So, through this top ten list I'm not only going to try my best to explain why the music is good on its own, but also explain why it meant something to me specifically. The music I love the most is the kind that stirs the emotions, the kind that connects the personal to the universal, the kind that makes me sure that, even if I'm all alone, there's always someone else somewhere writing a song about something familiar.
If you couldn't give a fuck less about the musings, feel free to just look at the numbers or just listen to the songs or whatever you want to do. If you notice any typos, I apologize. I'm by myself in an office where I can't feel my nose but can see my breath. Here goes:
10. The Flaming Lips - The Terror
Usually the Flaming Lips make music that sounds like it's coming from somewhere in the cosmos. Somewhere far away, where love is a tangible thing and impressively beautiful. Their last album, Embyronic introduced a little bit of the void to their outer space, but kept it from being weighed down with moments of transcendence (see "Silver Trembling Hands" and, you know, the existence of hooks). There are ways to forget about the fear, they said.
The Terror is an album that forgets that, something we're all prone to doing once and a while. The Lips were actually the only band on this list I saw live this year, and even having listened to this album a handful of times (why they released this in the summer, I will never know), I still expected the party that I've always been told a Flaming Lips show was supposed to be. Not so much. The light setup seemed designed not only to thrill, but also to unsettle. Most of this album serves the same purpose, abandoning melody and the pleasure that comes with it for a kind of oppressive drone. Rather than relief, all we get are the occasional end of track respite.
For a band whose tried to make love seem less alien to us humans, it seems they're at a loss here, repeating phrases like we do when our head gets stuck, or gasping them out two or three syllables at a time. It's the expression of a consciousness suddenly less sure of itself, but trying to put the pieces back together. It's a little scary to hear a band who has spent a large part of their career claiming love is the answer suddenly wondering if it's that easy. Now they're asking us "is love a god/ that we control/ to try to trust/ the pain?" Scary prospects.
Flaming Lips- Try to Explain
9. Phosphorescent -
Muchacho
If the Flaming Lips have tended to sound like they came from somewhere far, far away, then Phosphorescent's music has always embodied the opposite. Everyone of his songs has always been connected to the earth and the trials and joys of being forced to live on it.
Although normally a band with its sound in the roots, this album finds itself reaching for the heavens. The new found depth in sound adds an almost religious quality. Almost every song is an attempt at making a paean for love, but never seems quite capable of escaping the ground. Love isn't always beautiful, but he is well aware of how powerful it is. On "Quotidian Beasts" he makes it very clear. There isn't much use in trying to control love, because it's a wild thing, and it pretty much does what it wants... and it never really goes away, even if the person it's meant for does.
The repetition of animal and religious imagery are themes throughout, proving the point that love is not something which exists high above us in an idyllic form, but something present in everything from the beautiful to the banal, the body to the bathtub. Any attempt to elevate it, ends up being little more than a prayer in the wind.
Phosphorescent- Quotidian Beasts
8. Deerhunter -
Monomania
This album probably gets the award for most spins this last calendar year. Deerhunter just makes music that's good anytime of the year: at home, on the commute, with friends, whatever. After their most carefully polished album Halcyon Digest, they roughed their sound back up a little bit for this one. They've always sounded a bit anxious, and the return to making rawer songs makes them sound a bit like they didn't quite have the focus or desire to clean them up.
At the same time, they've learned how to craft proper melodies over the last few albums that crawl through the ear pretty much on first listen. Early albums probably took a few more listens before I really got them, albeit the reward was worth it. Monomania might actually be their most immediately gratifying, but no less worse for it. Songs like "THM" and "Dream Captain" pretty much grab you right away.
They still sing about some of the same themes, anxiety and maladjustment, but the way they've developed their sound as a band sound not so much like they see the light at the end of the tunnel, but as if they've already come out on the other side and are looking back into the darkness for inspiration. I'm curious to see how they look to find a compromise between the two in the future.
