1. El Mal Querer — 
Rosalía

“The Romance of Flamenca” 
is thought to be the first modern 
novel. Developed in the 13th 
century, it tells the story of a 
woman imprisoned by her jealous 
fiance — a twisted love story 
fraught with peril.
El Mal Querer, the second 
studio album from Los Angeles-
based but Catalonia-born singer 
Rosalía, is based on “Flamenca”, 
with each of the album’s 11 tracks 
serving as a chapter that details an 
increasingly doomed relationship. 
It begins with “MALAMENTE 
(Cap.1: Augiurio),” which Rosalía 
states serves as “a premonition 
— this moment when you know 
in the beginning of the story how 
it’s gonna end, but even then you 
go and do it.” Indeed, the song 
inspires a certain foreboding, with 
the lyrics of the chorus roughly 
translated to “Badly (that’s it) 
(like this) / Badly / Bad, so bad, 
so bad, so bad, so bad…. (look)!” 
The trailing piano underneath a 

steady, rhythmic clapping leads us 
into the first verse, and Rosalía’s 
teasingly abrupt lyricism spins 
over the production with grace; 
much like the woman within 
“Flamenca,” we are helpless to 
follow this narrative to its end, as 
hopeless as it may be. 
The devices Rosalía uses to tell 
El Mal Querer’s story are pieces 
pulled from all across the world. 
The bassline in “PIENSO EN TU 
MIRÁ (Cap.3: Celos)” was created 
in 
Spain. 
“BAGDAD 
(Cap.7: 
Liturgia)” was inspired when 
Rosalía went to a club in Baghdad. 
The title of “DI MI NOMBRE 
(Cap.8: 
Éxtasis)” 
was 
pulled 
straight from Destiny’s Child’s 
“Say my name, say my name.” This 
album stitches together sounds 
that have roots in flamenco’s 
expressive 
storytelling 
and 
organic dynamism yet still have 
contemporary pop’s global reach.
El Mal Querer is a masterpiece 
of expert production; within the 
canvas of each individual song, 
all of the sentiments behind 
“The 
Romance of Flamenca” — all the 
love and loss and betrayal — have 
been immortalized, universal and 
accessible to all. 

— Shima Sadaghiyani, Daily 
Arts Writer

2. Be The Cowboy — 
Mitski

Mitski’s album Be The Cowboy 
is, at its most basic description, 

a magnum opus. Although her 
previous records Bury Me At 
Makeout Creek and Puberty 2 
were critically acclaimed and 
works of art in their own right, 
nothing thrust the songwriter 
into the spotlight like this year’s 
spectacular collection of songs. 
Mitski’s command of the concept 
album is unparalleled in indie 
rock, and songs like “Nobody” 
and “Geyser” showed her skill for 
writing to these concepts (in this 
case, love letters to herself), with 
remarkable ease and ingenuity. 
She manages to marry the classic 
markers of rock, synth and even 
folk music together to create 
unique narratives of sound within 
every track, winding mazes of 
meaning and catchy hooks that 
lead a listener down paths full of 
love, longing and self-realization. 
Hearing Be The Cowboy is like 
opening someone’s diary and 
finding they have written a novel 
of their own thoughts Mitski takes 
her experiences and builds them 
into spectacular poetry, offering 
her 
audience 
a 
confessional 
through the prism of truly great 

music.

