2018 Roundup

Well, 2018 was a pretty fantastic year all around. Per tradition, I've put together a list of the major things that happened this year (with some pictures), and then the real reason you all read this post—my lists of top albums, books, movies, and other media.

Major Events

I started off the year with a concert by Walk the Moon, which was fantastic. I caught a few other great shows during the year: PVRIS, Lights, Silverstein, Tonight Alive, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Walk the Moon (again), Misterwives, Fall Out Boy, Screaming Orphans (three shows during the Irish Festival), Simple Plan, Punchline, Company of Thieves—and, notably, the Vans Warped Tour, where I saw a bunch of fantastic bands on their last cross-country tour.

Sarah and I went to a handful of great museums and events: the Undressed exhibit at the Frick Museum here in Pittsburgh; the Carnegie Museum of Natural History; the Met, Wicked, and a billion other sites and events in NYC; and Evermore in Utah.

We had family come visit on a couple occasions: Miranda and Gabbie came for about a week, and shortly thereafter Sarah's parents came to hang out with us for four or five days as well.

I turned 28, which is weird. Sarah made me a peanut butter chocolate cake bigger than my head, and we went to the local indie theater to watch The Matrix. Pretty solid celebration.

Our car died and we bought a new one. Sad but necessary, and also nice to have a newer car that handles really nicely.

We took some amazing trips this year: Cedar Point (best rollercoasters), New York City (best sushi/ramen/art/culture/shows/fun), Thailand (no words for how much I loved this, and Utah (family, friends, snow, mountains, dogs, and decent Mexican food). Not too bad.

Sarah and I celebrated our third anniversary.

I continued working as a legal writer, studying for my master's in linguistics, and pursuing all of my favorite hobbies: writing (about 110,000 words of fiction, which is pretty decent, all things considered), exercising (weightlifting, swimming, biking, yoga), calligraphy, baking/cooking/cheese-making, reading, watching movies, listening to music and podcasts, exploring places new and old, and having great experiences with family and friends.

It was a fantastic year overall.

Here are some photos.

Hanging out with Miranda and Gabbie at Christmas

I apparently didn't take many photos of family at Christmas, but I did catch this one of my two favorite dogs in the whole world, so it all works out

Going to church in Utah with both the Allreds and the Greers at Christmas was pretty great

Our gift to Mary for Christmas was dinner at the Five Alls in SLC, one of our favorite restaurants; we had a delightful meal and a nice time at Temple Square afterward

Still biking most days to work, even when the river freezes over (it's pretty though)

My first-ever attempt at baking Welsh cakes

When the Allreds came to visit us

When Miranda and Gabbie came to visit us (shortly thereafter we doubled up on bikes to ride in the snow back to our car, which was wild)

Oh yeah, I won a round of HQ Trivia that one time

Traditional Fourth of July feast out back

There are a lot of spooky characters in NYC museums

Wicked was a whole lot of fun in NYC (my fourth time seeing it, but Sarah's first)

Halloween: Batman, Poison Ivy, and a bunch of orange treats

Thailand with the tigers

And now all the lists, which are the real reason you're reading this at all, right?

Music

Top 50 Albums of 2018
These are in rough order: the first 20 are in the order I want them, but after that it got really hard to decide. This year was a particularly great one for music, and I had a really tough time narrowing it down to just these 50.

