Favorite Albums of 2013
I managed to listen to 50-odd records this year. Some were great. Some were just terrible. Some left me stymied at first, only to reveal themselves later.
Have you ever listened to an album, or a song, or an artist and the music matches up with the moment you’re in so perfectly that it makes both immeasurably better than they would be on their own? And whenever you listen to it after that, the moment comes back with lush, jarring clarity? Man, I love it when that happens. I had that happen a couple of times this year.
So these are my favorite records for the year that was 2013. I tried narrowing it down to a true Top 10, but my indecisiveness reared it’s ugly head and I’m stuck at 11. So, screw it, it’s a Top 11 for 2013.
The debut record from Modern Kin is a live wire. The whole thing crackles with energy. It might just be because I’m a sucker for gospel-tinged rock and soul, but I highly doubt it. Keep an eye on these guys.
Chvrches — The Bones of What You Believe
Everyone has a guilty pleasure. Usually, my guilty pleasure records aren’t worth including on a year-end list because they’re simply not that good. Behind the synth-y 80s pop panache is a very well-crafted record. And Lauren Mayberry’s vocals bounce between Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, which, oddly, is part of the appeal for me. Perhaps I’m just getting sappy for my youth…
A record inspired by a long-time friend who passed away, I Hate Music showcases what Superchunk does best. Full of wistful nostalgia for times gone by, there is still a beacon of hope running throughout. One of the best eulogies I’ve ever heard.
I really hate quoting myself, but in my review of the album earlier this year, I think I summed up what I love about this record pretty well — Low F is particularly haunting. Echoed guitar lines bubble under the aching remembrance of /“You caught me singing, said ‘can you meet me down at low F?’ / and I missed the question, but you got your answer, ‘yes yes.’”/ That’s the kind of line that just lights up my spine and makes my head swim. A double-hit of saccharine sweetness and sour regret. You can picture both the youthful moment and the wistful reminiscence, making your heart swell just to squeeze it just a little too hard.
Neko Case — The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You
When I first heard of Neko Case, she was the fire-haired vixen of early-aughts indie darlings The New Pornographers. She blasted through their pop sensibility with a blowtorch of a voice. Watching her get from there to here has been quite the ride. Life takes us in interesting directions, though, and Case has grown into one of the better songwriters out there. Don’t you ever shut up, Neko. Kid, have your say.
Typhoon’s maestro, Kyle Morton, assembled a group that provides a wonderful cacophony of sound around his paeans to a lost childhood and an uncertain future. Loss, frustration, anger, and hope — sometimes all at once, wind through this record — and it’s beautiful. This is sound of adulthood in the second decade of the 21st century, with horns and hand claps. I don’t do a proper numbered list anymore, but I assure you that Typhoon’s White Lighter is right at the top.
Wide-eyed power pop is one of my musical weaknesses. Anything that even has a whiff of the Beach Boys or Big Star snaps me to attention like a dog whistle. Sure, intricate, thought-provoking lyrics and experimental instrumentation are great, but when I just want to rock and feel good, albums like Cronin’s MCII are where I turn. This is top-down-on-a-cool-summer-evening kind of music. The way that it crescendos, with the sparse “Piano Mantra” slowly building to a fuzzed-out catharsis, is absolutely perfect.
For heartache and pain, you’ll always get more bang for your buck with a country album. Jason Isbell delivers that and more on his latest solo release. All of it bound up in well-crafted songs that showcase Isbell’s considerable talent. I don’t know if Isbell gets any play on country stations at all. My local country station has him listed on their “artist search,” but a quick perusal of their playlists shows a steady stream of pop-country crap — Faith Hill, Jason Aldean, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, etc, etc, etc. It says something about the current state of things when albums that the icons of country music would praise, like Southeastern, can’t even get whiff of airplay. It’s a fucking shame, really, because Isbell knocks them all out of the water.
One minute, I’d never heard of Jagwar Ma. The next, everyone and their brother was recommending it as fast as they could. The hype is deserved. A record with so much going on should sound unfocused, but it fits together so tightly that it’s almost hard to imagine Motown revival without a dash of electronica and pinch of psych rock. For someone like myself who grew up during the regrettable rise of rap-rock like Limp Bizkit and 311, it’s nice to see the next generation melding good music together for a change.
While melody and songwriting are always important attributes to a good record, there is something to be said for malice. The blues first gave it a tangible voice, rock and roll refined and glossed it up and then punk stripped it back to the bone. There is malice in this record. It’s powerful and barely contained. It manifests in primal howls, sludgy guitar riffs that explode into angular peals of distress, and rolling bass lines that sound like billy clubs ready for a beatdown, with animalistic drumming driving all of it forward. There is more than a hint of Fugazi and Minor Threat running throughout Silence Yourself, so I can dig it.
Charles Bradley — Victim of Love
It sounds weird to say that you hear growth in the sophomore album of a man who is 65 years old. But Victim of Love sounds like a more mature and better-crafted record than No Time for Dreaming, in my opinion. I especially like the psychadelia-tinged “Confusion.” Artists like Charles Bradley and Sharon Jones give me hope that the cream eventually rises to the top, if you just stick to your guns. I feel privileged to get to listen to artists who are almost direct connection to the old Motown hits I grew up loving.
This record sounds like a half-remembered dream, or maybe just the morning after. Every echo hangs in the air like lazy dust motes in a shaft of sunshine. It helps that it features one of my favorite songs of the year in “Song for Zula,” but the remainder is extremely strong. Muchacho is one of those albums that has to be listened to as such. It’s a mood, a feeling, and it can transport you if you let it.
So that’s my list, unordered and unorganized and likely incomplete. I always tend to discover one or two records after the fact that make me regret not including them. But that’s the nature of compiling a list, I guess. No one list is ever definitive. I try to keep myself from perusing other’s year-end lists while I’m putting my own together, but once I post this, I’ll be combing through them, looking both for validation for my own choices and for gems that I may have missed. And speaking of gems, how about a quick rundown of some of my favorite songs of the year? For shits and giggles, I’ll number this one -
1. Phosphorescent — Song for Zula.
2. Neko Case — Calling Cards
3. Typhoon — Artificial Light
4. Low — Just Make It Stop
5. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds — Higgs Boson Blues
6. Sin Fang — What’s Wrong With Your Eyes
7. Steve Earle — Remember Me
8. Mikal Cronin — Shout it Out
9. Jagwar Ma — The Throw
10. Wavves — Demon to Lean On
11. Jason Isbell — Elephant
12. Radiation City — Foreign Bodies
13. Sleigh Bells — Bitter Rivals
14. Pearl Jam — Mind Your Manners
15. Yo La Tengo — The Point of It
16. On An On — The Hunter
17. Guards — Giving Out
18. The Joy Formidable — Silent Treatment
19. Genders — Technicolor Vision
20. Modern Kin — Unannounced