10. Justin Timberlake
– The 20/20 Experience, Part 1
Everywhere you went in 2013, Justin Timberlake’s big smile
followed. He was in summer movies (Runner Runner), a new Coen Bros. flick (Inside Llewyn Davis), hosted SNL every
week (right?), did lots of funny things with Jimmy Fallon (hashtag!), and did a
mega-tour with some guy named Jay Z. Oh,
and he also released two double albums of new music.
OK, so not all of that music was great—maybe Part 2 was a bit unnecessary. But Part
1? Yeah, that’s a party record. Stretched-out funk tracks bleed into pop
grooves which open up into Stevie-style jams that dissolve into big-time
ballads. It’s an adventurous album that
is a plain old good time. Maybe The 20/20 Experience is a guilty
pleasure, but really, why feel guilty?
Check out: “Strawberry
Bubblegum”
9. Tim Hecker – Virgins
Think of the largest room you’ve ever been in, perhaps an
impossibly high-ceilinged cathedral, and fill that room with sounds. Let the noise bounce off the far wall, the
near wall, the ceiling, and the floor of the cathedral, so that it doubles back
on itself. The echoes begin a recursive
loop, trying to touch every corner of the room, never dissipating. There are people coming in and out of the
room, windows opening to let the air rush in, doors slamming, prayers being whispered,
a police siren somewhere, a vibrating cell phone. The chaos threatens to overwhelm, but just at
the breaking point, everything suddenly takes on a shape, revealing a stunning
pattern that gives you a rush, suggesting you’ve seen the impossible.
OK, instead of a cathedral, it’s your head, and instead of
the ambient noise, you’re listening to Tim Hecker’s Virgins.
Check out: “Virginal
II”
8. Rhye – Woman
“Sultry,” “sexy,” and “bedroom” were the three most
over-used words in reviews of Rhye’s album Woman. But there it is. Not since Sade has a band been so directly
responsible for contributing to the world’s overpopulation problem. It’s not just sex that they’re singing about,
it’s romance and candlelight and trust.
Perhaps this all sounds a bit cheesy, and maybe it would be, but for
those songs. Woman is a shiny gem, polished to studio perfection. “The Fall,” “Last Dance,” and “Three Days”
are highlights, although nothing reaches the heights of the incredible “Open,”
with its nearly whispered refrain of, “I
wanna make this play, ooh I know you’re faded, stay, don’t close your hands.”
Check out: “Open”
7. Disclosure – Settle
Everybody dance now. If G.O.B.’d had Disclosure’s Settle to blast, even the Bluth Company
Christmas party would’ve been a success.
Disclosure’s debut features crisp, clean dance music across 14
tracks.
There are no slow ones, no
interludes. There are also no “bash you
senseless” dubstep drops. It’s the best
pure dance album of the year that works just as well on the treadmill. I dare you to listen to “When A Fire Starts to
Burn” and not bob your head. See if you
can listen to “Grab Her!” without pumping your fist. Or put “Latch” on your workout playlist and
set a PR on the elliptical machine.
Check out: “Latch”
6. Chvrches – The Bones of What You Believe
Sometimes, a pop album finds the pulse of everything that’s
cool in music at that exact moment.
That’s what Chvrches did this year with The Bones of What You Believe.
I’d put this album in a timecapsule so future generations would know
what kind of music we listened to in 2013.
Listen to opener “The Mother We Share” and you know immediately what
Chvrches is setting out to accomplish on this album. Songs of difficult love, layered over
sparkling pop, held together with the fantastically expressive voice of singer
Lauren Mayberry. It’s the kind of album
you can listen to obsessively for a month straight without tiring of a note.
Check out: “The Mother
We Share”
5. Kurt Vile – Wakin on a Pretty Daze
Kurt Vile’s Wakin on a
Pretty Daze is bookended by two outstanding 10-minute songs, the (almost)
title track “Wakin on a Pretty Day” and closer “Goldtone,” that sum up
everything he’s about. His songs unwind
exactly as they need to, searching for meaning in the wash of guitar
sounds. The music draws you in and pulls
you under, until all you want to do is sit in bed with your headphones on and
listen to the album again and again.
There are no lulls on Wakin on a
Pretty Daze, just wave after wave of guitar. If you love the many sounds a guitar can
make, this is the album for you.
Check out: “Goldtone”
4. Haim – Days Are Gone
I can’t stop listening to Haim. Seriously.
I was on a Haim kick for a while, and that turned into an obsession, and
now, I don’t even know. When I had to
download the new iOS for the iPhone and all my music got wiped, Days Are Gone was the very first album I
put back on it, because what if I was out for a walk and I immediately needed
to listen to Haim and couldn’t? I don’t
know how many times I’ve listened to “Falling,” but it’s an embarrassing
number. I don’t know how many times I’ve
gotten in the shower in the morning and realized I’m singing “The Wire,” but it
definitely happened this morning.
