If it seems like an overwhelming
amount of great music was released in 2013, that's because there was.
Maybe even too much good music, if that's even possible. That's why we
need "Best Of" lists. In the information technology age, there's so much
data to process on a daily basis, that a fatigue sets in easily. This
goes double for music. Well, Track Genius is here for the people.
Through a lot of debating with my friends and colleagues, I've selected
what I believe are the 30 best albums of the year, and a lot of other
albums that were excellent in their own right.
If
it wasn't already obvious. this is my personal ordering of the years
best albums. What I listened to the most, what I loved listening to,
what innovated, what shook our pre-conceived notions of how music was
structured, what it sounded like, and even how we listened to it. Even
if something wasn't on the best of list, it's probably in the Honorable
Mentions section, and every album in this post is worth a listen. Is
this probably a rehash of every single album that got a BNM award?
Probably. I am wrong in the ordering and did I miss some great albums on
the list? Definitely. Does this give a pretty decent view of all the
important and great music that was released this year for someone who's
been living under a rock? Absolutely.
2013
was a one of the most stellar years for music in a long, long time.
Let's keep it up. With all that being said, I officially present Track
Genius' Best Albums of 2013.
30. The Knife - Shaking the Habitual
In the 7 years since their last album "Silent Shout", Swedish electronic duo The Knife were laying low, cooking up something that was a complete 180° turn from their electro-pop opus. Silent Shout was only a glimpse of what was to come from the adventurous duo, as they decided to release one of the most innovative and abrasive electronic albums of the year, and the move payed off in spades. Scattering synth blasts and manic drum patterns paint a claustrophobic dance floor scene, as singer Karin Dreijer Andersson's voice pounds out with immediacy and shrill effect. Songs like "Wrap Your Arms Around Me" sound like something straight out of the Kid A playbook, while the almost 11 minute beast of "Stay Out Here" runs the entire gambit of droning distortion and haunting electro effects. Brash and discomfortingly beautiful, Shaking the Habitual took listeners to a sonic plane that most had never visited, and we were all the better for it.
Highlights: Full of Fire, Raging Lung, Wrap Your Arms Around Me, Without You My Life Would Be Boring
29. Fuck Buttons - Slow Focus
From
the opening track "Brainfreeze" with it's prolonged dark synths and
pounding beat, to the final exciting chords on Hidden XS, Slow Focus
grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go for a pulsating and
exhausting 52 minutes. Benjamin Power and Andrew Hung created an album
with pieces that start out simple, and then build like piles of metal
that eventually get so tall and large that they implode all over
themselves. The melodies are more accessible but the textures
surrounding them are as interesting and wonderful as ever. The album
sounds like it was made by a computer than came to life and decided it
wanted to make music, as all human touch is stripped away from the
rhythmic blasts and mechanical turns. It's a tiring, completely
compelling, and beautifully sculpted piece of music, and that is exactly
what makes it one of the best albums of the year.
28. Pusha T - My Name is My Name
As half of the rap duo the Clipse, the other half being his brother Malice, Pusha T spit some of the most ruthless and mean bars in rap in the groups almost decade long career. If your mom didn't scorn you every time you asked for new pencils because you broke all of yours replicating the "Grindin'" beat on your school desk while your friends free-styled, your adolescence wasn't real. However, after the duo took a hiatus and Malice became a man of God, Pusha decided to continue his solo career without his brother. He put out some great content, but there was always that spark missing. No longer did he have the bouncing and dark grooves of Pharrell's production, and even at his best, he seemed to be categorized mainly as a coke-rapper. That is until the deft hand of Kanye West steered Pusha's train in a different direction, giving him an aesthetic to work with and a sense of consistency. That's where his first real solo effort, "My Name Is My Name" comes in. No more noise about Pusha being a coke rapper or how he's nothing without his brother. This album is straight fucking fire. The middle part of the album is marred with some reaches for pop-appeal, but even those are saved by moments of sheer brilliance, like when Pusha does a perfect Mase flow over a bouncing 90s stylized instrumental on "Let me Love You". The album is at its heights when all pomp and circumstance are done away with for straight crack verses and no holds barred viciousness. Numbers on the Boards alone cemented this as one of the most ruthless and disgusting displays of lyrical prowess and character in hip hop this year. Everything else was just white icing on the pound cake.
