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RYB's Best of 2013
Member Since: 3/3/2011
Posts: 23,567
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BEST ALBUMS OF 2013
HONORABLE MENTION
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DARKSIDE - Psychic
Nicolas Jaar, one-half of the collaborative DARKSIDE effort, is one of my favorite living producers. Period. The sonic backdrops of his songs are so layered, idiosyncratic, and immersive that you can spend hours trying to visualize what’s he’s invoking with each individual sound: is that the sound of an empty pill bottle falling to the ground, a tongue clicking, or is it something else entirely? And what does it mean? Perhaps no other album this year feels more meticulously crafted than Psychic. But for all of the complexities in Jaar’s music, the real highlight of this album is in the rhythm. There’s a fundamental dark grooviness here, airy and effortless, universal. It’s just smooth. It’s just alive.
Listen to: "Paper Trails"
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Tegan & Sara - Heartthrob
There’s something to be said about Tegan & Sara’s shift towards electro-pop for Heartthrob: namely, that it’s ****ing fantastic. It’s emotional and dizzyingly effective in its succinct and catchy structure. This is a collection of ten songs that you’ll listen to sober and dance along to drunk; it may very well be the best female pop album since Body Talk.
Listen to: "Closer", "I Was A Fool", "I’m Not Your Hero" |
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Member Since: 10/13/2003
Posts: 48,022
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Tegan & Sara 
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Member Since: 3/3/2011
Posts: 23,567
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BEST ALBUMS OF 2013
HONORABLE MENTION
 | !!! - THR!!!ER
This is probably the most innocently fun and groovy dance album of the year. It’s more consistently satisfying than their past releases, and at times even startles the listener with surprising beauty—the “do you believe in love” at the end of the opening track gets me every time. Slickly produced and surprisingly organic.
Listen to: “Even When the Water’s Cold”, “One Girl / One Boy”
|  | HAIM - Days Are Gone
Days Are Gone is remarkable for how precisely it succeeds in its aspirations. These girls are the Zooey Deschanel from 500 Days of Summer type: they’re the archetypal meta-hipster, and their music follows suit. Quell your initial desire to dismiss the construct, and you’ve got a pop rock meets R&B album full of fantastic tracks. Listening to the album for the first time, it feels like you’ve heard it all before. But have you heard it this done this well?
Listen to: “The Wire”, “My Song 5”
|  | Momoiro Clover Z - 5th Dimension
5th Dimension is easily the most interesting album I heard from Asia this year. It’s so bombastic, so surprising, so fearless, and yet so pop that it feels apt to declare it the Japanese Yeezus. Dubstep, classical, pop, power metal, R&B: it’s all fused into an intimidating but immensely enjoyable wall of sound. The album opens with the tremendous Neo STARGATE, a track that fuses O Fortuna! and dubstep while managing to still sound distinctly pop. These girls mean business. Never mind that the visuals are some of the most hilarious and outlandish imagery we’ve seen this side of Gaga.
Listen to: Neo STARGATE, Fierce Space Symphony, Movement 7 (Infinite Love)
|  | Arctic Monkeys - AM
Arctic Monkeys are what I think of as “rock pop”. Maybe it’s more fundamentally rock than the Avril Lavigne and P!nk-like images of pop rock around today, but they make that rock music that is so sonically appealing and inoffensive that you can play it at any restaurant or bookstore or coffee shop or hipster party without raising any eyebrows: think The Black Keys.
AM is a truly fantastic record. There’s not much here in the way of innovation, but there isn’t a bad song on the record. The songs are filled with beautiful melodies and production that is pleasing and never overbearing. The lyrics are more immediately striking and catchy than anything we’ve heard from Arctic Monkeys in the past. Are you mine tomorrow? Or just mine tonight? We’re dealing with many of the most simplistic and effective lines of the year. In fact, Do I Wanna Know?, R U Mine?, and Arabella are all among the best tracks of the year. The album never overstays its welcome; it never oversteps its boundaries; it never exceeds its purpose. And perhaps that’s a bit of a double-edged sword, the reason why such a truly fantastic indie rock album didn’t make it higher on my list, because in 2013, fantastic yet tame isn’t enough to claim the throne.
Listen to: Do I Wanna Know?, R U Mine?, Arabella, Mad SoundsLorde – Pure Heroine
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/2/2011
Posts: 21,728
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HAIM is only an honourable mention? 
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Member Since: 2/17/2012
Posts: 33,611
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Thr!!!er and Psychic are good!
HAIM have good singles too.
I hate the Arctic Monkeys 
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Member Since: 3/3/2011
Posts: 23,567
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Quote:
Originally posted by madonnas
I hate the Arctic Monkeys |
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Originally posted by NME
Arctic Monkeys’ fifth record is absolutely and unarguably the most incredible album of their career. It might also be the greatest record of the last decade. It’s not, however, the work of a band operating at their absolute peak – that’s yet to come. It’s the work of a band still growing, still fine-tuning, still learning and still experimenting; a band who will not look back on this record as a career high, but as the moment they stopped being defined by genre and instead became artists. Not a rock band, definitely not an indie band, but artists. Think Bowie, think The Beatles, think Stevie Wonder and think Bob Dylan.