1. CHVRCHES - Love Is Dead
2. Loreena McKennitt - Lost Souls
3. Temperance - Of Jupiter and Moons
4. Belanova - Viaje Al Centro Del Corazón
5. Visions of Atlantis - The Deep & The Dark
6. Pale Waves - My Mind Makes Noises
7. Stand Atlantic - Skinny Dipping
8. Geowulf - Great Big Blue
9. Katie Herzig - Moment of Bliss
10. Against the Current - Past Lives
11. Fickle Friends - You Are Someone Else
12. Annalisa - Bye Bye
13. Metric - Art of Doubt
14. Al Lewis Band - Pethe Bach Aur
15. The Naked & Famous - Still Hearts
16. LEAH - The Quest
17. The Aces - When My Heart Felt Volcanic
18. Moonbeau - Moonbeau
19. Coheed & Cambria - Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures
20. Now, Now - Saved
21. PassCode - Locus
22. Xiphea - Everland
23. Sleepthief - Mortal Longing
24. Kalidia - The Frozen Throne
25. Glades - To Love You
26. Rosemary & Garlic - Rosemary & Garlic
27. Tales of Evening - A fény nyomában
28. Half Waif - Lavender
29. Sirenia - Arcane Astral Aeons
30. Elvellon - Until Dawn
31. Ice Nine Kills - The Silver Scream
32. Follow the Cipher - Follow the Cipher
33. Season of Ghosts - A Leap of Faith
34. Gåte - Svevn
35. Fall Out Boy - M A  N   I    A
36. Brian Fallon - Sleepwalkers
37. Band-Maid - World Domination
38. Auri - Auri
39. Cross Vein - Gates of Fantasia
40. Story Untold - Waves
41. WagakkiBand - Otonoe (オトノエ)
42. Tiny Deaths - Magic
43. Oh, Weatherly - Lips Like Oxygen
44. Florence + The Machine - High As Hope
45. We the Kings - Six
46. HAERTS - New Compassion
47. BoA - 私このままでいいのかな
48. MAGIC OF LiFE - For You
49. Sumif - Pretty Cage
50. Amaranthe - Helix

Honorable Mentions

It's probably cheating to have a second list that's nearly as long as the first, but I don't care.

1. Northward - Northward
2. Palisades - Erase the Pain
3. Lyria - Immersion
4. My Indigo - My Indigo
5. Tonight Alive - Underworld
6. The Joy Formidable - AAARTH
7. Offa Rex - The Queen of Hearts
8. TWICE - BDZ
9. Phantom Elite - Wasteland
10. If I Were You - Inner Signals
11. Good Charlotte - Generation Rx
12. Beyond the Black - Heart of the Hurricane
13. BoA - Woman
14. Scandal - Honey
15. Lord Huron - Vide Noir
16. Dashboard Confessional - Crooked Shadows
17. Parallels - Metropolis
18. We Were Sharks - Lost Touch
19. The Paper Kites - On the Train Ride Home
20. The Proclaimers - Angry Cyclist
21. Frank Turner - Be More Kind
22. Amy Shark - Love Monster
23. Death Cab for Cutie - Thank You for Today
24. Eleine - Until the End
25. Milestones - Red Lights
26. SLAVES - Beautiful Death
27. Woodes - Golden Hour
28. Secrets - SECRETS
29. blessthefall - Hard Feelings
30. Kamelot - The Shadow Theory
31. Waterparks - Entertainment
32. NINA - Sleepwalking
33. Panic! at the Disco - Pray for the Wicked
34. Belmont - Belmont
35. This Wild Life - Petaluma
36. From Ashes to New - The Future
37. Olivia Chaney - Shelter
38. The Wind and The Wave - Human Beings Let You Down
39. Leaves' Eyes - Sign of the Dragonhead
40. Bridear - Helix

Favorite EPs
I wish there were other types of releases so that I could cheat further. But I guess a total of 105 releases between the three lists is probably sufficient.

1. Pale Waves - All The Things I Never Said
2. Blackbriar - We'd Rather Burn
3. Both - Five Days
4. LPX - Bolt in the Blue
5. The Unlikely Candidates - Danger To Myself
6. ICYMI - Sweet
7. William Ryan Key - Thirteen
8. RiViNi - Resistance
9. The Material - Gray States
10. PassCode - Ray
11. Silent Siren - 19 Summer Note
12. Waxahatchee - Great Thunder
13. Ruelle - Emerge
14. Knox Hamilton - Beach Boy EP
15. Say Lou Lou - Immortelle

Top New Artists

Oh wait, I totally did find a way to cheat some more. This is a list of bands & artists I discovered for the first time this year that I really liked, even if they didn't put out a new release in 2018. It's by no means exhaustive, but it's a good start.

