My Top 50 Songs 2018
Reproduced here from another platform.
50 Saturday Sun by Vance Joy
Vance Joy (real name James Keogh) is a singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Australia. Reminiscent of his 2013 hit Riptide, Saturday Sun sees Vance Joy back on his ukulele telling stories of a summer romance.
See the official video at:
49 Coming Home (feat. Julia Michaels) by Keith Urban
Keith Urban credits Nicole Kidman for pulling him out of his addiction to alcohol and drugs just 4 months into their now twelve years of marriage. “It's something I needed because I'm alcoholically wired.” He told rolling Stone Magazine. “I wish I'd gotten sober many years earlier than I did, but it is what it is,” he said. “I knew I wasn't at my full potential, and that's what was starting to get to me. I was enslaved ... I was living a very, very small life.” Keith and Nicole were said to look like ‘newly-weds’ when they attended the CMA Awards so that Urban could pick up the award for ‘Best Entertainer’.
See the video for Coming Home at:
48 Solo (feat. Demi Lovato) by Clean Bandit
Apparently, if you search for “quack quack and woop woop song” on Google then it comes up with this rather upbeat song about loving yourself in spite of heartbreak. Solo was the most searched song on Shazam in 2018, with 9.1 million tags worldwide and a number one single in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Slovakia and the United Kingdom.
See the video at:
47 Bad Timing by Rhys Lewis
2018 has been a good year for the 25-year-old Oxford-born singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Rhys wrote his first song at the age of 18 and went on to play in various covers bands before giving up training to be a chef in order to devote himself to music. He has been likened to artists such as Paolo Nutini, Finley Quaye, Bill Withers and Gil Scott-Heron. We will certainly be hearing a lot more from him!
See Rhys performing the song for BBC Music Introducing in Oxford:
46 Gone So Long (feat. Oxford Gospel Events Choir) by CC Smugglers
With the album How High due out on 29 March, CC Smugglers will be celebrating 10 years of being together as a band with a UK tour in April. They are still one of the most fresh, captivating and technically brilliant live bands on the circuit. Gone So Long is one of the tracks to feature on the new album.
Listen to the track at:
45 All This Way by The Magic Gang
A cheery song from their eponymous album released in 2018. Drummer Paeris Giles told Clash Magazine, “We are definitely glass half full people, it's all about having a bit more hope. Maybe it's slightly naïve but I'd rather have that outlook than dwelling on how bad everything is.” A tonic for our times then.
See the video at:
44 2002 by Anne-Marie
Ed Sheeran pestered Anne-Marie to release this catchy anthem whose lyrics reference Britney Spears, Nelly and *NSYNC. Raised in East Tilbury in Essex, Anne-Marie worked with Ed Sheeran on the song which recalls past romances and the carefree nature of childhood.
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43 Echoes in the Wind by The Lost Brothers
Oisin Leech and Mark McCausland have been producing their brand of unadorned and poetic songs for ten years. NME said that they “spin yarns in such a spellbinding way you can almost see scary shadows flickering in the firelight.” Beautiful.
See their performance on The Late Late Show (RTÉ One):
42 Give My Body Back by The Low Anthem
2018 saw the release of the concept album The Salt Doll Went To Measure The Depth Of The Sea – based on a story from Kay Larsen’s biography of John Cage. In this song, the salt doll is still unclear as to who she is, but she realises that she is dissolving: “Under the wilder cyclones / Tearing at my skin / I see the edges soften / As I shed some part back in.”
See the beautiful video made in collaboration with Dann Dodd:
41 Run Away from It All by Blackberry Smoke
This is the first of four songs that lead vocalist Charlie Starr wrote with his friend Keith Nelson. Starr says, “It's got a nice little swagger to it, and a nice groove.” There are hints of Black Crowes about them. Good Southern Country Rock.
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40 You Can't Steal My Shine by Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
One of my highlights of 2018 was meeting the Reverend (not a real Rev), his wife (and washboard player) Breezy and their drummer Max. They performed a stunning set at the 2018 Greenbelt Festival which ended with Breezy setting fire to her washboard in true Hendrix style.
