The Best Songs of 2018

With no pretense of being exhaustive, and without trying to fully represent the editorial staff's rankings either, we thought we'd let you listen to the playlists that best capture each of our own personal ”musical year”. The songs that stood out within a particular genre, the signature songs of the year's breakout artists or of the old reliables who delivered once again – or, more simply, the songs that meant something to us as we listened to them.

Tommaso Benelli

According to the predictions made by Baustelle, we've still got five thousand five hundred and ten years to wait before slow music comes back in fashion. In the meantime, 2018 saw the rekindling of flamenco, and the credit goes entirely to Spain's Rosalía. I've placed her "Pienso En Tu Mirá" in the middle of a messy, colourful playlist that opens on a 1970s Naples dancefloor with Nu Guinea and closes on the vibrant electro-pop frequencies of the latest 1975. In between, plenty of guitars, mostly on the mellow side. Honourable mention for my song of the year: "Privilege", by The Weeknd.

Gabriele Benzing

And as a new year dawns, the voice of Will Oldham whispers in your ear, intimate and bare as on the tracks of "Songs Of Love And Horror". One of the most precious things about 2018, incidentally: old songs sung as if for the first time. Love and horror, what else is there? But we were talking about that voice. The voice of a prophet out of time, as in the eschatological monologue in "A Ghost Story". It speaks of a time when music has become disembodied from any physical format, but not from experience. "I still love that certain degree of commitment and relationship that a record implies." He said something along those lines a couple of months ago, in a long GQ interview: that music is something that has to occupy a space, that needs a place set aside for it. On your shelves, on your hard drive, in your life. Will Oldham's bearded face appeared to me in a dream, and his wish for 2019 went something like this: it doesn't matter whether it's on a turntable or in a playlist, what matters is never stopping giving a song the space to connect with the truest part of you.

Paolo Ciro

In the thirty tracks that dominated my listening in 2018, a clear infatuation with punk/post-punk drift emerges. Alongside "One Rizla" by Shame, which more broadly seems to contain within itself every seed of English rock from the past three decades, there's room for anthems such as "Disarray" by Preoccupations, "Danny Nedelko" by IDLES, "Preach To The Converted" by Cabbage or "Hurrah" by Iceage. And yet, the real wild card this year came from Low, whose latest album gave me "Always Trying To Work it Out", chosen for its ability to draw a shaft of light out of dark matter. My affectionate passion for electronic music, meanwhile, is summed up in the contributions of old and new stars alike, from Aphex Twin ("MT1 t29r2" was one of the highlights of C2C 2018), to Nicholas Jaar's Against All Logic project, DJ Koze (here joined by Róisín Murphy) and Skee Mask. Last but not least, the Italians: the freshness of the debut by Nu Guinea ("Parev' ajere" is a worthy representative of a Neapolitan tradition that knows no obstacles) and the splendid confirmations of Calibro 35 and Riccardo Sinigallia. Minds we should thank for never having done a runner.

Giuliano Delli Paoli

In the year that saw the definitive explosion of genres like trap and the far less accessible deconstructed club, that wonder of the past known as soul music keeps on mutating and disguising itself in a thousand ways. The songs that struck me most in a chaotic 2018 do in fact have a soul approach, as in the case of the little-known Vicktor Taiwò and young MorMor. Erotic and seductive is the collaboration between Dita Von Teese and Sebastien Tellier, while Lana Del Rey and James Blake once again prove themselves to be in a league of their own. And to think that neither of them released an album in 2018, only a handful of singles. Worth noting down: the magnificent debut of Brazil's Clau Aniz.

Claudio Fabretti

From the dark enchantment of the captivating Anna von Hausswolff on "Dead Magic" to the noir-pop of Girls Names and Beach House, from the prodigious partnership between Sallskapet and Andrea Schroeder to the experimental electronics of Beak>, Tim Hecker and Jean-Michel Jarre, from the sublime songwriting of Paul Weller to the poignant melodrama of Suede, from the trip-hop of Neneh Cherry to the Italian surprise of Nu Guinea and the brilliant groupie parody of Maisie: my 2018 in music is, as usual, an omnivorous melting pot of disparate sounds. A year dense with listening, revelations, rediscoveries.

Stefano Fiori

I decided to open and close my playlist with two anachronistic, cinematic power-ballads (courtesy of Anna Calvi and Suede), leaving in between a series of tracks that differ widely in genre, language and geographical origin, but are decidedly more current in sound. From the pop of Troye Sivan to the trap of a renewed Lykke Li, and from the R&B of Kendrick Lamar to the trip-hop of Neneh Cherry, all the tracks that defined my 2018 the most seem united by a nocturnal, melancholic mood, vaguely reminiscent of the early '90s.

Fabio Guastalla

Vassilios Karagiannis

With no pretension of completeness, a selection of 36 tracks representative of my 2018, spanning electronic music, pop, singer-songwriter fare and more, with a small closing section devoted to k-pop and its surroundings — which, all things considered, is the field I explored most over the past 365 days.

Claudio Lancia

This year, the first part of my playlist comes across as elegantly "pop": from the sunset-dream of Beach House to the "alternative" sheen of Courtney Barnett, from the orchestral flourishes of Suede to the retro crooning of Arctic Monkeys. Then the sound turns rawer with the guitars of Shame and Cloud Nothings, and mutates into psych drift courtesy of Ty Segall and Oh Sees. Closing out the Top Ten are the electro architectures of Suuns and the wondrous deconstructions of Low. Ten more tracks that I loved and wore out throughout 2018 follow as my bonus tracks. Enjoy the listen…

Alessandro Mattedi

Maria Teresa Soldani

Massimiliano Speri

From an abrupt awakening in a wasteland to restorative sleep among lunar oceans, then back on our feet with new energy and hope. In between: tracheotomies, bells, queens, tires and many other protagonists of this year's bountiful harvest. The criterion? Beautiful, powerful songs in a narrative continuum: in come the impactful singles from modest albums, out go the less immediate tracks from excellent records. The result? An emotional rollercoaster guaranteed to leave you dizzy.

Damiano Pandolfini

A year of introspection and wide-eyed looks toward a better future, of memories and submerged emotions that need the most impalpable, dramatic sonics to find the right expression – ranging from the vibrant voice of Nakhane to the tireless energy of Dawn Richard (here tackling a string quartet), the romantic chamber-soul of Anaïs and the gothic queer-baroque fantasies of serpentwithfeet. A special mention goes to the alien Sevdaliza, an otherworldly Goddess who turns the vocoder into organic matter, and to the unfathomable soundscape of Tirzah – the latter the star of the most moving concert I attended this year. Endless thanks also to the divine Kelela, who alongside Girl Unit marked the summer with an unexpectedly elegant, sexy tropical track.

Valerio D’Onofrio

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09/11/2025