Highlights: Numbers on the Boards, King Push, Hold on (feat. Rick Ross), Nosetalgia (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
27. Jon Hopkins - Immunity
On
his sophomore album "Immunity", multi-instrumentalist and producer Jon
Hopkins pulls away from the cold computer chills and thumping
electro-house of his 2009 debut Insides, and instead creates an album
that takes disparate noises and influences into something melodic and
dense. Even though all of the album is repetitive house and techno, the
textures that Hopkins adds with his spacious pianos and textured beats
create a quality of . A song like Open Eye Signal is a good view of what
Hopkins is doing, with jarring beat changes and thick bass lines. Each
song is a monster within itself, most stretching above 6 minutes, and
even far further than that. From the subtle acid-house on the opener "We
Disappear" to the pounding chill of "Sun Harmonics", Immunity doesn't
get monotonous or drag. It simply invites you in and then wraps you in
velvet textures of electronic music you didn't know existed. Then it
slaps you in the face. And you like it.
26. Disclosure - Settle
With the explosion of the electronic music scene in the past few years, it's incredibly easy to get lost in the droves of artists claiming their brilliance on the scattered Soundcloud pages of the internet. Grappling to represent a million different sub-genres doesn't help either. That's what makes British dance music duo Disclosure's "Settle" such a necessary and brilliant album. It fuses disparate electronic influences into a electro-pop structure and unleashes the years most catchy and evocative dance music on to the public. The thumping 4/4 beats and cavalcade of guest singers seem obtrusive and redundant on the surface, but a close listen shows the effortless brilliance of what Disclosure is doing. This is the electronic dance music of the past, present, and future, synthesized into an aesthetic that is all at once familiar and new. It takes only a simple listen of January feat. Jamie Woon) or the brilliant sampling and clattering xylophone-esque electronics of Grab Her! to be impressed by the album, and if you don't catch yourself subconsciously moving your hips to these evocative and intoxicating tracks, the music probably just isn't loud enough.
25. Mikal Cronin - MCII
With
his sophomore album MCII, singer-songwriter Mikal Cronin meshes pop
sensibilities with some of the most confident and loud guitar work this
year. Bombastic and clearly defined, MCII wears its influences on its
sleeve. Shoegaze, 70s rock, psychedelia, beach pop and rock, and noise
all defiantly and perfectly packaged with some of the most immediate and
catchy lyricism in recent memory. Take for example the opener "Weight"
with its shrill reverb guitar and painful lyrics about needing help from
yourself, all coated with catchy pop melodies. Much like last years
Lonerism by Tame Impala, Cronin takes the most disheartening and
tear-jerking writing and paints them with a coat of gloss and beauty as
if to say "it won't be OK, and that's totally OK". The songs signal the
sense of millennial confusion about life and difficult relationships, in
a very relatable and fun way. The hard rock spaces that songs like
"Shout it Out" occupy and the sounds of glory-pop that push songs like
"See It My Way" and "Don't Walk Away" over the edge are where the
brilliance of the songwriting and composition structure truly shine
through. It's a compelling record through and through, and every listen
feels like you're coming back to it 30 years later, finding the dusty LP
in your attic, and there it is, waiting for you in all it's beauty.
24. Darkside - Psychic
In a year filled with so much cerebral and luscious electronic music, it might seem like Darkside, the collaboration between brilliant producer Nicolas Jarr, and Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist Dave Harrington, who did a track-by-track remix of Daft Punks Random Access Memories under the pseudonym Daftside,
couldn't
possibly fill up any sonic space that hasn't already been done to
death. However, against all odds, and like so many other great
electronic albums on this list, "Psychic" presents us with something
totally weird and new, and then treads this new land at the highest
level possible. Like "Settle" and "Immunity", Psychic takes the
disparate elements of electronic music and gives them human life. Unlike
those albums, Psychic is a no holds barred ingenuity fest, taking
genres like disco, acid-house, and impressive prog-dance beats, and
breaking them down to the umpteenth degree. Slowing everything down,
songs like "Golden Arrow" create an atmospheric haze that accompanies
the pulsating and down-played rhythms of the song. Wavelike,
contemporary snyth bass are smattered all over the album, and the live
instrumentation from Harrington is what truly takes these tracks over
the top. The album might be jarring at first, maybe even a little
foreign, but after a few listens in a dark, smoke filled room, it's
clear to see why "Psychic" is one of the best electronic productions of
2013.