See the video at:
The Reverend demonstrates his finger-picking technique at
and at
39 Babe (feat. Taylor Swift) by Sugarland
This song was originally written by Taylor Swift and Patrick Monahan of the band Train for Taylor Swift’s 2012 album Red – but it was never recorded. In 2018, Taylor Swift offered the song to Sugarland (in much the same way as she offered Better Man to Little Big Town). The result is a foot-stomping song reminiscent of Taylor Swift c. 2010.
See the video at:
38 If We Have Each Other by Alec Benjamin
Phoenix born Alec Benjamin used to perform in the car parks outside Shawn Mendes and Troye Sivan gigs, handing out business cards to any people who showed an interest. Alec says that “This song is really special to me because I wrote it about my family and my sister, and I’ve never written a song that honest before. I hope other people can connect to it in their own way.”
See the video at:
37 Once in a Lifetime by Angélique Kidjo
Another of my highlights of 2018 was seeing Angélique Kidjo perform at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival in August. Remain in Light is a track-by-track re-imagination of the original African-inspired Talking Heads album. Angélique says, “We all know that rock music came from the blues and thus from Africa. Now is the time to bring rock back to Africa, connect our minds, and bring all our sounds to a new level of sharing and understanding.”
See the video at:
36 Lost in the Middle by Catherine McGrath
The 21-year-old from Northern Ireland is being heralded as UK’s answer to Taylor Swift and our first domestic breakthrough country star. She says of this catchy tune, “I really wanted to write a song that expresses how country makes me feel. Country music is especially good at telling stories, so when you’re having a bad day you can turn to music to take you somewhere else.”
See the video at:
35 5 dollars by Christine and the Queens
In this song, singer Héloïse Letissier (now known as Chris) praises the love that can be bought and seeks to portray prostitution as a delicate and tender thing. In a world that is marred by human trafficking and sexual exploitation, what the song says to me is just how little worth we attach to a fellow human being.
See Chris perform for BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge at:
34 Get Out by CHVRCHES
This song is a collaboration with American producer Greg Kurstin who is best known for his work with artists like Kelly Clarkson, Adele and Sia. They said, “Working with Greg was so different to what we'd done before, but it also felt so comfortable and like he'd been in our band forever. He doesn't try to make you write a certain kind of song. He just listens and then Jedi puppet masters the best work out of you.”
See the video at:
33 Need a Little Time by Courtney Barnett
In this darkly melancholic track, Courtney pleads for a bit of head-space. She sings, “Everybody wants to have their say, forever waiting for some car crash, I need a little time out...”
Courtney is one of 360 prominent women in the Australian music industry to sign an open letter in December 2017 that called for an end to discrimination, harassment, violence and the general menace of sexist jargon. The letter says, “Together, we give a voice to these issues and demand zero tolerance for sexual harassment, violence, objectification and sexist behaviours. There is no place for sexual entitlement in the workplace and in our industry. Change starts today.” #MeNoMore
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32 Lemon to a Knife Fight by The Wombats
Matthew ‘Murph’ Murphy told Annie Mac that the track referred to an argument with his wife and acts as “a metaphor for going into a situation that I knew 100% I was going to lose but I went into it anyway.”
See them perform the song at Reading + Leeds 2018:
31 Hunger by Florence + The Machine
Florence Welch said, “This song was never meant to be a song. It was a poem, written in an effort to understand the ways I looked for love in things that were not love. I was never thinking it would be a song, but maybe that’s the point. And by singing it out loud, together we become a choir, a chorus, higher than the hurt, louder than loneliness.”
The opening lines make reference to an eating disorder from which Florence Welch suffered in her teens
She told ABC Radio that she was trying to “Trojan-horse a really big, potentially totally unanswerable spiritual question into a pop song.”
See the video at:
30 Gold by Jeremy Loops
Another highlight of 2018 was seeing South African singer Jeremy Loops perform at O2 Shepherds Bush. The 2018 Album Critical As Water from which this track is taken references the serious water shortage that the singer's home city, Cape Town, is facing.
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29 Heart Beat Here by Dashboard Confessional
This track is taken from the album Crooked Shadows which is the first Dashboard Confessional album since 2009. “Every album is personal,” Carrabba said in a statement, “But as this album was coming together, I realized, especially as the world’s political climate was rapidly changing, that ‘personal’ did not necessarily mean ‘mine’ – suddenly, ‘me’ became ‘we’ and that realization was empowering, comforting and terrifying all at once.”
