Of all the pop-cultural pitfalls Cardi B has deftly sidestepped in the past two years, the long-threatened cultural obsolescence of The Album might be the most impressive. First, she invented a whole new way to become a pop star. And now she's helping keep a few of the old ways alive. | | | | Mitski at Musik und Frieden, Berlin, Oct. 4, 2018.
(Jana Legler/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Of all the pop-cultural pitfalls Cardi B has deftly sidestepped in the past two years, the long-threatened cultural obsolescence of The Album might be the most impressive. First, she invented a whole new way to become a pop star. And now she's helping keep a few of the old ways alive.”
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| | rantnrave:// I'm a little fuzzy on how SPOTIFY and APPLE MUSIC already know what the most streamed albums and tracks of 2018 are, but then again I live in a city whose baseball fans started, um, streaming out of their own stadium in the 8th inning of the final game of this year's WORLD SERIES, so maybe that's how things work in entertainment hubs. By the end of the 8th, you just kind of know. In any case, Spotify and Apple are generally in agreement: DRAKE and POST MALONE dominated the world's listening, with XXXTENTACION and CARDI B cued/queued up right behind them. BILLBOARD, which has unilaterally decided the year started on Dec. 2, 2017 and ended on Nov. 17, 2018—I understand years get shorter as we get older but that seems extreme—has deemed TAYLOR SWIFT's REPUTATION the year's top album and DRAKE's "GOD'S PLAN" the top song. (As for who has the #1 album this week, no one seems to know, and since this week apparently is 2019 in the Billboard offices, maybe we'll have to use a flux capacitor to find out. But that's another story for another day.) A critical consensus, meanwhile, is quickly shaping up as year-end lists pour in like LIL B tweets this first week of December, and that consensus is hovering in the alto and soprano ranges. I have no idea if NPR MUSIC was consciously making a point in constructing a top-50 albums list in which the top 16 are all female artists and female-fronted bands (and in which no straight white male frontman appears in the top 25), or if it was simply a case of listening to what was in the air and recognizing the talent and the reality. In an accompanying essay, ANN POWERS makes a strong case for the latter explanation. "Credits by women are legion on the Top 40 right now," she writes, and "in music scenes outside the mainstream, the rock-dude template has been fraying for years, even as those who don't fit it still face roadblocks large and small." Among the names showing up repeatedly across various lists are JANELLE MONÁE, MITSKI, KACEY MUSGRAVES, CARDI B, ARIANA GRANDE, ROBYN (hell, she even tops a metal list), LUCY DACUS and CHRISTINE & THE QUEENS, all of whom belong in the pop conversation and on the world's playlists. Those eight women produced eight (or maybe nine) albums that had a lot to say about who we are circa 2018, how we want to express ourselves and how we might set that expression to a beat. You could do a lot worse in trying to soundtrack a year, especially this one. Also in the conversation: CHILDISH GAMBINO (that video), PUSHA T, SABA, KAMASI WASHINGTON, YOB, Drake. Post Malone, unsurprisingly, is not going to populate a lot of critical convo, and I miss him in there. He has a voice, too. He made a hell of a pop album this year and a lot of people listened. He's the first artist in eight years to place two albums in the top 10 of Billboard's year-end chart. Is that a case of privilege, pop hooks, good promotion or all three? And how does the answer affect how you process the music? MusicSET: "Best Music of 2018: The Year in Lists"... DJ EARWORM processes these things in his own nonpartisan, nonargumentative way in his annual "UNITED STATE OF POP" mashup... And here's IHEARTRADIO mashing it up visually... I have no idea what's going on with DAVE GROHL and SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE. Does anyone?... Kickstarter of the week: synth wristwatch... Premiere of LIFETIME docuseries SURVIVING R. KELLY evacuated and canceled because of gun threat phoned in from Chicago... RIP SCOTT SONG and ROGER V. BURTON. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | RealClearLife |
| Angelica Cob-Baehler spent her life making dreams come true. What a beautiful and weighty résumé to take to heaven. | | |
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 | Variety |
| The cable network looks to connect with classic rock and country music fans. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| While her peers were crafting overlong Spotify-gaming releases or blink-and-you-missed-it collections, the rapper delivered an album that never drags, never settles, and never dilutes Cardi’s delirious absurdity. | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| Women dominated NPR Music's list of the best albums of 2018. But the revolution behind the changes in music today is deeper, and more subtle, than the numbers reveal. | | |
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 | Vox |
| Brands like Chrome Hearts and Moschino saw a spike in searches after K-pop stars wore them. | | |
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 | Hackaday |
| For most of human history, musical instruments were strictly mechanical devices. The musician either plucked something, blew into or across something, or banged on something to produce the sounds the occasion called for. All musical instruments, the human voice included, worked by vibrating air more or less directly as a result of these mechanical manipulations. | | |
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 | The Moment with Brian Koppelman |
| Roseanne Cash on knowing yourself through writing. | | |
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 | Engadget |
| Vinyl and streaming music are not competitors, but complimentary formats. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| How Iranian rock musician Emir Mohsseni defied Trump’s travel ban to follow his dreams in New York. | | |
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 | Medium |
| The sequel to last year’s list, now twice as long for the year that felt twice as long. | | |
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| Vox |
| You should give smooth jazz a chance. | | |
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 | Drowned In Sound |
| Here's what we learned at the International Radio Conference. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Two years ago, the Canadian singer abruptly put his career on hold to focus on a family emergency. Now he's back with a new album that emphasizes his core strengths. | | |
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 | Vibe Magazine |
| Producers, songwriters, and executives discuss how they helped Alicia Keys craft 'The Diary of Alicia Keys' on its 15th anniversary. | | |
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| NPR Music |
| Over breakfast biscuits and coffee, the two Nashville artists talk about songwriting, filmmaking and how one medium informs the other. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| “We’ve seen it firsthand,” he says. “Our fans and artists are getting shot” | | |
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 | Forbes |
| U2's recent Joshua Tree Tour-celebrating the 30th anniversary of the album-grossed $316 million, as some 2.7 million fans turned out to make it last year's most lucrative outing. That, along with a new tour and album, helped make the Irishmen the world's highest-paid music act yet again. | | |
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 | Highsnobiety |
| With his label Dreamville, J. Cole is creating his own hip-hop utopia by nurturing an honest atmosphere with artists like J.I.D., Bas, Ari Lennox, and more. | | |
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 | AlterNet |
| Even with the increased variety of Christmas pop songs available, it seems like all the same ones are playing over and over in every single store and on every radio station from the day after Thanksgiving up to New Year’s Eve. | | |
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| AlterNet |
| For some time now, I've been on the lookout for Christmas songs that I can sing entirely happily, without getting into annoying theological debates in my head. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | From "El Mal Querer," yet another album-of-the-year contender. |
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