There’s something delightfully genuine about the music of
the Haim sisters. Some people may say,
“Soft rock!” and meant that as a pejorative, but there’s too much enthusiasm
and joy here to be bothered by those buzz kills.
So yeah. It’s
good. “I can feel the heat but I’m not burning.”
Check out: “Falling”
3. Arcade Fire – Reflektor
Arcade Fire have always had big ambitions. Each of its first three albums asked important
questions and wrestled with big themes. Reflektor is no different in that
respect. Arcade Fire isn’t afraid to
take on ideas of life and afterlife, art and death, love and hate. Some of Win Butler’s most stunning lyrics can
be found on songs like “Reflektor” and “Afterlife.”
But Reflektor also
has a secret weapon in producer (and long-time LCD Soundsystem lead) James
Murphy. Drawing on the band’s
fascination with Haitian culture and music, Murphy helped AF craft its most
visceral album yet. Reflektor throbs with the rhythm of its influences, creating not
quite a rock album and not quite a dance album, but something that overlaps
both spheres. “Do you like rock n’roll music, cuz I don’t know if I do,” sings
Butler. Reflektor does its best to make the question of “rock or dance
music?” a pointless exercise.
Check out: “Afterlife”
2. Daft Punk – Random Access Memories
In Roberto Bolano’s novel 2666, a character complains that no one reads long, difficult books
anymore. He say that we are “afraid to take on the great, imperfect,
torrential works, books that blaze paths into the unknown.” That’s become a
problem with music, too. We like to listen
in tiny chunks. We download individual
tracks instead of full albums; we listen to half a song on YouTube before
skipping to the next one. There’s too
much music out there that’s too easily accessible.
There are instant wedding-dance-floor classics, like “Get
Lucky” and “Lose Yourself to Dance.” “Doin’ It Right” and “Instant Crush” are
two of the best pop songs of the year. “Touch”
is an overblown epic that gets better with every listen. I could go on, but this would turn into a
track listing.
On top of all that, this is Daft Punk. This is the band that defined the genre of
music we now call EDM, and whose influence is felt heavily in pop today. Everyone from Skrillex to Britney Spears learned
from what Daft Punk was doing 10 and 15 years ago. But RAM
is a daring turn away from that sound, a complete reinvention of one of
dance music’s great artists.
Check out: “Give Life
Back to Music”… love that groove.
1.
Vampire
Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City
I take this ranking of albums
very seriously, so when Modern Vampires
of the City came out in May, it was a shock to realize I’d already found my
favorite album of the year. There were
other great albums that came out throughout the rest of 2013, but after my
second or third listen of Modern Vampires,
I never questioned my #1 again.
On its first two albums, Vampire
Weekend sounded like a live band recording tracks in the studio, as though the
songs that made the final cut were the best takes. On Modern
Vampires, VW morphs into a studio band.
Sounds are tucked into every nook and cranny of these songs, each moment
fully developed. There are moments to
discover even after two dozen times through the album.
Complementing the music is some
of the best lyrics to come out in pop music in a long time. If Ezra Koenig wasn’t a musician, he’d be a
novelist or a movie director. Modern Vampires feels like the work of a
mature artist who’s grappling with questions to which he still doesn’t have the
answers. The album is a journey, for
both the artist and the listener.
I like every song on the album,
and think they all contribute to the overall feel. I don’t think there’s a weak track on
here. It’s loaded with songs that floor
me every time I hear them. If pressed, I’d pick out “Unbelievers,” “Step,”
“Hannah Hunt,” and “Ya Hey” as my favorites, and then I’d be annoyed that I
left the rest of the tracks off my list.
There’s no question in my mind
that this is the achievement of the year in music.
Check out: “Unbelievers”
The Top Twenty:
The Top Twenty:
- Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City
- Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
- Arcade Fire - Reflektor
- Haim - Days are Gone
- Kurt Vile - Wakin on a Pretty Daze
- Chvrches - The Bones of What You Believe
- Disclosure - Settle
- Rhye - Woman
- Tim Hecker - Virgins
- Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience, Part 1
- The National - Trouble Will Find Me
- Burial - Rival Dealer
- Lorde - Pure Heroine
- Sky Ferreira - Night Time, My Time
- James Blake - Overgrown
- The Knife - Shaking the Habitual
- Boards of Canada -Tomorrow's Harvest
- Atoms for Peace - AMOK
- Julia Holter - Loud City Song
- Eleanor Friedberger - Personal Record
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