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28 The Deconstruction by Eels
The album, of which this is the title track, is the first Eels studio album since lead singer Mark Oliver Everett became a father. The track is inspired by his young son Archie. Mark told the Sun Newspaper, “To me, it's about tearing down the defenses we build. We spend most of our lives building walls but what's underneath, what are we protecting?” He then added, “One of the things about having a kid is that you see pure innocence and beauty. You know it's a s--t show from there on but how do you protect that sweetness? We're all so vulnerable. I don't think anybody is born a 'bad seed', it's what you do after that and a lot of us are dealt a bad hand.”
Hear the audio of the track at:
27 Fireworks by First Aid Kit
On the stunning album Fireworks, Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg focus on the feeling of heartbreak and the sense of lostness that follows. They told Consequence of Sound website that “Fireworks is about hopes, dreams and expectations. How they sometimes can get in the way of your day to day. Sometimes we set ourselves up by having too high or too specific expectations on ourselves and of other people.”
See the video at:
26 Shed a Tear by Kodaline
Lead singer Steve Garrigan has lived with generalised anxiety for a long time. “Creating and writing music has always been my release,” he says, “so to hear that it has helped even a few fans going through tough times means the world to me. In recent times I love how people are letting go of fear, opening up and talking more, it’s so important.”
Speaking about the meaning of the anthemic Shed a Tear, he says, “It’s simple, it’s about empathy. It’s a song about being there for someone.”
See the video at:
25 Let Me Down (feat. Stormzy) by Jorja Smith
2018 BRITS Critics Choice award winner Jorja Smith has taken the world by storm this year. Her modern soulful sound combines beautifully with grime star Stormzy’s deep tones in this stunning 2018 song. Jorja Smith had a James Bond theme song in mind when she was working on the track. She says, “A dream of mine is to write a Bond theme tune. 'Let Me Down' does sound quite Bond-y: you can imagine it during a scene when James Bond has gone down into an underground, dimly lit, secret bar and he approaches the Bond girl who is sitting at the bar looking very guilty because she's done something bad and let him down.”
See the behind the scenes video (of the more raunchy music video) at:
24 Gravity by Leo Stannard & Frances
Leo says: “I wrote ‘Gravity’ originally and then thought it'd be amazing to get a female vocal on it, but it had to be someone who really understood and felt the song. I wanted to make sure it really resonated with Frances as much as it does with me. She's an incredible singer and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.”
See the video at:
23 Falling Down by Muncie Girls
The album Fixed Ideals has many tracks that are inspired or make reference to the poet Sylvia Plath. However, the song Falling Down is more about drinking. Hekt says, “It’s about a hangover. There’s a line in it: ‘Go to bed / Wake up smart.’ So it’s kind of like talking about having a hangover and waking up the next day and knowing not to do it again.”
Hear the audio of the track at:
22 Pressure by Muse
With hints of Blue Orchid by The White Stripes, this is a dark pulsating song about the pressure of living with the high expectations of fans. The crowd noise that you can hear in the track is from the penalty shootout at the end of England's victory over Columbia in the 2018 World Cup. Now that is a pressure situation!
See the video at:
21 High Hopes by Panic! At the Disco
Brandon Urie is now the last remaining member of Panic! At the Disco and it was his experience of triumph over adversity that has set the tone for his newest album. High Hopes came from the realisation that, at the time of the exodus of other band members, he had been playing it safe and setting the bar far too low. Urie says, “I spent too long not setting my expectations high enough, worried about how it felt to fail. I hit a point when I realized I had to aim high and fail, fail, fail in order to keep growing.”
See the video at:
20 Lost in the Game by Public Access T.V.
PATV’s first gig, a free show in a New York bar in 2014, was attended among others by Alexa Chung and Lindsay Lohan. PATV had all the makings of a super-hyped band that would be here today and gone tomorrow. But lead singer John Eatherly, who had been in just such a band (Be Your Own Pet), has taken his time to ensure PATV’s longevity. Every member of the band works hard, they have a really good vibe and they share an extraordinary knowledge of 80s and 90s music. The result is an amazing mix of styles, less of a guitar sound than their on first album, their 2018 album is a collection of sparser catchy tunes that befits a band coming of age.
