The Year in Music - 2009

In short, it was a bit of a crap year for music. Unless I’m getting old and nothing sounds good anymore. But it can’t be that.

Most albums I heard sounded like they should have been, at best, EPs, and at worst, shelved. For example, Julian Casablancas, Julian Plenti, Girls, Morrissey, and PJ Harvey. Almost all of these albums had a couple of good tracks, but none of them could sustain this energy and excitement all the way through.

In the battle of the solo albums by lead singers from trendy New York bands whose stars appear to be waning, Julian Casablancas barely edged out Paul Banks, who was so pre-emptively bashful about his solo output that he changed his name to Julian Plenti, just to fuck with Strokes fans and confuse everyone else into thinking he’d embarked upon a career in porn. And when I say barely edged out, I mean that the real Julian’s album had about four good tracks, whereas the pretend, porn star Julian could really only summon enough manly vigor for about two songs I wanted to hear more than once. One of those was the one with the video about the alter-egos and the hotel. Fake Julian really seems to have identity issues. Real Julian seems to be working on his.

Girls’ self-titled debut had some good parts, notably “Lust for Life” which was a fine way to kick off an album, but after that I can’t think of a highpoint to rival it. Plus it made me sad about the past when bands like Girls would have been also-rans. Now they’re the next big thing. Am I really getting old?

Morrissey is becoming (if he hasn’t already become) a cabaret star. I’m frankly surprised that he doesn’t have a Vegas residency yet. I think it would be very successful. He would certainly be better at it than Tom Jones, although he might not get quite the same volume/quality/style of underwear thrown his way. Years of Refusal had some corking moments (“When I Last Spoke to Carol,” “It’s Not Your Birthday Anymore,” among others), but Moz has yet to repeat the coherence of Vauxhall and I, after all these years.

However, my favorite song of the year on any album was, by some distance, Morrissey’s “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris,” which gestured toward past glories, and was one of the very, very few moments of listening pleasure that caused me to drive recklessly while singing along this year. This is one of the key indicators of cultural confidence, in my experience.

As far as albums are concerned, I’m not even going to pretend there were ten worth mentioning from 2009. It was quite discouraging to witness the tyranny of the tastemakers in almost all end-of-year lists with regard to what used to be known as Freakfolk, and what is now known in our house as the Unholy Trinity of Assitude. I am referring to the triad of progressive nonsense excreted by Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, and the Dirty Projectors. I tried to play along for as along as possible, but in the end I find myself compelled to suggest that the emperor might not be wearing any clothes underneath those nasty animal suits. Accordingly, Veckatimest, Merriwether Post Pavilion and Bitte Orca are all disqualified from this particular list, on account of unspeakable pretentious wankiness, and my newly developed allergic reaction to it. If I were stuck on a desert island with only these albums to keep me company, I would use the disks for skimming practice. I would rather live in a world without music than have to suffer the experience of listening to this effluvium. This phenomenon is perhaps the only reason I can think of not to live in Brooklyn.

As far as I can tell, then, there were seven albums that might have made a best-of list in any year, but I’m probably being generous. Of those that didn’t make the Final Seven, and excluding those which should have been EPs, there are a few I didn’t listen to frequently enough to form an opinion about, and which might grow on me in 2010. Those contenders would be The Eternal by Sonic Youth, Popular Songs by Yo La Tengo, …And The Ever Expanding Universe by The Most Serene Republic, Camera Obscura's My Maudlin Career, Bonnie Prince Billy's Beware, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' It's Blitz! and Stuart Murdoch's God Help the Girl project. Assuming that those albums do grow on me, we barely have a top ten for the year. Of course, if I could bring myself to listen to the two albums released in 2009 by the dearly departed Vic Chesnutt, then the list might reach respectability in terms of size and quality. But, like Elliott Smith before him, Vic's passing rendered his oeuvre indefinitely unlistenable for me, and Vic's death is almost harder to bear because I always found Vic amusing. Now that amusement seems like it might have been horribly misplaced. With Elliott Smith there was never any doubt that he wasn't kidding, unless you count "Needle in the Hay," which was a quite unfortunate joke to begin with.

So, the Seven, as follows:

The xx – S/T
I first came across the xx by way of a series of MP3 demos and a cover of Womack and Womack’s “Teardrops.” That early material was tantalizing, and it reminded me of my first exposure to Interpol. It’s always remarkable to come across a band who, even in their beginning, seem to know exactly what they’re doing, emerging into the open already fully formed. The album manages to maintain an underground feel while also establishing a trademark froideur which reinforces their coolness. But for all that, there’s something very soothing about their affect, and their effect. There’s a drone which becomes quite addictive, and the songs also serve as frameworks for some great remixes. Fully half the fun of the xx is hearing what other people do to their songs, so the album functions as a launching point for all those versions of the originals. It’s a very contemporary experience, and almost nothing came close in 2009.

