Sir, November

There’s a lot of nice, tasteful R&B out there—listen to Sir’s first album or pair of 2017 EPs for great examples. So what elevates November from the morass? A lot, really: It’s weirder, earthier, with sharper hooks, the sort of album that casts Schoolboy Q as a bluesy barroom confidante and turns Auto-Tune into an agent of leering, catcalling menace. Also, it’s a concept album about a sentient spaceship. November never stops surprising or delighting, at once focused and freaky. [Clayton Purdom]

SOPHIE, Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides

Sophie’s earliest singles, from 2013, were little pop blasts from a shattered mirror dimension, everything hyper-real and polished to eerie, spotless perfection, with Sophie’s voice just one more material to stretch and tweak and pluck. But she begins her long-awaited debut LP with “It’s Okay To Cry,” her voice center stage, unmodified and unvarnished. Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides places the artist’s most clattering, dissonant impulses on a spectrum with more kaleidoscopic, gut-punch balladry, creating a series of “products” that are as concerned with our insides as they are our, well, un-insides. [Clayton Purdom]

Kali Uchis, Isolation

After several increasingly refined short releases and growing support from high-profile collaborators, Kali Uchis’ full-length debut was sure to be good, but Isolation surpassed even its own high expectations by seamlessly fusing Uchis’ retro influences (the smoke-ring bossa nova of “Body Language,” the ’90s hip-hop rhythms throughout) to progressive R&B and Latin pop (“Miami,” “Nuestro Planeta”). True to its title, Isolation sets Kali Uchis in a class of her own. [Kelsey J. Waite]

U.S. Girls, In A Poem Unlimited

The latest studio album from musician Meghan Remy under her U.S. Girls moniker is a bold and engaging pairing of provocative politics with catchy dance-pop grooves, beginning in ’70s soul-funk and ending in a Talking Heads-esque jam, with an assemblage of art-pop way stations in between. Horns, synths, guitars, and presumably a kitchen sink are employed to craft this smart and nearly flawless collection, which may not be a concept album proper but often feels like one in its fierce intelligence and thematic resonance. [Alex McLevy]

Honorable mentions

The 1975, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships
No one tries harder than The 1975, here wedging together (deep breath) anthemic arena rock, Auto-Tuned synth-pop, woozy live-band R&B, police brutality, gospel outros, information overload, streaming pornography, a Siri cameo, and a whole lot more. Just go along for the ride. [Clayton Purdom]

Christine And The Queens, Chris
On second LP Chris, Héloïse Letissier introduces a more fluid expression of her studied, funk-driven synth-pop, out-hustling (and especially out-dancing) most of the competition—and doing so in two languages. [Kelsey J. Waite]

Georgia Anne Muldrow, Overload
Overload celebrates a bold and all-encompassing love with a masterful blend of deep funk, jazz, soul, and hip-hop only Georgia Anne Muldrow could conjure. [Kelsey J. Waite]

Rhye, Blood
Five years after the immaculate Woman, Rhye’s Blood sounds like patience, smelting Sade and quiet-storm jazz into a handful of pristine art-object slow-burners. [Clayton Purdom]

Troye Sivan, Bloom
Hot, dark, and compulsively tuneful, Bloom’s the sort of all-killer-no-filler audiophile pop you used to have to be named Jackson to make. [Clayton Purdom]

Listen to selections from these albums and more picks from 2018 on our Spotify playlist.

 
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