| 1 | Within Temptation | "Raise Your Banner" | Resist | Metal has always been fond of defiance as an abstract aesthetic, but I don't think "Resist" is meant abstractly. |
| 2 | Rage Of Light | "Fallen" | single | "Justice on our side" is different from "Run to the hills", |
| 3 | Darkwater | "A New Beginning" | single | and the banner you raise changes what the rest of the crowd signifies, |
| 4 | Sebastien | "Fight for Love" | Behind the World 4 | even when half of it is in the same party clothes |
| 5 | Morlas Memoria | "Stormgiants" | Mine of Pictures | and monster costumes. |
| 6 | LÉON | "You And I" | single | March enough times, and every song becomes an anthem of one of kind of resistance or another, from rueful Swedish dance pop |
| 7 | Billie Eilish | "bury a friend" | single | to breathy morbidity |
| 8 | Betty Who | "I Remember" | single | to sensuous nostalgia. |
| 9 | Tinashe | "Out Tonight" | single | Selective memory |
| 10 | Karine Polwart | "The Mother We Share" | single | is a context weapon |
| 11 | Ann Marr | "Wild Eyes" | single | always and forever. |
| 12 | Downfall Of Gaia | "Of Withering Violet Leaves" | single | We didn't need climate apocalypse to motivate our metaphors, |
| 13 | Astronoid | "I Wish I Was There While the Sun Set" | Astronoid | but we will face our threatened doom the same way we have always faced the darkness: |
| 14 | Der Rote Milan | "Gnosis der Vergänglichkeit" | Moritat | shattering but undaunted, |
| 15 | Afraid of Destiny | "Take Me Home, Death" | S.i.g.h.s | transcendent in disintegration, |
| 16 | Lucy Dacus | "La Vie En Rose" | single | cryptic and alone even in our most yearning love songs. |
| 17 | Le Butcherettes | "dressed/IN A MATTER OF SPEECH" | bi/MENTAL | Music passes over walls, and thus through them; |
| 18 | White Lies | "Never Alone" | FIVE | there are no effective culture bunkers |
| 19 | Thyla | "Only Ever" | What’s On Your Mind 5 | in Heaven or Brighton. |
| 20 | Max Cooper | "Reflex" | One Hundred Billion Sparks | It's a bad sign when democracy feels like your opponents' conspiracy, |
| 21 | IVVVO | "Forever Your Mouth" | single | and even circuitry insists on asking you difficult questions. |
| 22 | Emarosa | "Cautious" | single | The people you think believe in you believe in ecstasy, |
| 23 | Our Last Night | "High Hopes" | single | and that's not what anything feels like in your hands. |
| 24 | The Winter Passing | "Original Sin" | single | Songs are older than wheels. Singing instead of sneering is older than money. |
| 25 | The Moth & The Flame | "Ozymandias" | Ruthless | We stomp and suffuse. |
| 26 | SHE'S | "Clock" | single | Our allies remember what it felt like to walk in Memphis, or Osaka, |
| 27 | ROTTENGRAFFTY | "PLAYBACK - PLAY ALL AROUND JAPAN TOUR 2018 in 日本武道館" | PLAY ALL AROUND JAPAN TOUR 2018 in 日本武道館 | or to surrender at Budokan. |
| 28 | ONE OK ROCK | "Wasted Nights" | single | Yesterday at work I scored all the bands in the world by how obsessively and exclusively their fans listen to only them, and the Japanese rock band ONE OK ROCK was #3, or #2 if you disregard German YA audiobooks. |
| 29 | WANIMA | "アゲイン" | single | It's the global moment for sleek K-pop, and of course BTS are #2 or #1, but if you care, it's also a new epic epoch for J-rock |
| 30 | 桜エビ~ず | "帰れない!" | single | and for Japanese idol groups to be rendered indie in comparison, |
| 31 | Ivy to Fraudulent Game | "Memento Mori" | single | and for remembering guitars and death, |
| 32 | Soen | "Opponent" | Lotus | and how one fights against |
| 33 | Sketch The Sky | "WeaknessStrength" | Switching | the other. |
| 34 | Daima | "On the Shoulders of Giants" | One Step Further, One Step Back 6 | The key thing to understand about giants is that standing on their shoulders is a collaborative venture, not a gesture of dominance you do after knocking them flat. |
| 35 | Eluveitie | "Ategnatos" | single | From the Swiss Alps you can see Celtic Gaul, or close enough. |
| 36 | Boy Harsher | "Come Closer" | Careful | Eventually we'll build something tall enough in Boston that you'll be able to see it from Western Massachusetts, |
| 37 | Starmarie | "YOKAN" | single | and then Japan. |
| 38 | Blood Stain Child | "Del-Sol" | single | It's the same sunlight, after all, |
| 39 | Children Of Bodom | "This Road" | single | whether we claim to come from deep lakes |
| 40 | Mustan Kuun Lapset | "Kohti Valoa" | single | or the moon, |
| 41 | Erik Ekholm | "Unbroken" | Millennial | and anywhere you go, the robots want to dance. |
| 42 | Funambulista | "Valiente y Libre" | El Observatorio | We can pretend their gleaming skin doesn't interest us, |