Fever Ray – S/T
Speaking of froideur, Karin Dreijer Andersson from the Knife kind of specializes in iciness. She appears to see dead people (see below), and I assumed that the Fever Ray album would be too bleak for me to get anywhere near, but it’s actually surprisingly easy to get along with. I’m not sure I’d say that if I spent much time with the videos I’ve heard about, specifically the one for “When I Grow Up,” but the drone groove (see entry above) purveyed, if not originated, by Ms Andersson, is really absorbing. But not having seen said video, the song sounds like Bjork covering “Broken Wings” by Mr. Mister, if you can imagine. From beyond the grave, meanwhile, Nico is trying to make contact with her lawyers: “I see alive people capitalizing on my patented Teutonic Aura. Please to sue the arsches off them.”

Arctic Monkeys – Humbug
At first this album sounded like a reach. I should have had more faith in the Arctic Monkeys' irrepressible ability to find melodies everywhere, even if they are temporarily in thrall to the Queens of the Stupid Stone Age. Some people don’t like Alex Turner’s voice, but I think that’s their problem. He’s one of the wittiest lyricists out there, and his voice only enhances the barbed charm. It would also have been thrilling to hear this entire album covered by Morrissey, particularly “Cornerstone,” which in Morrissey’s hands would have sounded like an Edgar Allen Poe story.

Mark Kozelek – Ruben Olivares/Lost Verses Live
This list is starting to seem kind of depressing, setting aside the carnival barking of the Arctic Monkeys. Mark Kozelek sings like he wishes he was a cello. Some people find him kind of self-pitying. For as long as I can remember I have loathed the song “Send in the Clowns” with something more than a passion. None of the foregoing is a very auspicious way to introduce an album (well, two albums, since Caldo Verde sent me a freebie with my order – honestly, I don’t remember anymore which one I bought on purpose and which one came free) which finds its tone early and steadfastly remains there for quite a long time. But it’s a beautiful, rich tone. Plus, you find yourself imagining that you’re in Spain on a warm summer night, perhaps in the open air, hearing that voice drift sonorously toward and over you, and then you recover yourself just long enough to realize that the song you’re hearing is “Send in the Clowns” and you think to yourself, “Fuck it, even this sounds good when he sings it. I’ll have to remember never to tell anyone about this when I come down.” And then you’re lost again. Timbre music of the highest order.

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Meanwhile, back in the pop charts, Phoenix have emerged as unlikely International Idols, which is extremely gratifying to someone who was trying to get people to pay attention to “Too Young” and “Heatwave” ten years ago. What’s really interesting about this new offering is that they’ve started to blend their ridiculous pop sensibilities with an ambient dimension (see “Love Like a Sunset,” for example). This is what the charts should sound like, and while the crossover success of this album might be a blip, I’d rather hear Phoenix in my Cadillac commercials than a lot of other stuff.

Wooden Birds – Magnolia
This is an interesting new direction for Andrew Kenny of American Analog Set. It’s somewhat similar to Amanset, but it’s kind of like Amanset Unplugged. And, not to alarm you, it kind of sounds a bit like Lindsey Buckingham, but really not in a bad way. Pretty, pretty songs from the coolest indie kid ever.

Atlas Sound – Logos
I was ready to hate this album, because, well, because Bradford Cox scares me, honestly, and because it has one of those Animal Collective idiots singing on it. But it’s actually really catchy and fresh, like he’s been cleaning his room and he’s opened up the windows and everything smells good, for a brief time, before the stench of goth nastiness takes over again. “Shelia” is a terrific song, baroque, dense, and light at the same time. Bradford understands music history in a way that few can claim to, and he’s also the rare musician who can translate that sense of history into compelling music of his own. A few more months of listening might have made this an album-of-the-year candidate. Or alternatively, the heart of darkness at the album’s core might have revealed itself to me in a way that made me never want to listen to it again, thus securing its eternal banishment from this list. So perhaps I’ve heard it just enough.

UPDATE: I completely forgot to mention the White Rabbits' album, It's Frightening. I loved that album. Very Spoony in places, which is not really surprising considering that it's produced by Britt Daniel. So that would make it eight albums worth mentioning this year.

The Year in Music - 2011

2011 Albums

1) Bon Iver – Bon Iver
2) Fucked Up – David Comes to Life
3) James Blake – James Blake
4) Wilco – The Whole Love
5) PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
6) Girls – Father, Son & Holy Ghost
7) Radiohead – King of Limbs
8) Atlas Sound – Parallax
9) Arctic Monkeys – Suck it and See
10) Adele – 21

2011 was a strange year all around, not least in the area of music. I started out tweeting my repulsion at Bon Iver’s cover of Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” (something about the sounds of cats fighting in the woods behind my house), and ended somewhere in the late summer becoming preternaturally obsessed with one of the finest and most original albums of the last fifteen years. Facebook followers will no doubt have unsubscribed to my feed after one late-night post too many about Justin Vernon’s sainted lyrical ellipses and harmonic convergences. I was, indeed, not magnificent. After that, there was no question as to the album of the year, which did something of a disservice to the other four albums that had previously been vying for that title in my house, namely, Fucked Up’s David Comes To Life, James Blake’s self-titled album, Wilco’s severely underrated The Whole Love (talking to you, Pitchfork, you dumbasses – honestly, how does Beyonce’s Four get ranked #27 on their end-of-year list, and Wilco not even crack the Top 50 – but more about them later), and PJ Harvey’s remarkable Let England Shake.