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19 Just My Type by The Vamps
You can’t help but like The Vamps. They have picked up over 2 billion streams globally, they have had over 600 million video views on YouTube their album Night & Day (Night Edition) went to number 1 on the Official Albums Chart and made the Top 10 on iTunes in over 20 countries. They have over 6 million likes on their Facebook, over 4.12 million followers on Twitter, 2.3 million followers on Instagram. They are four lads who are shaking the world.
Watch the video at:
18 It's Not Just Me by Let's Eat Grandma
Norwich based Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth have left some of their earlier esoterism behind and have produced a very endearing and enjoyable album in I’m All Ears. DIY Magazine said of the song It's Not Just Me, “Rosa’s cleaner, breathy vocals helm the first verse, while Jenny’s follow-up brings more edge, with a vocal twang that sets the two apart. Diversifying and writing their best songs to date, ‘It’s Not Just Me’ is a superb step forward.”
See the video at:
17 Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi
Lewis Capaldi was a 2018 Vevo Dscvr Artist To Watch, he was on the longlist for the BBC Sound Of 2018 Poll, and he won Breakthrough Artist of the Year honors at the Scottish Music Awards. This is a beautiful piano ballad from his 2018 EP Breach.
See him perform the song live at The London Road Fire Station, Manchester:
16 You're Not the Only One (Redemption Song) by Lukas Graham
Lukas Graham is a Danish pop and soul band. Last Autumn they collaborated with 20 street paper vendors from Hus Forbi (the Danish version of The Big Issue) to record a live version of You’re Not The Only One (Redemption Song). Hus Forbi supports people who are homeless or socially vulnerable by running a street newspaper for them to sell.
See the video at:
15 A Deeper Cut by The Temperance Movement
The title track of their 2018 album is one of the mellower tracks on what is a rich and varied collection. Phil Campbell told HMV, “We liked things being mellower, so some of it is quite mellow and some of it rock and roll. But that’s what we are. We’re both those things. One minute we want to be Dolly Parton, the next we want to be Pearl Jam, that’s what The Temperance Movement is.”
See them perform the track live at YouTube Space, London:
14 Found What I've Been Looking For by Tom Grennan
Tom Grennan featured in my 2016 and 2017 Top Songs Lists and is here again to mark the 2018 release of his album Lighting Matches and to celebrate his two massive headline tours of the UK. When I saw him last March at the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, he was humble and gracious about the huge support that he had received. The BBC Music Introducing Artist of the Year 2018 certainly deserves every accolade.
See the video at:
13 Leave a Light On by Tom Walker
I first saw Tom at a BBC Introducing gig at the Lexington in London in April 2017. This single may have taken more than 6 months to chart following its UK release in October 2017 but it became a massive hit across Europe (reaching number 1 in France in March 2018). The song is based on the story of a friend who was struggling with drug addiction. Tom says, “Everybody I know, myself included, at some point in their lives has struggled with some form of addiction, whether it be drinking too much or eating too much. You know, whatever it is, I think somebody at some point has struggled with addiction. I just wanted to write this song for my family and my friends to let them know that we can talk about it.”
See the video at:
12 I Can't Quit by The Vaccines
This was the first track to be released from the album Combat Sports. The title for the album refers to a fight between guitarist Freddie Cowan and vocalist Justin Young that took place in the studio. Freddie told HMV: “It's a nod to internal battles, how you manage relationships. We’d lost Pete (Robertson, drums), that threw everything into turmoil, we didn't know what the future was if the band going to survive. But we stuck it out and turned the corner. To me, it's an album about resilience, conquering what life throws at you.”
I Can’t Quit is fun and confident. Justin Young told Annie Mac, “It was us falling back in love with rock 'n' roll and the record is an ode to that really.”
See them perform live on BBC Sounds Like Friday Night:
11 Hold on to your Heart by The XCERTS
Lead vocalist Murray Macleod was inspired to write this song after he split up from his longtime girlfriend. He told Kerrang: “My ex-partner heard this when we were still in touch, and she loved it but it made her sad too. That's a good thing, though, as moving someone with your music is the whole point. It was quite a dramatic break up for us, but out of that whole experience came this great song and it's very special to me. I didn't want to bum people out with these songs, though - I wanted there to be some light in them.”