| 43 | Apartamentos Acapulco | "Regional Preferente" | single | but as we turn away, the shiny heels of our dancing shoes throw off tiny electric arcs, |
| 44 | Airbag | "Eleven y Mike" | single | and machines know what any kind of |
| 45 | NateWantsToBattle | "Sunflower" | single | current is worth. |
| 46 | Tim McGraw | "Thought About You" | Thought About You +1 | Pickup trucks will all be electric soon enough, |
| 47 | Sam Riggs | "Obsessed" | single | and the back roads made of the same new alloys. |
| 48 | Oakland Rain | "Way Back When" | single | The things you think we only understand in small American towns, they understand just fine in Norway. |
| 49 | Cherry Glazerr | "Ohio" | Stuffed & Ready | The bloodbuzz you think you only understand in Irish rain, it is conducted by air and earth. |
| 50 | The Toten Crackhuren Im Kofferraum (TCHIK) | "Wir sind keine Band (Wir sind ne Selbsthilfegruppe)" | bitchlifecrisis | None of these bands are just bands, |
| 51 | HEALTH | "FEEL NOTHING" | single | just like none of this escapism absolves you from responsibility for your realities. |
| 52 | The Moth Gatherer | "The Drone Kingdom" | single | We took your moment and we stretched it out |
| 53 | Mortiis | "The Unravelling Mind" | The Unraveling Mind | until we could see through your translucent skin |
| 54 | Elevation Worship | "Encuéntrame Otra Vez (Here Again)" | single | into the space where you wanted us to think you had some kind of soul. |
| 55 | We Are the Catalyst | "Alone Against the World" | single | Oh, my petulant, terrified, unloved boy, a cyst of self-loathing doesn't count as an organ. |
| 56 | Blankenberge | "Right Now" | Right Now +1 | Blood and bile are not interchangeable fluids. |
| 57 | Bob Mould | "Lost Faith" | single | All these properties and no home? |
| 58 | Marianas Trench | "Only The Lonely Survive" | single | You can fill a hangar with people willing to cheer your bullshit, but you wouldn't last ten minutes in any of their kitchens, |
| 59 | Saltatio Mortis | "Brunhild - Klassik" | single | not least because you wouldn't know what to do in a kitchen except fire cooks. |
| 60 | Fuchsteufelswild | "Nimmerland" | König Zeiger | Too late to start over with children's stories until you understand the simple lessons, |
| 61 | Leize | "Mi Lugar" | Deriva | so that you'll recognize how the complicated lessons later can be simplified if you have morals. |
| 62 | Opera Magna | "La Herida" | Del Amor y Otros Demonios | Too late to do something grand, so you know what that feels like to other, braver people. |
| 63 | Leander Kills | "Sötét Én" | single | Too late to cultivate deliberate malice instead of gnawing ignorance; |
| 64 | Intim Torna Illegál | "Hibátlan" | single | the evil can change their hearts, but flat-earth tyrants are stuck in their own private planes. |
| 65 | Volkor X | "Heart Wired" | single | The merely misguided can repent, |
| 66 | Aephanemer | "The Sovereign" | single | but the warlords of nihil have nowhere else to sit. |
| 67 | The Floor | "Clover" | single | You set them free, and later you find them stuck in one of your hedges, trying to see in a window to find out if the TV is calling it escape or exile. |
| 68 | Jamala | "SOLO" | single | Turn around. The TV isn't even on. They are singing right now in the shadows of our enemies. |
| 69 | Antytila | "Вірила" | single | They are singing right now in the language of your enemies. |
| 70 | All Tvvins | "Build a Bridge" | Build a Bridge +1 | A pop song is explaining, for the millionth time, the simplest things you forgot to learn. |
| 71 | It's for us | "The Closing" | Stay | Taxes won't make us somebody else, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try them. |
| 72 | Nuno | "Perdedor" | Al infierno y de regreso | If they don't work, you'll be glad you didn't build that wall. We can form a caravan for protection from ICE and walk south. |
| 73 | Manse | "The Way Back" | single | It will be warm enough at night, and dark. Look up at something to which you can't temporarily affix your name. |
| 74 | November Lights | "Too Little Too Late" | single | You take the low road, and we'll take the high road, and we'll be in Scotland long before you muster the humility to ask somebody which way to Guatemala. |
| 75 | Bart Graft | "Worlds Apart" | Worlds Apart | But call us when you get there. Other people's music is an opportunity to show them what they would be like with all of their helpless love and none of their practiced curses. And the robots? They forgive us, and still want to dance. |