting so much media attention, there's still a traditional pop structure that'll get hits on the year-end list. We'll get into the unfortunate side effects of this in the next year-end list, but it is absolutely a shifting ecosystem, and there weren't many who could navigate that storm.

But make no mistake, the ability to have charting success has never been proportional to the talent of the artist, and with trap being an oversaturated mess and most radio hits defaulting to the safest possible options for relevancy in a year where Cumulus and iHeartRadio were on the cusp of bankruptcy, it was a rough year. And while I was more faintly embarrassed about the junk from 2017, 2018's bad stuff is in a different league - and keep in mind this is just the stuff that debuted on the 2018 year-end Hot 100. So let's take out the trash, starting in no particular order with our Dishonourable Mentions...

video review: 'shake the spirit' by elle king

So yeah, this was a letdown... eh, it happens?

Next up, well, let's continue burning through my backlog here, so stay tuned!

album review: 'shake the spirit' by elle king

So I'm going to say something a little strange here: I'm not sure Elle King was done any favours by 'Ex's And Oh's' becoming a hit.

Now on the surface this might sound crazy - most acts in rock, especially those who can can straddle the scuzzy lane between blues, alternative country and the indie scene, would kill for any crossover success, especially when it cracks the top 10. But that's part of my point: for a moment in 2015, Elle King seized the popular attention with a blend of retro sounds that almost screamed novelty while simultaneously plainly showing her influences, which many critics described as squatting firmly between Amy Winehouse and any slew of modern blues rockers with a fuzzy pickup and a fat groove, especially The Black Keys. But while I might be mostly fond of that blend of sound, it wasn't all that unique in the indie scene - especially if you looked towards country - and going back to her debut Love Stuff, I just wasn't as wowed as I wanted to be. Yeah, there were a few great songs - 'America's Sweetheart' was a pretty great barn-burner with its banjo - and I liked Elle King's vocal texture, but as a whole the album felt too polished and direct and the blown-out groove sections could get tiresome, and could have likely done well on the radio... in an era where there was a space on the airwaves for more than just one song from her, or indeed anything in these genres.

And given that we hadn't heard from Elle King since, I'll admit I was surprised when Patrons threw a ton of support behind her sophomore follow-up Shake The Spirit, which reportedly was trying a broader selection of sounds... which to me smacked of trying to maintain her identity while trying to recapture that retro magic again, which could be risky for maintaining cohesion. But hey, I wouldn't say no to another 'America's Sweetheart' and hopefully one of those styles managed helped her strike gold, so what did we get from Shake The Spirit?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 22, 2018 (VIDEO)

Hmm, this was a tough listen - a lot of copyright nonsense to bulldoze through, but I think we're otherwise good here. 

Next up... hmm, this is a bit late, but might as well get to it - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 22, 2018

See, this is the sort of week that could've been far, far worse if I didn't implement album bomb rules. As I've mentioned before, I had vetoed XXXTENTACION's posthumous album from my schedule because I refuse to dignify what his money-grubbing label did through its release, but it came with the acknowledgement that at least some of it would wind up on the Hot 100. But given that we have eight new entries, might as well give the album bomb rules from last week another spin and only talk about best/worst entries and anything that winds up in the top 40... which winds up making this list a lot more manageable, which is the holiday boost I can definitely use!

video review: 'singular: act i' by sabrina carpenter

So this is one of those projects where I expected backlash for the review... but I'll admit to still being surprised by it. I mean, seriously folks, you're defending this? There's so little personality and character... eh, whatever, you can have it.

Next up, we've got a (mostly) miserable Billboard BREAKDOWN, and then... well, we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'singular: act i' by sabrina carpenter

So this is the sort of review I would normally consign to the Trailing Edge, except in this case I made a deal with the patron who requested it to swap this for that bloated Zayn album no music critic wants to touch - it's at least shorter, I'll give it that. And you know what, as much as it would be very easy for me to pass albums in this lane off as just another vanity project for an actress in between movies or TV pilots, but I've been surprised in this lane before - go back to Lucy Hale's Road Between, a pop-country debut that came right the hell out of nowhere and wound up as one of the best in its subgenre this decade!

And then I noticed Sabrina Carpenter's label... and then listened to her two previous albums... and consequently got a distinctive sinking feeling. Yeah folks, you all might know Sabrina Carpenter as once having one of the starring roles in Girl Meets World, but her music which has taken up a surprising amount of her schedule is exactly what you'd expect coming out of Hollywood Records: the sort of sterile, underwritten, badly produced pop pablum you'll hear chasing the trends and barely having any distinctive identity. I'm normally inclined to just call these vanity projects, but Sabrina Carpenter seems to have placed a lot of stock in these albums, along with a lot of her own writing credits... probably not a good thing, because the production is mediocre and trend-chasing at best and I wasn't impressed by her vocals or her songwriting. That said... look, it's twenty five minutes, it's eight songs, it can't be that bad, right?

video review: 'dying star' by ruston kelly

So yeah, got to this WAY too late, but it's concentrated fucking wonderful. If you haven't heard it and need to plug a spot on your year-end lists... well, what are you waiting for?

Next up, though... yeah, it's not winding up on ANY lists, so stay tuned!

album review: 'dying star' by ruston kelly

So look, I had my reasons for not getting to this for a while.

Yes, I had seen some of the critical acclaim, I had heard the hype from folks in my circle... and I'll admit the naturally suspicious side of me was overruling all of it. For those of you who don't know, Ruston Kelly is an indie country artist who put in a lot of work as a songwriter behind the scenes for the Josh Abbott Band and Tim McGraw before releasing his EP Halloween last year, which got him a deal on Rounder and the traction for this debut as well. What some might know him better for, though, is his high profile marriage to Kacey Musgraves, who with the critical acclaim and major Grammy nominations for Golden Hour is having a banner year of her own. And yes, fairly or not that did mean I was naturally suspicious of any of the critical hype, especially given that some of his recent career traction was likely driven off that connection - hell, her backing vocals are on the album! Nevertheless, given that he is still independent, the hype hasn't quite translated to commercial traction in the same way outside of rave critical reviews, and even then there are a few indie country outlets that seem wary of him, so I figured I might as well give this a chance, so what did we get on Dying Star?

video review: 'CARE FOR ME' by saba

Man, this... has actually turned out to be not as controversial as I was expecting. Huh, nice to see.

But next up... man alive, I'm so damn happy I knocked it into production by executive order, this thing is something special - stay tuned!