Well, rest assured, kindly ten people who may read this, if you want to know what kind of awesome music I, your humble writer, was listening to this past year, then you have come to the right place. Welcome to the Best Albums of 2013!!!!!!
Technical Side Note: After each album is an embedded Spotify player with a song from the album. It is awesome to play the songs in here, but I find it works best if you open Spotify. Do it, right now, open Spotify on your computer. Did you open Spotify? Ok, good, now hit the refresh button on this page. Right up there, where ever it is on your browser. Did you do that? Good, now all those will play for you. And all you have to do is hit play on the little player here on the page and it'll play thru your Spotify, and if you hit play on another song, the first one will stop and the second will play. It's really cool. So, you know, embrace the future, enjoy the songs.
19) Rhye - Woman
This LA based duo's debut album features the most beautiful earthy vocals you will ever hear come from a woman's mouth....Wait what? Nu-uh, you are kidding me, are you sure, you're not just yanking my chain?...H'mm apparently the singer of this group is a gentleman by the name of Mike Milosh. Literally, even though I have known this band to be led by a male singer, it is still hard to believe. The band is also smart, in that every video of themselves they release is in the dark or doesn't feature the band, so you can't tell. But anyways, take a listen for yourself on album standout The Fall
Last year, Ms. Rose made it all the way to Number Eight on this honorable list with her amazingly catchy Interstellar, and she earns a spot on the list for the second year with follow up, Herein Wild. It is almost as catchy as the former, most songs starting with a Canadian pop sensibility before slowly devolving into swirls of repeated melodies and drum beats, before you start to actually feel as if you are drifting off into an outer space occupied by only yourself, an angel, a piano, a string orchestra, and a billion twinkling stars, nothing tethering you to the real world, content as can be.
I've never been a big fan of Paramore, in fact, when I bought Rock Band 2 the summer after I graduated from college, it had That's What You Get on it, and I had no clue of any of the words. Fail. However, their new album with their new line-up is quite exquisite. It mostly reminds me of the simple pop-punk led bands from my junior high years, a musical desire I seem to be running through again. If you can manage to get past how ridiculous Haley Williams' bangs constantly are, then give this album a listen to, and then finally get up the nerve to ask that girl to the Eight Grade Graduation Dance. Do it! She'll probably say 'yes'!
Before I start writing any kind of write-up of this album, let me just start by letting you know, that the first track on Holy Fire, Prelude, is the most energizing thing I have ever heard. It starts super slow and quiet, repeating the same set of chords over and over, and then the drums come in and slowly it starts to build up and up until everything stops, then it turns into some all fuzzed out guitar! and then everything comes back in again, and it is some kind of music ecstasy. Anyway, after that, the album has its ups and downs, it never quite lives up to previous albums, but since it is Foals, a standard proggy/poppy third album is still better than most other stuff out there. I obviously had to link Prelude below since I spent half of the paragraph writing about it, but also check out My Number. (Turn it up real loud)
Fuck Buttons sound like Heavy Metal-Electronica. This duo creates landscapes of sound, and then just continues adding and adding until you no longer really understand what is going on, but it still sounds good. The Red Wing, starts off with a bouncing, electronic beat, and then adds fuzz guitars, then adds a siren reminiscent of whale calls, which ebbs and flows through the seven and a half minute song. There are only seven tracks on this album and that is because each one is an epic journey. I like to think that the Future-Vikings will listen to this before they electro-pillage.
Brief Interlude:I just wanted to take time here to recognize that every album after this point could have been anywhere on this list, which is to say that it got really tough to rank after this point because every album from here out is really, really good, and really close to each other as to how much I listened to and enjoyed them this year. While I spent about four or five months with no internet this year, and thus my list is only nineteen albums long, the albums that I did find turned out to be gems, and frankly, reader, if you'll allow me to be frank with you, that is, you should download and listen to every album for the time forward. Just being perfectly frank with you.