Deerhunter- Sleepwalking
7. Kurt Vile -
Wakin on a Pretty Daze
This album sounds how I wish I always felt-- laid back, with nothing that needs to be done immediately, with time to let my mind fold in and out of itself. Being in Korea, for me, has meant the end of being alright with taking it easy. The absence of private space outdoors, the all out work or all out party lifestyle of Seoul, and just the density of people in this city make it hard to imagine there were days when waking up to enjoy a daze was something that existed. Maybe I have to work in the evening, but that's a whole afternoon of nothing to do. Maybe I have class, but I don't have to go today.
Most of the album embodies a sort of mental quiet. Kurt does the kind of navel gazing that would make Bertrand Russell proud. Most of the songs are relatively straight forward guitar tracks, something which isn't as common in these days as you would think. The words kind of form on top of them in a sort of wordless mush that makes sense if you have the time to do the same meditations he does.
Everything he sees is worthy of contemplation (not unlike myself, something which I know some friends get sick of when I ask them questions they surely have no answers for either), but he just as often likes to pick his own brain. One song is devoted entirely to a girl named Alex, who may or may not be real and may or may not be faithfully wed to a fellow named Mark. Other times he likes to think on his love for his wife. Luckily for us, if he runs out of words to describe the things in his head or is overcome with feeling, he can just bust on that guitar. What a way to do it.
Kurt Vile- Girl Called Alex
6. The National -
Trouble Will Find Me
You pretty much know what you're getting when you put on an album by the National: plenty of misery, with a few dashes of clarity. They haven't really changed their sound or shifted their emotional range since their debut, and by now lead singer Matt Berninger is well aware that, as he sings on the track "Sea of Love", "If I stay here/ trouble will find me", but he also knows that if he goes anywhere he's not going to have much material for his music. His pleasure is in his frustration.
The National sound like the kind of guys who are constantly wandering around the city looking for someone to meet or something to do or somewhere to sleep, but only finding the ghosts of the past around every corner. We always try to go back in time to grab all the things we forgot carry with us to where we are currently, but we can never come up with anything tangible. But memories and conjecture come with their own (often bleak) satisfaction.
I used to believe that someday I would grow up and get too old to keep doing and feeling the same old shit, and these guys used to give voice to the same idea. This far in, though, and it seems they're pretty much consigned to the fact that some things just aren't that easy to change.
The National- This is the Last Time
5. Vampire Weekend -
Modern Vampires of the City
This album got love from pretty much anyone who gave it a listen. Although it is instantly recognizable as a Vampire Weekend album, it is in pretty stark contrast to their previous albums. The change here is something they probably needed to do after ploughing the same sonic territory since their debut.
The youthful energy and the careful confidence that comes with making a sound that no one has made before carried the band on that first, very fun record. On Modern Vampire of the City they've put up for display their talent at making some of the most tightly orchestrated pop songs of the last decade. They show on a few tracks that they are still capable of turning up the tempo (see "Finger Back"), but most songs find them putting a little more emphasis on the ideas they're trying to express. These include ruminations on mortality, hanging on to love after it's passed, and all the other things they didn't have time for when they were too busy having fun.
They strike the right balance here though. They manage the difficult job of sharing something earnest while making it sound casual. This album is bound to stick around for a while since, unlike the band themselves, the message they put across just doesn't get old.
Vampire Weekend- Diane Young
4. Moonface
Julia with Blue Jeans On
This is surely the most personal album on the list, both in terms of the lyrics sung and how the album connected to me. It might be a little bit difficult to explain properly, and it might not even be one that I would recommend unless you are in a particular mood or are trying do develop your ability to empathize. It's pretty bare bones musically, Spencer Krug's voice and piano (AllMusic calls him an ivory tickler, yuck). For most of the album he sounds like a man who's been hiding out alone in a room for months can be uncomfortable.
But listening to music, not to mention making it, is kind of like performing a self surgery. Sometimes it's necessary to let music get in there and fix (or jiggle) the parts that it thinks it needs to. Then it's over and you're supposed to feel better. Either way, the first time I had the chance to listen to this album I was taking one of the many long walks I had been embarking on toward the end of fall. I had been in a lousy mood for the better part of the year and trying to figure out ways I could make a relationship with an absent girl work the next time I would see her, simultaneously trying to forget all the ways it never would. Lucky for me this guy released an album where he basically runs himself through the same emotional obstacle course.
Anyway, of course it didn't work out between the girl and me. Maybe it was bad luck to go in and break my own heart before giving her the opportunity do it herself. Maybe listening to songs like this softened the blow? Krug himself asks, "is there anything more famous? anything more grand? anything more noble, than a folded hand?" I'll probably cringe at this album in the future, not because it's a bad album, but because of how serious and beautiful it is. I hope I don't, it's beautiful music, and sometimes letting our sanity slip feels like a necessary step towards getting a better grasp on it.
3. Jai Paul -
Jai Paul
"Well come on then, let's go." Don't know if I've heard an album start with such an immediacy, because as that sentence gets said the beat drops and it's right into the party. I don't know my electronic music well enough to describe why this gets so high up on the list except to say that it was almost undoubtedly the album most full of musical ideas and the most fun. Whether he's going maximum sound with tracks like "Str8 Out of Mumbai" with its hints of Bollywood, or quiet as his second single "Jasmine" which contains plenty of different sounds but only unfolding them slowly, and only showcasing two or three at a time.
Interestingly, this album wasn't actually released this year. It apparently showed up on a Bandcamp alleging to be Jai Paul's, but was quickly taken down. No real statement or details about a future plans have been released, so no one is really sure whether this was a final version of an LP or just a random collection of tracks. Either way, what we find ourselves with is an album that manages to be interesting, easy to listen to, and sexy all at the same time-- something this list really needed.
Jai Paul- Jasmine (single version)
"Forget about it," we hear on the very first track of the Parquet Courts debut LP. They're dismissing the notion of giving someone they don't care a minute about that much of their time, but somehow the singer sounds like Jonathan Richman at his most hammy. This album moves super quickly, it lasts just over half an hour, but it's a rush from beginning to end. The mix of slacker observations and lo-fi guitar makes them sound like dudes I've (for better or worse) hung out with before.
The first few songs just fly by in a blur and don't ask much but a tap of the toes, but it all just sounds so good. They capture the listless lethargy of being young and unimportant so well, it's hard not to identify with. I feel a bit like I've joined the establishment lately, but listening to these dudes at least helps me keep some of my memories of America fresh. But they also just make me want to go back.
I guess the thing is, and this goes for both being here and the years I spent in Kansas City dicking around, even if we know that we don't have to do anything there's always the nagging feeling that we should be doing something. Even if it's just to wander down the street and find the right thing to cure our hunger when we're high. A lot of the album goes circular with these notions, never really getting anywhere special, but seeing a hell of a lot on the way.
Parquet Courts- Master of My Craft
1. Waxahatchee
Cerulean Salt
Yeah, so my favorite album really didn't change since this one came out back in March. It wasn't so much one that clicked immediately, instead it was the kind of album that justifies you listening to it the first time, then makes you want to listen it again, and then again until you realize you've come to understand the inner workings intimately without ever understanding how exactly it got to be that way. I guess that's how most people fall in love. Of course, the relationship I have with music is more complicated and in some ways darker than those that I have with other people, but one which is just as necessary for those very reasons.
To be honest, I can't really pin down what Katie Crutchfield is singing about here. One can't tell if she's telling us about herself now, retelling stories from her past, or just recounting her nightmares from the night before. There's not a whole lot of happiness in the majority of these songs, though there are traces of contentment which are feelings we can produce both naturally and otherwise. But each song taken in succession sounds like a sort of first person emotional vignette from a particular moment in time; feelings of doubt, hopefulness, intoxication, longing, regret all find the right part of the album and thus the listener to settle into. She rarely leaves the first person while singing, and when she talks about the future it's almost always to tell the kind of promise we mean to tell to other people but usually just keep to ourselves.
Nostalgia's a bit of a curse, but it's my favorite itch to scratch. I pondered out loud (uhh, on the page) about what exactly she was singing about at the beginning of this, because, if she's like me she revisits these things. Each remembrance re-frames the feelings attached to the events, at the same time determining how they'll live on to the next time they pop into our minds. I'm not even sure if I've got many personal connections to the words she sings here, but it still brings me back to being young, fucked up, and in whatever I thought love was back then.
There's something beautiful about honesty in music too. Artists who share the emotions most people refuse to give voice to are just as important as therapists. We all spend the majority of our lives trying to keep our flaws as hidden as possible, so being able to listen to albums like this-- where she sings about them with something bordering on confidence-- is refreshing. I wouldn't say this album necessarily does anything that hasn't been done before, but the simplicity with which she pulls off honesty without tedium and melodrama made it one that I connected very strongly with over the course of a difficult 2013. It's tops for me.
Waxahatchee- Swan Dive
The Terror is an album that forgets that, something we're all prone to doing once and a while. The Lips were actually the only band on this list I saw live this year, and even having listened to this album a handful of times (why they released this in the summer, I will never know), I still expected the party that I've always been told a Flaming Lips show was supposed to be. Not so much. The light setup seemed designed not only to thrill, but also to unsettle. Most of this album serves the same purpose, abandoning melody and the pleasure that comes with it for a kind of oppressive drone. Rather than relief, all we get are the occasional end of track respite.
For a band whose tried to make love seem less alien to us humans, it seems they're at a loss here, repeating phrases like we do when our head gets stuck, or gasping them out two or three syllables at a time. It's the expression of a consciousness suddenly less sure of itself, but trying to put the pieces back together. It's a little scary to hear a band who has spent a large part of their career claiming love is the answer suddenly wondering if it's that easy. Now they're asking us "is love a god/ that we control/ to try to trust/ the pain?" Scary prospects.
Flaming Lips- Try to Explain
9. Phosphorescent - Muchacho
If the Flaming Lips have tended to sound like they came from somewhere far, far away, then Phosphorescent's music has always embodied the opposite. Everyone of his songs has always been connected to the earth and the trials and joys of being forced to live on it.
Although normally a band with its sound in the roots, this album finds itself reaching for the heavens. The new found depth in sound adds an almost religious quality. Almost every song is an attempt at making a paean for love, but never seems quite capable of escaping the ground. Love isn't always beautiful, but he is well aware of how powerful it is. On "Quotidian Beasts" he makes it very clear. There isn't much use in trying to control love, because it's a wild thing, and it pretty much does what it wants... and it never really goes away, even if the person it's meant for does.
The repetition of animal and religious imagery are themes throughout, proving the point that love is not something which exists high above us in an idyllic form, but something present in everything from the beautiful to the banal, the body to the bathtub. Any attempt to elevate it, ends up being little more than a prayer in the wind.
Phosphorescent- Quotidian Beasts
Monomania
This album probably gets the award for most spins this last calendar year. Deerhunter just makes music that's good anytime of the year: at home, on the commute, with friends, whatever. After their most carefully polished album Halcyon Digest, they roughed their sound back up a little bit for this one. They've always sounded a bit anxious, and the return to making rawer songs makes them sound a bit like they didn't quite have the focus or desire to clean them up.
At the same time, they've learned how to craft proper melodies over the last few albums that crawl through the ear pretty much on first listen. Early albums probably took a few more listens before I really got them, albeit the reward was worth it. Monomania might actually be their most immediately gratifying, but no less worse for it. Songs like "THM" and "Dream Captain" pretty much grab you right away.
They still sing about some of the same themes, anxiety and maladjustment, but the way they've developed their sound as a band sound not so much like they see the light at the end of the tunnel, but as if they've already come out on the other side and are looking back into the darkness for inspiration. I'm curious to see how they look to find a compromise between the two in the future.
Deerhunter- Sleepwalking
Wakin on a Pretty Daze
This album sounds how I wish I always felt-- laid back, with nothing that needs to be done immediately, with time to let my mind fold in and out of itself. Being in Korea, for me, has meant the end of being alright with taking it easy. The absence of private space outdoors, the all out work or all out party lifestyle of Seoul, and just the density of people in this city make it hard to imagine there were days when waking up to enjoy a daze was something that existed. Maybe I have to work in the evening, but that's a whole afternoon of nothing to do. Maybe I have class, but I don't have to go today.
Most of the album embodies a sort of mental quiet. Kurt does the kind of navel gazing that would make Bertrand Russell proud. Most of the songs are relatively straight forward guitar tracks, something which isn't as common in these days as you would think. The words kind of form on top of them in a sort of wordless mush that makes sense if you have the time to do the same meditations he does.
Everything he sees is worthy of contemplation (not unlike myself, something which I know some friends get sick of when I ask them questions they surely have no answers for either), but he just as often likes to pick his own brain. One song is devoted entirely to a girl named Alex, who may or may not be real and may or may not be faithfully wed to a fellow named Mark. Other times he likes to think on his love for his wife. Luckily for us, if he runs out of words to describe the things in his head or is overcome with feeling, he can just bust on that guitar. What a way to do it.
Kurt Vile- Girl Called Alex
Trouble Will Find Me
You pretty much know what you're getting when you put on an album by the National: plenty of misery, with a few dashes of clarity. They haven't really changed their sound or shifted their emotional range since their debut, and by now lead singer Matt Berninger is well aware that, as he sings on the track "Sea of Love", "If I stay here/ trouble will find me", but he also knows that if he goes anywhere he's not going to have much material for his music. His pleasure is in his frustration.
The National sound like the kind of guys who are constantly wandering around the city looking for someone to meet or something to do or somewhere to sleep, but only finding the ghosts of the past around every corner. We always try to go back in time to grab all the things we forgot carry with us to where we are currently, but we can never come up with anything tangible. But memories and conjecture come with their own (often bleak) satisfaction.
I used to believe that someday I would grow up and get too old to keep doing and feeling the same old shit, and these guys used to give voice to the same idea. This far in, though, and it seems they're pretty much consigned to the fact that some things just aren't that easy to change.
The National- This is the Last Time
Modern Vampires of the City
This album got love from pretty much anyone who gave it a listen. Although it is instantly recognizable as a Vampire Weekend album, it is in pretty stark contrast to their previous albums. The change here is something they probably needed to do after ploughing the same sonic territory since their debut.
The youthful energy and the careful confidence that comes with making a sound that no one has made before carried the band on that first, very fun record. On Modern Vampire of the City they've put up for display their talent at making some of the most tightly orchestrated pop songs of the last decade. They show on a few tracks that they are still capable of turning up the tempo (see "Finger Back"), but most songs find them putting a little more emphasis on the ideas they're trying to express. These include ruminations on mortality, hanging on to love after it's passed, and all the other things they didn't have time for when they were too busy having fun.
They strike the right balance here though. They manage the difficult job of sharing something earnest while making it sound casual. This album is bound to stick around for a while since, unlike the band themselves, the message they put across just doesn't get old.
Vampire Weekend- Diane Young
4. Moonface
Julia with Blue Jeans On
This is surely the most personal album on the list, both in terms of the lyrics sung and how the album connected to me. It might be a little bit difficult to explain properly, and it might not even be one that I would recommend unless you are in a particular mood or are trying do develop your ability to empathize. It's pretty bare bones musically, Spencer Krug's voice and piano (AllMusic calls him an ivory tickler, yuck). For most of the album he sounds like a man who's been hiding out alone in a room for months can be uncomfortable.
But listening to music, not to mention making it, is kind of like performing a self surgery. Sometimes it's necessary to let music get in there and fix (or jiggle) the parts that it thinks it needs to. Then it's over and you're supposed to feel better. Either way, the first time I had the chance to listen to this album I was taking one of the many long walks I had been embarking on toward the end of fall. I had been in a lousy mood for the better part of the year and trying to figure out ways I could make a relationship with an absent girl work the next time I would see her, simultaneously trying to forget all the ways it never would. Lucky for me this guy released an album where he basically runs himself through the same emotional obstacle course.
Anyway, of course it didn't work out between the girl and me. Maybe it was bad luck to go in and break my own heart before giving her the opportunity do it herself. Maybe listening to songs like this softened the blow? Krug himself asks, "is there anything more famous? anything more grand? anything more noble, than a folded hand?" I'll probably cringe at this album in the future, not because it's a bad album, but because of how serious and beautiful it is. I hope I don't, it's beautiful music, and sometimes letting our sanity slip feels like a necessary step towards getting a better grasp on it.
Jai Paul
"Well come on then, let's go." Don't know if I've heard an album start with such an immediacy, because as that sentence gets said the beat drops and it's right into the party. I don't know my electronic music well enough to describe why this gets so high up on the list except to say that it was almost undoubtedly the album most full of musical ideas and the most fun. Whether he's going maximum sound with tracks like "Str8 Out of Mumbai" with its hints of Bollywood, or quiet as his second single "Jasmine" which contains plenty of different sounds but only unfolding them slowly, and only showcasing two or three at a time.
Interestingly, this album wasn't actually released this year. It apparently showed up on a Bandcamp alleging to be Jai Paul's, but was quickly taken down. No real statement or details about a future plans have been released, so no one is really sure whether this was a final version of an LP or just a random collection of tracks. Either way, what we find ourselves with is an album that manages to be interesting, easy to listen to, and sexy all at the same time-- something this list really needed.
Jai Paul- Jasmine (single version)
2. Parquet Courts -
Light Up Gold
Light Up Gold
"Forget about it," we hear on the very first track of the Parquet Courts debut LP. They're dismissing the notion of giving someone they don't care a minute about that much of their time, but somehow the singer sounds like Jonathan Richman at his most hammy. This album moves super quickly, it lasts just over half an hour, but it's a rush from beginning to end. The mix of slacker observations and lo-fi guitar makes them sound like dudes I've (for better or worse) hung out with before.
The first few songs just fly by in a blur and don't ask much but a tap of the toes, but it all just sounds so good. They capture the listless lethargy of being young and unimportant so well, it's hard not to identify with. I feel a bit like I've joined the establishment lately, but listening to these dudes at least helps me keep some of my memories of America fresh. But they also just make me want to go back.
I guess the thing is, and this goes for both being here and the years I spent in Kansas City dicking around, even if we know that we don't have to do anything there's always the nagging feeling that we should be doing something. Even if it's just to wander down the street and find the right thing to cure our hunger when we're high. A lot of the album goes circular with these notions, never really getting anywhere special, but seeing a hell of a lot on the way.
Parquet Courts- Master of My Craft
1. Waxahatchee
Cerulean Salt
Yeah, so my favorite album really didn't change since this one came out back in March. It wasn't so much one that clicked immediately, instead it was the kind of album that justifies you listening to it the first time, then makes you want to listen it again, and then again until you realize you've come to understand the inner workings intimately without ever understanding how exactly it got to be that way. I guess that's how most people fall in love. Of course, the relationship I have with music is more complicated and in some ways darker than those that I have with other people, but one which is just as necessary for those very reasons.
To be honest, I can't really pin down what Katie Crutchfield is singing about here. One can't tell if she's telling us about herself now, retelling stories from her past, or just recounting her nightmares from the night before. There's not a whole lot of happiness in the majority of these songs, though there are traces of contentment which are feelings we can produce both naturally and otherwise. But each song taken in succession sounds like a sort of first person emotional vignette from a particular moment in time; feelings of doubt, hopefulness, intoxication, longing, regret all find the right part of the album and thus the listener to settle into. She rarely leaves the first person while singing, and when she talks about the future it's almost always to tell the kind of promise we mean to tell to other people but usually just keep to ourselves.
Nostalgia's a bit of a curse, but it's my favorite itch to scratch. I pondered out loud (uhh, on the page) about what exactly she was singing about at the beginning of this, because, if she's like me she revisits these things. Each remembrance re-frames the feelings attached to the events, at the same time determining how they'll live on to the next time they pop into our minds. I'm not even sure if I've got many personal connections to the words she sings here, but it still brings me back to being young, fucked up, and in whatever I thought love was back then.
There's something beautiful about honesty in music too. Artists who share the emotions most people refuse to give voice to are just as important as therapists. We all spend the majority of our lives trying to keep our flaws as hidden as possible, so being able to listen to albums like this-- where she sings about them with something bordering on confidence-- is refreshing. I wouldn't say this album necessarily does anything that hasn't been done before, but the simplicity with which she pulls off honesty without tedium and melodrama made it one that I connected very strongly with over the course of a difficult 2013. It's tops for me.
Waxahatchee- Swan Dive