When I first heard Let England Shake, I thought that there wouldn’t be anything to challenge it for album of the year. It just seemed like an hermetically sealed piece of visionary musical and lyrical work, an imagining of a country at a certain point in history, recalling other difficult (wartime) moments in that same country’s history, reclaiming World War One poetry from the muddy fields of Belgium, and from the upper-middle class white men who wrote it. Regardless of how the album was ultimately overshadowed by things that grabbed my attention in other more stunning ways, Let England Shake remains a massive artistic statement that will endure.

I’ve been skeptical about Wilco’s ability to make another good record since Sky Blue Sky, to the extent that I never even bothered to listen to the self-titled album that followed it. But The Whole Love is another kettle of fish altogether. There’s so much vitality, energy, creativity and joy on this album that in any other year it might have walked away with the Best of the Year title. It’s also a really, really smart album. My theorizing of it has Tweedy Wilco-izing the 1960s. It also made me wonder how many of these songs were Tweedy songs with Wilco as the backing band; how many were Tweedy songs with significant Wilco input, and how many were true Wilco songs. It doesn’t matter, of course. The narrative trajectory of the album is quite beautiful, from the opener “Art of Almost” to the exquisite pop music of “Dawned on Me,” to the extended country fuzz of “One Sunday Morning,” and suggests a band that is back on top of its game, and in full command of the mighty power of its engine.

James Blake’s self-titled album is more of a gestalt thing, and dovetails beautifully with the Bon Iver album as a mood piece. Play them back to back, with a chaser of Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath, 1972, with or without mind-alteration, and you’ll be in a very fine place for a very long time. Just do it.

I would normally run very fast in the opposite direction from Fucked Up’s David Comes to Life, but something about the scope of its ambition, the human car wash/MRI of its massive sound, and the catharsis of its primal scream made me love it unreservedly. I’m too old for punk rock, but this album made me feel like I still had a little bit of John Peel left in me after all.

Of the rest, there were some albums that would have probably made it to the big list, had I heard them sooner, notably Kurt Vile’s Smoke Ring For My Halo and Youth Lagoon’s The Year of Hibernation. Kurt Vile does himself no favors by being called Kurt Vile. It makes people think he’s some third generation Nick Cave karaoke outfit, when in fact he’s descended much more attractively from Lou Reed and Lloyd Cole. Youth Lagoon make a lovely sound, which I hope they’ll continue to develop.

Radiohead made their first official jazz album (IMO), and King of Limbs would seem to lend itself to some fascinating and wonderful interpretations by the likes of Brad Mehldau and Wayne Shorter if they have the interest and the energy to take a stab at it. Forget the remixes (which were also great by the way), let’s see some interpretations.

Father, Son & Holy Ghost by Girls initially irritated and underwhelmed me, but ultimately won me over by its broad canvas and occasional moments of stomach-churning brilliance. I worry about that dude’s long-term physical and mental health, though.

Bradford Cox is putting together an astonishing body of work, and it’s only a matter of time before his masterpiece. Last year’s Deerhunter record and this year’s Atlas Sound offering suggest that he’s not far away from an epoch-marking statement. His ability to translate his encyclopedic knowledge and fandom of alternative music into compelling, dark and beautiful art-pop songs is truly impressive, and we underestimate him at our peril. Watch his space very carefully. He is an artist more than he is anything else.

Arctic Monkeys are the most underrated brilliant band that we currently have. Every album is strong, melodic, witty and technically adept. Alex Turner’s lyrics and melodies should be universal earworms by now, but there never has been any justice in terms of who gets rich and famous and who doesn’t. If the kingmakers had any sense (Pitchfork gave The Whole Love a 6.9 and Suck it and See a 7.5, which tells you all you need to know about today’s tastemaking industry), they would be championing purveyors of smart, innovative, melodic alternative pop music, instead of insistently wandering down backwaters looking for things that are too cool for us to understand, but which we buy/download and lionize anyway, because we, paradoxically, are deathly afraid of being seen to be out of step with them. How fucked up is that?

Which brings me to Adele’s 21. 21 was nowhere near as good as her debut 19 in terms of the quality of the songs, but the voice took center stage this time in a way that blew the mediocrity of some of those songs completely out of the water, such that it didn’t really matter. With this album, Adele established herself as at least the equal of Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin (and I wouldn’t dare to make that comparison lightly, given my love of both of them). Rolling in the Deep is the song of the millenium so far: tribal, angry, exuberant, badass, weird (what does “rolling in the deep” mean, anyway?), and Adele herself seems like a completely regular person with an unusual ability to articulate the pain and suffering of other regular people, which no doubt accounts for her appeal and her success. Finally, someone we can relate to who is also successful, and immensely talented. Suck it, Celine Dion. You’re history.

