This year again I reviewed thousands of videos to produce a year end list with a notable difference from prior years. The selections are all acoustic/ unplugged. But without further comment, here is the main countdown list, in order from good to great, featuring 30 of the best unplugged sessions of the year 2018.

As in previous years, I looked for studio or live sessions of an artist in performance. Official Videos with non-performance content are not eligible for my list. The idea is to create a playlist that can be watched as a continuous concert. This year I’ve limited the list to “unplugged” sessions in order to provide a more homogeneous audio experience. There are other reasons that I prefer an acoustic/ unplugged format, but I won’t belabour the point. Suffice to say that if you like acoustic music, and want to view the artist in performance, then this is your list.

My main purpose in creating this list each year, is so that I can view my favourite songs on my big screen played through my stereo. I’ve found so many other people enjoy the list as well, that I now publish it on my blog. (Note: if you have Apple TV or Roku attached to a home theatre set up, you can find all my lists by searching for “Artsfols” in your youtube app.)

Just a couple of viewing notes. Every year some viewers get stranded because they think they need to click on something onscreen. Best is to ignore the promotions in the outro’s on first viewing. Don’t click, just wait a bit for the next video. There’s also the usual ‘youtube’ skip buttons, and video selector (that’s the three bars in the top left corner) which can be useful. But don’t skip, give the song a try!

In my next post, I’m going to add some notes on the songs, and I’ll modify that post as things come up. A link to that post is provided just below. Feel free to contact me in the Comments section.

Link to notes on Unplugged Sessions – 2018

This year I’ve also created an extended list of unplugged sessions, all good stuff, especially useful as background music while working or entertaining. The extended list includes the top 30 PLUS 40 to 50 more songs. All sessions, all unplugged. It’s not in any particular order as youtube sorting is impossible to work with. The list does begin with a moving tribute to Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries. Here is that list.

 Finally, there’s a mish-mash of stuff that I ran across in reviewing videos for the list. This year my Out-takes list includes quite a lot of good material I could not use because of the acoustic/ unplugged restriction.