14) Slowness - For Those Who Wish to See the Glass Half Full
I don't know anything about this band, I don't know how I heard of them, or why their album was on my computer. So I started listening and I started doing some research. The first descriptor I saw of this band was "Drone Pop" which, once I had listened to more than seven seconds of this album, I completely understood. The record never loses its pace, it's even and steady, never ramping up, but never slowing down either. Calm and Dispel is a lovely little pop masterpiece, sounding like Real Estate at their chillest, while album closer Walls of Blue have them living on the same block as Pinback, maybe stealing their mail or something.
The debut album of this brother DJ duo, is simply pure dance music. I think their success at home in the UK, is a tribute to one of the benefits of living in a country with a tiny, tiny population. The UK constantly has progressive bands topping their charts, and this is most likely due to the fact that since their population is so small, a band can get popular enough underground to get a following that can swing sales in a way that could never happen in the US anymore. ANYWAY, this album is dance to the bone, with a side of dance. It reminds me of a more upbeat Zero 7. Check it! Also, these guys are going to be playing at Lincoln Park Zoo this summer, I don't know why. It kind of blows my mind.
DJ Rashad is from Chicago, excuse me, DJ Rashad is the pinnacle of Chicago's footwork scene. He went on tour with Chance the Rapper this year, he makes at least two mixtapes a year, and this year he has finally created an album that I can listen to every single song. His penchant for using difficult sounds to create his minimalist beats can sometimes yield inconsistent results, but all fours tracks on this EP are amazing, the title track sampling a conversation between Tupac and Omar Epps from the film Juice, and Everybody taking the one spoken line introing the song "Cuz I know somewhere deep down in my heart, I still Love you" and slicing it to pieces and creating a beat out of it. But the thing that really ties all these songs together is that the background beats always evolve into something warm and cut through the awkwardness of the staccato samples. The entire EP is over in less than fourteen minutes, but it's really a quality over quantity kind of deal.
Toro Y Moi (aka Chaz Bundick)'s last two releases made it on my 2011 list, including the number one spot for Underneath the Pine, so obviously I maintain fairly high standards for my favorite descendent of the fabled (and somewhat maligned) Chillwave school of music. And the dude's tunes consistently deliver, filled with synthesizers and melting beats, it flows like a giant lego ark, making its way through some sort of tundra ocean, obviously also made of legos. One time, I was at a club, and they played a Toro Y Moi song, something that never happens, and I pretty much lost my shit, like a 19 year old female freshman who sees her best friend for the first time since they both left to go to seperate colleges and now are about to have their first college drinking experience together and one of them has a new piercing...that's what it was like. So, hey clubs, play this stuff more. I know you are reading this, clubs, I know you, you read this.
The Field (aka Axel Wellner) makes repetitive electronic music. This can become boring for some, heck the majority of two of his four albums, I can generally live without. But I cherish his first From Here We Go Sublime, and Cupid's Head is certainly a return to that form. The album is only six songs long, but each one is pretty much flawless. Sure he has been know to hold on one sample for a long time, but every time that happens on this album, it is a pleasing sample, not grating, and it is actually worth the sheer amount of attention he gives it. A Guided Tour sounds just like it's name, like a tour through heaven, guided by your angel, you know the one. Maybe there's some heaven tennis going on. It's hard to explain, you kind of have to just listen to it. It's right down there, just hit that play button, you'll get it.
A) I was not a huge fan of Born This Way, I loved The Fame, but in general Born This Way was not my thing. B) I do not understand the general negative response this album has gotten from the press. Just wanted to start with that because Artpop is full of electronically charged, sexy dance songs. With a bunch of the album produced by Zedd and Madeon, there is alot of funky electronic stuff going on. EDM fans should be intrigued because this is right up their alley. That alley with the cigarettes and the enlarged pupils and the collared shirts. Sexxx Dreams is about having sex dreams about her female friend, Mary Jane Holland is about her persona who loves weed. I can't believe this album is only number nine, this year is stacked to the max. To the diggety-max!
