Everyone in America is exhausted, except for those making the best music. This year, rappers vocalized their introspection in colorful shouts, country singers plumbed the depths of normalcy for cosmic truths and one particularly incensed hardcore punk band seemed to be having more fun than anyone else. Here’s what it sounded like.
1. Serpentwithfeet, “Soil.” Scores of vocalists have tried reshaping the contours of R&B in recent years, but few of them sound like they’ve studied the human voice with the intensity of Josiah Wise, a self-described “post-church boy” from Baltimore who performs as Serpentwithfeet. Sung in shimmering vibrato, his songs do new kinds of emotional work, finding serenity in volatility, locating pleasure in grief — a sort of sonic proof that acceptance is the easiest way to feel something entirely new.
2. Drakeo the Ruler, “Cold Devil.” Technically, this great Los Angeles slang-whisperer dropped his masterpiece in December 2017 — but in the 11 months that followed, no rapper came close to touching it. Drakeo calls this stuff “nervous music,” but he ultimately sounds cool and conspiratorial, overloading his rhymes with insults so effortless and inventive that each song deserves its own glossary.
3. Kacey Musgraves, “Golden Hour.” Remember the motto at the heart of this Texas country singer’s stunning debut album? “Follow your arrow wherever it points.” Now, five years and a few recording sessions later, Musgraves is still walking the walk. On “Golden Hour,” she exposes her brain to the wonders of LSD, the inertia of FOMO and the sparkling utopian mirage of a honky-tonk discoth?que. And she sings about all of it in a sweetened deadpan that softly underscores her message: Quiet your mind and you’ll see mystery all around.