| 100 - 81 || 80 - 61 || 60 - 41 || 40 - 21 || 20 - 1 |
| All 100 Songs |
Down with the thick list. Another big day in the life of the thiccest biggest list. Too bad it's several months too late. We cannot promise it won't happen again.
Spotify is still here, getting shitter year after year. It started out with so much promise, slowly morphing through manifestations of the demon hellride everyone knew it would eventually become. Here is the Spotify playlist with all of the Thiccest AF of 2018.
100. Kali Uchis f/ Tyler the Creator & Bootsy Collins “After the Storm (Pete Rock Remix)” (tie)
100. Kali Uchis "In My Dreams" (tie)
99. Gulch “Burning Desire to Draw Last Breath”
98. Sleep “Leagues Beneath”
97. Cash Rivers and the Sinners “Cheap Truck”
96. Sunwatchers “Loop #2”
95. Ella Mai "Trip"
94. Deerhoof “Live to Tell”
93. Blues Lawyer "Charity Case"
92. Drake “Nice For What”
91. Lil B “Keke That’s My Kitty”
90. Cut Chemist “Moonlightin’ With Biz”
89. Baked “Good For You”
88. Kanye West “Lift Yourself” (tie)
88. Kanye West & Lil Pump f/ Adele Givens “I Love It” (tie)
87. Bruno Mars f/ Cardi B “Finesse (Remix)”
86. Fritz Welch “The Donal Judd vs Elmer Fudd Inner Space Crisis”
85. Kodak Black “I Get Lonely”
84. Roseblood “Black Veil”
83. Hoodboi f/ Tkay Maidza “Glide”
82. Heele “The Paper Sky”
81. Pusha T “If You Know You Know”
80. Nilufer Yanya “Baby Luv” (tie)
80. Phoebe Bridgers “Motion Sickness” (tie)
79. Kash Doll "Here I Go"
78. Robyn “Human Being”
77. Satan’s Satyrs “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby”
76. Night Birds “My Dad Is The BTK”
75. Rosalia “Pienso En Tu Mira”
74. Courtney Barnett “Need a Little Time”
73. Terminator 2 “Negative Reinforcement”
72. Mariah Carey “Caution”
71. Natalie Prass “Short Court Style”
70. Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats “I See Through You”
69. Freddie Gibbs f/ 03 Greedo “Death Row”
68. Andrew WK “Music Is Worth Living For”
67. Ovlov “Short Morgan” (tie)
67. Ovlov "Baby Alligator" (tie)
66. Thingy “Not to Follow” (tie)
66. Goblin Cock "Hammond Song" (tie)
65. Connan Mockasin “Charlotte’s Thong”
64. Flasher “Material”
63. Hailu Mergia “Lala Belu”
62. Red Velvet “Bad Boy”
61. Kacey Musgraves “Lonely Weekend”
60. The Shifters “Andrew Bolt”
59. Innumerable Forms "Punishment in Flesh" (tie)
59. Creeping Death "Trail of Confusion" (tie)
58. Nicki Minaj f/ Ariana Grande “Bed” (tie)
58. Ariana Grande “God Is A Woman” (tie)
58. Khalid f/ 6LACK & Ty Dolla $ign "OTW" (tie)
57. Satan’s Satyrs “Take It And Run”
56. Bad Sports “Comes Close”
55. Mason Ramsey “Famous”
54. Three Keep Deep “Kingz Way”
53. Etran de L'Aïr "Etran Hymne"
52. Stove "Mosquiter" (tie)
52. Stove “Nightwalk” (tie)
51. Otoboke Beaver “Anata Watashi Daita Ato Yome No Meshi”
50. David Nance Group “In Her Kingdom” (tie)
50. David Nance “110 Blues (I-80 Version)” (tie)
49. Travis Scott f/ Drake “Sicko Mode”
48. Beach House “Lemon Glow”
47. Windhand "Old Evil" (tie)
47. Windhand “Red Cloud” (tie)
46. Sleep "Sonic Titan"
45. Kim Petras “Heart To Break”
44. Mister Goblin “Option Vampire”
43. Rolling Blackout Coastal Fever "Talking Straight"
42. Surface To Air Missive “Life is So Sad” (tie)
42. Surface To Air Missive "Phases" (tie)
41. 6ix9ine f/ Fetty Wap & A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie “KEKE”
40. D'Angelo “May I? Standing Unshaken”
39. Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats “Bedouin”
38. Kids See Ghosts f/ Louis Prima “4th Dimension”
37. Charly Bliss “Heaven”
36. Dilly Dally “Sober Motel”
35. Doe “My Friends”
34. Jo Passed “MDM”
33. Swearin’ “Future Hell”
