Come on in, take a seat and make yourself comfortable as I take you through some of my favourite music of 2013.
Firstly Im going to get something off my chest apparently last year I placed Little Comets - Life is Elsewhere no.6 in my top albums, this year that same album was released in the US and it could quite easily be my favourite album of 2013. I have lived with it longer, seen it live and it is truly a masterpiece, they have been my breakthrough artist of the year as theyve gone from a mildly successful UK indie band to two tours of North America selling out (admittedly small) venues but winning hearts along the way. HOWEVER, They are controversially not eligible for my top spot this year due to it originally being released in the UK in 2012. However, you should go check them out, they have fantastic complex rhythms, beautiful lyrics with serious subject matter (some bands might stop at just 1 track about domestic violence, but no, they have a song about rape too) and an amazing singer who hits notes you're not expecting to be hit at times they do. Does that make sense? No. OK. Strap in, theres more of that to come.
"And like for every victim
It seems the pain will not subtract or even calm
All this protracted by a state
In which the poor conviction rate for rape
Can often leave a woman feeling
More at blame than able"
"WOAH I just came here for an end of year music list Patrick, I didnt want to be faced with societal issues of misery and woe" Sorry guys, those of you who are regular visitors of my annual blog (is that possible?) will know to EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED, anyone remember the year I didnt do a list?!? Minds were blown.
Anyways, let me lead you to a happier place. Dent May makes bright pop, hook laden songs that take you back to sunnier climes and this is my favourite track of his and one of the catchiest songs of the year.
Before I get into the albums I wanted to highlight a few great tunes from new bands that Ive really loved this year but not necessarily had a strong enough album (or I didnt get round to buying it yet). First up is Parquet Courts, when I first heard these I thought they had to be British, they had a dry humour and a rabble rousing 80's punky sound to them that i immediately loved, but they were probably more influenced by The Strokes.
The Orwells are another great young band I saw this year support FIDLAR, and they blew me away. Completely mesmerising front man who is a perfect mix between Axl Rose, Kurt Cobain and Robert Plant - but thats just the hair. They sound like a million other bands granted, and they're not doing anything special, its just great scuzzy rock n roll sung by young kids who dont give a fuck and they have a fair few tunes to back them up. Plus LOOK HOW YOUNG THEY ARE.
Right lets get to the meat of this blog cos Im already tiring - Albums. 2013 was a renaissance year for music. I had so many of my favourite bands release stuff it was quite frankly a bit silly, pretty much all of them were great too, which made my list this year incredibly difficult. If I had time I would write about my love for them all, but I dont, and you certainly dont.
Outside my top 10 albums you have acts like Matthew E White, whos combo of gospel, folk and soul is a wonder to behold and I can see that album topping a few peoples lists this year, also just outside is Phosphorescent who I heard for the first time this year but has been going for a long while, Song for Zula was a radio friendly chart hit and the album has some crackers on it. Sitting really close to the top 10 is the wonderful Yeah Yeah Yeahs with a triumphant comeback - Mosquito which has some belters on it including one of the songs of the year in Sacrilege. But there are 10 better albums.... apparently.
10. Foals - Holy Fire
This is a good album and a band evolving from a great 2nd album, its elevated to a fantastic album by the presence of 2 monster singles - Inhaler and My Number. Foals have come along way in 2013, deservedly playing to massive crowds, they're no longer math rock nerds, their sound is huge and they are getting the attention that the sound warrants. Here's a song that I sung non-stop for the first 6 months of the year. If you havent heard it before, prepare for a happy 6 months cos its never getting out of your head.
This is not the official video, its the song set to a Village People video and its AWESOME.
9. Ski Lodge - Big Heart
Yes, the singer sounds like Morrissey, yes its because he loves him, which is sweet innit. Great debut album from these Brooklyn boys, a dark humour pervades over the 11 tracks of 3minute pop songs of lost love, even though it sounds like he's not enjoying it, the wisecracks seem to suggest otherwise.
Ski Lodge - Just To Be Like You (Official Music Video) from Dovecote Records on Vimeo.
8. FIDLAR - FIDLAR
With song titles such as Cheap Beer, Stoked and Broke, Whore and Cocaine you can kinda get a feel for what this band is going to be like. Its skate punk ladies and gents, juvenile boys talking about drinking and smoking weed. I fear Ive lost some of you already but hear me out, if you liked Blink 182 you will love FIDLAR, if you didnt you are gonna really hate FIDLAR. Not convinced? Watch this video of Nick Offerman pissing on things.