23. Deerhunter - Monomania
Deerhunter was always a pretty cool indie rock band, but their 2010 magnum opus Halcyon Digest vaulted them toward the front of the pack in the overly saturated genre, and songs like Helicopter and He Would Have Laughed lifted them to the top of the mountain on a wave of glaring pop melodies and incredible guitar work. They say that there are only 1 or 2 good guitar bands a year now, and if that's true, a strong case could have been made that Deerhunter was one of them. That's why Monomania was so jarring. Stripped away is the glittery sheen of Halcyon Digests tracks, and in its place is jangly, blues-rock influenced, cool as all hell contemporary Americana. It's a brave move for a band that was so hailed for their last album, but if there's a common theme in 2013, it's that established acts must evolve or die. Deerhunter did just that, with front man Bradford Cox's songwriting becoming more forward and sharp. Monomania signals a group of artists that are completely self-aware and make some of the best alternative music out there. It was a strange but natural evolution, and what's most exciting is where they'll end up next.
Highlights: T.H.M., Monomania, The Missing, Punk (La Vie Antérieure)
22. Chance the Rapper - Acid Rap
Chicago hip-hop has brought us so much great music, that it seems like anything more at this point would be asking too much of the city. Obviously we've got Kanye West, Common, even Lupe Fiasco at one point. And now, with the rise of the drill, trap, and house scenes with artists like Chief Keef, Fredo Santana, and King Louie, it might feel to some that Chicago has lost its soul. The shift from Kanye's chipmunk soul and luscious R&B of the city were done away with and along came house music inspired beats and angry, sometimes lazy lyrics. However, there was one light of glimmering hope for Chicago hip-hop this year. One rapper who took all the influences of Chicago music, jazz, blues, soul, and made something never before heard in rap music. That hero is Chance the Rapper, and if his name didn't plainly state it, he's pretty deft on the mic. Mixing soulful, bluesy instrumentals with one of the most original voices in hip-hop, Acid Rap must truly be heard to be believed. From the down-tempo introspection of "Acid Rain" to the tear-jerking blues-tastic thank you's of "Everything's Good (Good Ass Outro)", Chance waxes poetic and has so much fun with it, you can't help but have a huge smile across your face. This is one of the best listens of the year, and the future of this young MC is brighter and weirder than all the acid in the world.
Highlights: Acid Rain, Chain Smoker, Cocoa Butter Kisses (feat. Vic Mensa & Twista), Everything's Good
21. Youth Lagoon - Wondrous Bughouse
Ah chillwave. A genre so influential and wide-spread that its death seemed almost unbelievable. But like that chain smoking alcoholic uncle, it had to come eventually. When chill-wave did die, not many artists were able to escape the limiting label, and the one's that did make it big enough to do so, like Washed Out and Toro Y Moi, were slightly crippled by it's history and association. Youth Lagoon's first album, "The Year of Hibernation" came out during this time period, and it was well received enough, but with a little perspective, that was Tumblr, anime, soft-grunge, VHS teen theme music. Cool enough, but pretty uninspired. Thankfully, Wondrous Bughouse takes all the best parts of that aesthetic and adds layer of quality. The difference's are even clearly indicated by the albums covers. Year of Hibernation featured a cavernous like darkness, while Wondrous Bughouse looks like a beautiful child's drawing if that child was hanging out with the Beatles when they were visiting India. Beautiful piano work, crisper vocals, and luscious instrumentation make this one of the most pleasurable listens of the year.
Highlights: Mute, Dropla, Raspberry Cane, Pelican Man
20. Foxygen - We are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic
If Tame Impala spearheaded this whole retro psych revival last year, then Californian experimental rock duo Foxygen are the ones who are carrying the torch in 2013. It isn't difficult to see the reverence for all things weird and 60s style occult here. Just look at the title of the album and the clean cut style of the cover. That being said, the music here is anything but clean cut and smooth. Heavily influenced by bands like the Stooges, Ramones, and the Velvet Underground, and drawing from genres like acid rock, R&B/Soul, and even 70s singer-songwriters (on songs like San Francisco), Foxygen creates something totally their own. The record is full of surprises too, switching tones from spastic and loud to mellow and acidic within the span of 30 seconds, and maybe even more than once per song. It's nice to see bands like Foxygen pay such heavy homage to genres and artists of yesteryear whilst still making something so beautiful and original, and that is exactly why they've placed on this list.
Highlights: San Francisco, We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic, Oh No 2, No Destruction
