Chart-toppers: Check out best songs of 2018, so far

Well, we’re just a little more than halfway through 2018 and we’ve already heard our share of great new music, from chart-topping singles by Childish Gambino and Drake to Courtney Barnett.

Here’s a look at the best of the best (so far).

10. Drake, ‘Nice For What’

When the video hit in early April, it had Twitter going wild, thanks to the bevy of A-list celebrities, including Olivia Wilde, Issa Rae, Rashida Jones, Tracee Ellis Ross and Yara Shahidi from “Black-ish,” Tiffany Haddish, Zoe Saldana and Emma Roberts.

But it also feels more like a pop hit than the Drake song it replaced at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, with its New Orleans Bounce music flavor, complete with Big Freedia shouting, and a soulful chorus sampled straight from Lauryn Hill (the melancholy “Ex-Factor”).

“Nice for What” is a female empowerment anthem filtered through the mind of Drake, who to be clear, is not a woman, some of whom may not appreciate him speaking out on their behalf.

But he sounds like means it. And given the wealth of misogynist music being churned out on the daily, how much effort do you really want to put into calling out Drake for coming off as somewhat patronizing in the course of trying to be not just woke but decent?

9. Braids, ‘Collarbones’

Raphaelle Standell-Preston sets the scene for this breathtaking jazz-flavored ballad with “We are so near / Yet so alone / Sitting next to each other looking at our phones / See the screen light my face in this darkened place / Do you think it makes me look pretty when I soften all my lines away? / When I make myself look as far away from real?”

It’s an intimate look at what it means to want to be attractive in the age of selfies.

By the second verse, she’s worried that she did too good a job of looking sexy in that latest photo.

“This pic’s lookin’ better than the real / So when my clothes are off and we’re together / I probably won’t look this way again / And I wonder will you still want me then?”

But Standell-Preston, a masterful lyricist with a voice that oozes soul and raw emotion in the same breath, really hits her stride here on the oft-repeated, increasingly urgent chorus, pleading “Breasts pushed up I’m trying to show you /Breasts pushed up I’m trying to show you / I have collar bones.”

8. Anderson .Paak, ”Til It’s Over’

The first new music .Paak had shared since NXWorries’ “Yes Lawd!” hit the streets in late 2016 turned up in an Apple HomePod advertisement by director Spike Jonze.

And it finds the singer playing to his many strengths – the ambitious yet timeless production, the soulful, expressive delivery, the worldplay.

At one point, he sings, “And don’t all this new music sound the same / Yeah, we must be getting old and gray / We left early, girl / That band was (expletive) anyway.”

It’s an oddly touching portrait of a love that wasn’t meant to last, offsetting lines as direct (and cold) as “You could never be my one and only anyways” with moments that make it clear that he’s invested much more of his heart in this casual affair than that.

“Only one more night in Los Angeles,” he sings. “I really thought that I could handle it / But the funny thing is, I was holding back tears.”

It’s as romantic as a song describing this scenario could hope to be. There’s no hope of a future, but he lets her know that this goodbye will leave a mark.

7. Pusha T, ‘If You Know You Know’

The chorus hook is solid gold – from Pusha T’s delivery, tossing off the title with a shrug, to the pitched-up backingvocal, one of several touches that speak volumes to Kanye West’s continued brilliance as one of the all-time best producers in the game.

The title itself refers to Pusha T’s past as a cocaine dealer and how anyone who’s lived that life will know exactly what he means.

“I talk in cryptic code,” the rapper told Genius. “Some people, it goes right over their heads. A lot of time, I’m in there with Ye, and he’s like, ‘Man, what does that mean?’ And then, to other people in the street, it’s like, ‘Oh my God ... he’s speaking directly to me!’”

Or as he puts it on that oft-repeated chorus, “If you know, you know.”

6. Janelle Monae, ‘PYNK’

Over a minimalist backdrop of finger snaps, digital blips and throbbing bass notes, Monae sets the tone with a vulnerable delivery of “Pink, like the inside of your…, baby,” pulling out of the chorus with “‘Cause boy it’s cool if you got blue / We got the pink.”