7. Everything Everything - Arc
There's a lot of very raucous laddy rock n roll this year that I didnt realise til I put em up in this list. Anyways, here are some lads from Manchester who sing about tits and bitches... Not true, sorry. Everything Everything are very eloquent, intelligent song makers, their debut album Man Alive was scattered with brilliant tracks about using photoshop to make yourself look handsome and one about Princess Dianas phantom head. This years Arc continued where that left off, with Cough Cough and Kemosabe, they make angular indie-pop that sounds like nothing you've heard before and the singers falsetto and speed he delivers the lines are a sight to witness. You really have to check out this album and see them live, one of the best live acts Ive seen this year.
6. Kanye West - Yeezus
This sticks out like a sore thumb in this list, I realise that. But hear me out. Ive always liked Kanye, I like the fact that he is SO insane, so egotistical, so billigerent and unwavering in his admiration of his self and this album is all of that and way more things too to get upset about. But despite the insanity the man has continued to write utter choons. There's 3 tracks in a row on Yeezus which may be the best sequential tracks on an album this year, Black Skinhead - I am a God - New Slaves. After that 1-2-3 you are pounded into submission by such harsh drums, lyrics, bass, noises, screams. Its powerful stuff and its a statement of intent from an artist embracing his insanity and rolling with it. There's no-one in this world that could have made this album but Kanye. He is a god, and he likes croissants to be delivered in a timely fashion.
5. Arcade Fire - Reflektor
Maybe its because I love LCD Soundsystem, and maybe its because I found The Suburbs to be quite stoic and trad at first, but when I first heard Reflektor a massive smile spread across my face. Arcade Fire live has always been a fantastic experience, they go out of their way to make gigs special, their music comes alive and everyone is part of the experience, but if you'd only heard them on record (especially the last 2 albums) you'd be forgiven for thinking they're a bit serious and dare I say it dull. Us fans knew this wasn't the case, we've witnessed the joyous sing-alongs, the energy that each one of their million members puts into each performance like it was their last. So on hearing Reflektor I immediately thought ITS PARTY TIME! There was a change to their PR too, they launched on SNL, were involved in a skit or two and then did a half hour special directly after featuring Michael Cera! Which wasnt embarassing, but genuinely funny. A feat rarely achieved by a band. I loved they were putting their fun live experience out there, into their music, on TV, in interviews, cracking gags on Colbert, tricking the audience at gigs, massive over-sized paper macher heads, mandatory costume dress code for secret gigs... The album launch was one of the most exciting I can remember for a band that I follow. Thankfully the album does all that marketing noise justice, its really fun, infusing beats and rhythm from Haiti thanks to their two new members (thats a 1,000,0002 members now if you're counting) James Murphy does a great job coaxing this out of the band yet still keeping it very Arcade Fire.
4. Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City
When you have a poor 2nd album but yet still manage to amass the fanbase Vampire Weekend have I always fear the worse. Ive seen so many of my favourite bands become indie rock superstars after a poor 2nd album and the 3rd arrives with even more MOR blandness which goes onto conquer the world and everyone on Radio 1 and V-fest start singing the choruses of dreadful indie by numbers en masse (im looking at you Kings of Leon). I was therefore prepared to file Vampire Weekend in that "Dead to me" section of my brain on the release of this record. Imagine my surprise when Diane Young hit the waves though with its fucked up Chuck Berry chorus, weird noises and just general oddness. It's brilliant, a breath of fresh air. Then Ya Hey also started to be spread around and again I started to remember why I loved Vampire Weekend originally, they had recaptured everything they stood for and moved it up a notch. So its with great relief that this album is wonderful, and at every point it surprises you with something new.
3. Arctic Monkeys - AM
If you're from Sheffield and support Sheffield Wednesday it is somewhat expected of you to adore Arctic Monkeys, but since that first album smashed them into the worlds musical windscreen Ive been indifferent to their offerings if im honest. Ive loved some singles (Crying Lightning, Brianstorm...) but never really loved the albums. When I heard R U Mine for the first time I added it to the list of amazing one-off singles that I knew they were capable of, but still didnt expect a great album to follow. Especially as nothing else emerged for ages until Do I Wanna Know? That track sidled up to me like a confident hot girl dancing at a club, shimmying up to me to get my attention, look at me she said with her eyes, not in an OTT Showgirls type of way, just confident in her own ability, but very sexy still, "Hey Paddy, Im different to the others" she seemed to say...*ahem* Anyways, I digress... It was different to their usual sound, a side to them that with Josh Homme on production never materialised. It wasnt an all out rock song, it was sexy, slinky, sparse. Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High picked up where the DIWK? left off. Abandoning crushing riffs for a more funky, catchy sing along melody. It was the sound of a band who had finally embraced their massive talent of writing catchy tunes rather than purposely trying to alienate people after their debut thrust them into unwanted limelight. See them live now and they are every bit comfortable rock stars, a stark contrast to when I first saw them at Brixton Academy during the Whatever People Say I am... tour, where they looked like scared boys. Alex Turner is finally a quiffed up, polished, rock star, the one we all demanded he was 8 years ago but he never wanted, and best of all it suits him. AM is their best album since Whatever People Say I Am... and its all killer pop songs.
