The 50 Greatest Songs of 2018, Compiled by Martin Canine

Length: 4:47
Album: Take 2

The year's most majestic music moment comes from a French woman who gained most of her international recognition as an actress. After starring in the artful Lars von Trier masterpieces "Antichrist," "Melancholia," and "Nymphomaniac," Charlotte Gainsbourg made a name for herself in European film circles as an ideal cast for complex, philosophical roles. But just like her famous father Serge - one of the biggest music geniuses himself - she is also a respectable songwriter.

While most of the attention and praise of her 5-track EP Take 2 was dedicated to an almost unrecognizable cover of Kanye West's "Runaway," it's "Lost Lenore" that marks 2018's most enchanting five minutes of song. From the sinister strings to the triumphant brass, the mysterious harpsichords, and, of course, Gainsbourg's dreamy, delicate vocals, the tune is just one gigantic trip into a mix of glory, darkness, intimate tenderness, and ultimately sheer epicness.

The instrumental is heavy and cinematic, while the vocals are soft and delicate. This gives the song a sound so enchanting, so fantastique, that you can't escape the twisted, elegant fairy tale Gainsbourg puts you in.

Length: 3:46
Album: (upcoming 2019 album)

The radical switch from upbeat, cheerful choirs to the extreme darkness of the tribal beats makes the morbid nature of the topic audible. Several parts of the song may be perfect fuel for a dance party to get your body moving - that is until the sinister tone violently rips you out of it.

This is exactly the point: Childish Gambino baits you into territory you feel comfortable in just to confront you with the issue of racially motivated brutality and systemic discrimination. It's a problem often heard but rarely addressed. The chorus represents what we want to hear. The verses, what we need to hear.

Sure, you can look at the beautiful paintings on the walls while the elephant in the room tramples everyone to death, then heads straight for you and your family.

Length: 3:37
Album: A Star Is Born

If "Shallow," one of the year's biggest pop songs and part of the soundtrack of A Star Is Born, doesn't get the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2019, the Academy is out of their minds. A few years ago, Lady Gaga departed from being Madonna's heir to the pop empire and instead became the female American Elton John of today - a role which suits her equally well.

"Shallow," a song about overcoming times when you feel horrible and everything seems lost, is the year's most inspirational music moment. Like "Rolling in the Deep" and "Take Me To Church" before it, it's a reminder that in order to have a song blockbuster in the 2010s, you don't necessarily need to be danceable.

For the most part, "Shallow" consists of an acoustic guitar, piano, and the voices of Gaga and Cooper, who star as a singer-songwriter and a country star in the film - before it all climaxes in an explosion of emotions.

Length: 4:02
Album: Liberation

She's back. She really is. The arguably best female pop singer alive returns with music that complements her vocal talent, unlike her previous dance-pop lacklusters of the 2010s.

"Twice" stands out as a minimalistic yet epic piano ballad, made grand solely through her powerful voice, which flawlessly presents the expressive melody and lyrics. And for a moment, just a very brief moment in the beginning, you can hear a bit of that "Is this the real life?" spirit hidden between the lines.

It's almost operatic, despite its outstandingly sparse orchestration: only a piano.

Length: 3:16
Album: Here Come The Aliens

Kim Wilde brings the new wave of the 1980s back into our modern times as if not a single day has passed. The powerful synth-punk chorus and vivid guitar solo of "Kandy Krush" warp us back to her heyday, right alongside her great hits such as "Kids in America," "Chequered Love," or "You Keep Me Hangin' On."

The same youthful energy, the same sense for earworms. Its greatest achievement is not sounding like an intentional nostalgic throwback, but rather feeling as natural as if she had found lost tapes that would have been the follow-up to her Select album.

Length: 4:04
Album: Dirty Computer

There's a bit of progressive rock hidden in Janelle Monáe's impressive vision of RnB and funk - just a bit. But the amount of it is enough to make "So Afraid" feel rich and atmospheric, while at the same time fragile like glass.

