Not a year goes by without the music industry undergoing rapid change. This year, the UK’s biggest-selling album wasn’t by Ed Sheeran, Adele or even George Ezra, whose Staying at Tamara’s came second; it was a film soundtrack about an American circus impresario (see Turkey on my list) – a populist cultural phenomenon you could say was endemic in our times (if you weren’t over-fond), or confirmation of a renaissance in the musical form (if you were). “What a terrible time to be alive if you’re prone to overthinking,” Ezra reckoned. Or Mamma Mia!, as the fourth best-selling album of the year had it.
Did this mean that the death of the artist album, so long foretold, was finally upon us? Not quite. But things happened to the formats we listened to in 2018 – disruptions led by US hip-hop. As radio play lost ground to streaming in the US this year, songs were unhitched from the format determined long ago by 45rpm vinyl. Songs seemed to get shorter – the better, some believe, to keep our attention in the competitive churn of Spotify, or to rack up greater numbers of individual streams to maximise chart positions, or to compete with other distractions (or all three).
Albums might have shrunk too. Some of the finest US hip-hop records of the year were brief – by Pusha T (21 minutes!), Vince Staples (23 minutes!) and Earl Sweatshirt (24 minutes!) to name three. Conversely, albums might also be getting longer, as artists decide what works best in this uncharted new territory. Heftier releases by streaming king Drake and Eminem, for two, flew the flag for packing out track listings.
Then there was what you might call the telenovela tactic: musical lives played out on social media and TV. Bronx rapper Cardi B (alongside Bad Bunny and J Balvin) deservedly topped the US singles chart again with the juicy Spanish-language I Like It from her eclectic, assured debut album, Invasion of Privacy, breaking more records. She also announced her not-that-secret marriage to fellow rapper Offset of Migos, safely delivered their baby Kulture and, on the eve of Offset’s solo album release, announced the couple’s separation. Coincidence or clever marketing?
Many artists across many genres calculated that flooding the market with multiple projects – tracks, guest features, EPs, albums, behind-the-scenes-of-the-videos-videos – was the best way to game the numbers. Step forward honorary Mancunian Ariana Grande, who had, once again, quite a year, both personally and professionally. Her album Sweetener drew critical acclaim and commercial success. Grande followed it with a record-breaking, non-album event track, Thank U, Next, and promised more random releases; another, Imagine, has just dropped. Like the climate, pop is only going to get more unpredictable.
But whither art? The cut-throat logic of chart metrics didn’t define the entire sonosphere. No matter where you stand on hip-hop, its reigning poet laureate, Kendrick Lamar, won a Pulitzer prize. Things moved forward. Stormzy didn’t release much, but kept Grenfell Tower in the news, started a publishing imprint, and announced scholarships to support black students at Cambridge.
Strictures of gender and orientation continued to loosen, as artists who identify in non-binary ways soared beyond the confines of boy-meets-girl. Sharing a pinnacle were Chris – Christine and the Queens’ exploration of 80s-influenced funk R&B – and Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer, a frisky, intersectional, “highly melanated” R&B-pop record that waved a pair of pink ruched trousers in the name of the differently programmed.
Jazz continued its electrifying incursions into pop, with forward-pushing albums from the likes of Sons of Kemet and a double from Kamasi Washington. A very old-fashioned-sounding UK punk record, Idles’ Joy As an Act of Resistance, addressed the ills of 2018 (intolerance, toxic masculinity) and countered them with a heady cocktail of solidarity, radical emotional honesty and leaping about. Some other homegrown creatives kept up Britain’s reputation for non-U creativity, among them Norwich duo Let’s Eat Grandma, with their updated, but still idiosyncratic pop, and Gwenno, who wrote divine songs in Cornish about cheese.
There is, officially, more new music being released now than ever before. For a number of artists, the small sums per stream do seem to be adding up too: allowing a wild diversity of sound to flourish in this new online landscape.
The top 10 albums of 2018
1. Arctic Monkeys
Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino
A knockout side-swerve from Britain’s best band.
2. Janelle Monáe
Dirty Computer
Eclectic, funky and righteous, Monáe stepped out from behind robot alter egos and into the club.
3. Christine and the Queens
Chris
Letissier’s latest was an idiosyncratic 80s funk-pop masterclass.
4. Kamasi Washington
Heaven & Earth
Making spiritual jazz out of 90s video games was just the start of Washington’s appeal on this double album.
5. Mitski
Be the Cowboy
Triumphal pop from US indie rock’s most penetrating writer.
6. The Necks
Body
This Australian improv trio is never anything less than superlative.
7. Sons of Kemet
Your Queen Is a Reptile
Alternative takes on female power from the sax-tuba-drums powerhouses.
8. Idles
Joy As an Act of Resistance
“My blood brother is an immigrant”: British punk for 2018.
9. Gwenifer Raymond
You Were Never Much of a Dancer
Niche, perhaps, but very beautiful, roiling American primitive guitar music from Brighton.
10. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Hope Downs
The debut album from this restless Go-Betweens-influenced Australian guitar band lived up to high expectations.
Turkey
The Greatest Showman soundtrack
You can’t fault Pasek & Paul, on their second hit after La La Land, but it’s distressing that the year’s bestselling album is the soundtrack of a middlebrow movie.