I love Justin Timberlake, I will just go ahead and put that out there right now. He continues to make amazing pop music, and he continues to be interested in extensive interludes at the end of all of his songs, and guess what? I love the interludes at the end of all of his songs. It really just works out perfectly for me with this one. You got some Timbaland on here, I mean, I don't really know what I can say about this album that you don't already know, it's Justin Timberlake, he's kind of the most famous person in the freaking world! I especially enjoy Don't Hold the Wall and Tunnel Vision both of which feature Tim pretty heavily. So just, go on, get over your hater mindsets, and like this album because it's really good. Not to mention the fact that the most popular song off this album, Mirrors, is actually a really great song, the only problem is that the radio edit cuts off the last four minutes of the song, which coincidentally is the best part of the track. Um, who edited that radio edit? What were they thinking? Don't you think radio would play an eight minute song if it was by Justin Timberlake?!?
So, would you say, as a listener of music, that you like Radiohead? You do? Awesome! Then you will like this album; Atoms for Peace is the super-group-side-project of Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, and includes Nigel Godrich (producer of many Radiohead albums, not to mention Beck's classic Sea Change), Flea (RHCP, you know this guy), Joey Waronker (frequent drummer for Beck and drummer for R.E.M. for a period) and Mauro Refosco (touring percussionist for RHCP). This album is like a more subdued Radiohead album, all synths leading the way, despite most of those synth sounds being created in non synthesizer fashion. Even though the sound is mostly cold, and mostly simple, it does maintain the sound of a couple of guys jamming in a studio, and that produces a lot of substance that Thom Yorke's (still pretty darn decent) solo album didn't excel at. It especially helps that he has constructed a band of guys who are willing to simplify their craft for the better of the song, on Reverse Running this is particularly evident, with Waronker playing a staggered very slow drum beat, and the guitar moving at a snail's pace along with it, really creating the sound of a song created on a computer but being played by an entire band. This has been one of my favorites to listen to while reading on the bus all year.
The debut album from this British band is easily the best Rock album that came out this year. Led by singer Jehnny Beth (who stretches her accent in a way that her voice sometimes resembles Rush's Geddy Lee), Savages finds the right balance between loud and quiet, fast and slow, and just the right amount of lingering feedback making its way from one bridge to the next, creating a constant tone of angst and aggression. The fact that this album exists but the radio keeps playing Imagine Dragons, it just kind of makes me question the "rock and roll" our country decides to give fame and success to. Anyway, all tangents aside, the guitars continuously fuzz in and out through the entire album, and really this band is this year's Post Punk standout.
You think I would have learned my lesson by now, every time I doubt someone from Odd Future, they prove me wrong, hardcore; first The Internet, then Frank Ocean, and now Earl Sweatshirt. After his mom sent him to a boarding school in Samoa, the former Odd Future troublemaker came back to America focused, with a new attitude towards his craft, and that sure seems to have worked out pretty well for his musical output. Sweatshirt's production (under pseudonym randomblackdude) seeps throughout the album, even on tracks that are actually produced by other artists, like Burgundy, the short second track produced by the Neptunes, or Molasses produced by RZA. One of my favorite things about this near flawless album is that Sweatshirt has made a point of dismissing his former boorish attitude towards demeaning and objectifying women in his teenager rapping years. There are literally zero demeaning things said about women by Sweatshirt on this album, which is a refreshing change of pace in the realm of rap. Also, the album never gets old, it's really good, like get with it.
Additional Interlude: Time To Go Get a Drink or Snack
Now that we have gotten down to the Final Four, things are getting really tough. I don't know who should be One, who should be Four, and don't even get me started on Two and Three, those guys are a freaking mystery to me. Once again, it seems that the only solution is that I must channel my Spirit Guide, and ask it to lead me to the correct answer.......Hmm, last time I channeled my Spirit Guide, he came in the form of a white tiger, it was pretty badass, this visit's Bumblebee form kind of pales in comparison. Anyway, me and him, we chatted about it, then we talked about the Bulls a little bit, and the merits of coloring in crayon versus colored pencil. It was some riveting stuff, lessons were learned, you guys really missed out on a great experience, but then he had to split, other guide stuff to do, I'm obviously not the only person he guides. So I bid him on his way, and now I am ready to do this! Let's Go!
