Best of 2018

Apart from the usual dose of can't-stop-won't-stop 4/4 grooves, a field in which DJ Seinfeld was my undisputable crush, this year seems to have been about pop music. A lot of it. Whether in the guise of modern hyperlysergic productions from the likes of Kim Petras, Charli XCX or PC Music, or more retro-leaning synthpop offerings from stalwarts like John Maus, Dave Gahan and Cold Cave.

In an effort to forcefully jerk Spotify out of its habit of always putting credible, trendy, but mostly very boring stuff in my Discover Weekly, I started listening through the entire history of the Bonkers happy hardcore compilation series at some point. Which, together with Kutski's amazing Does it Sound Good at 170 mixes, actually led to the discovery of some fabulous new bangers for this year's list.

In a similar vein, all-out euphoric trance is also making a bit of a comeback. Equally frivolous metal is making inroads too. I am shocked to have discovered that I actually like some Nightwish!

As an antidote to all this maximalism, occasional breathing space is provided by meditative ambient excursions chiefly represented by Alice Coltrane's "new age" period. Caterina Barbieri, and to some extent Julee Cruise also fall into this category.

For most of the year, it felt like the number one spot had to go to my most listened to track of the year, the achingly sublime Time Spent Away From U. Somewhat unexpectedly however, at the very last moment, a slamming, searing, absolutely ridiculous piece of euphoric happy hardcore had me in such a wild grinning stupour, that it pipped Seinfeld to the post. Every single atom of Lost in the Music is precision-engineered for maximal energetic impact. 5:16 of pure happiness.

It never made sense to make a Spotify playlist in previous years, as too many tracks were always missing from Spotify. This year it's not so bad as over 80% of the tracks are available, so here's a Spotify playlist that also includes many of the candidates that fell outside the 100th position: 2018 on Spotify

The Chart

Countries

Release Years