• Secret Rule
• The National Parks
• Tigress
• Meadowlark
• Fickle Friends
• Angel Nation
• Blackbriar
• SAINTE
• Coronatus
• Dark Sarah
• Luna Shadows
• a crowd of rebellion
• DWNTWN
• Pink Feathers
• Oh Wonder
• With Confidence
• She, in the haze
• Vasudeva
• Dayseeker
• Cellar Darlin
• Eir Aoi
• Temperance
• Legenda Aurea
• Pr0files
• The Band Camino
• Smallpools
• PassCode
• Jule Fowlis
• Anavae
• Kitten
• FAIRCHILD
• Ayla Nereo
• TWICE
• Yws Gwynedd
• Niteworks
• Diabulus in Musica
• Metalite
• Forever Starts Today
• Litany
• Waterparks
• Cults
• The Last Sleepless City
• Xiphea
• Niobeth
• Blossom
• Half Waif
• Alia Tempora
• Eidola

Thoughts about the Top 50 Albums
The CHVRCHES album really blew me away and definitely deserves the #1 spot; it's their best work to date: layered, complex, deep, varied, and incredibly catchy. It's synthpop through and through, which is one of my favorite genres (as should be evident from the list). Similar artists in the top-50 list include Belanova, Pale Waves, Katie Herzig, Moonbeau, Geowulf, Against the Current, Fickle Friends, Annalisa, Metric, the Aces, Half Waif, Tiny Deaths, HAERTS, BoA, Sumif, and Now, Now.

Having a new album of original songs from Loreena McKennitt was a nice surprise; I'd recommend that album to anyone who likes folk, Celtic, or so-called "world" music. She's consistently a fantastic songwriter and performer and an artist I would love to see perform live. Similar artists on the list include Al Lewis Band, Sleepthief, Rosemary & Garlic, Auri, WagakkiBand, and Florence + The Machine.

I obviously enjoy symphonic/power/operatic/gothic/whatever metal quite a bit. Temperance's album claimed the highest spot in this genre for being a balanced mix of male and female vocals, heavy guitars and drums, soaring melodies, symphonic elements, and that fantasy/mysticism/je ne sais quoi about the genre that I love. Other recommended bands from the list include Visions of Atlantis, LEAH, Xiphea, Kalidia, Tales of Evening, Sirenia, Elvellon, Follow the Cipher, Season of Ghosts, Gåte, and Amaranthe. (And I guess I'd put Coheed & Cambria in this category: even though they're not the same genre, I like them for the same reasons.)

And who could forget pop-punk/rock music, my first love. Stand Atlantic was my favorite of the bunch, but albums from Fall Out Boy, Brian Fallon, Story Untold, We the Kings, MAGIC OF LiFE, and Oh, Weatherly definitely made their mark as well.

These brief writeups don't cover all of the top 50 (the ones that I didn't touch on were mostly emo/screamo and J-pop, for the record), but I'd recommend giving any of the bands in my lists a listen to see if you might like them.

Movies

Here are my favorite movies that came out in 2018. They're sort of in order.

1. Avengers: Infinity War
2. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
3. Bad Times at the El Royale
4. Annihilation
5. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
6. Aquaman
7. A Quiet Place
8. Searching
9. Ocean's Eight
10. Batman Ninja
11. The Meg
12. Ant Man & The Wasp
13. Black Panther
14. Tomb Raider
15. Isle of Dogs
16. Ready Player One
17. Solo: A Star Wars Story
18. Incredibles 2
19. Game Night
20. Rampage
21. Mary Poppins Returns
22. Robin Hood
23. Ralph Breaks the Internet
24. Mortal Engines
25. Alpha
26. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
27. Crazy Rich Asians
28. Winchester
29. A Wrinkle in Time
30. Anon
31. Venom
32. Bohemian Rhapsody
33. Paul, Apostle of Christ
34. Slender Man
35. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Books

It's hard to do a list of top 2018 books, since I only read a few that were released this year. Instead, this is just a list of books I read this year that I really loved. They're not in any order.

