The 100 Best Songs Of 2018
During a turbulent year rife with personal and political trauma, the most memorable songs pulled no punches in the pursuit of pop. They also arrived from all directions: emerging from longtime partnerships and unlikely collaborations, from fertile local scenes and solitary experiments. In the case of many — including our No. 1 song — they were actually videos, tethered to images we've been unable to shake since. These are the 100 best songs of 2018, as selected by the staff of NPR Music and our partner stations. If you want more of the year's best music, check out our 50 best albums of the year or All Songs Considered's podcast discussion of the year in music.
20.
Courtney Marie Andrews
"May Your Kindness Remain"
Writing a pop hymn is tricky: It's all about grafting a personal viewpoint onto a communal form. Too often, bromides take over. In this majestic gospel throwdown, the young Americana queen Courtney Marie Andrews overcomes sentimentality by balancing clarity of vision with compassion: Witnessing the loneliness of the pleasure-seekers she's met on the road, she keeps her gaze steady until she sees the decency in their hearts. By the time her golden alto unfurls over the song's organ-driven climax, Andrews has taken the listener on the hymn's true journey: inside each person's imperfect heart and back out, reaching out toward others. We need these spiritual moments, now more than ever. —Ann Powers
♫ LISTEN: "May Your Kindness Remain"
19.
Drake
"Nice for What"
Fun Drake is back. This song is a reminder that, for an artist who is famously in his own feelings, Drake is also remarkably skilled at tapping into the perspective of someone else. The subject in this case: women trying to have a good time. "Nice for What" gives a nod to wokeness and tips its hat at empowerment — its refrain is pretty much the song version of flipping off dudes who tell women to smile more. But you don't have to listen much past the first line to know what the song is really about: "Everybody get your motherf****** roll on / I know shorty and she doesn't want no slow song." "Nice for What" is the song you know you will dance to, every one of the thousand times it's played each night, and you will have.