2. Janelle Monae - The Electric Lady
Oh Janelle, let me count the ways I love you so 1. A female role model in the R&B / Pop world in 2013 is hard to come by. 2. Eccentricity that doesnt mean sticking your tongue out / showing your tits / genuine fear for their mental stability. 3. Top class tunes. Janelle Monae can do no wrong in my book, she creates enough mystery around her persona to keep you guessing who she actually is, but gives enough away to still make her feel human. The Electric Lady is less sci-fi than The Arch Android despite references to her alter-ego Cindy Mayweather occasionally thrown in to keep the fandroids happy. It even manages to survive a little bloating on the tracklist, in truth it could be 4 songs lighter but I'm not taking away points for that as there is some of the finest R&B, funk, soul and pop you'll hear all year on this album. It starts in earnest with Givin Em What They Love, a gorgeous slice of funk that her buddy Prince would kill to have for his own album. Q.U.E.E.N was the first single, a pop anthem for pop haters, then came Dance Apocalyptic, the female version of Hey Ya by Outkast does it a little disservice, it recalls Jackson 5 at their most fun. She even manages to make the eternal bore, the new darling of modern R&B - Miguel sound great on Primetime, a complete swoonfest of a song which I should hate its very sinew as it sounds like it would fit on a Whitney Houston album. It could quite easily have been a cheesy ballad, yet she injects so much heart into it and with very simple airy production the song breathes down your neck as it seduces you into loving it. Its one of the finest love songs of our generation and I HATED it at first! Janelle Monae is the alternative crowd's Beyonce, intelligent pop music that will get you shaking your booty (the booty dont lie) and then make you want to start a revolution with the below, which perfectly sums Janelle Monae up.
March to the streets cuz Im willing and Im able,
Categorize me, I defy every label
And while you're selling dope, we're gonna keep selling hope
We rising up now, you gotta deal you gotta cope
Will you be electric sheep? Electric ladies, will you sleep?
Or will you preach?
1. The National - Trouble Will Find Me
We're here, again, no.1, The National. My favourite band produce my favourite album of 2013, plain sailing right? Wrong! I was really worried about this album, for some strange reason they introduced it to the world with first single Demons and then Dont Swallow the Cap, arguably two of the worst songs on the album. The former, Demons, is possibly the only song of theirs in a 6 album span that I still, to this day, actively dislike. It embodies everything my hater friends dislike about The National in one song that I never understood UNTIL I heard it! Its monotone, its miserable, there's no discernible melody and it makes me want to self harm! Dont Swallow the Cap didnt really move the needle much either, although it was slightly cheerier. Why you would launch your album with them I have no idea. Inbetween hearing those tracks and the album launch we attended the Tribeca Film festival which The National were opening with their rockumentary (hilarious by the way, go see it) and then played a small private set after where I heard two other new songs Sea of Love and I Should Live in Salt. These gave me a new sense of hope, the latter was haunting and beautiful in a way that only The National can do I should live in salt, for leaving you behind. Sea of Love built and built into an awesome crescendo, again a sound and technique that the band have mastered over the years, they were classic tracks. Once I got the album it was a slow burner, doubt lingered that I would love it as much as their previous efforts. My friends reassured me that i would get it eventually, they said that The National albums were always slow burners for them, but for me, they never were. I fell in love with the band from the opening piano riff of Fake Empire and then proceeded to buy their entire back catalogue, I have never had such an immediate affection to a band as much as The National. So for me to experience a slow burner of an album from them was new. But boy did it burn, over time favourites emerged, Pink Rabbits with that tumbling piano riff, not dissimilar to Fake Empire, but a more drunken, tumbling effort and the heartbreaking lyrics
You didn't see me I was falling apart,
I was a television version of a person with a broken heart
Ugh! Just writing that line makes me want to cry! The whole album is peppered with these moments, sometimes its a line like that or its the sheer epic sound that builds up and then floors with you an outro that elevates the previous 3 mins of gorgeousness to stratospheric levels. Lyrically and sonically its their finest album, an absolute masterpiece that builds you up with arms aloft only to shatter you onto the floor, heartbroken, an uncontrollable weeping mess. Its beautiful, its intricate, its loud, its quiet, its like the ride it took me on to grow to love it, its a complete rollercoaster. Everything is better, Matts vocals, the orchestration, the writing, the production, and when you're already pretty much perfect in all these areas to say its BETTER is the highest praise I can think of. I seriously cant recommend it enough, I know they're not to everyones taste, but that just makes them even more special.
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