Favorite Songs Of 2013

My Favorite Songs Lists are always works in progess. Each January I start a new list in iTunes called XX Favs, where XX = that year. As I listen to music over the next 11 months or so, I toss my favorites into it. A few times during the year I’ll scan the list, delete songs that no longer delight and put some thought into how they would line up if the year ended that day. So when October rolls around, and I begin considering the final order, I’ve already got nine solid months of thoughts about it.

Each year I evaluate songs a little differently. This year, after a period in November where I considered using the Top 10 + 10 unordered Honorable Mentions, I’m sticking with a true Top 20.

There was a complication. Long-time readers know I have the rule of only one song per artist. Well, this year I had the hardest damn time with one band in particular. It just happens to be my favorite current band, who put out my favorite album of the year. I struggled mightily to choose between two songs for what turns out to be my favorite song of the year. For a couple weeks I even considered having co-#1’s. But after many extra listens and some more thought, I finally picked one.

20 - “Colorful Kids" - Ha Ha Tonka

19 - “In The Morning" - Jon Hardy & The Public

We kick it off with two Missouri bands, one from West Plains, in south-central Missouri, the other from St. Louis. Ha Ha Tonka sounds like an Ozarks Vampire Weekend. Jon Hardy is crowdsourcing funds to get his next album recorded, mixed, and pressed. Based on the songs I’ve heard, he’s worth the investment.

18 - “Perennials" - Widowspeak

I’m not ready to go all-in with the bearded, flanneled, neo-hippy, modern folk movement. But this is a beautiful song.

17 - “Honey & I" - Haim

One of the big, manufactured music controversies of the year that didn’t involve Kanye or Miley was whether Haim is “indie” or not. It doesn’t matter. Their music, which is more Sunny SoCal pop mixed with early 90s R&B, is damn good regardless of the label slapped upon it by others.

16 - “Confidence" - The Dodos

They remind me a lot of the Helio Sequence, a band that cracked my top 20 a year ago. I love the progression of this song, from gentle ballad to thumping scorcher.

15 - “Master Of My Craft” - Parquet Courts

They’re originally from Texas, but in their time in New York they’ve managed to soak up, and repurpose, all the best elements of classic NYC punk. You can hear the smart, arty rock of Talking Heads, the sneering snobbery of early Beastie Boys, and the pure silliness of the Ramones. And this has one of my absolute favorite lyrics of the year, “Socrates died in the fucking gutter!”

14 - “This Ladder Is Ours" - The Joy Formidable

Another fantastic song by my sister and brothers from Wales.

13 - “Weight" - Mikal Cronin

Take classic power pop, crank it up to 11, and you get Mikal Cronin.

12 - “Sea Of Love” - The National

They’ve reached Modern Masters status, and a new album pretty much guarantees they’ll make my year end favorites list. This isn’t quite as good as “Mistaken For Strangers” or “England,” but it’s still pretty great. Bonus points for a positively oddball video.

11 - “History Eraser" - Courtney Barnett

There are two young, mellow, incredibly talented, female artists from the southern hemisphere in my Top 20. Ms. Barnett has a very different artistic and visual aesthetic than Lorde, but she’s no less great. Her style is deceptive. Behind the pot haze and rambling vocals are some amazing lyrics. It just takes a few listens to realize it.

10 - “Amsterdam” - Gregory Alan Isakov.

Most gorgeous song of the year. That final verse, “Oh churches and trains…” Mercy! You can have your Mumford and Sons. I’ll take Isakov for beautiful, warm, country-tinged neo-folk.

9 - “I Don’t Know How” - Best Coast

As I wrote when I first shared the video for this song last month, singer Bethany Cosentino drives some critics nuts with her repetitive lyrics. But I love her.

And I love how this song begins as a droning, (indie rock) torch song and then gains (false?) confidence through the middle third. And that final third? Oh man, that’s pure greatness. “You see me everywhere, you walk around without a care,” is a wonderful, devastating lyric, and when contrasted with the jubilant, almost defiant music, it’s a brilliant combination.

The critics can suck it.

8 - “Diane Young” - Vampire Weekend

Modern Vampires of the City is getting a lot of Album Of The Year run. While I liked it a lot, too, I may be one of the few who liked their last album, Contra, more. It was tough to pick a favorite track from this fine collection. But this song’s frenetic tempo grabbed me the most.

