There was a time, and it wasn’t so very long ago, when the end of year best-of polls in music mags were dominated by a small cast of the usual suspects: big-hitting, high-proff le bands all playing a similar type of music, all signed to a familiar clutch of record labels. Those days are gone. Just a cursory glance at Long Live Vinyl’s Top 100 Albums list for 2018 reveals a wide range of artists (34 of the albums featured here are fronted by women) and musical genres (free jazz, synth-folk, alt-rock, neo-soul, post-punk, Afrobeat and more) – with over 50 diTherent labels represented. It’s been said before, but we’re going to say it again, it’s a golden age for vinyl collectors, with the racks bursting with great stuff. And that’s without touching on the fantastic catalogue of reissued vinyl that has popped off the presses in the last year (see p32). Read on to see how many of the Top 100 Albums of 2018 you’ve got…
THE PANEL
We invited a rogues’ gallery of writers, record shop owners, record label bosses, festival organisers, bands and music PRs to each vote for their Top 20 albums of the year and awarded points accordingly to get our Top 100. Thanks to the following (and several others) for taking part: Banquet Records, Laura Barton, Glen Bushell, Cliffs, Paddy Davis, Tim Dellow, Daniel Dylan Wray, Drift Record Shop, John Earls, Eel Pie Records, Friendly Records, Steve Harnell, Jenna Jones, Jumbo Records, Duncan Jordan, Giacomo Lee, Longwell Records, Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, Chris Parkin, Kate Price, Simon Raymonde, Resident Records, Will Simpson, Spillers Records, Murray Stassen, Simon Taffe, Vinyl Tap, Gary Tipp, Wyndham Wallace, Ben Wardle, Laura Williams, Daniel Dylan Wray and Jonathan Wright