The Best of 2013 (First Half)

With the first half of the year officially over, it’s time for a quick recap of my favorite album releases from 2013:

1. Cerulean Salt by Waxahatchee is cohesive and impassioned; a tour of the sounds of the last two decades of power pop with great force and emotive songwriting. Two albums in, watch out for Waxahatchee. Katie Crutchfield is on her way to being an establishment.

2. Birthdays by Keaton Henson is stunning in its pained beauty. Birthdays is so fragile and beautiful, it feels almost like voyeurism to listen to it, which is a unique and affective feeling for a record to inspire. In a word: breathtaking.

3. Immunity by Jon Hopkins is an electronic tour de force. Jon Hopkins is a soundscape guy, so it’s interesting to hear him playing with “beats” of a dance-floor variety, but the record is so much more than that. It takes a man with a classical background and an understanding of space and of beauty and the temporal to be able to make a record so fully-realized. It is a concept and it is a successful one.

4. Yeezus by Kanye West is a statement. It is short and dark and industrial and angry and forceful. Every new Kanye record is an event. He is steering popular music unlike any other major artist working today. Kanye makes music the way Michael Jordan played basketball. At its best, this is the best record of the year, but it is not without its swings and misses. It feels to me like a hard play in the paint, where Kanye makes a miraculous bucket under pressure, but misses the freethrow. Despite its near-misses, Kanye has made one of the most essential albums of the year to date.

5. Muchacho by Phosphorescent is meditative; a 21st century soundtrack for quiet nights and contemplation, filled to the gills with lovely songwriting and a gentle production touch. I could listen to the opener, “Sun Arises”, a sort of one-man, electronic-drenched Fleet Foxes all night long, before it lurches directly into “Song for Zula”, one of the best songs of the year, and never looks back.

6. Annie Up by Pistol Annies is a trio of badass honky-tonk ladies at the top of their badass honky-tonk lady form. In a lot of ways, the first half of 2013 was the year of the honky-tonk ladies and this is arguably the best of the best. It’s often dark and subversive and tongue-in-cheek, but above all it is fun, and the arrangements are solid and the harmonies are air-tight.

7. Random Access Memories by Daft Punk is the new Daft Punk record. Duh. Aside from Get Lucky, which seems to have been the runaway track of the first half of 2013 (at least in the social circles that I orbit around), Daft Punk made a glorious 13 track record mixing clever homages, vintage dance cuts, and thoroughly modern electronic badassery. These guys just keep slaying dragons.

8. The Stand-In by Caitlin Rose is situated perfectly at the sublime intersection of traditional country, alt-country, and pop music (which is, admittedly, a personal weakness). Part Neko Case, part Ryan Adams, part Fleetwood Mac, this record covers most of the territory at all points and in between and combines to make for a damn fun listen for all the right reasons.

9. Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend is Vampire Weekend’s third great record in a row and proof-positive that these guys are here to stay and at the forefront of the Brooklyn/NYC indie-establishment. The record is twisty and turny and always clever, it knows when to be restrained and when to rock out. It is nothing if not solid from the top to the bottom.

10. Twelve Reasons to Die by Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge is the shock of the year for me. Adrian Younge outdoes the RZA and gives Ghostface a format to sound like he’s back in mid-‘90s form. Immediately accessible and eminently listenable, this make-believe soundtrack was a great move for both artists and is the best true hip-hop record of the year.

11. Like a Rose by Ashley Monroe is everything that the Pistol Annies record is if a bit sweeter and truer and less bombastic. Clever, sharp, occasionally scathing, occasionally gorgeous. Ashley Monroe is having herself a year.

12. Ghost on Ghost by Iron and Wine is the album the Iron and Wine should have made (and I’m glad they made it). The Iron and Wine that started out with bedroom recordings and moved onto the dusty, pastoral Americana they shared with Calexico have taken that horn approach and added more jazz elements and advanced time signatures. The songwriting is as gorgeous and earthy as ever. It all fits very well and adds up to one of the best albums of their career and of the year.

13. Woman by Rhye is perhaps the sexiest music of 2013. It is subtle, it is androgynous, it all feels like a silk slip on soft flesh. It works.

14. Trouble Will Find Me by the National is maybe the wordiest and most poetic record of the year. The National build beautiful little dollhouse soundscapes up around Matt Berninger’s droll baritone with a backbone of double Dessner guitar attack and Devendorf rhythm section (Bryan’s drumming is particularly essential). I must admit, it took me a moment to warm to this record. Initially I felt like it was buried under the relentless weight of Berninger’s baritone, and it didn’t feel like progression from High Violet. I hope one day that these guys will make an album that breathes a bit more easily. A few listens later, however, I was spellbound. It is somehow both heavy and delicate. They add some odd time signatures to their bag of tricks on this one. Its highlights are every bit as breathtaking as their finest work.

15. Overgrown by James Blake is the still inconsistent work of a truly captivating talent. James Blake is fascinating if frustrating, which this record can be. From the title track through Retrograde (easily one of the best tracks of the year), the album is nearly sublime, and it is on that basis, that I award this with the number 15 spot, despite my hopes that he will become slightly more focused and less self-obsessed and noodly as he progresses.

16. Wonderful, Glorious by Eels is Eels, with E at age 50, still making essential, personal Americana. A bit more freewheeling than the Eels of Blinking Lights… and Electro-Shock Blues, this record is the Eels of Shootenany & Souljacker making personal, gritty rock interspersed with heartwarming ballads. These guys are hall-of-famers

17. We the Common by Thao and the Get Down Stay Down is a quirky little pop/indie record from an overlooked talent and Thao’s most accessible and fun record to date, with particular help from Jon Congleton and an assist from Joanna Newsom.

18. {Awayland} by Villagers is a well-realized meeting of elctro-folk; it is literary and smart and complete.

19. Same Trailer Different Park by Kacey Musgraves is the final of the honky-tonk women powerhouses on this list, and like them it is clever and aware and sharp and agile, at-once disarming and charming, it is a force of traditional country songwriting in the 21st century

20…Like Clockwork by Queens of the Stone Age is the second-biggest surprise of the year; I never expected to care about the new QotSA album, much less love it. I am shocked and awed by the sonic diversity and precision of this record. They explore territory that I never expected, and it is striking and awesome.


A Youtube Collection of a song or so from each release:http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJCM0q25r1rJK0VhWKQmzqUuuZ5TffJY