Aesop Rock and Tobacco, “Malibu Ken” – AR drops more of his hyper-literate, yet easy-flowing narration of life’s mundanities over 100% analog synth beats. I love this album and have listened to it a thousand times, with no sign of tapering off. -h 
Alvvays, “Alvvays” (2014) / “Antisocialities” (2017) – Got into this band in a huge way this year. They are most everything I want in a new-to-me band. Dreamy, catchy, short-song writers, uh… ’90s-sounding? This is what my crush would have put on my mixtape in ’97 if this band had been around back then. And if I had a crush who had made me mixtapes. One day! -CK 
Aspect Deletion, “Isolation” (2008) / “Coercion” (2014) – Ambient-ish music that feels like it was made personally for me; that’s how close it comes to my tastes and interests. I don’t mean to appropriate its brilliance, it’s just that part of my love for it is my feeling of “get out of my head!!” when I hear it. -h 
Baroness, “Gold & Grey” – The mighty Baroness, now with Gina Gleason on lead, casts a wide net that yields a varied and heavy catch. “Borderlines” is my song of the year. They’re one of the best live acts on the road, too. -h 
Brittany Howard, “Jaime” – Howard stands on the shoulders of others, from Sly Stone and Prince to her sister in whose memory the album is named, and carries them forward into her own vision of soul, and truth, and living in 2019. Immediate classic, and I can’t wait to hear what she does next. -h 
Carly Rae Jepsen, “Dedicated” – A slightly different strand of pop than E-MO-TION. More… innocent AND nasty somehow. Still incredibly catchy. The production is a little subtler, too. I mean, it’s still in-your-face, but it isn’t AS bombastic. Although it is very fantastic. (Lord forgive me for what I have done.) This record flirts with me for nearly an hour, and that’s all I want from CRJ. -CK 
Chad & Jeremy, “Yesterday’s Gone” (1964) – I’ve heard “Summer Song,” I love “Summer Song,” everyone’s heard “Summer Song.” It’s extra-white cheese. I think it also may be one of the prettiest songs of all time. It’s 10 pounds of wistful in a three-minute bag. -CK 
DJ Richard, “Grind” (2015) / “Dies Irae Xerox” (2018) – DJ Richard’s minimalist-ish synth music isn’t always dance-able. It’s more about choices and curation, like wandering a sculpture garden. I spent a lot of car time with these records this year; that’s where they seemed to make the most sense. -h 
Everly Brothers, “Cathy’s Clown” (1960) – I’d heard the name of this song 1,000 times in Elliott Smith’s “Waltz 2” before actually hearing it. I finally decided to listen and discovered that I am a huge Everly Brothers fan. WTF. The part where they harmonize over “And I die each time I hear the sound.” Phew. Sign me up to smooch them BOTH. -CK 
Ex Hex, “It’s Real” – Mary Timony and company move out of the garage and in to the ’80s, taking the hooks with them and answering the question “What if Helium and Def Leppard exhanged a few members?” -h 
Hans Zimmer, “Inception: Music From The Motion Picture” (2010) – Spooky horns. Ominous. Perfect for driving at night. The WORST for driving at night, depending on whether you’re alone and whether you’re thinking about the fact that there might be someone on the floor of your backseat just waiting to slice open your Achilles’ BUTT. Also, the music is better than the movie. That movie still seems like all flash and no substance to me. Whatever! -CK 
Heldon, “Electronique Guerilla (Heldon I)” (1974) – A standout from my still-in-progress buy list after reading Jason Heller’s “Strange Stars.” Sounds shockingly similar to Drew’s Night Mode records, as though he’d gone back in time, and I’m 99% sure he’s neither heard Heldon or time-traveled. -h 
howie&scott, “V for Voice” – When I make my year-end list, I first look at my Spotify stats, and this almost eluded me; it was the CD from their release show that I played nonstop. This record is the culmination of everything h&s does well. The songwriting is diverse, the arrangements weird, the lyrics earnest yet not naive, the message both heavy and uplifting. This is near the top for me this year, and I STILL haven’t unearthed it completely. -CK 
Jeff Tweedy, “Warm” (2018) / “Warmer” – After ambling – very productively! – since 2007’s “Sky Blue Sky,” Tweedy picks up the thread and carries it forward both here and on Wilco’s “Ode To Joy.” He’s happy, healthy, and has turned his eye directly and openly on the big questions: death, joy, and the tiny moments that add up to a life. “Warm” is the equal of anything else he’s done (i.e. some of the best records of the last 30 years). -h 
Jon Hopkins, “Singularity” (2018) – Another Howie-told-me. Started listening early this year… well, actually right after reading Howie’s 2018 list last year, and it was EXACTLY what I was looking for. Eerie beautiful electronic soundscapes hinting at universal themes of danger, sex, laundry, NFL strikes, EVERYTHING. This one’s an icy twilight banger. -CK 
Kacey Musgraves, “Golden Hour” (2018) – This record is bizarre. It came it at #1 in Pitchfork’s 2018 list, #1 on Rolling Stone’s 2018 list (I think), and won the Album of the Year Grammy for 2018. Well-deserved, as it’s an amazing record… and yet it’s still just the third-best proper Kacey record! This one’s a little less country and a little more lite rock n’ roll, but you can get past the gloss and relish in the songs like always. -CK 
