The Bitter Southerner's 30 Best Southern Albums of 2018

After two concept albums and a string of roles in Hollywood blockbusters, one of music’s fiercest visionaries sheds her alter egos and steps out as herself. Buckle up: Human Monáe wields twice the power of any sci-fi character. In this confessional, far-reaching triumph, she dreams of a world in which love wins (“Pynk\") and women of color have agency (“Django Jane”). Featuring guest appearances from Brian Wilson, Grimes, and Pharrell—and bearing the clear influence of Prince, Monae’s late mentor—*Dirty Computer* is as uncompromising and mighty as it is graceful and fun. “I’m the venom and the antidote,” she wails in “I Like That,” a song about embracing these very contradictions. “Take a different type of girl to keep the whole world afloat.”

Lucy Dacus is done thinking small. After her 2016 debut "No Burden" won her unanimous acclaim as one of rock’s most promising new voices, Dacus returns with Historian, a remarkably assured 10-track statement of intent. It finds her unafraid to take on the big questions — the life-or-death reckonings, and the ones that just feel that way. It’s a record full of bracing realizations, tearful declarations and moments of hard-won peace, expressed in lyrics that feel destined for countless yearbook quotes and first tattoos. Dacus and her band recorded the album in Nashville last March, re-teaming with No Burden producer Collin Pastore, and mixed it a few months later with A-list studio wizard John Congleton. The sound they created, with substantial input from multi-instrumentalist and live guitarist Jacob Blizard, is far richer and fuller than the debut — an outward flowering of dynamic, living, breathing rock and roll. Dacus’ remarkable sense of melody and composition are the driving force throughout, giving Historian the immersive feel of an album made by an artist in full command of her powers. The year leading up to "Historian," with its electoral disasters and other assorted heartbreaks, has been a rough one for many of us, Dacus included. She found solace in crafting a thoughtful narrative arc, writing a concept album about cautious optimism in the face of adversity, with thematic links between songs that reveal themselves on repeat listens. “It starts out dark and ends hopeful, but it gets darker in between; it goes to the deepest, darkest, place and then breaks,” she explains. “What I’m trying to say throughout the album is that hope survives, even in the face of the worst stuff.”

*“Excited for you to sit back and experience *Golden Hour* in a whole new, sonically revolutionized way,” Kacey Musgraves tells Apple Music. “You’re going to hear how I wanted you to hear it in my head. Every layer. Every nuance. Surrounding you.”* Since emerging in 2013 as a slyly progressive lyricist, Kacey Musgraves has slipped radical ideas into traditional arrangements palatable enough for Nashville\'s old guard and prudently changed country music\'s narrative. On *Golden Hour*, she continues to broaden the genre\'s horizons by deftly incorporating unfamiliar sounds—Bee Gees-inspired disco flourish (“High Horse”), pulsating drums, and synth-pop shimmer (“Velvet Elvis”)—into songs that could still shine on country radio. Those details are taken to a whole new level in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos. Most endearing, perhaps, is “Oh, What a World,” her free-spirited ode to the magic of humankind that was written in the glow of an acid trip. It’s all so graceful and low-key that even the toughest country purists will find themselves swaying along.

The expansive American experience Lonnie Holley quilts together across his astounding new album, MITH, is both multitudinous and finely detailed. Holley’s self-taught piano improvisations and stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach have only gained purpose and power since he introduced the musical side of his art in 2012 with Just Before Music, followed by 2013’s Keeping a Record of It. But whereas his previous material seemed to dwell in the Eternal-Internal, MITH lives very much in our world — the one of concrete and tears; of dirt and blood; of injustice and hope. Across these songs, in an impressionistic poetry all his own, Holley touches on Black Lives Matter (“I’m a Suspect”), Standing Rock (“Copying the Rock”) and contemporary American politics (“I Woke Up in a Fucked-Up America”). A storyteller of the highest order, he commands a personal and universal mythology in his songs of which few songwriters are capable — names like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joanna Newsom and Gil Scott-Heron come to mind. MITH was recorded over five years in locations such as Porto, Portugal; Cottage Grove, Oregon; New York City and Holley’s adopted hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. These 10 songs feature contributions from fellow cosmic musician Laraaji, jazz duo Nelson Patton, visionary producer Richard Swift, saxophonist Sam Gendel and producer/musician Shahzad Ismaily.

In the age of overnight virality, JID’s about craftsmanship and good old-fashioned hard work; on *DiCaprio 2*, it pays off—and then some. On his second album, the East Atlanta native raps circles around just about everybody (including his label boss, J. Cole, who impressively stepped his game up on his “Off Deez” verse) in a dense, breathless drawl that’s bound to draw comparisons to a down-South Kendrick Lamar. The guy’s got bars for days—check “Slick Talk,” a clinic in double-time wordplay that careens from fourth-grade memories to absurdist *Maury* impressions. But he knows how to set a mood, too, recruiting some of 2018’s best producers (Kenny Beats, ChaseTheMoney) and occasionally veering into slick, upbeat R&B. Partial credit is due to the late Mac Miller, who helped post-produce and arrange nearly every song before his tragic death; but it’s JID’s masterful rapping that makes *DiCaprio 2* great.