The list of records that didn’t quite make it or that weren’t really that good is about as long as the list of records that did and that were. I continue to be baffled by the appeal of St. Vincent. Great musical chops, unlistenable songs. Really wanted to like Laura Marling, but found myself wanting to punch myself in the face while listening to A Creature I Don’t Know. Tuneyards’ Whokill might yet become a firm favorite, but right now my position is that we already have Talking Heads and the Pop Group, so what’s the point of the imitation? Likewise Fleet Foxes, who seem still not to realize or care that their entire career is made completely redundant by the pre-existence of CSNY. Trust fund music of the worst kind. When did alternative music cede authority to the Bearded People? Take back the power, hipsters, put down the banjos and mandolins, and shave your fucking faces. You have nothing to lose but your extreme lameness.

But Bon Iver wins at a canter this year (beard notwithstanding). No record of the last decade (aside perhaps from The National’s Boxer) has managed to get under my skin the way this one did. Justin Vernon creates an imaginary country of love lost and found, where it was OK to say “darlin’” and not sound like a giant tool, where the real world and the world of the imagination were entirely confounded and conflated, where beauty had a purpose outside of itself, to heal and make whole what had previously been broken (see For Emma, Forever Ago, and Blood Bank, both remarkable in their own right as well). This music is sui generis, inventing a kind of folk/electronic sound that makes a parallel comparison with James Blake entirely reasonable. I could listen to this album another thousand times and still hear new things in it that would turn my stomach and my heart inside out. It’s the kind of album that makes me want to proselytize about it (and believe me, I did, with a surprising degree of success).
So yeah, a weird year. Mono, family sicknesses, life upheavals, but the constant stimulation and diversion of some fantastic new music which gives me hope for my own continued engagment with it and the possibility that we haven't yet run out of ideas (unless you're Robin Pecknold, in which case you can just keep listening to, and cribbing from Deja Vu for just as long as people will keep paying you to do so - good luck with that, you charlatan).

The Year in Music - 2012

2012 was a strange and difficult year, for reasons already overshared on my Facebook timeline (although as I look back on previous years’ lists, I always seem to preface my remarks with something along the lines of “It was a strange and difficult year,” so perhaps we should just assume that it was in the future and spare ourselves the formality of the statement). I will try to refrain from rehearsing 2012’s particular strangeness and difficulty here, as I will also try to moderate my use of adverbs to describe the impact of all this music on my embattled psyche. It has become apparent that adverbs seem to stand in, more and more, particularly in music criticism or conversation, for a lack of eloquence accompanied by a desperation to convince another concerning the excellence or abysmality (that’s probably not even a word) of a given single, album or other musical experience.

Strange and difficult as it was, 2012 was also a year of musical abundance. I cannot recall a year of so many interesting and novel musical issuances from artists both new and familiar. There have been years in recent memory when I struggled to find ten albums to write about. This year, I will struggle to limit myself to thirty. Whether this proliferation of interestingness is a by-product of paying more attention (I’m not really sure how I could pay even more attention to music than I do, though, honestly), of a broadening of my blog-reading, of a sheer increase in musical output, or of a confluence of all of these things combined with the perfect storm of multiple genres over-performing simultaneously, it is hard to quantify. But the result of all of this is a long list of fascinating releases from a wide generic spectrum.

Nevertheless, for all that it was a year of abundance, I came to realize as I perused and re-perused my ever-expanding list that 2012 was also, strangely (adverb alert), a year of minor masterpieces, of small triumphs and surprises, and of joyful moments and interludes rather than grand or epochal artistic statements that were insisting, sooner rather than later, on a place in the pantheon. There was, for me, no classic album in 2012. There was no “You Forgot It in People,” no “Boxer,” no “Turn on the Bright Lights.” The debut album from the xx in 2009 changed the landscape. Bon Iver’s self-titled album from last year changed the way I see the world. Broken Social Scene, the National and Interpol provided euphoria with those three aforementioned albums that made me feel younger, not quite immortal, but joyous in a sustaining way that resembled a very powerful club drug on timed release.

In 2011 Bon Iver’s masterpiece helped me anticipate loss and grief, which I knew were on the horizon. This year I used music to survive that grief and loss in ways that reflected it back to me, and in ways that studiously avoided it, depending on the artifact in question. Some of my abiding musical loves this year were deeply meditative reflections on absence and the past, on solitude and sadness, elegiac pieces that are really no different from my indie-boy taste of the last thirty-five years, except that this time I’m actually mourning rather than pining for a girl. Some of my other musical loves from 2012 reflect a desire to check out from that meditative activity and just rock out, or bliss out, or groove out. And then there were some things that I still couldn’t make up my mind about, even after months of listening. These were almost entirely electronic albums. They will remain in purgatory, pending further deliberations. And finally, there is the handful of albums that were just not all that, despite the critical momentum behind them. I’ll just say that I tried my best, and I still couldn’t get behind Ty Segall or DIIV.

The Top Twenty:

01) Divine Fits – A Thing Called Divine Fits

This is a remarkable album, particularly considering the stealth with which it arrived. Almost perfect, aside perhaps from the cover of “Shivers,” this is a tight, tense, extremely melodic and layered experience from start to finish. I would never have thought of putting Britt Daniel and Dan Boeckner together, just like I would never have thought of eating pork and clams together (thank you, Portuguese cuisine!), but it totally works. Perhaps not a classic, but it proved to be the album I kept coming back to over and over again.

