Ye Olde Hit Parade: What a Time to Be Alive

Editor's note: Ye Olde Hit Parade takes a look back at my favorite songs year by year (starting in 1978, when I really started paying attention to music). 

2018: Superchunk - What a Time to Be Alive

All things considered, 2018 was full of some huge stories. The Parkland school shooting in Florida was horrible and shocking, maybe moreso for the fact that these things keep happening and nobody seems to do anything about them. President Trump and Kim Jong Un of North Korea played a really weird game of "He loves me, he loves me not and now we're going to fire nuclear missiles at him." Trump's border policy and the separation of families was brought to horrible light. The confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh brought back memories of Clarence Thomas/Anita Hall way back in '91.

There were some major deaths, including former President George H.W. Bush, Sen. John McCain, Aretha Franklin, Stan Lee, Stephen Hawking, Burt Reynolds, Anthony Bourdain, Stan Mikita and Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks.

I did a lot more traveling this year than in the previous several. In February, I flew up to Toronto to go to a Maple Leafs game with my cousin and hang with his family. It was so much fun I did it again a year later. Right around that time, I was named editor of a magazine my company publishes and part of the job involves attending conferences a few times a year. I hadn't traveled for work since 2012, which was fine, but it was cool to get out of the office and travel a bit. I went to Minneapolis in June, Nashville in October and Orlando in December (although I went down a few days early with the family to hit Disney and Universal). In addition, we drove to Toronto in June to visit family and some colleges for Hannah, then made a similar trip in November to Montreal to do some more college visits.


This was an invigorating year for the rock music. I mean, I always find a lot to like in every year (as you can see from this series), but there was a lot of really cool shit released in '018. This included hot rekkids from the likes of IDLES, Fucked Up, Courtney Barnett, Albert Hammond Jr.., Parquet Courts, Sloan, Jeff Rosenstock, Ovlov, Bodega, Ty Segall (with multiple releases once again), Kurt Vile, Buffalo Tom, The Breeders and Hot Snakes.

Concerts I attended included the Posies, Judas Priest, Superchunk/Swearin', Buffalo Tom, Sloan, Fu Manchu, Quiet Slang (in Minneapolis), Neil Young, George Clinton and P-Funk, Ex Hex and Courtney Barnett.




The band that really captured the tenor of the year, both on record and in concert, was Superchunk. Written in direct response to the 2016 presidential election, What a Time to Be Alive found Mac McCaughan and compadres raging against the dying of our democracy. The title track aptly sums up the band's anger: "The scum, the shame, the fucking lies/Oh what a time to be alive." Sounding like a band half its age, Superchunk raced through the album like it hasn't since its '90s heyday. But its vitriol was converted into exciting catharsis; the band's show at the Sinclair was frenetic, pissed off and awesome.

Honorable mentions: Parquet Courts - "Wide Awake"; The Breeders - "Wait in the Car"; Jeff Rosenstock - "All This Useless Energy"; Albert Hammond Jr. - "Far Away Truths"; Superchunk - "Break the Glass"; Screaming Females - "I'll Make You Sorry"; Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - "Mainland"; Buffalo Tom - "Lonely, Fast and Deep"; Dream Wife - "Hey!"; The Spook School - "Bad Year"; Camp Cope - "The Opener"; Painted Doll - "Hidden Hand"; Fu Manchu - "Don't Panic"; Judas Priest - "Lightning Strike"; David Byrne - "Everybody's Coming to My House"; The Hold Steady - "Eureka"; Speedy Ortiz - "Buck Me Off"; Moaning - "Don't Go"; Sloan - "Spin Our Wheels"; Ty Segall - "She"; Wye Oak - "The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs"; Preoccupations - "Disarray"; Hot Snakes - "I Need a Doctor"; Jo Passed - "Millennial Trash Blues"; IDLES - "Colossus"; Slaves - "Chokehold"; Jim James - "Just a Fool"; Courtney Barnett - "Nameless, Faceless"; Neko Case - "Hell-On"; Jeff Tweedy - "I Know What It's Like"; Tony Molina - "Look Inside Your Mind"; Savak - "Silhouettes"; Rick Rude - "Firewater"; Stove - "Stiff Bones"; Fucked Up - "Raise Your Voice Joyce"; The Beths - "Future Me Hates Me"; Oh Sees - "Abysmal Urn"; J. Mascis - "See You at the Movies"; Kurt Vile - "Loading Zones"; Bruno Mars feat. Cardi B - "Finesse"; Kendrick Lamar and SZA - "All the Stars"; The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar - "Pray for Me"