After almost three decades in action, the level of energy Superchunk maintains here initially seems preternatural. But once you realize the songs were written in a flurry of angry, cathartic creativity right after the 2016 presidential election, the level of passionate punk-pop fury on display is a little more explicable. And when Mac and the gang sink their teeth into deceptively buoyant-sounding songs like the title track or \"I Got Cut,\" with explosive guitars and earworm hooks in abundance, their outrage and artistry collide with gutsy glory.

You can do a lot of living in 70-plus years, and fortunately, country-folk great John Prine has been documenting what he sees for over 50 of them. The album title is redolent of its mood, approaching the twilight years with a sense of wonder and humor. “Knocking on Your Screen Door” counts the blessings of being humble, and “Caravan of Fools” is a not-so-disguised jab at political incompetence. His well-sharpened wit cuts deep across these 10 songs. “Crazy Bone” reminds us all to stay weird, and “When I Get to Heaven” describes a rollicking afterlife after-party: “I’m gonna get a guitar and start a rock ‘n’ roll band/Check into a swell hotel/Ain’t the afterlife grand?”

The breezy jangle of “Get Away,” the opening track off Belle Adair’s striking new album, Tuscumbia, might not be the first thing you’d expect to hear from an Alabama band named after a John Steinbeck reference. Combining mellow, atmospheric rock and swirling, retro power-pop, it’s more Big Star than Swampers, but it’s an ideal gateway into the blissed-out world of Belle Adair, a group that manages to make even worry and isolation sound inviting. Recorded at Muscle Shoals’ legendary FAME Studios with Wilco producer/engineer Tom Schick, Tuscumbia calls to mind everything from The Byrds to Teenage Fanclub as frontman Matthew Green’s meditative lyrics navigate a slew of major life changes, contemplate the meaning of home, and grapple with the realities of life on the road. While it’s been nearly five years since Belle Adair released their innovative, adventurous debut album, ‘The Brave and the Blue,’ it’s hardly been a quiet time for the group. “First I got invited to join Dylan LeBlanc’s band,” says Green, “so I quit my day job and went on the road with him. When I got home, Belle Adair was asked to back ‘Alabama’s Leaning Man,’ Donnie Fritts. He’s a Muscle Shoals legend, so that was a huge honor for us. And then I heard that [The Civil Wars’] John Paul White was going on tour and that he wanted Belle Adair as his band, so I went right back out on the road with the guys for another year-and-a-half straight after that.” It’s little wonder that a group as dynamic and versatile as Belle Adair is as much of a hit with fellow songwriters as they are with critics. NPR praised the band’s “dreamy sound,” while SPIN said their music “glows with a deep, dusky aura,” and Uncut compared them to “Wilco, when the roots were still showing, with flashes of The Byrds and a note of country sadness.” Despite the group’s hectic schedule performing with others, they still managed to find time for gigs of their own, including opening slots with The Alabama Shakes (Belle Adair’s touring keyboardist, Ben Tanner, also tours and records with that group), festival performances from SXSW to CMJ, and multiple appearances at the annual Billy Reid Shindig. Belle Adair has always been a group that prides itself on the strength and magnetism of its live performances, and Tuscumbia is no exception. The band recorded everything live as a group over the course of a week, soaking up the vibes in FAME as they laid down tracks in the same studio where Aretha Franklin cut “I Never Loved A Man” and Wilson Pickett sang “Mustang Sally.” “The difference between the last record and this one is the difference between having a band and being in a band,” Green explains. “On the last record, I was just sitting there with my acoustic guitar and not even thinking about how the songs might be recorded, but this time I was really able to write to the strengths of the other guys.” Titled after the Alabama town where Green lived while he wrote much of the album, Tuscumbia is rich with multi-part harmonies and chiming guitars, offering hints at times of southern California country and even vintage Britpop. Equal parts exuberant and introspective, the songs coast on lighter-than-air melodies, but Green has never been one to shy away from the weighty task of critical self-examination. On “Long Fade Out,” he concludes that “love is such a lonely notion,” while “See It Through” finds him putting in the work to overcome his own perceived shortcomings, and “Neptune City” conjures up visions of a seaside town shuttered for the winter as Green asks, “How was I supposed to let you in?” “The album asks a lot of questions without really attempting to answer them,” explains Green. “That was a conscious decision. I met my future wife in Tuscumbia and I was preparing to get married when I wrote these songs, so I think I was working through the fear and anxiety and, God forbid, happiness, that came with it,” he laughs. “Posing these questions was my way of processing all the changes I was going through.” Elsewhere on the record, Green wrestles with the disconnect of being so far from home and living perpetually in transit. “Try as you might to see / What you need in me / I’m the absentee,” he confesses on “The Absentee,” while the driving “Phantom Beach” finds him trying to reach out across the distance before he disappears entirely, and “Pushing the Stone” envisions touring as an endless, Sisyphean journey that begins again as soon as it ends. “It always takes time when you get back home to feel normal,” says Green, “but as soon as you feel normal, it’s time to leave again. It can be hard to feel balanced because you can’t always just hop right back into life, and these songs deal with trying to navigate through that with someone else and be honest about the process.” Honesty is at the heart of everything Belle Adair does, and Tuscumbia is no exception. Both grand and intimate, far-reaching and deeply personal, the album marks a massive leap forward, a definitive declaration of identity from a band that’s ready to step to the front of the stage and buck tradition in search of their own personal truths. It’s the sound of new chapters, of late night calls home, of coming back to the place where it all began. It’s the modern sound of Tuscumbia. “We’re not necessarily a band you might associate with Alabama just by listening to our music,” says Green, “but the one thing that I’ve always taken away from the older generation of studio musicians around here is that you can be from a place like Muscle Shoals and you can do your own thing on your own terms. They proved that, with the right alchemy and the right group of people, you can do anything.”