02) Frank Ocean – Channel Orange

For the longest time I thought this would be the album of the year, because it’s so smart, surprising, complicated, strange, and fascinating. And perhaps it will stand the test of time and end up becoming that classic I was looking for. But in the end, the interludes between the longer songs (looking at you, “Fertilizer”) began to grate, and I couldn’t ever quite get over the presence of the evil John Mayer, so it slipped a bit. But “Thinking Bout You” continues to be a mindblowing experience, as does "Pyramids." This might well ripen into something for the pantheon. And I can’t wait to see what he does next.

03) Cloud Nothings – Attack on Memory

This came out in January of 2012, but it didn’t come to my attention until November, because I’m an idiot. It turned out to be an incredible tonic, and I wished I’d known of it earlier, since I’m sure it would have helped me cope with stuff that hadn’t happened yet as of last January. This is a throwback album in some ways, filling in for some of what we continue to miss with the absence of Fugazi. It’s also very discreet, knowing when to quit (it’s only just over a half hour long). But in that short span it packs a wicked punch. If Green Day heard this, they would hang their heads in shame and quit the business for good. Here’s hoping they allow Cloud Nothings in rehab.

04) Tame Impala – Lonerism

I was skeptical about this at first, but thanks to Spotify, I was able to get over that and soon came to love the one-man psychedelia of Kevin Parker to the point where I couldn’t wait to own the actual artifact. I confessed my love of it to my record store pal, and his slightly withering response (“Is it better than the last one?”) made me doubt myself briefly, but I’m not at all ashamed of how this music makes me feel. It’s an addictive and tuneful noise that I couldn’t get enough of. It’s also remarkable how much great music comes out of Australia, and this is another fine example. Oddly reminiscent of the Delays, a band whom I adored, even though they were more fully poppy than this buzzy drone.

05) Mountain Goats – Transcendental Youth

I’m stepping slightly out of order here to address a cluster of bands who made music in 2012, including the #5 album on my list, Mountain Goats’ Transcendental Youth. At least two of John Darnielle, David Longstreth (Dirty Projectors) and Ed Droste (Grizzly Bear) seem like the kind of people who, in the idiom of my dear, departed mother, might iron their jeans, and their music reflects that rather neurotic impulse in ways that can tend to irritate. John Darnielle is pre-emptively forgiven because he’s a certified (and perhaps also certifiable) genius. The other two still have some catching up to do with me, because much of their work continues to be overly fussy and redolent of the prog-rock I was raised to abhor. In fact, back in 2009 I roundly dismissed Dirty Projectors and Grizzly Bear for their pretension. So imagine my surprise when they both turned in fascinating and accessible work this year, albeit still very complicated. More important, there seemed to be some resonant emotional availability on display as well. You can rely on John Darnielle for a regular dose of oversharing, but Longstreth and Droste seem less reliably emotive. For these and other reasons I think of these three albums, Transcendental Youth, Swing Lo Magellan, and Shields, as somewhat of a piece, although Mountain Goats are clearly the odd one out. A mixtape that sequenced “Lakeside View Apartments Suite,” “Gun Has No Trigger,” and “Yet Again” would win my heart hands down, were it not already won. Also, the video for “Yet Again” is compelling and brilliant. Well played, neurotic jeans-ironers. You did good.

06) Wild Nothing – Nocturne

Most of my adult music life has involved some attempt to find replacements for the Smiths and the Go-Betweens. For a while this involved a dalliance, for example, with Gene and the Auteurs, fine bands in their own right. The current candidate for that role is Wild Nothing, which is the first positive thing I can remember ever saying about Virginia Tech, where mastermind Jack Tatum matriculated. Who knew Blacksburg, Virginia could inspire such dreamy pop music. Of course, he lives in Brooklyn now, along with everyone else. And his songs don’t sound anything like the Smiths or the Go-Betweens. But they do transport, which I guess they’d have to if you were writing them in Blacksburg. No offence.

07) Lotus Plaza – Spooky Action at a Distance

Speaking of being transported, this Deerhunter side project (not Bradford Cox’s this time, but Lockett Pundt’s) is a total buzz from start to finish. It’s nice to know that there is music which renders drugs and alcohol unnecessary, but which can also be enhanced by such things (allegedly). This was a “grower,” but it didn’t take long to recognize that fact. This is the music of “atmosphere,” which people tend to underestimate.

08) Mount Eerie – Clear Moon/Ocean Roar

Speaking of atmosphere (you see how this narrative is going – transitions!), Phil Elverum is a master of it. He put out two albums in 2012,both of which were hard/impossible to track down in physical form, which makes a certain amount of sense, given that he is purveying an eco-genre of elemental ethereality (I just made that up, btw). He kind of takes the Pixies LoudQuietLoud gestalt and splits it up into the quiet album (Clear Moon) and the loud album (Ocean Roar) and the results are spectacular and bracing. If I’d heard these earlier (and they seem inseparable, hence the joint listing), they might well have ended higher up the list. So by March, 2013, they could be near the top. Which is how beanstalks grow, I suppose, speaking of ecological tall tales.

