Catch up with the year’s best music and more with The A.V. Club’s Spotify playlists

This year in music was one of little consensus, which made our genre-specific best-albums roundups feel even more essential. Even with eight different lists, there are still artists who fit everywhere and nowhere, music whose horizons dissipate further with each note. As we wrote in our roundup of the 20 best albums, our favorite music of the year was defined by its lack of boundaries, the genreless landscapes that sought human connections.

But that only means so much if you’re not listening along with us, so we’ve been building out a Best Albums Of 2018 playlist on Spotify with each list published. Now you can listen to highlights from every single one of our favorite albums—in metal, punk/hardcore, film soundtracks, country, electronic, hip-hop, pop/R&B, and indie/rock—by following us and our playlists right here.

Headed into the new year, we’ll continue to share our highest new-music recommendations via our A-Sides playlist, updated every Friday with five recent releases that we think are worth your time. We also published one-off lists in 2018 like Women In Rap Now and our guide to the music of Homecoming. In 2019, we’ll have more new Power Hours to dive into, highlighting a genre or artist in one tight, hour-long set (some of this year’s best include an hour of classic rockers grappling with punk and new wave, a primer on K-pop, 60 minutes devoted to De La Soul, and a killer Halloween party playlist).

As ever, thanks for reading, and for listening along.