Twenty Records To Get Excited About In 2018
From Florence and Kanye to I Break Horses, Robyn and Tinashe, here are the twenty records we can't wait to get our ears round in 2018.
Tinashe
Title
Joyride
Release Date
TBA
What We Know
"Almost time," Tinashe said yesterday, hinting that the long delay to third record Joyride may finally be over. Back in June she was claiming only a few more months of recording were needed to complete the album - which was actually announced almost two years ago. If the fates are aligned, the record will have dropped by the time you read this. Pray for it.
CHVRCHES
Title
TBC
Release Date
TBC
What We Know
The follow up to Every Open Eye is produced by Greg Kurstin and showcases a more aggressive and vulnerable sound. "[Greg] has done such big pop records, but they’ve always got a bit of saltiness in them," says Lauren Mayberry. "He pushed what we were doing to be bigger in some ways, but he also pushed us to be weirder. He’d be like, ‘If the vocal melodies are as sweet and as precise as this, why don’t we make these other sounds so fucked up and gnarly and strange?’ I loved that. When I listen to the record, I feel like it’s the most pop stuff we’ve done and also the most aggressive and vulnerable at the same time."
"It was about really leaning into those moments - and also wanting there to be a real humanity and character to what we’re saying.”
Drake
Title
TBC
Release Date
TBC
What We Know
At the end of More LIfe, Drake promised, “I’ll be back in 2018 to give you the summary,” and then announced to the crowd at OVO Fest that he was producing the record in hs native Toronto (as well as teasing a future OVOXO collab with The Weeknd). He labelled More Life as a 'playlist' rather than a traditional album and since 2015 he's been experimenting with release schedules and genres. Are we likely to see more collabs with London rappers on the new album? Another featured vocal from Jorja Smith? We fucking hope so.
Selena Gomez
Title
TBC
Release Date
TBC
What We Know
“I think it’s fair to say that people know the year I’ve had. I pour my heart into my music. It wasn't really about charts for me or numbers. It was about what I could creatively do for my music,” Selena Gomez said. “I can successfully say that my inspiration for this next album is in full motion and it will be very soon. It’s exciting to be in a place where I love surprising people and creating new areas of music I can explore..."
I Break Horses
Title
TBC
Release Date
TBC
What We Know
Back in January 2017, I Break Horses shared their first new music since 2014, dropping a rough demo of an untitled track on their Facebook page. Two months later they announced they'd been recording at Mexican Summer's New York studios... but we've heard nothing since. The Swedish duo dropped two records on Bella Union but haven't played a live show since 2015. Is 2018 finally the year they'll return?
Robyn
Title
TBC
Release Date
Fuck knows
What We Know
We’re about to hit eight years since Robyn’s last album but all we got in 2017 from her other than an appearance on a Todd Rundgren track was “Honey”, chosen from a bunch of unreleased tracks she sent Lena Dunham to use in Girls. “It wasn't ready to be released but I finished this version for her and Girls,” Robyn said. Dunham then followed up saying it was part of the tracks on Robyn’s ‘upcoming album’ and that's all we have to go on at this point.
She also teased a vinyl reissue of Body Talk which still hasn’t dropped either.
Half Waif
Title
Lavender
Release Date
TBC
What We Know
Nandi Rose Plunket teased the name of her second long-player as Half Waif back in June. "[The title] is the talisman we hold to heal ourselves and ward the night away,” she explained. Lavender - which follows the EP form/a on Cascine - was recorded over five months after moving to upstate New York: “I am exactly where I’m meant to be... it feels like an album I couldn’t have written before I was this age, and I wouldn’t have made the move up here before I was this age, so it’s a natural harmony of timing and need.”
She describes it as “elegy to time, the pilgrimages we take, and the ultimate slow plod towards aging. It takes place at dusk; its spirit animal is the heron, which I occasionally spied at the pond behind our summer house as the album gained shape. It’s an examination of the way we fracture over time, inside ourselves and inside our relationships - the fissures that creep along the structures we build, the tendency towards disintegration."
Tom Misch
Title
Geography
Release Date
April
What We Know
South London producer Tom Misch remains one of the UK's most prolific under-the-radar collaborators, hooking up with the likes of Loyle Carner, Kaytranada, Carmody, Novelist, Jordan Rakei, and Jaz Karis alongside a Jaden Smith co-sign. Misch teased his (very) long-awaited debut Geography in November with the low-key "Movie", hinting at a record of substance and reflection.
Ariana Grande
Title
TBC
Release Date
TBC
What We Know
Scooter Braun told Variety that the follow-up to 2016’s Dangerous Woman will showcase a more mature sound for Ariana Grade: “It’s time for [her] to sing the songs that define her... Whitney, Mariah, Adele - when they sing, that’s their song. Ariana has big vocal moments; it’s time for her song.”
Nils Frahm
Title
All Melody
Release Date
January
What We Know
Nils Frahm built a brand new studio in Berlin over two years to make his seventh studio album and whispers are that it's going to be a game changer that'll see the German composer reassert his experimentalist credentials.
“In the process of completion, any album not only reveals what it has become but, maybe more importantly, what it hasn't become," Frahm says. "All Melody was imagined to be so many things over time and it has been a whole lot, but never exactly what I planned it to be. I wanted to hear beautiful drums, drums I've never seen or heard before, accompanied by human voices, girls, and boys. They would sing a song from this very world and it would sound like it was from a different space. I heard a synthesiser which sounds like a harmonium playing the All Melody, melting together with a line of a harmonium sounding like a synthesiser. My pipe organ would turn into a drum machine, while my drum machine would sound like an orchestra of breathy flutes. I would turn my piano into my very voice, and any voice into a ringing string."