— Clara Scott, Senior Arts 
Editor

3. Dirty Computer 
— Janelle Monáe

For several years now, the 
public 
has 
followed 
Janelle 
Monáe often through the lens 
of her android alter-ego, Cindi 
Mayweather. In Metropolis, Cindi 
fell in love with a human and was 
chased through the streets of 
her city. In The ArchAndroid and 
The Electric Lady, she became a 
revolutionary messiah. But Dirty 
Computer is the fullest and most 
realized crystallization of Monáe’s 
aspirations yet, a dazzling project 
in which the artist sheds Cindi’s 
narrative but retains many of her 
futuristic 
preoccupations. 
Not 
so much a union of the past and 
the future as it is a convergence 
between them, Dirty Computer is 
constantly owning its homages 
— both to those who inspired the 
album, like Prince, and to a future 
that this album will no doubt help 
to inspire. This future is one of sex 
positivity and acceptance, one of 
dynamism and color and verve. 
This album marks the moment 
at which an already daring and 
independent 
icon, 
breaking 
barriers 
with 
her 
cybernetic 
characterizations and embrace 
of 
gender-nonconformity, 
has 
truly come into herself. We had 
come to feel like we knew Cindi 
Mayweather. Now, we are this 

much closer to feeling like we 
know Janelle Monáe.

— Laura Dzubay, Daily Arts 
Writer

4. 
OIL 
OF 
EVERY 
PEARL’S 
UN-INSIDES 
— 
SOPHIE

In 
a 
piece 
that 
almost 
functioned as a portion of my 
application to The Michigan 
Daily two and a half years ago, 
but which I wound up scrapping, 
I attempted to review SOPHIE’s 
first album (more accurately a 
compilation of singles). Released 
as 
Product, 
the 
collection 
introduced 
the 
world 
to 
SOPHIE’s characteristic sound. 
It’s sometimes grating, and often 
thinly layered, but with nuggets 
of irresistible melody and an 
odd, uncanny-valley allure. In 
one word: plastic.
After a two year break from 
releasing solo material — a break 
which saw her producing work 
by Vince Staples, MØ, Cashmere 

Cat and Charli XCX — SOPHIE 
returned with “It’s Okay To 
Cry,” whose video marked the 
first time her face had featured 
in her art. In June, as OIL OF 
EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES 
arrived, a newly vulnerable, 
more immediate version of 
SOPHIE emerged. She allowed 
us to see her, to begin to make 
guesses at who she is, to identify 
with her.
OIL, for its cinematic scope, 
possesses just as much violent 
thrashing as SOPHIE’s previous 
work, if not more. But there’s 
also an aquatic element to the 
album, and not just in the title 
of “Is It Cold In The Water?” 
but in its sub-bass and in the 
way tracks like “Infatuation” 
and “Pretending” wrap you 
up in them. Listen on a nice 
pair of headphones and you’re 
suddenly left feeling small, 
far from in control — there’s 
a senseless of “it’s safe here” 
and more of “it’s here here” or, 
maybe, “it’s real here.” The best 
you can do is cede control to 
the massiveness of it all. Until, 
of course, the synth swells that 
round out “Pretending” give 
way to the club-ready bounce 
of showstopper “Immaterial,” 
a track on which SOPHIE 
declares “I could be anything I 
want.”
And that’s what OIL is, 
ultimately: a declaration. One 
in which SOPHIE boldly claims 
her identity, while questioning 
the substance of identity itself. 

After “Immaterial” fades out, 
SOPHIE’s “Whole New World/
Pretend World” is upon us. I 
hope she shows us more of it.

— Sean Lang, Daily Arts 
Writer

5. DAYTONA — 
Pusha T

DAYTONA 
is, 
above 
all, 
incisive. The first of the Kanye 
West-produced, 
seven-track 
albums born out of the Wyoming 
sessions, Pusha T and Kanye 
came out the gates swinging. 
In direct contrast with Kanye’s 
indefatigable Twitter ramblings, 
DAYTONA is sharp and lean.
Pusha T doesn’t veer far from 
his traditional lyrical themes 
of selling drugs and being a 
generally threatening guy, but he 
doesn’t need to — on DAYTONA, 
he perfects the form. It all lies 
in his delivery. Ice-cold menace 
drips off of every syllable, and 
he makes you believe all that he 
claims.
The real genius of the album 
lies in the production, as Kanye’s 
skeletal 
sample-based 
beats 
are minimalistic masterpieces, 
stripping down the music to the 
very essence of hip-hop. “Come 
Back Baby” is this philosophy of 
production taken to its logical 
extreme: a relatively unaltered 
George Jackson sample gives 
way to a gaunt pattern of raw 
808s and drums, over which 
Pusha T discusses his love for 
the sale and distribution of 