1. Terry Brooks - Bearers of the Black Staff
2. Terry Brooks - The Measure of the Magic
3. Brandon Sanderson - Words of Radiance
4. Brandon Sanderson - Sixth of the Dusk
5. Soji Shimada - The Tokyo Zodiac Murders
6. Jonas Jonasson - The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared
7. Stephen King - Pet Sematary
8. Stephen King - Carrie
9. KV Johansen - The Leopard
10. Frank Portman - King Dork
11. Terry Crews - Manhood
12. Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Chessmen of Mars
13. Jay Kristoff - Nevernight
14. Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology
15. Eleanor Cameron - The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet
16. Brent Weeks - The Black Prism
17. BJ Novak - One More Thing
18. Josiah Bancroft - Senlin Ascends
19. Dan Wells - Mr. Monster
20. Italo Calvino - The Cloven Viscount

Thoughts on Books

If you're looking for great fantasy, I highly recommend Brooks (one of my favorites, and I'm still like seven books behind, which is great), Sanderson (it was great to get to book two in the Stormlight Archive in 2018, and I'm looking forward to reading Oathbringer this year; I included Sixth of the Dusk on this list because I was particularly impressed with the story, though it's very short), Johansen (poetic, bleak, animistic magic systems, compelling characters), Kristoff (content warning, but he's a great writer), Weeks (can't believe it took me so long to read his stuff), and Bancroft (such an interesting world).

As for fantasy-adjacent, I'd recommend Calvino without reservation (as ever, an absurdist fantasy-ish story that reaffirms his place as one of my favorite writers). Jonasson isn't exactly fantasy per se, but well worth the read for pure entertainment; likewise Portman, though a bit of a content warning on that one too. And BJ Novak is surprisingly good at short fiction.

Obviously Stephen King needs no recommendation, but I was particularly chilled by Pet Sematary. In a similar vein, Wells's John Cleaver books continue to be entertaining, and the first English publication of Shimada's debut was thrilling and clever and made me very exciting for the forthcoming translation of his next novel, which is due out just days before my birthday this year.

Comics & Manga

I also enjoyed reading various comic book series this year (notably Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, Silk, Spider-Gwen, Ms. Marvel, Batman, and The Wake) and manga series (notably Kimi ni Todoke, The Ancient Magus' Bride, and The Heroic Legend of Arslan), continuing my time-honored tradition of having way too many books checked out from the library at one time because I have an insatiable desire to read everything everywhere always.

TV Shows

Just a list of TV shows & anime I've enjoyed this year. No numbering because they're not ordered at all.

1. Modern Family
2. Doctor Who
3. The Expanse
4. Colony
5. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
6. Galavant
7. Salvation
8. Game of Thrones
9. Mr. Robot
10. The Ancient Magus' Bride
11. The Good Place
12. K
13. Sword Art Online
14. Britannia
15. Krypton
16. Cloak & Dagger
17. Lost
18. After the Rain
19. The Dragon Prince
20. Jack Ryan
21. Lost Song
22. Miss Sherlock

Podcasts

Again, just some favorite podcasts I've enjoyed on my bike rides to and from work this year.

• Lexicon Valley
• The Allusionist
• Imaginary Worlds
• Lore
• Revisionist History
• Speculative Grammarian
• The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel
• Welsh History Podcast
• The World in Words
• The Tolkien Professor

Final Thoughts

2018 was an incredible year for me. I learned a lot, experienced a lot, enjoyed a lot, and grew a lot. (I also broadened my vocabulary a lot, as you can see a lot throughout this paragraph.) I'm grateful to friends and family who contributed to what a great year it was, and I hope that in turn I've been able to share good times and good friendship with you. I'm really looking forward to (the rest of) 2019, as it promises to be the best year yet.