Despite his presence at the forefront of South Florida’s lo-fi rap explosion—due in part to his meme-generating “Ultimate” single—Denzel Curry remains one of his state’s more under-heralded talents. Not unlike his standout *Planet Shrooms/32 Zel* project, *TA13OO* indulges the MC’s continuously shifting moods, this time separated into three acts Curry calls “Light,” “Gray,” and “Dark.” “I was in a dark space when I was working on the dark part,” he told Beats 1 host Zane Lowe. “I was trynna work on the light part when I was working toward my happiness.” The result—from the balmy funk of the Light act’s “CASH MANIAC” (featuring a standout chorus from newcomer Nyyjerya) to the lyrical pummeling of “BLACK METAL TERRORIST”—is an album that highlights Curry\'s uncanny ability to match mosh-pit-inciting energy with complex and flowery bars.

Clean presents Sophie Allison as a singular artist, wise beyond her years, with an emotional authenticity all her own. “It feels like my first real record,” says Allison. “It’s my first real statement.” It’s an emotional album, heavy on themes of growth, isolation, and change, but balanced by a lightness of touch, and with hooks to spare. Clean is a true step forward, a mature, powerful album from an artist just coming into her power.

Motivated by the words of a teacher who thought her dreams of making music were too fanciful, Ashley McBryde titled her debut album *Girl Going Nowhere*. Suggesting quite the opposite, the Arkansas singer/songwriter brings a rock edge to classic country, sharing the hard-won wisdom of a decade of singing in bars. Breakthrough track “A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega” is a tribute to the uplifting power of music in tough times, but occasionally the assured swagger in her voice gives way to vulnerability and reflection, most stirringly on “Andy,” a tale of enduring love.

Benton County Relic is Cedric Burnside’s debut record for Single Lock. It was honored with a nomination for “Best Traditional Blues Album” at the 61st GRAMMY Awards. It was Cedric’s second nomination and Single Lock’s first. “Cedric Burnside carries the mantle — the joy and the burdens and the history of the North Mississippi hill country blues, a style like no other in Southern music.” - The Bitter Southerner Grammy-nominated Blues musician Cedric Burnside remembers his roots— NPR Weekend Edition “The Big Bad Burnside Sound is back… and how!”- MOJO “If you’re tired of typical I-IV-V fare, Cedric just might be your man, and Benton County Relic might be the tonic you’ve been wanting.” - Premier Guitar

With Crushed Coins, Caleb Caudle returns with his unique and genuine method of songwriting, which Paste Magazine has compared to Jason Isbell. The album features a handful of skilled musicians and artists in their own right, including Joshua Hedley, Erin Rae, noted electric guitarist Megan McCormick, pedal steel player Brett Resnick, and bassist Kevin Black. And while the album was made with the intent of escaping a specific genre, Caleb Caudle manages to be universally relatable with a mix of empathetic lyrics and a pristine blend of varying sounds. If you’re looking to revive your tastes with something fresh, but also like that warm feeling of musical nostalgia, look no further than Crushed Coins.

Released in 2018, J. Cole’s fifth studio album came together in just two weeks, after Cole shared the stage with fellow voice-of-a-generation rapper Kendrick Lamar during his *DAMN.* tour, and decided he was ready for another anthemic body of work. The result, *KOD*, is riddled with social messages and symbolism, starting with the title itself, which is an acronym for many things: Kids on Drugs, Kill our Demons, and King Overdosed. The colorful album art, meanwhile, displays children taking pills, snorting cocaine, smoking weed, and sipping lean (when you look closer, the children can be seen morphing into morbid figures, under the cloak of a jewel-encrusted king). The lyrics on *KOD* are even more provocative, and find Cole leaning inward, unpacking his own traumas, demons, and vices, warning about unhealthy dependencies to materialism and drugs. On “Once an Addict,” the platinum-selling rapper uses his mother’s story to ruminate on the intergenerational effects of alcoholism, while “Kevin’s Heart” finds him using comedian Kevin Hart’s publicized infidelities as a vehicle to discuss Cole’s own internal struggles with monogamy. These are weighty topics. But listeners didn’t mind: *KOD* not only topped the album charts, it broke numerous streaming records on its first day of release.