7 - “Royals” - Lorde

What a run. I first heard of Lorde late last year (iTunes tells me I added “Royals” to my library on Jan. 26, 2013). Then, the novelty of a sixteen-year-old New Zealander making interesting music was enough to get her some attention. By spring all the cool music websites were in love with her. Come mid-summer, the smart people station in Bloomington had her in heavy rotation. And now, of course, she’s inescapable. Oh, and there’s the matter of the song being inspired by an old picture of George Brett.

Which isn’t a bad thing. While “Royals” has no doubt been over-played, her album, Pure Heroine, is fantastic, start-to-finish. Let’s hope she doesn’t fall prey to the many perils of fame. If she’s this good as a teenager, there’s no telling what she has in store as she gets older, wiser, and more worldly.

6 - “The Mother We Share” - CHVRCHES

At first listen, these Scots sound cotton candy light, an updated take on Nu Shooz, straight out of 1986. But there is weight behind the layers of keyboards and synthesizers. There is depth to Lauren Mayberry’s voice that surprises upon repeated listens. And, good Lord, that hook! Great bands spend their entire careers attempting to come up with a hook like this, and CHVRCHES do it on their very first song.

The countdown continues next week.

5 - “In The City” - Caveman

It seems like each year there is one synth-heavy song that I can listen to repeatedly and just get lost within its layers. Here is this year’s example.

At first listen, this would seem to be a rather cold, serious song. Each note sounds carefully planned. The transitions are perfect. The ratio of dense synths to delicate yet distorted guitar feels as though it was arrived at through careful mathematical study. The drums are big enough to propel the song forward, but not so big that they dominate. This is a professional song, not one arrived at through reckless experimentation.

But this is far from a lifeless, sterile song. The vocals balance the musical mix wonderfully. As the synthesizers build in the last third of the song, making the song’s base even firmer, the guitars gain life and soar, tugging in hopes of escape.

It is spooky and lush and utterly gorgeous.

4 - “Wakin In A Pretty Day” - Kurt Vile.

This song was a lifeline during the endless winter of 2012-13. When the temperature refused to rise and it seemed like spring would never arrive, this was the promise that warmer, better days would eventually, finally, arrive.

3 - “Recovery” - Frank Turner.

I do love a good break-up song. So, no surprise that the top three songs feature two break up songs plus a band that I first fell in love with because of their most-excellent album all about getting your heart smashed.

Here Turner sings a very masculine break-up song. I say masculine because musically, this is a rollocking, sing-along with your boys while the pints are flowing at the pub song. Outwardly, it seems proud and defiant, telling the ex to piss off one last time. But the lyrics, which are top-notch, tell a story of a man who drove his love away and desperately wants her back. While he’s screaming with his boys, inside, the pain endures.

2 - “Song For Zula” - Phosphorescent.

It takes audacity to open a song with a line that mimics massive hits of both Bette Midler and Johnny Cash. But Matthew Houck, the man behind Phosphorescent, does exactly that here, when he sings “Some say love, is a burning thing. That it makes a fiery ring.” He definitely gets your attention from the first note.

Beyond that first line is a wonderful, mournful backing track. His weary vocals have the sound of too many nights at the wrong end of a bottle, seeking comfort for his pain. And the rest of the lyrics slowly lay out his case before he floors you with his closing lines,

“But my heart is wild. And my bones are steam.

And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free.”

It’s a nuclear bomb of a song, one that will absolutely destroy you if you’re not careful.

1 - “Holy” - Frightened Rabbit

This is the fourth time FR has cracked my year-end list, and the third time they’ve grabbed the #1 spot. Yes, I’m a massive fan and this spot was pretty much reserved for them the moment I learned they would release an album in 2013. But still, they had to deliver. At least three of their songs were in the running for this spot, most notably “The Woodpile,"¹ the song I nearly made co-#1.

I had to go with this, though. That driving bassline has been in my head since the first time I heard it back in February. It chugs along like a funky New Order track. And while Scott Hutchison is singing about wishing religious people would leave him alone, his sentiments can easily be applied to the endless string of folks who want to tell us we are, for any number of reasons, living our lives incorrectly. It’s a terrific sounding way of telling them all to just piss off.