LANDO'S FAVOURITE ALBUMS OF 2018
It's that time of year! Where I share all of my favourite albums of the year and simultaneously trash them! Pre-ambles are boring so let's cut the chit chat and get to it!
Bahamas - "Earthtones"
This album feels like your favourite pair of underwear when they're fresh out the dryer.
Warm.
There are two ways for an artist to gain my favour:
1) Make an elaborate, beautiful and painstakingly crafted album that provides new insights into the human condition, and
2) Have a guy in the background of your song let out a kung fu "HUHHHH!".
Bahamas nails option number two on "Bad Boys Need Love Too".
Landon's Recommended Track: "Way With Words"
Beach House - "7"
This album is absolutely GORGEOUS. Most musicians carefully select and mix the colours in their sonic palette to paint their albums with. On this album Beach House dumped gallons of paint in a lazy river, tossed me in, and then hucked a floaty tube at my head.
Landon's Recommended Track: "Woo"
Montero - "Performer"
Put Tame Impala, David Bowie, the Beach Boys, and Sesame Street in a blender and you get a horrible mess of guts and bones and yellow feathers and why would you do that?! Put their sounds in a blender, however, and the resulting puree would be Montero.
I hold a particular disdain for psychedelic music. No free form herbal jazz for this guy. But I make an exception for Montero especially since his cartoons are so good.
Landon's Recommended Track: "Pilot"
Courtney Barnett - "Tell Me How You Really Feel"
Courtney Barnett is pissed off and calling the world (herself included) on it's BS and I love it.
Barnett gets a spot on the list purely for pulling off the feat of making the corny cliche "Keep on keepin' on" sound inspired.
Landon's Recommended Track: "Charity"
Wild Child - "Expectations"
I went to Wild Child's concert with a friend and they did not enjoy it, so now I feel really self-conscious including them on this list.
I get it. Not a cool pick. But if Jack Johnson ever tickled you the right way, Wild Child is in the same lane. Imagine a female Jack Johnson who grew up in Austin Texas instead of Hawaii.
What a convoluted way to describe music. This list rules.
Landon's Recommended Track: "Alex"
Kacey Musgraves - "Golden Hour"
Kacey broke into country music's mobile home, and instead of stealing shit she just hung up a disco ball, plastered the walls with trippy blacklight posters, smoked a hooly then passed out covered in Dorito crumbs
Then country music came home, took a look around, raised its eyebrows and said "I like what you've done with the place!"
Lando's Recommended Track: "Oh, What a World"
Gang of Youths - "Go Farther in Lightness"
Ok so this album didn't come out in 2018. But I'm fairly certain nobody outside of Austrailia heard it in 2017. Straight up, no funny business, this is my rock album of the DECADE. Whoa. Yeah I said it. This baby's got it all: love, tragedy, alcohol abuse, attempted suicide, sobriety and redemption. Seriously. If you listen to only ONE album on this list, this should be it.
Also, the lead singer looks like Aquaman.
Lando's Recommended Track: "Let Me Down Easy"
Dear Nora - "Skull's Example"
This album is extraordinarily pleasant and pairs well with English muffins, coffee and smiling without showing your teeth.
Lando's Recommended Track: "Skulls Example"
Amman / Josh - "Places EP"
I got heavy into Brian Eno this year. Just fell in love with weird ambient noises clinkin' and a clongin' in the background while I fiddled around reading a dumb article like this one on my phone.
Amman / Josh is right in that background-music wheelhouse, however they differ from Eno in that they make you feel like you're on the verge of finding the cure for cancer or some other climatic breakthrough... so when you like that person's picture of their dog on Instagram while riding the bus, it'll feel momentous.
Lando's Recommended Track: "186,000 Endings Per Second"
Sunflower Bean - "Twentytwo in Blue"
Do you like Fleetwood Mac, Joan Jett or Heart?
No?
Wait, you don't? WTF? What's the matter with you? Well in that case you won't like this album.
Lando's Recommended Track: "Crisis Fest"
Dizzy - "Baby Teeth"
Dizzy sounds like an alternate timeline where Lorde didn't meet Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff and therefore didn't become a ginormous pop-star.
This timeline strangely enough takes place in Oshawa, Ontario and sounds great.
Lando's Recommended Track: "In Time"
Parcels - Self-titled
Parcels did a song with Daft Punk, and I swear to god this happened in the studio:
ROBOTS: So that's what Pharell hid under that big hat. Pretty cool huh?
PARCELS: Yeah totally so what was Kanye like did he-
ASSISTANTS: So sorry to interrupt. Robots, there's a call on line 2 for you.
ROBOTS: Ah, we'll be right back.
[All the dudes in Parcels look at Daft Punk's unlocked laptop just sitting there]
[They look at each other]
[They fall all over themselves scrambling to plug in a USB and steal all their music files]
[They hastily smooth their shirts and hair and look casual as the robots re-enter the room]
ROBOTS, NOTICING THE WEIRD VIBE: You didn't touch our laptop, did you?
PARCELS: Huh, what? What laptop?
["You didn't safely eject your USB" message pops up on the screen]
Well congratulations Parcels, you dirty rotten lying sound thieves, your album ripped off Daft Punk and I love it.
Lando's Recommended Track: "Lightenup"
Blood Orange - "Negro Swan"
I loved this album! Ready for me to ruin it? It's just 2018 Culture Club.
Can't un-hear.
Lando's Recommended Track: "Saint"
The 1975 - "A Brief Inquiry into Online Relations"
This is the only album to make me say HOLY FARTS WE MADE IT. WE'RE IN THE FUTURE. PLEASE INSTALL MY BIONIC WIFI-ENABLED BUTT. WITH EXTRA CUSHIONING. I WILL BE PAYING WITH ETHEREUM. I ACCEPT, WITHOUT READING, YOUR PRIVACY POLICY. PLEASE UPLOAD MY INFORMATION TO THE BIG DATA AI OVERLORD IMMEDIATELY.
No but really the 1975 manage to sound like the greatest Michael* in all of music and it's not even the best song on the album.
*That's Bolton, of course.
Lando's Recommended Track: "It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)"
HONOURABLE MENTIONS:
Big Red Machine - Self-titled
Anderson .paak - Oxnards
All the albums Kanye West produced: DAYTONA, Kids See Ghosts, K.T.S.E, Ye
Cardi B - Invasion of Privacy
Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer
That's it. I'm done. Let me know if there's a super duper album you loved in 2018 that I missed that you think I should listen to. If you want to give these albums a listen, you can check them all out on Apple Music or Spotify below. See ya next year!
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