Here's Our Big Playlist of the Best British Songs of 2018

What an absurdly good year it’s been for UK artists. Usually, around this time, lots of publications focus on the albums that have defined the year – after all, we did it just a couple of weeks ago. But when you look at the ridiculously high calibre of music that’s come out of the UK in 2018, a fair whack of it has been in the form of singles or one-off loosies. Sure, we’ve had legacy acts put our big albums. Most of the newer ones who we’ve been keeping an eye on over the past year or so have been taking their time, though, dropping tracks here and there and rushing around on tour. Remember, kids; albums don’t really make money anymore. The internet sort of did away with that pretty quickly.

So we’re looking back on some of the sick music that’s come out of the UK and Ireland this year. You may remember that in June, we ran through a list of the top five UK tracks of the year, at that midpoint. Rather than a big old list of words for you to read, we’ve put them all in a big old playlist, so you can enjoy dip in and out of it wherever you might be between now and those first few crippling weeks in January. There’s plenty to dig into: Tirzah’s melancholy knack for a love song; AJ Tracey stunting; Dream Wife rattling the bones in your head with their guitars; teen Kelora’s ridiculously smooth vocal; Murkage Dave making sense of the everyday. So have a go at it, on Spotify below.

You can find Noisey on Twitter.