Well we made it through another year. Hopefully with all our fingers and toes intact. I made a list of the 20 best things I put in my ears ion 2013. I divide them into two categories. Albums made in 2013 and albums made for 2013, but released other years. There's much text here, so let's get to it.
Made in 2013
Oh I am so glad this record came out.
An uplifting series of vignettes about being past one's prime, alone
in NYC, or discovering that your parents really knew how to party.
When Travis Morrison sings about being “A fat man on drugs
smothered in hugs”, I know that he knows my pain.
Watch this tiny desk concert. Call and response curse words for NPR. Joy.
Nathan Snell's song writing often
reminds me of Stephen Merritt's. If Stephen were straight and a
college drop out. Occupying the vein diagram bubble where techno and
country deviously wiggle out their differences. Grim, hilarious, and
hip seducing. Swimming & Crawling shows a transformation. Snell
trades the groove box for drum God Sam Brown and recruits TJSA's
Phillip Parks, creating what often feels like a rust belt Morrissey endeavour. Alcoholic one liners are littered like candy leading to a
hut of sonic gingerbread. I dare you to listen to album and then
take a shower without singing “Life isn't much here. I drink all
the time dear.” You can't.
I'm so glad I waited till the last
possible minute to write this list. This album from the sleeping
giants of northern Michigan came out just last week. Chris Cooney
sings the way Rivers Cuomo would if he still had soul. Riff heavy hard
rock with harmony that wastes no opportunity for a hot lick. “Get
What You Like” is 100% uncut ear worm.
Zac Little and Maryn Jones are not only
unstoppable, but also instantly lovable. Their sound is a lush,
infectious, and ghostly. Pianos phase into being and vanish just as
quickly. Days later, you'll be walking down the street or in a
bookstore and you'll find yourself humming a song you can't quite
name. It was Saint Seneca
This album and Superchunk's “I Hate
Music” were pleasant and unexpected surprises. I love Jay
Loewenstien's voice. It sounds like it's grown a beard. Lou sounds
more lucid than he has for a few years now. Very happy this
happened.
So Talib Kweli literally bested himself
this year, by knocking his other 2013 album “Prisoner Of Conscious”
off of my top 10 list, with his second 2013 release “Gravitas”.
I had a whole paragraph about Kweli's creative use of the human mic.
A technique developed by Occupy Wall Street to amplify a speaker
without the use electronics by having the crowd repeat the speaker's
words one sentence at a time. And what about the moment when senile
old man Busta Rhymes starts yelling at the teenagers about cooking
pork in the house!! Nah, forget that, Gravitas kicks that other
record's ass.
#ignorant #emotional #allthedrugs Who
knows what the hell is going on with this Yung Lean kid. Maybe he's
a drug hungry army brat who made friends with a Swedish DJ while
bouncing around with is family. Maybe he he overdosed in 2002 and
his best friends made a highly danceable sound collage out of his
leftover tapes. Either way, this'll be the year nerdcore went gangsta. And the shit is addictive. It's hard
not to want to join in on his fantasy. Even though he can be kind of
a gross bro at times, it's like a fun house mirror version of all hip
hop's stereotypes. You can get a contact buzz from some of these
drum loops. Did I mention that
his videos are a bat shit insane
blend of home videos, bad CGI, and a fanatical obsession with Pokemon
and Arizona Ice Tea?
Another surprise visit from an old
friend. I could just get lost in Hope Sandoval's voice. Is it
possible to listen to this music and not feel like the sexiest person
alive? Even when she's singing about loss and disappointment. Damn!
Some of this record is downright corny.
Jay-Z spends a lot of time explaining just how gansta fatherhood
really is, and I don't buy it. Especially since their not one diaper
reference made the whole time. But, Jay-Z spends just as much time trying to make Jean-Micheal Basquia
t popular again, which is actually pretty fucking cool. Especially when your boy Nas drops by for a track like BBC,
or when Jova mixes swing era jazz into his beats. For my
Adventure Time friends.
Sing that “Baby” song Finn sings when he
gets that auto tuner stuck in his throat over Justin Timberlake's
part in the opening track. Then replace the words “Holy Grail”
with "
The Enchiridion”
None of these records were released in
2013, but somehow seem to have been written just for 2013. I'm glad
they found me right on time.
This straight to Internet release came
out in 2009 I think, but has all the proper trappings of a 2013
release. Genre bending, home made, out of love, witty but not too
funny. The prefect soundtrack.
Yeah, this Midwestern all girl band
knows how to write hooks. And they deliver them without mercy. This
came out in November of 2012 and just flew below the radar, but it is
worth it. Sick Of Sarah are my favorite new band.
Another album from 2009 that's #2013. From the hooky “Toxins” to songs about water
rights, plastic in the ocean, and even a really great story rhyme about a crew of triple
double crossing crooks that ends with a police raid on an airport. D
Roof spends a lot of time thinking about the future, and this time he
gets it right on the nose.
Between his time in the Hollies and
becoming part of the OG super group Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young,
Graham Nash dropped this very sober and honest collection of songs. Nash
sings about the
prison industrial complex, depression sleeping,
people trying to survive in an economy that's stacked against them.
All in a way that's as lovely as a field of wild flowers on a summer
day.
This album is good all the time, but
had a special resonance with me in 2013. I especially love some of
the life lessons Mould and Co. try to pass on this album. “There's
more to life that being wrong or right. There's something called
getting along.” Somebody tell congress.
The Bytes were just another early 80's
new wave band from the east coast. Sometimes they sound like a
street grade musical starring Olivia Newton John, and other moments
I'm surprised they weren't besties with the likes of Ric Ocasek or
Mark Mothersbaugh. Still, they predicted cell phone culture with an uncanny
accuracy. Songs like “
Why Didn't You Call Me Last Night”, “And
There's More”, and “Too Cool”. Sound like some of the
arguments you overhear and junk you see on
Imgur
This is three disc set of punk music
coming out of East Germany, West Germany, and The Soviet Union in the
years just prior to the fall of the Berlin wall. Being punk has
always been about rebellion in every culture. But the punks of
eastern Europe had their own set of problems that make our punks look
wimpy in comparison. Not only were you giving up any chance at a job
or getting into college, but East German punks faced daily police
harassment and violence along with the constant pressure of being
asked to inform on your friends. Oh yeah, and your friends probably
are informing on you. If you were a punk in the late 80's in the US,
you family might disown you. If you were a punk in the Soviet Union,
your family might never see you again because you were either killed
or sent to a work camp. These songs are lo-fi, simple, raw,
paranoid, and powerful. Fuck Ronald Reagan.
Punk killed the Berlin Wall.
Don't forget, my own album,
The Hair Farmer's Almanac become available on
bandcamp,
amazon, and
itunes in 2013 as well.