"The music I hear inside me will never end up on a record, as it seems I can only play it for myself. This record includes what I think sticks out and describes my recent musical discoveries in the best possible way I could imagine.”
Gengahr
Title
Where Wilderness Grows
Release Date
March
What We Know
Gengahr's follow up to A Dream Outside promises to be one of the records of the year, with the band claiming it fulfills "a vision of what the band is now".
"Like a caterpillar entering metamorphosis you know the moment of darkness will be outshone by the transformation," says frontman Felix Bushe. "There were certainly times along the way when frustrations grew and it seemed as if our vision for the album would shatter entirely."
Stefflon Don
Title
TBC
Release Date
Q1 (mixtape), Album TBC
What We Know
There might be an album next year - "I’ve got a lot of great songs," she told NME recently - but we can also expect something before that: "I wanna drop a project early next year, probably like a mixtape or something," she says. "I'm gonna make sure I got a lot of rap on there, cover the rap side. Still have my flavors with my Caribbean things, and my Afro things. I feel like it's still gonna be a mix like my last mixtape, how Real Ting kind of was."
Kanye West
Title
TBC
Release Date
TBC
What We Know
Is there hope for a follow up to The Life Of Pablo in 2018? We know Ye will have his hands pretty full with production, taking on projects with Big Sean, Teyana, Kid Cudi, and CyHi the Prynce. Pusha T confirmed West was working on a new album back as early back as February while two months later TMZ (spuriously) reported that West had gone full-on Bon Iver and retreated to the Wyoming mountains to “find his inspiration”.
In June we saw three unreleased West tracks leak - "Hold Tight" featuring Young Thug & Migos, "Euro Switch Hands" with A$AP Rocky, and a snippet of "Can U Be" - but that’s pretty much all we have to go on with right now. Keep the faith though - West never stops working (says Pusha T).
Florence + The Machine
Title
TBC
Release Date
Before June
What We Know
Three years since How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, Florence + The Machine’s fourth record will explore the “black hole” Florence Welch says she fell into following a split from boyfriend James Nesbitt in 2014. Festival headline slots have already been confirmed for Orange in Warsaw, Poland and Melt! Festival in Ferropolis, Germany so we can assume we’ll be hearing something before the summer hits.
Cardi B
Title
TBC
Release Date
January
What We Know
Cardi B has songs stashed up for her debut album but has acknowledged the pressure of expectation on her. “I wanted to drop next month,” she said back in September. “Every single time I think I got all the 10 songs I’m like, I’m buggin'. These ain’t it. It’s just like, damn I’m competing with myself. I’m competing with the goddamn No. 2 record [on the Billboard Hot 100] and stuff.” She finally confirmed the release date late in November to Capital Xtra, saying, "I have deadline and it will be coming out in January... I have three good songs right now."
The 1975
Title
Music for Cars
Release Date
June
What We Know
The final part of their trilogy of albums, Matty Healy first teased The 1975’s third album back in April, with the title taken from their third EP (and a tribute to Brian Eno’s Music for Airports). "[It's] always been called that," Healy told Zane Lowe, “and we were always gonna do a trilogy of records… I'm not saying that after this album it's the end of the 1975, but it's definitely the end of an era." One track - "jesus christ 2005 god bless america” - has also been hinted at and Healy has pinpointed The Queen Is Dead and OK Computer as benchmarks of the ambition he has for the record.
Jorja Smith
Title
TBC
Release Date
What We Know
Not a lot. We're pretty sure Jorja Smith's debut will see an appearance from Drake but she's been adamant about taking her time with the record, citing the lack of major label pressures and a desire for longevity and development. “I’m going at my own pace. I know what I’m doing," Smith says. We're also promised something relatively downbeat and affecting, in keeping with her output so far.
Interpol
Title
TBC
Release Date
TBC
What We Know
The follow up to 2014's El Pintor looks to be released via Matador sometime in 2018. A new song "Real Life" has already been played at live shows and we're promised “fist in the air arena rock ballads, all the way" for the band's sixth long-player by drummer Sam Fogarino.
The Vaccines
Title
Combat Sports
Release Date
March
What We Know
The UK's foremost meat-and-potatoes indie rock 'n' roll band return after three years with their fourth album. A live version of a new track - the crunchy anthemic "Nightclub" - was previewed as part of a tour teaser video and adds weight to the promise of a return to their roots record about sex and love.
Vampire Weekend
Title
Mitsubishi Macchiato
Release Date
TBC
What We Know
Ezra Koenig has said that the follow up to 2013's Modern Vampires Of The City will feature “quite a cast of characters” but is only "close to being done."
“The last album was kind of like our darker one, like a little more sombre,” he told Zane Lowe on Beats 1. “A lot of death and and kind of sadness. And unfortunately I can’t fully shake that. There’s always going to be an element of that but I liked the name Mitsubishi Macchiato because it reminded me to wake up a little bit too until you know maybe get back to some other vibes. It’s going to be a mix. I want there to be. That last album felt very kind of autumnal, wintry. And I wanted to do something that’s at least has elements of spring time you know because life has to keep going. So you know macchiato wakes you up, Mitsubishis make you happy.”
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