NPR Best Music of the Year: “The best songs from the first half of 2018 serve many functions. Some reveal pain, others relieve it. Some guide us forward through the darkness, others eradicate it like a firework. Here are 35 favorites that put in work for us, each one the personal choice of one person at NPR Music or one of our partner stations around the country. (If you’re into playlists, there’s one here.) We didn’t vote or haggle; we each reached into our hearts and picked what nestled closest. As one of these songs puts it in less printable fashion, we didn’t really care too much if no one else liked it. Well, maybe we care a little — here’s hoping you find a new favorite, too.”