Is this thing on? (The best of 2018)

It's been a while.

I don't imagine anyone who subscribed to me almost ten years ago is still using Blogger under the same account, and gave up on any chance of a review of the 2016 opus '24 Hrs' by Olly Murs, but I've been... well I haven't been busy at all, actually. Whatever reasons I had with originally starting up this blog were sort of obscured by my own insecurities: "no one's going to read this anyway", "you're not a good writer", "proper music critics are far more compelling", and so on. If I may be candid for a second, I suppose this hiatus was mostly due to depression. I tried to write it off with a pithy excuse that I found music critique largely pretentious and mean-spirited (and to be fair, with some establishments, it is) but I have certainly been more than culpable in adding to that in the past. My apologies, Rita Ora. 

I've still been compiling end-of-year lists for friends and other sites but never really found the energy to write an actual album review. I hope that is set to change. I may have hopped aboard the Spotify wagon and my trusty old iPod Nano may have just died after an incredible ten years of being my lifeline, but I'll hopefully be the same old cynic with something mean to say about Bebe Rexha's filler tracks. Only older. Until I choose an album to dive in with, here's what I rated from 2018. If you're interested in my ratings, all of the top 8 albums would've been a "9/10" from me. Dirty Computer was good, but just a slight let-down compared to her previous two.

 

I didn't create an image for my top ten tracks, as I revealed them with videos at the time. Those ten are:

#1 - Janelle Monae - Make Me Feel
#2 - Robyn - Honey
#3 - Superorganism - Everybody Wants to be Famous
#4 - The 1975 - Love It If We Made It
#5 - Kacey Musgraves - Slow Burn
#6 - Christine and the Queens - 5 Dollars
#7 - Kali Uchis - After the Storm (feat. Tyler, the Creator & Bootsy Collins)
#8 - Pusha T - If You Know You Know
#9 - MNEK - Tongue
#10 - Robyn - Missing U

I'll take some time getting back into old habits but you'll notice that all of my images from the old reviews have disappeared. Not sure I can quite be bothered to go and restore some live shots of Bombay Bicycle Club and that. However, I believe I signed off with a promise of what my next review will be, so here goes:

Coming next: Ariana Grande

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