09) How to Dress Well – Total Loss

“All the new thinking is about loss. In this it resembles all the old thinking.” Thus did Robert Hass, with a twinkle in his eye, speak to our predilection for elegy. Tom Krell, who is How to Dress Well, doubles down here, not only replicating some of the old music, but some of the old thinking about loss. This is the big self-conscious album about bereavement that I listened to in a rather morose way for much of the year, even though it’s beautiful and uplifting. One of only two or three “electronic” albums that I can unequivocally put in my best-of list for the year. See below for comments on the others.

10) Shins – Port of Morrow

Turns out that you can’t keep the Shins down. This is a fantastic album, filled with complicated (and simultaneously very accessible) melody, harmony and lyricism. It kind of flew under the radar, because we take the Shins for granted, and because we might think their best work is behind them. We should think again.

11) AC Newman – Shut Down the Streets

AC Newman should join the Shins. This is also a fantastic album, the kind of thing that should be a huge hit (like, on the charts). We should be hearing these songs on the radio, like the regular radio. Another album about loss, sad to say. See: Robert Hass, above. This might actually be my favorite album of the year. I don’t know why it’s only at #11. Perhaps because Neko Case gets on my nerves these days, and she shows up here for some warbling duties.

12) Chairlift – Something

The biggest and most pleasant surprise of the year, and the reason blogs are important. This is a gorgeous synthy pop album that came out of nowhere and made me pay attention to it. Reasons not to give up on new music, just because I’m, cough, forty seven years old.

13) Grimes – Visions

Confession: I was too embarrassed to put this higher, even though I actually love it do death. My only reservation is that it isn’t grimier. If you’re going to call yourself “Grimes,” then go all in.

14) Black Marble – A Different Arrangement

Recommended to me by the same record store guy who dismissed Tame Impala, this album was underwhelming at first, but after a while the Stephin Merritt/electronica thing really started to work on me. Nice job, record store guy.

15) xx – Coexist

Who would have thought that the xx could have turned out to be a polarizing band, after the consensus over the first album. That phenomenon alone buys them a long leash in my book, and so I’m remaining loyal. This album wasn’t exactly a re-tread of the first one, and repays repeated listening, although as someone has already pointed out, they won’t be allowed to turn in a third album like this without suffering some serious slippage. The steel drums were a touch of genius by Jamie. Let’s hope that’s a sign of things to come.

16) Dirty Projectors – Swing Lo Magellan

See above, and also, I’m very surprised to be allowing Dirty Projectors to be darkening my door after their last two albums made me want to punch myself in the face repeatedly. Longstreth appears to have been able to get over himself just long enough to write some actual songs, with melodies and choruses, and they’re actually very good songs indeed. Keep it up, Longstreth!

17) Grizzly Bear – Shields

See above, mostly, although I will say that I think this album could end up being a lot more important than that 17th best thing that came out in 2012. I continue to struggle with their preciousness, but this is a very impressive piece of work. There’s a song right in the middle of the album (“A Simple Answer,” I think) that threatens to turn me into the Hulk every time I hear it, so dull and meandering is it, but apart from that, this is some serious and sustained work of great ambition, and they pretty much pull it off.

18) Chromatics – Kill For Love

Epic, filmic music. Genius decision to start with the Neil Young cover, and it goes well from there. Also, those two Johnny Jewel mixes (Black and White/Let’s Kiss) are good value for money (that is to say, they are free – seek them out on the internet).

19) Japandroids – Celebration Rock

I wanted to fall in love with this album, and I sort of did for a while before I realized that it didn’t line up with my humours. In other words, I couldn’t get behind something so celebratory at this point in my life, and because my irony meter was broken this year. But I recognize that in another year it might have been a lot higher.

20) Lemonade – Diver

Another surprise from the bloggers. Ambient washes. I was much taken with it.

The Second Tier:

21) The Walkmen – Heaven

I've never been a close follower of The Walkmen, but this one was affecting for some reason. I love Hamilton Leithauser’s vocals on this album. They remind me of someone (Julian Casablancas?). And of course it’s an album about growing up and owning things you were previously afraid of/uninterested in. Welcome to life. Ugh.

22) Jessie Ware – Devotion

There’s a lot of great r&b coming out of England lately, even if you don’t count Adele. Jessie Ware is leading the way (along with Delilah and Paloma Faith, below). “Wildest Moments” was one of the great songs of the year.

23) Sharon Van Etten – Tramp

I was super excited about this album, only to be slightly disappointed in it. Epic promised a lot more than this delivered, but there are definitely some very high points (e.g. “Serpents”).

24) Mark Eitzel – Don’t Be a Stranger

I’m not objective about Mark Eitzel. I even liked that ridiculous bouzouki album of AMC songs a few years ago. And the fact that he has a home on Merge makes me happy. This album made me cry quite a lot. Hence, #24.