It’s a female empowerment anthem that serves as a playfully provocative reminder that no artist feels more ready to assume the mantel of the Prince of Monae’s generation, from those understated verses to the triumphant, guitardriven climax of that chorus hook.

The star explained the meaning of the song in the video’s YouTube description.

“PYNK is the color that unites us all, for pink is the color found in the deepest and darkest nooks and crannies of humans everywhere,” she writes. “PYNK is where the future is born.”

5. Father John Misty, ‘Disappointing Diamonds are the Rarest of Them All’

“Does everybody have greatest story ever told?”

That’s the crux of the argument Josh Tillman appears to be making against the romanticizing of romance, using a string of unflattering images to get at what this thing called love has got him feeling. to

4. Childish Gambino, ‘This is America’

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Donald Glover released this provocative video in the midst of hosting “Saturday Night Live” in May.

And people may still be unpacking the multiple layers of meaning and message while sifting through the nuances of the artist’s most compelling work to date.

On the one hand, it’s a sobering reflection on the homegrown terror of gun violence in the NRA’s America.

But it also touches on the tendency of entertainers to keep dancing through the carnage like there’s not a riot goin’ on – because as Grandma always said, you “need to get your money,” casualties be damned, while the schoolchildren capture it all on their smartphones.

Is music just one more distraction to keep the working class in check?

Or is the dancing the only catharsis they can find in troubled times?

Either way, there’s a very real extent to which the role of art is to reflect the times in which that art has been created.

This was the second single the Australian singer-songwriter shared from “Tell Me How You Really Feel,” her much-anticipated followup to “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit.”

And if this bittersweet rocker doesn’t hit as hard as that first single, “Nameless, Faceless,” musically or lyrically, it doesn’t mean to, either.

It starts with the strum of a single guitar, Barnett showing more vulnerability than usual as she sets the scene with a wistful delivery of “I don’t know a lot about you but you seem to know a lot about me.” There’s a Big Star-like quality to the arrangement, which builds to a slow-burning climax by way of a soaring melodic guitar lead.

2. Kanye West, ‘Ghost Town’

This is the proof of Kanye West’s enduring genius those who choose to weigh his legacy against a MAGA hat are worse off for denying – a soulful reminder of why it’s best to trust the art when the artist is doing his best to make you question your allegiance.

It starts with a sample of Shirley Ann Lee singing “Someday,” a gospel track whose piano gives way to the sound of a church organ as PARTYNEXTDOOR makes his entrance with “Someday, I want to lay down like God did on Sunday.”

Kid Cudi sings the melancholy chorus hook before the spotlight turns to West himself, whose wistful verse begins with “Someday we gon’ set it off” and includes the endearingly selfaware, “Sometimes I take all the shine / Talk like I drank all the wine.”

The strongest, most inspired track on “ye,” it’s impassioned enough to make you fill like Kanye West is still the kid he used to be as well.

1. Janelle Monae, ‘Make Me Feel’

The first taste of “Dirty Computer” was erotic guitar-driven funk that appeared to be channeling Prince in the ‘80s (especially “Kiss”) with just a hint of INXS.

The chorus hook is undeniable, a joyous celebration of “the way you make me feel” with slinky funky guitar underscoring a sexy, near-whispered lead vocal in the upper reaches of her range.

But by the time she gets there, she’s already grabbed you by the collar with her soulful phrasing of the pre-chorus, gliding her way through the line “It’s like I’m powerful with a little bit of tender / An emotional, sexual bender.”

In an interview with the Guardian, Monae said, “It’s a celebratory song. I hope that comes across. That people feel more free, no matter where they are in their lives, that they feel celebrated. Because I’m about women’s empowerment. I’m about agency.

“I’m about being in control of your narrative and your body. That was personal for me to even talk about: to let people know you don’t own or control me and you will not use my image to defame or denounce other women.”