Guitars and keyboards intertwine with Monáe's soulful vocals as she sings about her fear of giving in to love and everything that could possibly go wrong. The song feels alive with her often depressing descriptions of her surroundings, feeding her angst. She sings how she's "fine in her shell," but… is she?

This is one of those songs where the melody tells just as much as the lyrics.

Length: 10:08
Album: Mythos

For years, Bushido's astounding career, which ultimately led him to become the most successful German rapper of all time, was dominated by ties to the criminal Abou Chaker Clan, particularly Arafat Abou Chaker, who always portrayed himself as his best friend. In early 2018, Bushido and the clan parted ways, and the rapper presented his side of the story.

In his 10-minute epic, he tells the story of a young aspiring artist in need and Mephisto, the devil figure of the Dr. Faustus tale. Mephisto helped him become insanely successful but claimed his share of wealth and fame and forced his control and influence upon him. When the artist met a girl and became more interested in raising a family, Mephisto showed his true face by spreading lies and misery.

It is a story of greed, a rise to stardom, a false debt, and a complicated love relationship. Many called it a diss track, but it's a personal, autobiographical epic poem.

Length: 6:08
Album: Dead Magic

Out of the Swedish singer-songwriter's newest album, "The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra" is the most approachable song (which isn't too hard to be honest. There are only four others, but two of them last 12 and 16 minutes, respectively).

A sinister, eerie epic, the tune thrives on a mix of gloomy, low-pitched folk instrumentation and von Hausswolff's extremely expressive, haunting, tormented vocal delivery. "Who is she? Who is she, who is she, who is she? To say goodbye?" she desperately yells at us, and we feel her anguish.

Length: 9:37
Album: Norman F--king Rockwell (upcoming 2019 album)

Lana Del Rey was never a pop star. She has always been an indie rock songwriter, a late flower-power queen, a brilliant psychedelic artist who just happened to somehow enter the territory of mainstream success. And with her 2018 single "Venice B---h," an early preview of her forthcoming album, she fully departed from any form of crowd-pleasers - not that she ever purposely made those.

Clocking in at over 9 and a half minutes, the epic ballad is reminiscent of the greatest works by the greatest of '60s music artists. If it was released alongside songs by The Beatles or The Doors, we would now widely consider this to be one of the all-time classic songs ever made. Atmospheric, trippy, and imbued with a welcome sense of old-fashioned experimentalism, the sheer hypnotic nature of the highly aesthetic piece makes you sink into the dreamy world of music Del Rey invites you to, making you completely forget your sense of time.

Length: 2:44
Album: Skins

While the posthumous Skins was a blatant cash grab featuring a bunch of sketches in the earliest stages that barely even counted as a full album, "train food" was the one yet unreleased pearl hidden in XXXTentacion's legacy.

Retrospectively eerie and prophetic, the minimalist storytelling song, supported mainly by a few dark piano tones and background noise but no drums, deals with the protagonist's encounter with death personified and his attempts to escape him.

Length: 5:05
Album: Masters of the Sun, Vol. 1

After 8 years, the Black Eyed Peas are back - without Fergie, but with an anonymous new singer. The lyrics are as good as in their beginnings, and the production is as awesome as on Elephunk and Monkey Business.

"Yes or No," based around a tense, score-like loop of a piano and occasionally a flute, reminds you that your role in life is ultimately your decision. Whether you choose to be left or right, whether you decide to take a stand or pick something in the middle, whether you heal or harm, whether you take something or make it yourself - and of course, whether and when you say Yes or No.

Length: 3:51
Album: Y.A.L.A.

After Cro dropped tru. in 2017, the rapper and producer duo Genetikk were the second big names in German hip hop to actually dare explore the more experimental soundscapes that Kanye West already established in the U.S. at the beginning of the decade.

Based around a sample of the legendary singer and actress Marlene Dietrich, "Marlene" merges crude and graphic sexual imagery with nightmarish scenes to create a somehow still extremely poetic and almost sentimental number about toxic love.

With all its talk of bitten-off heads and intact lower body parts, it's still ultimately a melancholic and emotional tune.