The Best Albums of 2018: Honorable Mentions

Welcome to the second annual Baltimore Music Festival, where we listen to everything and then rank our favorite albums of the year. Just as last year, there are three categories:

Honorable Mention, where the largest number of albums end up, those that were fun, interesting, and definitely good enough to warrant a stream or two;

Runners Up, where seven to ten albums reside (depending on how generous we’re feeling), those that were excellent and of high enough quality to land on your shelves as physical copies, or at least purchased from iTunes/AmazonMusic/GooglePlay;

Albums of the Year, the top three albums, those that are truly transcendent, the ones you’ll be reminiscing about while your grandchildren won’t stop playing whatever passes for popular music in 2048.

Shall we begin?

Honorable Mentions listed alphabetically

Against All Logic

2012-2017

Electronic : Listen

Arctic Monkeys

Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

Lounge pop : Listen

Beach House

7

Dream pop : Listen

Blood Orange

Negro Swan

R&B : Listen

Brockhampton

Iridescence

Hip hop : Listen

Car Seat Headrest

Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)

Indie rock : Listen

Cardi B

Invasion of Privacy

Hip hop : Listen

Christine and the Queens

Chris

Pop : Listen

Denzel Curry

TA13OO

Hip hop : Listen

Lucy Dacus

Historian

Indie rock : Listen

Daughters

You Won't Get What You Want

Noise rock : Listen

Deafheaven

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Blackgaze : Listen

Death Grips

Year of the Snitch

Industrial hip hop : Listen

Gorillaz

The Now Now

New wave : Listen

Ariana Grande

Sweetener

Pop : Listen

Julia Holter

Aviary

Like...nightmares? : Listen

Hop Along

Bark Your Head Off, Dog

Indie rock : Listen

Jon Hopkins

Singularity

Electronic : Listen

Iceage

Beyondless

Post-punk : Listen

JPEGMAFIA

Veteran

Experimental hip hop : Listen

Kids See Ghosts

Kids See Ghosts

Hip hop : Listen

Let's Eat Grandma

I'm All Ears

Avant-pop : Listen

Paul McCartney

Egypt Station

Rock : Listen

MGMT

Little Dark Age

Synth-pop : Listen

Mount Eerie

Now Only

Indie folk : Listen

Nine Inch Nails

Bad Witch

Industrial rock : Listen

Noname

Room 25

Jazz rap : Listen

A Place to Bury Strangers

Pinned

Shoegaze : Listen

Preoccupations

New Material

Post-punk : Listen

Protomartyr

Consolation EP

Post-punk : Listen

Jeff Rosenstock

POST-

Punk rock : Listen

Travis Scott

Astroworld

Hip hop : Listen

Screaming Females

All at Once

Alternative rock : Listen

Ty Segall

Freedom's Goblin

Psychedelic rock : Listen

Shame

Songs of Praise

Post-punk : Listen

Sleep

The Sciences

Doom metal : Listen

Snail Mail

Lush

Indie rock : Listen

Soccer Mommy

Clean

Indie rock : Listen

Spiritualized

And Nothing Hurt

Art rock : Listen

Vince Staples

FM!

Hip hop : Listen

Earl Sweatshirt

Some Rap Songs

Hip hop : Listen

Tropical Fuck Storm

A Laughing Death in Meatspace

Alternative rock : Listen

U.S. Girls

In a Poem Unlimited

Art pop : Listen

Kali Uchis

Isolation

Reggaeton : Listen

The Voidz

Virtue

New wave : Listen

Anna von Hausswolff

Dead Magic

Experimental rock : Listen

Kanye West

Ye

Hip hop : Listen

Jack White

Boarding House Reach

Blues rock : Listen

Young Fathers

Cocoa Sugar

Alternative hip hop : Listen

Yves Tumor

Safe in the Hands of Love

Experimental pop : Listen

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Stay tuned, readers. The rest of this week, we'll be releasing our Runners Up and Albums of the Year listicles!