25) Beach House – Bloom

This album was very disappointing, but that might be because the bar was set so high with Teen Dream. I’m continuing to wait for it to bloom like it said it would. I’m not giving up on it yet, though.

26) Bill Fay – Life is People

Another lovely surprise. I’d never heard of Bill Fay before. But I guess Jeff Tweedy had, since he curated (produced, sang, etc.) this project. An uplifting piece of secular spiritual music from the hinterland. I loved it so much, I gave it to someone for their birthday. So there.

27) Cat Power – Sun

Also disappointing, but Cat Power’s less-than-stellar offerings are still better than most people’s best. Plus, my wife really liked this album, so I’m giving it the proper respect. I wish it could have been higher, but it didn’t really catch fire for me.

28) Purity Ring – Shrines

I was really enjoying this, and thinking of placing it much higher, when there came a moment of excessive Bjorkiness that made me reconsider. Hence, #28.

29) Delilah – From the Roots Up

30) Paloma Faith – Fall to Grace

See: Jessie Ware, above, because I’m a big chauvinist who thinks that all white, British, female soul singers sound the same. JK.

EPs of the Year:

01) Dum Dum Girls – End of Daze

I really wanted this to be an album, because it was perfect except that it wasn’t long enough. So perhaps it’s just the right length after all.

02) Burial – Kindred

He can do no wrong.

03) Solange – True

Why not?

Purgatory:

I struggled with a lot of these zeitgeisty electronic albums, all of which I really wanted to like, so they’re being placed in the holding tank until I can figure them out, along with Fiona Apple’s latest, because I didn’t have a chance to listen to it enough to decide whether I love it or hate it.

Actress – R.I.P

Flying Lotus – Until the Quiet Comes

Jon Talabot – Fin

Fiona Apple – Whatever it’s called

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

Here’s something weird:

Big fan of Ben Gibbard and Aimee Mann. Both released albums in 2012. One of those albums contained a duet between the two of them. I had zero interest in either. Can’t explain it. It’s like I’m Benjamin Button. Just when you think I might be at the point in my life when a Ben Gibbard or an Aimee Mann album might “speak to me,” I become immune/allergic. Wait, that's nothing like Benjamin Button. Never mind.

Meh:

DIIV – Oshin

Ty Segall – All of it

The Year in Music - 2013

At the risk of boring you all to death with a blow-by-blow, here’s the top of the list:

1)       Trouble Will Find Me – The National

2)       Sunbather – Deafheaven

3)       Centralia – Mountains

4)       Immunity – Jon Hopkins

5)       Monomania – Deerhunter

6)       Dream River – Bill Callahan

7)       Julia With Blue Jeans On – Moonface

8)       Muchacho – Phosphorescent

9)       Chance of Rain – Laurel Halo

10)     Virgins – Tim Hecker

11)     Dysnomia – Dawn of Midi

12)     MCII – Mikal Cronin

13)     AM – Arctic Monkeys

14)     Shaking the Habitual – The Knife

15)     Pull My Hair Back – Jessy Lanza

16)     DJ Kicks – John Talabot

17)     Livity Sound – Various Artists

18)     Cold Mission – Logos

19)     Engravings – Forest Swords

20)     Cerulean Salt – Waxahatchee

21)     Hummingbird – Local Natives

22)     John Wizards – John Wizards

23)     Wakin on a Pretty Daze – Kurt Vile

24)     Event of Your Leaving – Raum

25)     R Plus Seven – Oneohtrix Point Never

And here also is an aggregated summary of some thoughts about the list: The National were never really in danger of not being at the top this year.  That album was so good I had to force myself to stop listening to it for fear that I would wear it out and ruin the memory.  Elsewhere, it was for me a year of discovering the twinned wonders of metal and electronica in ways I had not previously experienced. The combined pleasure of Sunbather, Centralia and Immunity was almost enough to cause some kind of sensory overload in my basement on occasion over the last twelve months.  These artists have taught me to enjoy pure sound, and the structure of sound, in a way that “songs” can’t quite do.  Speaking of songs, though, Monomania, Dream River, Julia With Blue Jeans On, and Muchacho offered up some of the strongest pure songs of the last five years, and they all came from completely different artistic contexts (it took me about ten months to appreciate Muchacho, having spent most of the year feeling disappointed in an album that came with so much hype, but once the light went on for me, it went on in the most beautiful way, and the album just keeps revealing its wonders with each new listen – proof that patient pays off when listening to music that isn’t immediately obvious). Moonface (Spencer Krug) made an album that recalled John Cale’s Paris, 1919, but without quite the menace.  Bill Callahan seems like a poet who happens to set his words to music with the most exquisite good taste.

Music without words became very important to me in 2013, and there were no better exponents of pure mood and tone than the genius of Laurel Halo and Tim Hecker.  The latter seems to be making the closest thing to contemporary classical/art music that we have in the popular realm.  And in terms of art, there was no more challenging and defiant statement than the remarkable trio Dawn of Midi’s Dysnomia.  You could be forgiven for thinking that it was made with machines, and yet, it was simply piano, double bass and drums.  This points up a certain paradox in some of this year’s best music.  You might have expected Phosphorescent, given Matthew Houck’s rootsy track record and the title of his new album, to have given us some kind of organic mandolin-filled affair, but it sounds surprisingly plastic and is, I think, better for it. 