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10 These Days (feat. Jess Glynne, Macklemore & Dan Caplen) by Rudimental
This was undoubtedly one of the smash hits of the year. Rudimental were joined in the studio by UK singer Jess Glynne and US rapper Macklemore for the feel-good gospel-tinged track, which also features hand claps and a church choir.
See the video at:
9 Four out of Five by Arctic Monkeys
I am sure that many will have this as their number one song of the year (and understandably so). The bowie-esque glam track has a sci-fi theme running through it and this track even mentions ‘The Information Action Ratio’ as the place to go. This is a reference to Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death and the idea that we can obtain all kinds of knowledge but still have no idea what to do next. Alex Turner told Pitchfork, “I was attracted to the idea as soon as I heard that phrase; even though it was in this book from 1985 it still seemed relevant - more relevant than it probably was when the guy made it up. I sang it into the tape recorder when I was making stuff up one day, and it ended up falling in a place where the implication was it was the name of this taco shop on the roof of this hotel complex.”
See the video at:
8 Be More Kind by Frank Turner
This timely reminder of the need for grace comes from the writings of Clive James. Frank told NME, “It’s not the only time that I’ve read someone in recent years talking about kindness as being the thing that survives of human life, it’s just the most pithily put version of that. It seems to be a recurring theme that I read about older people and more importantly wiser people – that your compassion and decency to your fellow person is the thing that comes out in the wash.”
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7 May Your Kindness Remain by Courtney Marie Andrews
There’s a theme emerging here! Courtney told Guitar Girl Magazine, “Kindness is this thing that I try and reach for, even if I fall short. I didn’t grow up religious, but in a way, I was always taught morals and kindness is important and always be respectful to others.”
This song, with its swirling Hammond and the guitar on the brink of feeding back, is a powerful anthem to the virtue of kindness.
See Courtney perform the track live at The Close Encounter Club:
6 Last Words by Isaac Gracie
NME describes this standout track like this: “Take a few years listening to Jeff Buckley and mid-90s Radiohead on loop, throw Willy Mason’s ‘Oxygen’ into the mix, consider the logic behind what those awful John Lewis adverts should sound like, get the rustiest acoustic guitar sound since Graham Coxon on ‘You’re So Great’, fire up Garageband and boom! Your name is Isaac Gracie and you suddenly have something very special on your hands.”
Watch the video at:
5 Lost Without You by Freya Ridings
With more than a hint of Florence Welch about her, Freya Ridings is the BRIT School educated daughter of one of the stars of ITV’s Fat Friends. This song featured on ITV2’s Love Island and then became an instant hit. This beautiful song which explores the pain of unrequited love was chosen as record of the week on Scott Mills' Radio 1 show and then added to the station's playlist. It certainly points to Freya Ridings as someone whose star is on the rise.
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4 Worst of You by Maisie Peters
If I had a ‘Sound Of 2019’ list like the BBC then Maisie Peters would be on it. Teenager Maisie comes from the village of Steyning in West Sussex (which she describes as “an Enid Blyton village, with a Co-Op”). Early influences on her music range from Carly Rae Jepson and Lorde to her mother and twin sister. A future star in the making!
See her video at:
3 Twice by Christina Aguilera
With a vocal range of over four octaves and the ability to move with ease across this range, Christina Aguilera is one of the best singers – not just around today – but of all time. Christina Aguilera tweeted that she loves the song’s ‘raw vocal quality,’ and she’s especially proud of the ‘spiritual emotion and tone’ it captures and conveys for her.
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2 This Wild Darkness by Moby
This is a beautiful song. Moby explained the song’s meaning on Twitter: “The world is a baffling place, full of confusion and darkness, and This Wild Darkness is essentially an existential dialogue between me and the gospel choir - Me talking about my confusion, the choir answering with longing and hope.”
See him perform the song live on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert:
1 Jumpsuit by twenty one pilots
Jumpsuit is the co-lead single from Twenty One Pilots' fifth album Trench and the opening track for their latest live shows. It is a stomping bass-driven number in which the band introduce a new world which includes a walled city called Dema. Lead singer Tyler Joseph, under an alter ego named Clancy, attempts to escape from Dema wearing a yellow jumpsuit that acts as a protective barrier from the nine bishops that oversee the metropolis. The Bishops are unable to see this particular shade of yellow and so the wearers are safe. These bishops are a dodgy lot…
See the video at: