“Yeezus was indisputably the musical event of 2013. The leaked tracks, uncomfortable videos and “Saturday Night Live” performances created a maelstrom of hype that threatened to swallow everything around it.”
Parker Evans
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Parker Evans is an economics senior and Mustang News music columnist.
10. Random Access Memories — Daft Punk
Do other artists get mad at how easy it is for Daft Punk? “Get Lucky,” the most infectiously inescapable song of this summer, seems totally effortless in its breezy melody and disco-chic atmosphere. Beyond that smashing single is a meticulously-crafted dance album that brings a wide range of influences under a garish ’70s umbrella.
The title of Random Access Memories is a coy reference to that variety of inspiration, but the most important aspect of the album is its naked need for you to move; the dance floor guitars on “Give Life Back to Music” and “Lose Yourself to Dance” might as well be marionette strings. As far as puppetmasters go, we could do a lot worse than Daft Punk.
9. The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You — Neko Case
The year’s longest album title is a perfect microcosm of Neko Case’s music — fiercely confident and poetically forthright. On The Worse Things Get, Case drops the gloves and bares her teeth more than we’ve ever heard from her. This time around, she seems largely frustrated with perceived femininity and gender roles. “If I puked up some sonnets / Would you call me a ‘miracle?’” she spits on the razor-sharp “Night Still Comes.”
This is now two albums in a row with art depicting Case with a sword, and she seems hell-bent on using it. On “Man,” her angriest rock song in some time, she threatens “my proxy is mine / You’ll deal with me directly.” After listening to The Worse Things Get, you won’t just want to get out of Case’s way, you’ll want to fight alongside her.
8. Run the Jewels — Run the Jewels
In a year filled with great summer albums, Run the Jewels is the one I come back to the most. Remember the hubbub after Kendrick Lamar’s “Control” verse? Most rappers and critics called it a welcome throwback to the days when mainstream rap was angry, violent and fun, more than a laundry list of ownership. Run the Jewels is that kind of throwback. It’s forceful to the point of being infectious, but the violence is much more boisterous than grim. More importantly, it’s the album of 2013 that made me smile the most, and fans of all walks of rap are guaranteed to find something to love here.
7. Yeezus — Kanye West
Yeezus was indisputably the musical event of 2013. The leaked tracks, uncomfortable videos and “Saturday Night Live” performances created a maelstrom of hype that threatened to swallow everything around it. Even post-release, Yeezus probably inspired more thinkpieces than music reviews, but lost in the cacophony was an album that was just as innovative and dangerously creative as its creator.
In truth, the sonic assault of Yeezus was Kanye’s only real option after the grandiose, operatic brilliance of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The unnverving computerized seizure that opens the album is designed to throw us off, and from there, we’re in Ye’s world. From start to finish, it’s a short, intense ride filled with Nina Simone samples and Chief Keef, but for all the hullaballoo around the album’s unmistakable dissonance, there’s a method to the madness.
6. Trouble Will Find Me — The National
The National deserve more than the “sad bearded men” tag they’re often stuck with. More Tom Waits than Glen Hansard, singer Matt Berninger is seemingly always ready with a self-effacing quip and a bottle of red wine. Trouble Will Find Me is filled with trippy time signatures and drum patterns built to make us as off-balance as the songs’ narrators, and Berninger’s weary baritone is sure to resonate with a certain group of listeners who will empathize with the self-hating regret of “I Should Live In Salt” or the party claustrophobia of “I Need My Girl.”
The National is still quite capable of churning out a bursting ball of rock-as-catharsis, as shown by “Sea of Love,” but the album’s drunken paranoia and melancholy reaches its climax on the crescendo of “Demons” with a moment of depressing realization: “When I walk into a room / I do not light it up,” he sings. Even so, the despondency of Trouble Will Find Me is incandescent.
5. The Electric Lady — Janelle Monáe
Janelle Monáe might be something that the Internet age has made woefully rare: an artist that everybody likes. Full of knock-your-socks-off dance moments, The Electric Lady is the penultimate entry in Monáe’s ArchAndroid series, and its influences are a refreshing pastiche of music history. Soul and R&B lovers get a duet with Miguel and a handful of Marvin Gaye shoutouts, fans of ’90s pop will put the title track in heavy rotation and historians of black funk and jazz will hail Monáe as the modern standard-bearer of Afrofuturism.
Really, it’s a mystery why Janelle Monáe isn’t a household name. She’s not lacking for singing chops, dance moves, youthful creativity or pop expertise. I was convinced “Dance Apocalyptic” would be a radio hit, but for whatever reason, she seems to be just off the mainstream radar. The Electric Lady (especially the sizzling first half) is a fantastic preview of what we’ll see when she inevitably gets there.
4. Reflektor — Arcade Fire
Enough ink has been spilled on the sprawling, massive Reflektor over the past month to drown the whole 10-piece band, so we’ll keep it short. A couple weeks ago, the band released the video for the album’s most transcendent track, “Afterlife.” Directed by Spike Jonze, it is a masterpiece. Brutally affecting, Jonze teases out the emotional core of the song, giving us a window into the life of a small Southern California family. It should be enough to get you excited for the release of Jonze’s next full feature film, “Her” — scored by Arcade Fire.
3. Acid Rap — Chance The Rapper
Leave it to a previously-unknown 19-year-old kid fresh out of high school to give the most mature, definitive description of Chicago in 2013. As the follow-up mixtape to 10 Day (which was recorded over the length of a school suspension), Chance’s Chicago is alternately ecstatic and fearful. It’s the ecstatic parts that make Acid Rap nothing short of a joy to listen to, and after one listen you’ll want to kick back and hang out with Chance, whose easygoing demeanor is infectious.
With the amount of praise Acid Rap received, Chance’s official label debut next year might generate the same hype that surrounded Good Kid, m.A.A.d City, but the most joyful musical moment of 2013 is the intro to the second verse of “Chain Smoker,” which finds Chance overcome. “This part right here, right now / Right here, this part my shit / I play this so loud in the car / I forget to park my whip” he sing-raps breathlessly. We do too, Chance.
2. Modern Vampires of the City — Vampire Weekend
The rate at which Vampire Weekend has matured since that first self-titled album is staggering. Ezra Koenig and company haven’t completely abandoned their highfalutin preppy Ivy League core, but Modern Vampires of the City is a brilliant album from a mature band. At the core of the album is a religious/existential crisis — nearly every song has some overt religious imagery — but Vampire Weekend is compelling, no matter what the subject matter. The chilled-out travelogue “Hannah Hunt” has a tension riding beneath the surface before exploding in the last minute with a rapturous catharsis.
For the most part, Koenig controls the cheeky smirk that marks much of the band’s output, but he allows himself a little bit of freedom on “Step,” which might be the best track of 2013. “I just ignored all the tales of a past life / Stale conversation deserves but a bread knife,” is the mantra for a host of Vampire Weekend fans. Fortunately for us, within all the Latin liturgy and one-sided conversations with deities lies the album we all hoped this band was capable of.
1. Pedestrian Verse — Frightened Rabbit
Pedestrian Verse is the Great Scottish Novel. It is at once euphoric and miserable, grounded and wildly passionate. The atmosphere is gray and cloudy, and the lines between songwriter Scott Hutchinson and his characters are hopelessly blurred, but perhaps the highest praise I can give Pedestrian Verse is it is the rare piece of art that effectively, uncomfortably probes the human condition.
If The Midnight Organ Fight was the world’s best, messiest breakup album and The Winter of Mixed Drinks was the sonic embodiment of existential fear, Pedestrian Verse is about desperation. Across 12 expertly crafted songs, Hutchinson fearlessly opens his veins across the liner notes. Frightened Rabbit is no stranger to melancholy, but Hutchinson might be the only singer alive whose emotive voice can sell gut-punches such as “State Hospital” and “Nitrous Oxide” without veering into melodrama. Released all the way back in January, Pedestrian Verse is a thoroughly wintry album. Do yourself a favor this December and fight back the Christmas spirit with this Scottish masterpiece.
Honorable mentions
Muchacho — Phosphorescent: Go listen to “Song for Zula” right now. The rest is pretty good, too.
Woman — Rhye: Why is it that I couldn’t get into Channel Orange, but I love this?
Southeastern — Jason Isbell: Drive-By Truckers refugee shows how to make a great country record in 2013.
Ghost on Ghost — Iron and Wine: Nobody can ever guess the artist when this is playing. That’s a good thing.
Bankrupt! — Phoenix: I’m not quite sure why “Entertainment” isn’t as omnipresent as “1901.”
Doris — Earl Sweatshirt: Denser than a black hole, Doris is very rewarding, but RapGenius is required.
Pure Heroine — Lorde: Lorde is the hero we deserve and the one we need right now.