This is the best Pop album of the year. I don't want to hear any bullshit about Beyonce, give me a break, (Cough) Fake Pregnancy! (Cough). Sky Ferreira is so emotionally raw throughout the entire record, exposed in a way that only the cover of this album could properly express. Ferreira's past model days really shine through in the slinky sexual junkie videos for singles You're Not The One and the title track, which adds a different element to the poppy soundscape on her songs. Her soft vocals allow for an undertone of vulnerability that lend credence to the lyrics, which is something that every pop song should do, and she nails it. Also, for Christmas, my mom accidentally bought me the B-Sides to this album, and I now I have five more tracks. Really, all around, amazing album, I wish she wasn't opening for Miley Cyrus, so I could actually afford to go see her live.
There is nobody as consistent as The Hood Internet. Every mixtape they release is either good or genius, and luckily, this year they were kind enough to grace us with an official mixtape: The Mixtape Volume Seven (which was good) and a summer time mixtape Trillwave 3 (which is genius) and which makes this list at position number three. I don't know how these guys do it, but they just have an ear for the perfect combination of whatever indie song and rap song they are going to make a new track out of. A perfect example of this is Fall The Time, which uses the piano from Rhye's The Fall and the sped up vocals and raps of Jeremih's Fuck You All the Time. It's a perfect combo and they knew to speed it up, and I can't really express how perfect every track is. And even better, you can download this entire mixtape for free here, or you can just listen to it there, it only comes as one big track, but listen, just download it, put it on a cd, put it in your car, and just listen to it once, and then when you are listening to it seven hundred times, go to their website and check out all the other free stuff over there. These guys are amazing, and need to blow up in a big way.
(The track posted below is in dedication to Nate Dogg, RIP homie, I miss your dulcet tones all over my chilled out rap songs)
Well, if anyone knows me, they know I love me some Kanye. And, luckily for me, he keeps making amazing albums and justifying whatever other stuff he wants to do in the rest of his life, thus making both Kanye and Jeremy happy. I'm pretty comfortable with that whole scenario, and it keeps working out, even when he releases an album like Yeezus, which contains abrasive electronics, deep bass beats, screaming, slave songs, songs about being a slave, songs about being a god (he means you are a god, listener, not him, pay attention), songs about having sex, stuff bout racism, drinking, cray cray samples, and of course, Bound 2. And also it's an amazing electronic album, the samples and production are absolutely amazing, Daft Punk partially produced the first two tracks, Rick Rubin messed with it a bunch. There is nothing out there that sounds like this album, but that's what we all said when My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy came out, and then everything started sounding like it. Kanye is constantly at the forefront of whatever trend hip hop and rap music is going. The guitars in the back of Hold My Liquor add urgency to a slowly rapped song, and then everything explodes. I love you, Kanye, please keep doing what you are doing.
Best Album of the Year honors go to Canadian electronic duo Blue Hawaii! Their album Untogether has been on my iPhone the entire year, it has never left my rotation, and I still love every track. Best described as light electronic, it simply bubbles and blips around, while singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston sings beautifully over the simplicity. The album is the perfect little masterpiece, working as a whole like a beautiful lullaby, singing me into a cloudy paradise filled with harp playing angels, a tiny orchestra of piano players, and heavenly singers floating along side me, as I ascend to the promise land. Did you follow that? This album is the Promise Land! That's right! That's how much I like it. Even right now, when I am writing this, I have turned on this album, and I keep drifting off into it. The pair In Two and In Two II are filled with pogoing beats that are anchored down by the otherworldly lead singer. Blue Hawaii, you have created a perfect album!
2013 OUT!!!!!
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