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Member Since: 8/3/2012
Posts: 19,910
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Ugh... maybe I should listen to AM after all. The NME praise is tew much, but then again, they really love the Monkeys 
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Member Since: 9/16/2011
Posts: 50,981
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I love Heartthrob 
I need to get more into HAIM. Have the album. Haven't really listened to it yet. Someday. 
And I guess I should check out AM if it's getting compared to Bowie + Dylan.
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Member Since: 5/23/2007
Posts: 65,087
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Heartthrob  Arctic Monkeys I need to listen to the full album, I love the singles 
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ATRL Senior Member
Member Since: 9/26/2001
Posts: 22,475
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I have to check out that Arctic Monkeys album. I do not need to do the same for Heartthrob. It's very cute.
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Member Since: 10/31/2011
Posts: 16,937
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Surely you listened to Bangerz? And the lack of The 1975 HURTS.
Also two of your honourable mentions are INCREDIBLE and should be way above some of the trasht that I'm sure you'll list further up (Arcade Fire; Daft Punk).
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 12/7/2008
Posts: 87,284
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Days Are Gone is EPIC 
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Member Since: 1/26/2006
Posts: 17,384
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I wanted to listen to Days Are Gone by HAIM but I didn't find the time. 
AM is a good album, not their best but still good.
I think there's a spoiler about what's next in your lists at the very end of the AM description
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Member Since: 3/5/2011
Posts: 30,130
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Arctic Monkeys
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Member Since: 10/3/2009
Posts: 35,844
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Heartthrob and AM are my favorite albums here. 
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Member Since: 12/1/2011
Posts: 24,324
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AM and heartthrob are great. i don't understand the HAIM hype, i didnt like the wire
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Member Since: 3/3/2011
Posts: 23,567
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BEST ALBUMS OF 2013
 | 10. Lorde - Pure Heroine
When I first decided to limit my list to ten albums this year, I was hesitant to include Pure Heroine. But then I said to hell with it and realized that few albums this year were as lyrically satisfying, sonically invigorating, and magnificently handled as Lorde’s debut. The lyrical content might be a bit overbearing or repetitive at times, but that’s the beauty of the teenager.
And in retrospect, no other album this year so succinctly captured the direction of music in 2013. ADELE may have been the alpha, but Lorde is the first truly alternative star birthed in recent years. She’s the serious, coffee-shop-acceptable, anti-pop star that seemed destined to arise in the wake of Adele. Her voice is perfect for the role, hypnotizing and idiosyncratic. Layer that over Joel Little’s elegantly constructed minimalist production (with the perfect electronic peppering), and you have some of the most delicious music available in 2013.
Lead single “Royals” is instantly—and I meant instantly and unavoidably—striking, demanding attention from first-time listeners. It has no burn rate. The production is inescapable and so cool. “Buzzcut Season” is fantastic. “400 Lux” is fantastic. These tracks are great pop, but it’s the little strokes of brilliance—what sounds like a trash can lid being added into the mix in the third verse of “Glory and Gore”; the intro to “Team”—that really elevate the tracks, and the album, to the next level. There’s something here that’s endlessly enticing and universal, but still simple, appealingly understated.
Rather than say anymore, I’ll close with a little tidbit from Pitchfork, who I believe hit the nail on the head with their review:
Lorde’s music is quietly wise to a particular modern irony: Beneath every #DGAF there’s a person who secretly gives a **** about something, and behind every anti-pop song there’s a singer who—just like everybody else—knows what it’s like to feel happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time.
Listen to: “Royals”, “Team”, “Glory and Gore”
|  | 9. Savages - Silence Yourself
Four girls. Badass punk. Or whatever you want to call it. It doesn’t really matter. There is just so much energy, so much to enjoy, on this album. It’s short; it’s loud; it’s cohesive; it’s to the point. This album lies along the lines of a Franz Ferdinand or Is This It, a debut album of shocking refinement and confidence. And I’ve really said enough already.
Listen to: “Shut Up”, “I Am Here”
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Member Since: 1/26/2006
Posts: 17,384
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I knew it! Pure Heroine appears at the end of your previous post Nice album by the way. I heard it a few weeks ago.
I can't get into Savages music, maybe I'll give them another chance.
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Member Since: 3/3/2011
Posts: 23,567
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Quote:
Originally posted by mathuss
I knew it! Pure Heroine appears at the end of your previous post |
I noticed that when I was CnPed that post for the new one!
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I can't get into Savages music, maybe I'll give them another chance.
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I saw them live before I heard their album, and they really turned me on to their material!
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Member Since: 3/3/2011
Posts: 23,567
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Quote:
Originally posted by Great Username
Surely you listened to Bangerz? And the lack of The 1975 HURTS.
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Woops, yeah, I actually listened to both of those. I didn't really make sure my list was complete, just swept through my library once.
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