While the lack of words in much of my favorite music from 2013 led to one of the more unusual rosters of albums I have chosen in the last few years, there was still some fantastic catchy pop music being made, and it didn’t need to sell out its principles to do so.  Mikal Cronin and the Arctic Monkeys put together two beautiful albums of perfect pop music with a great deal of skill and charisma.  You don’t have to put up with all the nonsense that the radio still tries to palm us off with.  There is a lot better pop music out there than that would lead you to believe.  These are two great examples.

The solid core of albums made by The Knife, Jessy Lanza, John Talabot, the boys from Livity Sound, Logos, and Forest Swords, demonstrates just how healthy, vital and varied contemporary music is.  While The Knife’s sound is, at least on the surface, quite terrifying, the experience becomes progressively more intimate the more you expose yourself to it.  Jessy Lanza manages, with the help of production from Junior Boys, to make an eminently accessible album with some very innovative sounds.  John Talabot perfects the mix with his contribution to the DJ Kicks series, and Livity Sound and Logos offer us two really satisfying views of the current and ever-changing grime scene.  I was a little frustrated by how long it took for the Logos album to take off, but it was worth the wait.  Some of these experiences require patience and persistence.  But they reward your attention. It took me a while to shake the feeling that the Forest Swords album would have made a really excellent soundtrack to Game of Throne, but after a while, I was even able to put that aside and appreciate the soundscape created by Matthew Barnes.  Who knew the Wirral could produce such electronic beauty, after the decades-long abomination of OMD?

Waxahatchee produced some classic indie sounds that managed to stay fresh; Local Natives took up the Grizzly Bear gauntlet with aplomb, and John Wizards, who came to my attention very late in the year, managed to make a totally original sound out of what almost seemed like found ingredients.  I was disappointed ,initially, with the new Kurt Vile album, but it too repaid my perseverance.  There’s something about his sound that gets under your skin.  Some reviews speak of his music as if it’s just boring stoner fare, but there’s a lot more going on that that.  I think he might be doing this minimalist groove thing on purpose.  You just have to stick with it long enough for that groove to take over, and enjoy the sound he makes.

And speaking of sound, Raum and Oneohtrix Point Never made an ambient sound that was deeply meditative, but never boring.  This is the kind of music you can pay as much attention to as you like, but the more you do, the more dividends it will yield. 

So that rounds out the top 25 albums of my year.  The rest of my favorite albums follow, without commentary (because life is too short) here:

Pure Heroine – Lorde
Flower Lane – Ducktails
mbv – My Bloody Valentine
Ritual Tradition Habit – The Belle Game
The Man Who Died in His Boat – Grouper
Torres – Torres
Major Arcana – Speedy Ortiz
If You Want – London Grammar
Wise Up Ghost – Elvis Costello & The Roots
Nexus – Young Echo
Sky Song – Colorlist
Long Enough to Leave – The Mantles
Cut 4 Me – Kelela
Saint Heron – Various Artists
Cupid Deluxe – Blood Orange
Junip – Junip
Woman – Rhye
Days Are Gone – Haim

There were also some great EPs and singles in 2013.  Here are some I especially liked:

The Double EP – A Sea of Split Peas – Courtney Barnett
Truant/Rough Sleeper – Burial (ok, this technically came out in late 2012, but I didn’t hear it until 2013)
Emancipated Hearts – Dean Wareham
Empty Estate – Wild Nothing
Expanding Dub – Bill Callahan
it’s a big world out there (and i’m scared) – Kurt Vile and the Violators
Metal and Dust – London Grammar
Rival Dealer – Burial

Some albums, needless to say, would have been much better if they had been shortened to EP length, particularly the tantalizing offering from Sky Ferreira.  Some of that album was really good.  But a lot of it was bloated radio pap. 

And here, finally, are some albums that I liked, but that didn’t quite make it to the upper echelon of my attention.  I’m still listening to them and trying to get a handle on whether I really like them or if they’re not quite going to endure.  Time will tell.

Silver Gymnasium – Okkervil River|
The Next Day – David Bowie
Retrograde – James Blake
Repave – Volcano Choir
Body  Music – Aluna George
Pale Green Ghosts – John Grant
Love’s Shining Diamond – Mutual Benefit
Reflektor – Arcade Fire
Sky Burial – Inter Arma
Miracle Temple – Mount Moriah

Tomorrow’s Harvest – Boards of Canada
Settle – Disclosure
Factory Floor – Factory Floor
We Are The 21^st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic – Foxygen
Fade – Yo La Tengo
Regions of Light and Sound of God – Jim James
The Distance Is So Big – Lemuria
The Bones of What You Believe – Chvrches
Random Access Memories – Daft Punk
Comedown Machine – The Strokes
The 20/20 Experience – Justin Timberlake
New History of Warfare, Vol. 3 – Colin Stetson