cocaine.
The combination of Pusha T’s 
lyrical excellence and Kanye’s 
knack at production based around 
the sampling of simple melodic 
phrases is lethal and exhilarating, 
and the result is an album that 
feels like the thesis of Pusha T’s 
career.

— Jonah Mendelson, Daily Arts 
Writer

6. Bark Your Head 
Off, Dog — Hop Along

Hop Along’s Bark Your Head 
Off, Dog is an insanely ambitious 
endeavor. Narrative, poetic and 
biblical in lyric and even more 
complex in composition, it’s truly 
unlike any other alternative record 
released in 2018. They’ve always 
been excellent and cherished 
songwriters, 
expertly 
layering 
rhythm and melody guitars, but 
with the introduction of complex 
string arrangements and deft 
tonal shifts — often within the 
course of a single song — Hop 
Along has produced a work of epic 
magnitude.
Their 
versatility 
is 
best 
showcased on fourth track “Not 
Abel,” 
opening 
with 
tender, 
rollicking folk before collapsing 
into uptempo rock ‘n’ roll. Every 
track is a thorough joy to listen 
to, as unexpected twists and 
turns constantly keep listeners 
on their toes, forcing them along 
the journey. In reference to Bob 
Dylan’s influence on their writing, 
lead singer and guitarist Frances 

Quinlan said in a Rolling Stone 
feature, “Fuck me. There’s no 
rules. I forgot. You make them up, 
and then you realize that you have 
to obliterate them again,” and Hop 
Along do this time and time again 
throughout the entirety of Bark 
Your Head Off, Dog. The past year 
was saturated with a lot of indie 
rock, and thankfully Hop Along 
decided to shatter the status quo 
by shattering all expectations.

 — Dominic Polsinelli, Daily 
Arts Writer

7. Golden Hour — 
Kacey Musgraves

Golden Hour is a landmark work 
of pop-country; a well-crafted 
tribute to the sublime. Traditional 
country 
instrumentation 
and 
themes 
mingle 
freely 
with 
the 
psychedelic 
and 
subtly 
experimental, 
making 
Golden 
Hour 
as 
accessible 
as 
it 
is 
innovative.
The production on Golden Hour 
is notable not just for the lustrous 
glow infused throughout, but 
for its great use of negative space 
— a scorching electric guitar 
or beautiful fingerpicked banjo 
swells like radiant light into the 
emptiness for just a few seconds, 
as beautiful and fleeting as the 
namesake of the album. Kacey’s 
emotive voice is 24-karat Nashville 
gold, tastefully draped across the 

2B — Thursday, January 10, 2019
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

The top albums of 2018 
are as inspired as the year
Last year’s top songs, in 
all their despondent glory