32. Stove “Safe Guy”
31. Unknown Mortal Orchestra “American Guilt”
30. Negative Scanner “Shoplifter”
29. Bali Baby “Backseat”
28. No Age “Popper”
27. Ovlov “Grab It From The Garden”
26. Rae Sremmurd f/ Pharrell “Chanel”
25. Robyn “Ever Again”
24. Windhand “Diablerie”
23. Stefflon Don “Lil Bitch (Intro)”
22. Beak> “King of the Castle” (tie)
22. Beak> “Harvester” (tie)
21. Sleep “Marijuanaut’s Theme”
20. Soccer Mommy “Your Dog”
19. Kim Petras “I Don’t Want It At All”
18. Flasher “Who’s Got Time?”
17. Surface to Air Missive “Landing Safely”
16. The Chats “Smoko”
15. Lizzo “Boys”
14. Candy “Distorted Dreams”
13. No Age “Tidal” (tie)
13. No Age "Send Me" (tie)
12. Mindforce “Excalibur”
11. Sheck Wes “Mo Bamba”
10. Ariana Grande “No Tears Left To Cry”
09. Adrianne Lenker “Symbol”
08. Jocko "Muddy Waters"
07. Kacey Musgraves “High Horse”
06. Beak> “Brean Down”
05. Ella Mai “Boo’d Up”
04. Three Knee Deep “Hackin’ Of Da Mindz”
03. Ariana Grande “Thank U, Next”
02. Valee f/ Jeremih “Womp Womp”
01. Windhand “Grey Garden”
| 100 - 81 || 80 - 61 || 60 - 41 || 40 - 21 || 20 - 1 |
| All 100 Songs |
Should we just upload this one ourselves? Robert Pollard's weirdo country band released a 69 song album last October, as if there weren't enough 69 song albums in the world. But just to make it all the more frustrating, it's not streaming anywhere. The chorus goes like this "Would you like to take a ride with me in my cheap truck?" The world of streaming media could use some of this.
Typically described with tags like avant-jazz, free-rock, psychedelic, and the like, Sunwatchers chose to close out their 2018 odds-and-sods collection with the year's most enticingly strange meditation. It's incredible that this song exists, but how did this happen and why is jam-rock heading in this direction? Our theory all but rules out the possibility that one band members' 7-inch copy of "Too Drunk To Fuck" became scratched to the point where a skip in the vinyl aligned just perfectly enough that Jello Biafra's lyrics change to "I got diarrhea today-hay." With the groove locked in, Sunwatchers' ambiance hovers over the loop as it repeats over 100 times. Thanks to word-association, we can't help but think of frequent diarrhea victim Wesley Willis who released multiple LPs on Jello's record label Alternative Tenticles between the late '90s and early '00s. 
What would have been one of the decade's most beloved one-hit-wonders became a two-hit-wonder by December as "Trip" hit #1 on Billboard's Rhythmic chart and secured a nice little area in the lower 20 of Billboard's end-of-year Hot 100 (where the generally strongest charting songs of the past few years have hid). Can she turn her streak into a two-album stride? We'll likely find out by the end of 2019. In the meantime, it sounds like "Trip" still gets mad radio spins. So iHeart did at least one thing correctly in the past year. For more info, Ella Mai did 
The imaginary 2018 Kanye album that included these and 10-12 other similarly bizarre, unfinished experiments (that likely exist on an external hardrive somewhere) might have been a more appropriate follow-up to the lone artifact from his "disjointedness is cohesion" era -- the sprawling, possibly unfinished, and predictably underappreciated The Life of Pablo. Rap's answer to Third/Sister Lovers right down to the uncertainty in its last minute title changes, Pablo is now probably his most unheralded since 808s following a pattern of musical influence more clearly defined in hindsight; 808s was ultimately proven as the single most influential record of the past decade. 