Laurie Spiegel, “The Expanding Universe” Unseen Worlds reissue (2012) – Beautiful, playful, experimental synth music that only becomes more interesting as I’ve learned about how it was made. Spiegel is a giant and a gem in multiple fields, and while she was an accomplished musician before these recordings were made, they’re what brought her into wider public consciousness. -h 
Lizzo, “Cuz I Love You” – I am just getting to this now. Every time I hear it, I like it more. A week ago, I heard it for the first time without distraction, and I was like “Oh hey EFF who is this? Siri? Alexa? Shazam? KAZAAM? SHAQUILLE?” and once I found out it was Lizzo, I finally understood the hype. Not sure about “Juice” yet but that’s only because I need to hear it a few more times. -CK 
Mitski, “Be the Cowboy” (2018) – On Howie’s list last year [It was not; ??? -Editor], so of course I got way into it this year. Second-to-none songwriting, superb arrangements, funny AND haunting lyrics like a clown cemetery. When the double-vocal comes in during “Why Didn’t You Stop Me?” I lose my MIND. And “Meet Me at Blue Diner,” well, if that doesn’t make you pine for even the exes you didn’t like that all that much, I am not sure what to say. -CK 
Prince, “Originals” – Most artists (Hi!) would kill for records as good as Prince’s *demos,* as this collection demonstrates. This could be your first Prince record or your 100th, and it’s equally enjoyable either way. The estate is headed in the right direction for his legacy (and the wrong one for my wallet). -h 
Pusha T, “Daytona” (2018) – Absurd. Sinister. Scary. Brutal. Caustic. Pusha T is a fucking monster and I would never, ever want to rap-battle with him. Or regular-battle. Maybe a Battle of the Sexes since we’d be on the same side, or a Battle of the Bands if the rules were that you had to play guitar. But that’s IT. If anyone wrote a diss-track about me like the one Push wrote for Drake with “Infrared,” I would change my name and sail away. -CK 
Stephen Malkmus, “Groove Denied” – Malkmus’ post-Pavement output is criminally underrated, and he turns in a concise set of nuggets here. There are a few electronic experiments (which work quite well!) including the lead single, but this is mostly familiar-but-great territory; cantankerous, funny, and charming. -h 
Superdrag, “In The Valley Of Dying Stars” (2000) – When Cory told me Superdrag’s career didn’t end with 1998’s “Head Trip In Every Key,” I was intrigued. When I tracked down ITVODS it blew me away, taking me straight back to the music of my college years with all of the gratification and none of the baggage. -h 
Surfer Blood, “Covers” – I love this whole record, even though you couldn’t have convinced me that we needed another version of “Hey Ya!” floating around. We probably still don’t, but they really bring out the sadness that goes over our heads in the original. Most of all, I love this record because I got to hear songs I already love PLUS it FINALLY helped me get into Liz Phair. “Fuck & Run” is SO. GOOD. And man, is it sad. -CK 
Talk Talk, “Spirit Of Eden” (1988) – On P4k’s rec, I bought this unheard. This recording defies description. It obeys, and defies, the logic of dreams. It is wild; it gives the sense of animals and elements and storms and growing plants. It whispers and screams. By some coincidence it became my soundtrack for driving Kansas Highway 36. -h 
The Sluts, “Break Their Heart” – Lawrence, KS’s local punk-ish, alt-ish guitar-and-drums duo refine their sound with every release, reaching a new concentration of hooks, heaviness, and a kind of knowing, winking meatheadedness on this year’s EP. A must-have for ’90s kids. -h 
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “The Social Network (Soundtrack)” (2010) – Love this for many of the same reasons I love Jon Hopkins, except this one’s a little rowdier and more aggressive (because it’s NIN, even though Atticus didn’t officially join until later, I think). It’s great! Really captures the rage we feel when Mark Zuckerberg helps commit treason. -CK 
Vampire Weekend, “Father of the Bride” – This is a near-perfect album, and by that I mean ~14 of the 18 tracks are transcendent… and the others are bizarre. They’re not even bad, but they disrupt the flow. Make the duets with D-Haim a stand-alone EP, and I’d love both the record and the EP more! And if you took out the pitched “Boy” from “2021,” and the autotune at the end of “Bambina,” even better. I only nit-pick because this is a truly stellar record. -CK
Honorable mention:
Alessandro Cortini, “Volume Massimo”
Craig Finn, “I Need A New War”
Fennesz, “Agora”
J. Robbins, “Un-Becoming”
remst8, “Droneuary” / “Chrysalism v2”
Selvedge, “Don’t Sweat Infinity”
Sunn O))), “Life Metal”
Torche, “Admission”
Varma Cross, “Varma Cross”
Wilco, “Ode to Joy”
Wild Eye, “Mandalas III – VIII” / “Step Into The Temple”
William Basinski, “On Time Out Of Time”
Contenders we still need to check out:
Bon Iver, “i,i”
Sunn O))), “Pyroclasts”
Solange, “When I Get Home”
Thom Yorke, “Anima”