SONY MUSIC

MSMSMSM

GOOD

1. “Immaterial” — 
SOPHIE

It is not an overstatement 
to say that “Immaterial” does 
more in its just-under-four 
minutes than any other song 
released in 2018. On the sur-
face, “Immaterial” is pure fun, a 
club-ready banger that leaves no 
stone unturned, sonically. The 
harsh synthetic pots-and-pans 
that 
characterize 
SOPHIE’s 
earlier work are almost con-
stant throughout, if subdued, 
but the song is also sleek and 
atmospheric. “Immaterial” is a 
masterclass in maximalist pop: 
It builds from nothing, adding 
layer after layer, and allows us 
to bask in the whole organized 
mess for a full chorus before 
peeling back to let the progres-
sion repeat.
After the second chorus, the 
sound is filtered down to nearly 
nothing. From that nothing, 
guest vocalist Cecile Believe’s 
voice rises. “I was just a lonely 
girl / In the eyes of my inner 
child,” she sings, as the song 
rebuilds around her, before pre-
senting the central revelation of 
OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-
INSIDES: “I could be anything 
I want.” The same declaration 
appears in the chorus, followed 
by “Anyhow, any place, any-
where, anyone / Any form, any 
shape, anyway / Anything, any-
thing I want,” confidently and 
plainly divorcing identity from 
physical form.
Given that, alongside OIL’s 
release in June, SOPHIE pub-
licly came out as a trans woman, 
“Immaterial” functions as the 
album’s central affirmation of 
her identity. But it feels reduc-
tive to point to SOPHIE’s com-
ing out as the sole impetus of 
OIL, or to try to use it as a prop 
to convince you, the reader, to 
listen, because “Immaterial” is 

deserves your attention for so 
many more reasons than that. 
As a final note, SOPHIE claimed 
back in July that she had three 
more albums coming out before 
the end of 2018. Fingers crossed 
that we’ll get them soon.

— Sean Lang, Daily Arts 
Writer

2. “Sicko Mode” — 
Travis Scott

It begins with a menacing 
advancement of synth. Waver-
ing tantalizingly in the dis-
tance, the notes signal the 
approach of something. The 
specifics of what is approaching 
aren’t clear but Drake is men-
tioning something about Louis 
belts and the beat is spiraling, 
faster and faster — anticipation 
growing by the second — until, 
abruptly, the beat switches, the 
song splinters apart and hun-
dreds of eager listeners collec-
tively lose their shit.
“Sicko Mode” is instantly 
recognizable. Whether you’re 
a fan of Travis Scott or not, 
you’ve heard this song: the 
Swae Lee chorus “Some- Some- 
Some- Someone said” bouncing 
off house party walls, the brief 
Luke sample from “I Wanna 
Rock” bleeding out from Ricks’s 
dance floor. Its power comes 
through its unexpectedness. 
Within an album that swims 
through a muted psychedelic 
haze, its sharp twists — from 
Drake to Travis to B.I.G. to the 
constantly shifting beat — slap 
you in the face.
“Sicko 
Mode” 
embodies 
everything Travis Scott was 
working toward since Owl Pha-
raoh, when his music always 
contained a desperate note of 
desire to not just dream about 
fame but to be consumed by 
it. Now, nearly five years later, 
ASTROWORLD 
is 
certified 

platinum, “Sicko Mode” con-
tinues to top charts and Travis 
Scott is not just dreaming any-
more. 

— Shima Sadaghiyani, Daily 
Arts Writer

3. 
“Shallow” 
— 
Lady 
Gaga 
and 
Bradley Cooper

Anyone who has seen the 
trailer for 2018’s box office 
hit “A Star is Born” knows the 
words to “Shallow” “I’m off 
the deep end / Watch as I dive 
in / I’ll never hit the ground!” 
Lady Gaga sings as her charac-
ter Ally, immediately lodging 
the song’s chorus into every 
viewer’s heart for weeks and 
even months to come. The 
song served as the first single 
for “A Star is Born”’s incred-
ible soundtrack, and set up the 
success and critical acclaim 
that both the album and movie 
received before and after its 
release. Even without the con-
text of the movie, “Shallow” is 
a heart-wrenching ballad that 
fuses folk with rock and pop to 
form one memorable expres-
sion of freedom. It’s a song that 
taps into the universal desire to 
crash through the things that 
hold one down to find some-
thing else in the world, and 
will likely remain a classic for 
years to come because of this. 
The music is fantastic, but the 
song’s message is even stronger 
it tells the listener that they can 
go deeper anytime they choose, 
and find something beautiful 
within the risks they take to 
break free.

— Clara Scott, Senior Arts 
Editor

Read more at MichiganDaily.
com

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