The Top Twenty Albums of 2013 (Part I)

20. Eleanor Friedberger – Personal Record

Eleanor Friedberger brings to her solo work just the right amount of weirdness from her long-time band, The Fiery Furnaces.  Personal Record is the follow-up to 2011’s excellent solo debut Last Summer.  Friedberger’s songs are finely crafted pop tunes, populated with characters that spring to life.  Much like a collection of short stories, Personal Record gradually reveals themes of self-introspection and –discovery across its 12 songs.  This one was on heavy rotation all summer for me.

Check out: “Stare at the Sun”

19. Julia Holter – Loud City Song

The latest concept album from Julia Holter is the immersive Loud City Song.  This is a strange album that feels cold at first, almost scared to welcome the listener into its peculiar, paranoid world.  But the intricacy of the compositions sometimes belies the manic energy running through Loud City Song.  Once you penetrate the surface, there are all sorts of wonderful moments to uncover.  Album highlight “Horns Surrounding Me” is a great example of the way Holter’s music packs together disparate elements and lets them cohere into a powerful whole. 

Check out: “Horns Surrounding Me”

18. Atoms for Peace – Amok

When I was a kid, I thought there was nothing better than a “supergroup.”  Just imagine if you could put Jimi Hendrix, Thelonious Monk, Ringo Starr, and Joni Mitchell in the same band!  I’m not sure when I changed my mind about this—perhaps when I realized no one would ever be as good as the Traveling Wilburys?—but supergroups rarely deliver on promised magic.  So I was skeptical when I heard Thom Yorke, Flea, and Nigel Godrich had a new project called Atoms for Peace.

 

Then I heard the wonderful Amok.  The music here is groovy, experimental, and most all, fun.  There are odd sounds and lots of rhythmic ticks that propel the songs forward.  Both complex and readily accessible, we can only hope that guys in Atoms for Peace continue to find ways to make music together.

Check out: “Ingenue”

17. Boards of Canada – Tomorrow’s Harvest

Tomorrow’s Harvest was the first release from Boards of Canada in seven years.  The weight of anticipation from BoC’s devoted fanbase threatened to crush the life out of the album before a single note was heard, but fortunately, Tomorrow’s Harvest delivered.  This dense electronic album churns along through mid-tempo grooves.  Highlights, such as “Reach for the Dead” and “Cold Earth,” are like the soundtrack to an ill-fated trip to the South Pole.  Yes, this still sounds like Boards of Canada, but it also shows that there are still new directions for them to explore.  With luck, we won’t have to wait another seven years for their next release.

Check out: “Cold Earth”

16. The Knife – Shaking the Habitual

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with Shaking the Habitual at first.  It’s an aggressive, unsettling album, both in its musical form and lyrical content.  Choppy synth tracks, like opener “A Tooth for an Eye” and “Without You My Life Would Be Boring,” are set next to expansive drones like the 19-minute “Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized” and the 10-minute “Fracking Fluid Injection.”  And then there’s album centerpiece “Full of Fire,” a full-on assault of sounds that is genuinely disconcerting, in which singer Karin Dreijer Andersson sneers through her lines, her voice warped electronically.

So why do I keep listening to this album?  I can’t look away, and that’s the genius here.  The Knife grabs a hold of you and demands your attention.  I’m not sure I’d call this a fun album (I think the Knife would be disappointed if I did), but there are few albums that came out in 2013 that are more challenging and interesting than Shaking the Habitual.

Check out: “Full of Fire” but be warned, don’t watch this at work.  Also, it’s weird.  You’ve been warned.

15. James Blake – Overgrown

Do we still care about fitting artists into specific genres?  Because if we do, we’re gonna have a problem with James Blake.  He’s an electronic producer and a pop singer.  His music draws from R&B, hip-hop, and dubstep.  There are feverish electronic flourishes surrounding soulfully earnest vocals.  RZA even makes an appearance on Blake’s latest release, Overgrown.   Blake excels at taking these many influences and reinterpreting them, producing a sound that is unmistakably his own.  On top of it all, there’s “Retrograde,” which is easily one of my favorite tracks of the year.

Check out: “Retrograde”

14. Sky Ferreira – Night Time, My Time

As I mentioned in my previous post, sometimes the conversation around artists is not always “all about the music.”  Here’s another easy example: Sky Ferreira.  You can talk about her arrest (her boyfriend had a bunch of heroin on him), or you can talk about her socialite image.  Or you can talk about that album cover (Google at your own risk).  But why get hung up on that messy stuff, when you’ve got power pop songs like “24 Hours,” “I Blame Myself,” and “Heavy Metal Heart”?  Night Time, My Time is an open, assured album that burrows into your brain and asks to be replayed over and over.  It’s a testament to the quality of these songs that they rise above the rest of the noise enveloping Ferreira.

Check out: “Heavy Metal Heart”

13. Lorde – Pure Heroine

I hate to say it, but… “You totally have to check out her whole album.  ‘Royals’ isn’t even the best song.”  Lorde brought the freshest, most unique new voice to the pop landscape this year.  If I had first heard Pure Heroine in a vacuum, I would have predicted that Lorde would become a cult favorite, maybe play Pitchfork fest next summer.  She positions herself as an outsider, and her music is often sparsely arranged and not (seemingly) made for Top-40 radio (assuming that’s still a real thing). And yet here she is, dominating the pop charts with her quirky, irresistible sounds.  Why?  Perhaps because the music is just that good.

Check out: “White Teeth Teens”

12. Burial – Rival Dealer

It’s becoming a yearly tradition: Burial quietly releases new music in mid-December, and in the process screws up everyone’s year-end list.  Not that I’m complaining.  Burial hasn’t released a full-length album since 2007’s landmark ­Untrue, but he continues to make and release new music that trickles out in EP and single formats.  The Rival Dealer EP is three songs and 28 minutes of transcendent, atmospheric, emotional music. 

The title track is probably the most Burial-sounding track.  “Hiders” and “Come Down to Us” are as accessible as Burial has ever been (keeping in mind that “Come Down to Us” is a full 13 minutes long).  The vocals are still clipped and manipulated, but the lyrics are also given space here, and as a result, this is as personal as Burial’s music has ever been.  This would probably be a top-ten release if it were a full length.

Check out: “Hiders”

11. The National – Trouble Will Find Me

The National have a sound, that much is true.  You know who you’re listening to from the opening notes of Trouble Will Find Me: mid-tempo grooves, somber melodies, obtuse but penetrating lyrics sung in that unmistakable baritone voice.  But why should that be a criticism?  Trouble Will Find Me shows that the National is still finding new ways to bring life to their music. 

There are instant classics in “I Should Live In Salt,” “Demons,” and “Don’t Swallow the Cap,” among others.  My favorite track is “Pink Rabbits,” a typically slow-burning and devastating National song—I can’t think of another band that could pull this one off.  Trouble Will Find Me continues a stunning run of albums for the National.

Check out: “Pink Rabbits”



Now up - Top Twenty Albums, Part II