Best Albums of 2013

Once again I listened to less new music in 2013 than I really wanted to. I really liked these a lot, though!

Best of 2013

8. Autre Ne Veut - Anxiety


Anxiety mixes modern pop and experimental sensibilities to create something completely catchy that is way too weird to ever show up on top 40 radio. Even the lead single has these great falsetto vocals and infectious chorus that clashes against some dissonant horns and other odd choices. It makes the album sound original when it could have been something I'd otherwise totally ignore.

7. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories


After years of disco and funk being obvious influences on Daft Punk's electronic sound, they pretty much just made a disco and funk album. There's still plenty of modern synth and computerized vocals on there, but it's definitely more old fashioned sounding than their previous work. It's also absolutely loaded with talent contributing up and down the entire tracklist, and there are very few moments along the way that don't work.

6. The National - Trouble Will Find Me


This is now the fourth National album I've listened to, and none of the four truly distinguish themselves from each other. It's good then that the album they keep making is such a good one. It doesn't have any songs quite as good as the very best in their catalog, but the thirteen ones here are all solid, enjoyable rock. The National is a bunch of professional musicians making professional music.

5. Sigur Rós - Kveikur


Kveikur is an interesting release for this band, having as it does both completely obvious radio songs like you've heard from them before, and complete changes in direction like the bombastic and shockingly dark sounding opener. It sits somewhere in the range of accessibility between ( ) and Takk..., which is a pretty good place to sit.

4. The Flaming Lips - The Terror


I've discussed "Watching the Planets", the final track from The Flaming Lips' previous album Embryonic, as sounding like the world is ending, so it seems fitting to describe all of The Terror as sounding like the end of the world. Everything is dead, and only dust remains. It's a bleak, ambient album, which experiments in tones and will latch onto one small hook and work with it for minutes on end. It won't be a fun album for a lot of people, but I love that this band is still experimenting like this.

3. Chvrches - The Bones of What You Believe


Lauren Mayberry sounds like a little girl, but she also sounds like one of the most badass singers in modern music. The band plays around with different styles of synth music, from radio-friendly pop to dirtier and more aggressive stuff, but her voice is usually the constant that keeps it all together. Just good song after good song.

2. Kanye West - Yeezus


I don't know that there's another mainstream hip hop artist brave enough to release a record like this. Yeezus is bare bones at times, stark, without a lot of comfortable beats to get sucked into. It's really daring stuff, and while I don't think West is rap's best lyricist or technical vocalist, I think he deserves a lot of credit for ignoring the easy route of releasing another My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and instead pushing his sound in a completely different direction.

1. Arcade Fire - Reflektor


You know you love a band when you actually want a double album to be longer. I actually wasn't wild about Reflektor at first, but I turned around pretty quick. It was probably about time for a little reinvention, and here Arcade Fire got over their Bruce Springsteen kick and turned towards more island-influenced sounds and a surprising amount of synth. Pretty much every song has something to recommend for it. My only regret is that Régine never has a chance to sing lead, since when she does it often turns into an album highlight. Not that they needed help finding those this time.

Delayed Entry

This is the best album that wasn't released in 2013 but I didn't hear until then.

Talking Heads - Remain in Light

Nothing I heard in the last year really blew my mind, but my first real Talking Heads experience was quite a good one. I've always had mixed feelings about "Once in a Lifetime", possibly their most popular song, but I think it really works well in the context of the whole album. It's a nice mix of funk and contemporary (at the time) sounds, letting them find interesting riffs and play with them for as long as their sustainable. I know it's a vague sentiment, but it doesn't really feel like an album that's over thirty years old. What worked about it then still works now.

Best Albums of 2010

The music list always seems weakest when I do these, and I think it's because new albums are the first thing to fall off my frequent purchases when I'm low on cash. I just rarely go out and buy an album unless it's by an artist I already know. It's not that I don't think these are all really good albums, I just wish I had a lot more to pick between when putting this together. Because I do think these are all really good albums.

Best of 2010

5. Spoon - Transference


I enjoyed Transference about as much as Spoon's last release, though not quite for the same reasons. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga had a lot of really tightly constructed, solid rock songs, while Transference is much looser and jammy. It was a slightly different approach to the same general sound that I liked a lot, and the whole album is just full of grooves that could easily last a lot longer than they already do. Maybe disappointing if you wanted more of the same, but I dug it.

4. Beach House - Teen Dream


I didn't review this because I got it after the new year, which means I won't since I don't do that anymore. But it's a really good album, making "dream pop" a lot more interesting than it sounds. It's really pleasant, well produced, surprisingly catchy music, and something a lot of different people could agree is nice to listen to. It kind of drags a bit by the end, but for the most part it's all really fun.

3. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach


Plastic Beach didn't quite live up to Demon Days for me, but I liked it more than the Gorillaz' first album, which was also really good on its own. Maybe there could have been a bit more variety to the guests, but they're well integrated, Damon Albarn does a good job pulling double duty on vocals and production, and a lot of the songs hit just as hard as anything else they've done.

2. The National - High Violet


I have a feeling The National could become one of my favorite bands very quickly. The singer has an awesome baritone voice, and the songwriting matches it perfectly. I'm having a hard time trying to describe it, but it's just really well done, appropriately moody rock for a slightly more mature audience. Not every track is terribly interesting, but most of them are listenable on a nearly endless level.

1. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs


The Suburbs seemed like a nice mix between the first two albums by these guys, a bit more consistently fun and interesting than last time but also focusing on slightly more mature topics as they all grow into real adulthood. It doesn't have a single song that really matches the absolute best stuff they've done before, but "Sprawl II" is pretty much there, and almost everything else is at least likable enough that you don't really feel like skipping around. A true album from start to finish.

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

It's going to stink waiting for new Arcade Fire material now. I burned through their three albums in less than a year, and now it's going to be a while until the next one. Oh well, guess I'll have to find another indie band to obsess over for a while.

If I had to rank them, I'd put The Suburbs behind Funeral and ahead of Neon Bible, although the important thing is that they haven't messed up yet, and their sound continues to grow and evolve as they figure out what kind of band they are. Bible had much more obvious musical influences than Funeral, while in The Suburbs you can still feel the effect of previous work on the songs, it's much less blatant and gives it a more timeless quality. It's sort of a compromise between their first two albums in a way, a bit more mature than Funeral but more down to earth and apolitical than Neon Bible. I'm very excited to see where they continue to go from here.

"The Suburbs" and "Ready to Start" are a perfect one-two punch to begin the proceedings, full of energy and the band's unique flair. "Modern Man" is a more mellow track, but it keeps it interesting enough. "Rococo" didn't amaze me at first beyond a couple elements, but it's actually turned out to be perhaps the most insidious earworm on the album. "Empty Room" is the first song on the album sung primarily by Regine, and a catchy one. I like Win just fine obviously, but I think they both have a lot to bring to the table, and it was a bit disappointing when she only really sang half of one song on Neon Bible. She shows up more here, and it's fun.

"Half Light", the first of two two-parters, is a pretty nice pair of songs, and they're followed by "Suburban War", a pleasant track in its own right that transforms itself with a minute and a half to go in a pretty awesome way. If the album has a weakness, it's the four tracks after that before the intoxicating "Sprawl" I and II. They're nice songs, doing their own unique thing on the album, it's just that they kind of make the whole thing seem a bit overstuffed, and if there were just two of them there instead of all four I think it would flow better. But anyway, "Sprawl" is awesome and the final track brings everything full circle. It's a great album that might have been better with a bit of trimming, but I can't really complain about having more Arcade Fire songs, can I?

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

So Arcade Fire's second album turned out to not be as good as their first, but that's okay because few things are. It's not revolutionary, but it's a solid, very listenable album. It's also a bit unexpected in some of its sounds. I really wasn't expecting the most obvious influence on this band from Canada to be Bruce Springsteen. They make all the songs their own, but there's no doubt they were inspired by various American acts that were prone to political messages, as they're no strangers to that here. Perhaps the biggest fault with the album is that it can't quite keep up its energy from the first half to the second. There's still good songs to be found there, it's just not as endlessly listenable as the beginning of this or the entirety of Funeral. I wouldn't really call it a disappointment, because I do think it's pretty darn good. It would just be nice if The Suburbs, which comes out this August, is a little more consistent. At least Neon Bible's jacket is a flip book.

In case you were wondering, the Springsteen influence is definitely felt in "Keep the Car Running", and especially "(Antichrist Television Blues)", which might as well have been written by him. They're both pretty enjoyable songs though. "Intervention" was the lead single, and has a nice energy to it, plus some of the better interplay between Win and Regine. She only gets one lead part this time, and it's only part of a medley called "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations". But that's a good song so it's okay. The opener "Black Mirror" has an odd feel to it, but I think it's a good way to get set for the rest of what's coming. "Ocean of Noise" and "Windowsill" are two of the weaker tracks, although they both have a couple things going for them. "No Cars Go" is a recreation of a song from their first EP, and a pretty damn catchy tune. "My Body Is a Cage" ends things, and while it's not perfect, I like what it does. They were definitely trying to do something different with this album, and I respect that even if it didn't come out as great as their last effort. They're certainly one of the more likable bands playing right now.

Arcade Fire - Funeral

This is an album that definitely took me way too long to get. The first song I heard was watching the music video for "Rebellion (Lies)", which I liked but didn't flip out over. Later I heard "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" thanks to a friend, and thought it was pretty awesome. I knew how much people liked the album and was interested in buying it, but somehow it didn't end up happening for a long time. I didn't see it often in stores, and when I did the price wasn't right for some stupid reason. I almost forgot about it until they recorded a new version of "Wake Up" for the trailer to Where the Wild Things Are, but that was still about half a year before I finally bought the damn thing. And now I'm kicking myself for waiting so long. Funeral is one of my favorite albums of the last decade, ten tracks of incredibly consistent musical bliss without a single misstep to be heard.

The married couple of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne are the main songwriters and vocalists of the band, although there's currently five other permanent members. Win gets the lion's share of the lead vocals, although Régine's presence is pretty frequently evident and she does sing two of the last three tracks. There are lots of different instruments contributing to the sound, although the rock mainstay of the guitar is pretty frequently prevalent, and the percussion might be the single most important element in many of the songs. The whole Neighborhood suite that dominates the first half is pretty brilliant, with "Une Année sans Lumière" breaking it up a bit with a nice change of pace. The second half keeps up the pace, with two of the five singles, some of the more emotionally affecting songs, and a few of the more interesting cases where songs will completely change gears partway through and become something else. The background of the album is a bit sad, with it being written and recorded at a time when an unusually high number of band members' relatives dying, greatly influencing the songs (and the album's title, obviously), though it's hard to listen without coming out feeling good, thanks to the passionate, exuberant intensity with which they seem to tackle every single track. Just great from start to finish.