Listing the best albums released in a given year can't encapsulate the wonderful variety of music circulating the globe and Internets. Listing the best 100 songs by order of preference runs into context problems - hopping from Burial to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy to Body Parts is inadvisable. In an attempt to solve this miniscule problem, this writer has taken to creating annual mixtapes. The tradition, which began with a few dozen songs, has grown in quality and quantity over the years (now requiring 7 CDs worth of songs). Every sound, noise, or hiccup from 2013 may not be on these discs, but here's to hoping that it captures the best of the Year of Our Lord 2013.
What a year, what a year. The world kept acting like Jay-Z and Beyonce's fecal matter doesn't stink, drugs taught us to love again, and blogs kept printing unsubstantiated Yeezus rumors. In the midst of these occurrences, there were a number of excellent EPs, albums, and singles that dropped suddenly, had lengthy rollouts, or were mentioned in ignored press releases. There's not much of a unifying thread that binds the best of 2013 together, except perhaps for a refusal to stick to a single type of music. I'll refrain from making a general statement about cultural convergence and the music world being flat, but - with the exception of Pusha T - these artists transcended genre labels. While Acid Rap might be categorized as a hip-hop album, there's more to it than just rap. Dream River is a great blend of country, folk, and Bill Callahan's almost-spoken singing. Yeezus is..... Yeezus. These albums achieved a perfect balance between playing to the artists' strengths and drowning in the experimental deep end. So, after sifting through major releases, independent albums, and 1/1,000,000,000,000th of the material up on Bandcamp, this site puts forth the following recommendations for the best albums of the year MMXIII.
|