My Favorite Music of 2018

Hey all, and Happy New Year! I’ve tossed together another Spotify playlist of my favorite songs from this year. It was actually really difficult to narrow this down to 50, so it must have a been a good year for music! These are not ranked, FYI, just ordered for an optimal listening experience. -Aaron

ClickHERE for the playlist! (Opens in Spotify)

See below for the full list in writing:

1. We Don’t Care - BØRNS
2. Come On To Me - Paul McCartney
3. The Better Me - The Joy Formidable
4. Simplify - Young the Giant
5. I Can’t Quit - The Vaccines
6. Dark Saturday - Metric
7. Gold Rush - Death Cab for Cutie
8. Cheetah Tongue - The Wombats
9. Annihilation Song - Rubblebucket
10. Nobody - Mitski
11. The Deconstruction - Eels
12. Legend - Twenty One Pilots
13. Sugartown - The Fratellis
14. Agustina - Little Stranger
15. Are We Okay Now? - Jome
16. Straight Shot - DeVotchKa
17. Jessica WJ - Cayucas
18. Humility (feat. George Benson) - Gorillaz
19. Fuh You - Paul McCartney
20. The Good Get Gone - Kilcid Band
21. Sunflower - Post Malone / Swae Lee
22. Late Bloomer - Vacationer
23. Everybody Wants To Be Famous - Superorganism
24. Break-Thru - Dirty Projectors
25. Thunderclouds - Sia / Diplo / Labrinth
26. Work For You (feat. Kaz Moon) - Medasin
27. Bambi - Hippo Campus
28. Like I Used To Be - Matt and Kim
29. Love Stuck - Mother Mother
30. A Dark Switch - Snow Patrol
31. Fiend - Brick + Mortar
32. Thought Contagion - Muse
33. Severed - The Decemberists
34. Standing on Ghosts - Two Door Cinema Club
35. Missing You - 888
36. Numb - Meg Myers
37. True Dark - Murder By Death
38. Superposition - Young the Giant
39. Underline the Black - Metric
40. Letter - Mother Mother
41. Game - Harrison Fjord
42. Bye-bye Darling - BØRNS
43. Jumpstarted - Jukebox The Ghost
44. Happy If You’re Happy - Matt and Kim
45. Brighter Days - San Holo / Bipolar Sunshine
46. Empty Vessels - DeVotchKa
47. Four Leaf Clover - The Kooks
48. Be More Kind - Frank Turner
49. Alas - Murder By Death
50. Euphoria - Dawson Hollow

6LACK X SWAE LEE

[ HOLLYWOOD’S BLEEDING ] // Post Malone

Rockstar Rap Duo Rae Sremmurd, recently released their highly anticipated, third full-length album in the Sremm Life series, “Sr3mm". The triple-disc album is the first of its kind by a rap group, and features three distinct sections: Sr3mm, Swaecation, and Jxmtro. The Sr3mm portion includes songs with both members together, performing as the duo Rae Sremmurd, while Swaecation features songs from Swae Lee and featured guests, and Jxmtro features songs from Slim Jxmmi and various featured guests. Now that we have broken down the innovative structure of the album, let’s dive into the music.

Sr3mm

This section provides us with a few of the party songs we love from Rae Sremmurd, like hit single “Power Glide” , flexing anthem “T’d Up”, and rock influenced “Rock N Roll Hall of Fame”.

The majority of the rest of the Sr3mm 3 songs can be classified as “Kickback Music”-Mid-Tempo music that you can’t help but nod your head to anytime it comes on, and will be a great fit for any chill party scene. Examples of this are the intro track “Up In My Cocina”, “Perplexing Pegasus”, and “Buckets” featuring Future.

Lastly, one breakout track from this portion of the album was the Travis scott featured, “CLOSE”. This song includes Swae Lee’s majestic light singing, combined with Travis Scott’s reverb heavy, chant-like catchy lyrics, and Slim Jxmmi’s undeniable, self-confident flow.

Overall Rating 4.5/5 [The only thing that could’ve made this part better was maybe 2 more up-tempo songs.]

Swaecation

Now we enter into songbird/hit-writer Swae Lee’s portion of the album, Swaecation. This portion is filled with melody heavy tunes that you would love to listen to on vacation on an island getaway, somewhere with water clearer than a bottle of Aquafina. Standout tracks include:

- The rhythmic “Heartbreak in Encino Hills”- where Swae Lee breaks down the story of a woman he is dealing with.

-“Offshore” featuring Young Thug, where Swae and Young Thug melodically sing about the good life, the women they enjoy, and the ways in which they spoil them. The beat & production on this song are immaculate, and Young Thug effortlessly rides the beat during his verses. [Bonus treat lyric: “I’ll slap the sh*t out Donald Trump any day”-Young Thug. This line had nothing to do with the subject matter of the song, but was enjoyable and amazing nonetheless.]

-”Guatemala”- The tropical sounding sequel to Unforgettable. Swae Lee was definitely in his element on this one. The subject matter, beat, and flow he used have all the makings of an international hit.

Jxmtro

We now enter into the portion of the album where the ultra confident, high energy, braggadocious, Slim Jxmmi, talks that talk we love to hear!

Jxmtro starts off strong with “Brxnks Truck”, a fast flow track that catches the listener’s attention immediately. Jxmmi proceeds to rap about life on top of the game, his riches, status, and overall lavish lifestyle. Very fun record.

Another stand out track from Jxmtro features music legend, Pharrell, and is entitled “Chanel”. One of the most enjoyable aspects of this song is Pharrell adding on high pitched ad-libs while Jxmmi chants “Take her to Chanel cause she fine”.

Two more tracks that really showcase Slim Jxmmi’s ability to hold his own while demonstrating his versatility in subject matter and flows are “Changed Up” and “Keep God First”.

“Changed Up” is a slower tempo song where Jxm describes the negativity and entitlement coming from people accusing him of “changing up”, when they were in fact, never down with him in the first place.

“Keep God First” is a reflective slow tempo, where Jxm’s flow immediately draws you into the song. He speaks on not allowing the distractions that come with fame and riches to deter you from your mission, all while keeping God, family, and other important things prioritized above the nonsense. 5/5

Overall, “Sr3mm” delivered in almost every way possible. The dynamics between Swae and Jxmmi’s styles balance each other out perfectly. There were few features, which only further speaks to the creative strengths of each group member. The only thing that can be tough with this album is that it is a lot of music to digest in one sitting. Other than that, sonically and creatively, Sr3mm is the perfect mix. 4.9/5

every time i’m leavin’ on ya, you don’t make it easy, no

sunflower ~ post malone & swae lee

day eighty one: a song from an original film score

#Tenzen#Madonna

#OfficialMadonnaRemixersUnited

Madonna, Swae Lee - Crave

(TENZEN 2021 Remix)