This one actually pisses us off because it proves that Bruno Mars LLC (and his team of thousands) could single-handedly assist the long-awaited comeback of "fun music getting played on FM radio" with just a few easy phonecalls. As for Cardi B, we don't really get the hype surrounding LP1. But we like her, and we suspect her next record might be cool if she doesn't go all fairweather on us like Katy Perry --- which likely wouldn't even be her fault if it did work out that way. Welcome to the machine, Cardi B. This is your life now. Hell awaits you.
Unpopular take: We were kinda unimpressed with Daytona?? And it's not like Kanye's production doesn't always work with Pusha. Afterall, that was the exact team who killed it with "Numbers On The Boards" five years prior. But something feels different here. Maxi-singles used to occasionally run as long as seven songs, and Daytona starts to feel that way by the end. The rigid deliberate blueprint of "If You Know You Know" might be Kanye's only 2018 music resembling The Blueprint. But then it's follow by six uncooked ideas that might have sounded amazing without the record's loose, wobbly architecture.
If only it were 1991 again -- back when it was common for The Black Crowes' cover of Otis Redding's "Hard To Handle" and Ugly Kid Joe's "I Hate Everything About You" commonly bumped on MTV and Z100 transitioning in and out of jams from the likes of Janet Jackson and MC Hammer. (We're assuming Top 40 stations used to play "Once Bitten Twice Shy" in the late '80s, but that was before our time.) This long forgotten sub-subgenre is what Satan's Satyrs has sonically achieved with their update on a '50s R&B standard. Needless to say, we're all for it. It's hilarious and a lot more fun than it has any right to be. And it should never have disappeared in the first place. Why was there only one of these in 2018? We need more.
Mad respect to Rob Crow for even considering the immense creative challenge tackled through his 2018 Joyful Noise residency. But also respect is due for welcoming the breakneck release schedule as an opportunity to revisit Optiganally Yours and Thingy, two bands who hadn't released any new music since 2000. As far as we can tell, neither of these bands had ever split up, but the enormous success of Pinback (originally intended a a side project) resulted in the unexpected stretch between releases. We have not yet heard the entire box, but a random sampling indicates a lack of throwaways, performed entirely to precision, meticulously recorded and mixed, carefully sequenced -- especially 
"Slow Burn" is fine, but we don't really get why it turned into the critical favorite of this record. Same goes for "Rainbow" -- a very strange choice for the post-Grammy-hype radio single. "Butterflies" and "Space Cowboy" were also fine choices for album previews. But all of the above don't feel hooky enough to stand-out within pop-country radio. (Modern country fans still listen to old-fashioned regular-ass radio, by the way.) "Lonely Weekend" and "High Horse" are clearly the two songs that are easiest to remember after one listen. They are the obvious pop hits, and should have been treated as such. Another enormous blunder in the world of modern radio programming, further proof that "the biz" collectively has no idea what the fuck they are doing. 
At the final table of the 2018 World Series of Poker’s $1,500 seven-card stud event in June, Albini wasn’t wearing shades or showing off any tacky ink. But he did have on a black T-shirt featuring the name and logo of a Belgian punk band called Cocaine Piss. Albini works with the group. “We actually have a session booked in a couple weeks,” said Albini, the owner of Electrical Audio in Chicago. “They’re coming to record another album.” After he sported the tee, traffic to the Cocaine Piss Bandcamp page quickly jumped. 
Mason Ramsey went to Walmart sometime prior to March 24th, 2018, and he decided to yodel. Someone took a video with their phone -- likely one of his parents. And they wisely tagged the video "Walmart Yodel Boy" to make it seem like the video was not taken by anyone in the yodeller's family. By March 31st, the uploaded video had an entry on knowyourmeme. By April 13th, Mason had been asked to perform at Coachella. Up until this point, the meme felt pretty annoying. However, it all became justified mere weeks later after a songwriting team of four people wrote him the outstandingly dope song "Famous." It was quickly recorded and released to Spotify on April 27th, later debuting at #62 on the Billboard Hot 100. It's not tough to quickly move on from an unremarkable meme-of-the-week, but a dope jam lasts forever. Also he kinda looks like Jordy.
The No. 1 LP is the winner of what would have been the Grammy for "Wedding Band Album Of The Year" if such a Grammy Award ever existed. A layer of field recording surrounds the atmosphere of this mysterious 2014 artifact, possibly taped with only one or two mics. Liner notes reveal that these distant captured sounds are an actual wedding, and that Etran de L'Air is one of Niger's most successful wedding bands. We would like them to play at every wedding forever, but that is impossible. So instead, just play the CD or vinyl. It'll be great. P.S. Why don't more wedding people get vinyl DJ's to spin at their weddings? Kinda sick of just seeing the one dumbass with the mic spinning the same dumbass songs for 5 hours.
For all practical intents and purposes, the fluid track listing of Dopesmoker finally congealed upon the release of its 2012 vinyl and streaming reissue: Track 1: "Dopesmoker (Parts 1, 2 and 3)" Track 2: "Holy Mountain (live in 1994)," Track 3: "Sonic Titan (live in 1992)." After lasting 20 years without any official studio release, "Sonic Titan" seemed destined to go down as a lost fan favorite. Without much warning, 4/20/2018 suddenly arrived with a Beyonce-style surprise drop from perhaps the most mythic stoner-metal band of all time. The Sciences had arrived.
D'Angelo loves Red Dead Redemption 2 so much that he refused to leave RockStar's offices until 5AM each night, playing the game until very late for weeks straight. Eventually the game creators were just like, "you know, if you love the game so much, why don't you go get married to it, or go write a song for it or something." Figuring D'Angelo would be like "lol, good one," he instead responds "well, that's quite a fine idea you got there, and I think I might do just that!" And the game creators said back, "Which one, get married to the game or write a song for it?" And then D'Angelo responds, "Both ideas are quite sharp. I'll get back to you on that." This is all verbatim and true, by the way. There is a 2019 version of this song floating around on streaming services that is not the original version posted to Youtube back in November 2018. The song feels a lot less complete without the long intro, similar to what usually would happen when radio stations would butcher the intro of "Really Love" (on the few R&B stations that bothered to play it early in 2015). Speaking of that, we have not forgotten D'Angelo saying Black Messiah was intended as a double-album, and that there's another LP of unreleased jams ready to drop at any given moment. Perhaps more videogame creators should give D'Angelo free shit in exchange for new songs since this is now officially the only thing left that motivates him. S.O.S. Plz halp. We need you D. 
Most artists stick to the same lane when considering guest attributions, although Kanye is not most artists. His name appears alone throughout his very collaborative Yeezus LP. A few years earlier, MBDTF's metadata wisely omitted 
Despite its designation as a frustratingly unexciting era for music and pop culture, August 2008 retroactively revealed some buried hints suggesting a desire to move young people away from the mid-2000s' sickening obsession with extravagant materialism. It's the month Kim Petras turned 16. It's also when MTV aired its last four episodes of My Super Sweet 16 in a block that included birthday celebrations for teen millionaires like Bow Wow and Sean Kingston. The stock market crashed just a few short weeks later. "I Kissed A Girl" was the biggest hit of the moment and marked a then-pinnacle of chart success for Dr. Luke, the song's ultimately despised writer and producer. We were reluctant to include "I Don't Want It At All" in our list due to Luke's involvement, but plainly stated: We really care about Kim Petras. We want Kim to blow up. She got what she needed out of that era and realizes she's ready to move onto bigger and better things. Looking back, the song structure itself is fascinatingly flawed, exposing elements that went into the process hit-creators relied upon throughout the "party like a rockstar" era. Everything about this is tongue-in-cheek. Fuck capitalism. 
After an abbreviated version of "Landing Safely" appeared on the 
As Iggy Pop and Josh Homme pump "Smoko" on the reg, its "huge hit" status also earned The Chats a daunting grind: Their giant world tour now extends through the end of November, selling out medium-sized US venues in NYC and elsewhere. Seeming barely 21 in their no-budget viral videos, we would wager they'll never become self-aware before splitting up. They have another 2-3 years of youthful dgaf stored up, alleviating concerns for any future blandness traps. (Have they released any full length LPs yet? Will they ever?) We'd expect nothing less from a Bandcamp handle like 
Lizzo's busy thinkin' 'bout boys boys boys. So many kinds. Where do we start? We like them dumb and we like them smart. We like the ones with the pretty eyes. Well we like all kinds of guys. Two of those boys just might be Pharrell and Prince, who once upon a time slid suspiciously similar grooves under Kelis and Vanity 6 respectively. Wikipedia reveals Wallpaper handled production; 2012 was the last time we wrote about Wallpaper, when he appeared somewhere around #6 on our worst songs of 2012, mostly thanks to its lyrics. In "Boys," Lizzo's energy and charisma wipe away the vomit-flavored chuckle gummy and mixes in a tightly secret recipe for batches and cookies. TikTok trending status = Currently very strong.
Many of our favorite bands put out their 2nd best albums in 2018, and we're pretty sure all of these were the best since the breakthroughs that won us over in the first place. We knew No Age had to release at least one more classic record before the end of the decade, and Snares Like a Haircut delivered on our hopes. "Send Me" exemplifies a send-off for the decade, capping an era of indie-punk that feels ready to move forward.
One early take from "Muddy Waters" derived from its mysteriously unattributed 2nd vocalist. Why is the promo video's guest singer different from the live videos? Was she unable to get time-off for tour? After some digging and discussion, we learned that the band might locate one or two volunteer on-stage participants to fill-in this crucial guest verse and chorus, originally sung by someone who is not a full time band member. Jocko has toured on-and-off since this album's digital release (about a year ago), and we are jealous of anyone who gets to see them. Physical release came out in 2019, so we will likely use this as loophole for "Albums of the year" come January. The music video prominently features hockey and hackeysack, and (again) we will figure out a way to include it in "Best Videos of 2019" even though it came out in December 2017 because we no longer care about accurate chronology.
The greatest disco-country song of the decade from an album that literally won the Grammy for "Album Of The Year" has yet to receive any spins from iHeart's CHR format. Pop is burning down from the inside out and no one with any substantial power to generate a shift is doing anything to stop it. "High Horse" never charted, and it's capitalism's fault. Pop exposure and promotion has never experienced a more devistatingly flawed era, and it will be a VERY long time before we recover. "Things are different now" is not a good enough reason to repeatedly point the finger at those who don't give a fuck about Imagine Dragons. "If you don't like it, then you're too old." Sorry, but that's not how it works.
We remember a few dumbasses on Twitter circa November 2016 trying their best to find a silver lining by predicting a 4-year punk rock renaissance. We're not sure if this is what those people meant, but our lives have not been quite the same since crossing paths with the year's most ignorant jam. "Hackin' Of Da Mindz" was our introduction to Boston's 
In these sad times, bad music bloggers tend to avoid actual descriptions of sound in favor of lyrical analysis and irrelevant narratives. With under 48 hours to process "Thank U, Next," initial takes barely scratched the surface, unsurprisingly incapable of divorcing the song from Ariana's public life, thereby perpetuating even more poptimist celebrations of the ephemeral. 
Now that TikTok is the only true remaining hit-maker of the moment, "Womp Womp," also known as "Wamp Wamp" and "Sad Trombone," could live beyond its onomatopoeic definition, typically mimicked from a human mouth to indicate failures ranging from small to not-so-small. The Price Is Right might be the home of the all time classic Womp Womp, best exemplified by instances when both contestants overbid during the final showcase showdown, indicating an enormous trombone-flavored fail. In "Womp Womp," Valee sings about watching one such episode of The Price Is Right at home during a snow day. Radio should stop avoiding the true hits. Millions of kids sang this extremely fun song that still isn't getting any radio airplay. What does this tell us? Oh wait, we know. It means that iHeartRadio is racist. 
On a personal note, this is the first time in over half-a-decade that our #1 comes from any act marginally resembling a rock band. The last time this happened was our embarrassing 2012 blunder awarding the honor to Japandroids' "The Nights Of Wine and Roses" (beating many of our future