Year-End Critics' Polls 2013

Parquet Courts have made a little headway from last time round but not exactly broken big. Chvrches and Waxahatchee making a good few lists too but both kind of around the mid-twenties.

Gotta say that this Oranssi Pazuzu album off the Quietus list is fucking solid as hell, thank you Quietus.

Haim is definitely right up ILM's alley but it's not like this is ground zero for their buzz compared to a lot of 'ilm darling' type acts where nearly every critic writing about them posts here.

Seeing The National on a lot of lists. Trying to get into it now. Not very successful as of yet.

I tried back when friends were stanning for Alligator and it just left me completely cold, tried again w/High Violet still like "why? what's the appeal?" still don't get it & probably won't

The National usually has at least one or two songs on each album that I can say, "OK, yeah, that's a really good, catchy, well-constructed song," but I'm struggling to find one on Trouble Will Find Me.

i really dug high violet. with this one i was prepared for, and received, a letdown.

their stuff is bathos for the most part

kinda surprised to see arctic monkeys near the top of everyone's lists, i haven't listened to them since their first record, are they doing anything more interesting now or just more of the same and people just happen to really be digging it this time around?

They've only made one execrable album but this one, only marginally better than the last (good) one, benefitted from a couple of striking singles.

It's one of my favorite albums of the year; its sustained mood, held up by the tentpoles that were its four or five utterly standout tracks, makes it one that I keep going back to. (There were a lot of good ideas floating around in 2013, but many of them sagged in full-album form—three of the albums in my current Top 10 are by relative alt-rock lifers, and I have to think that's because they know how to edit their own ideas in a way that younger bands just don't.)

I still think their first album is the only good one they've done. It at least has some energy to it. Everything since then has been overstuffed with mid-tempo rockers that just bore the heck out of me. I've really wanted to like their various albums including AM, but the plodding grind just fails to grab my attention.

Kind of can't believe that nobody has listed the Paramore album, but I guess The National are just THAT MUCH MORE INTERESTING. (cough.)

flaws and such, Paramore's album is closing in on my #1 spot. When it's on, there's nothing better.

It's my #2. (My #1 has yet to be mentioned in any of the lists reposted here.)

Q: If Paramore has never clicked with me in the past, would this album change the game?

I liked them well enough until I heard "Still Into You" and "Ain't It Fun" and away I went

I remember trying out "Still Into You" earlier in the year and it failing to make an impression, but sometimes the curiosity of not getting into something other people really like makes me want to try harder.

re: The National, a friend just posted a link to their list on fb and commented "The next time I see a band excitedly talk about how Rolling Stone wrote about them, I will post a link to their top albums of 2013 and then we will both feel bad for a minute."

Possibly, sure. The old guitarist who co-wrote a lot of the old stuff and the other guitarist and bassist stepped up in a big way, and the whole thing has a much broader scope than the early albums. Xp

*Rolling Stone's list

The old guitarist left the band, I meant to say

Kind of can't believe that nobody has listed the Paramore album, but I guess The National are just THAT MUCH MORE INTERESTING. (cough.)

― maura, Wednesday, December 4, 2013 7:02 AM (14 minutes ago)

can't say what either might sound like, so my apologies x2

NME's list overall is surprisingly old. Only one debut, only three artists under 30.

― Deafening silence (DL), Wednesday, December 4, 2013 1:06 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

surely this isn't correct.

what about bands that have three 22-year-olds and one 60 year old?

i think that johnny marr has left the cribs now tbh

i like that national record a lot and it's definitely better than high violet (mostly because of the reinforced emphasis on groove i.e. their incredible drummer) but hoo boy @ its uniform placing here. alfred wrote a great review of it in spin though iirc

It's staggeringly competent, I'll give it that.

that's how I feel about the Vampire Weekend album

Oh yeah, totally. Lots of Solid B Albums this year.

what's your #1 maura?

marnie stern

she's just doing shit that nobody else is, and in this really impressive way that vaults over the heads of so many

i didn't hear it. everything she's done in the past has vaulted over my head, personally

I returned to that Marnie Stern album a ton this year. I think it would have gotten more critical love though if it hadn't been a step down from her previous album. That one was the high watermark.

i don't think it's a step down at all, and i love the way that kid millions' drumming loosens things up just enough

had no idea he played on her new one, I really need to check it out

I got the eponymous one a couple of years ago, and that totally vaulted over my head. I had no idea what I was meant to be getting from it at all.

Listening to Marnie's new one now and this is so much more to my liking than her previous ones. I think the edges are softer and the structures are more like traditional pop songs. Of course, it's entirely possible I'm misremembering what her previous albums sound like.

i liked one of her albums from several years ago and liked it as an art-pop piece. will prob check this one.

xp to monotony - I meant to say "in the NME Top 10"

I loved the first two Marnie albums so much -- partly because of their rough edges and rickety weirdness -- that the subsequent ones have seemed good-but-not-as-good to me. All a matter of what pushes your buttons, obviously, and regardless of which album is your fave, I think she's amazing.

Hm, I really liked the first MS record and sorted of faded back from the ones that followed. I liked her later live performances less, certainly. But I haven't heard this one at all.

Or basically, what tipsy mothra said.

I don't think her early LPs were as severe as they were often described, at least not once you adjusted to some of her tones. This Is It And I Am It was just awesome anthem after awesome anthem. But her self-titled LP is the one where she really opened up as a songwriter; that album just crushes me.

Chronicles of Marnia is sorta the easy-listening Marnie Stern album I didn't know I wanted but am glad to have

have you guys heard the Wire album? The best of their post-2008 run.

yeah it's really good, def in my top 20

Can't vouch for the quality but at least this one's a bit different to the other indie lists so far...

Gorilla vs Bear - albums
http://www.gorillavsbear.net/2013/12/04/gorilla-vs-bears-albums-of-2013/

40 LAUREL HALO | Chance of Rain
39 LEE BANNON | Never/mind/the/darkness/of/it…
38 CFCF | Outside
37 YOUNG GALAXY | Ultramarine
36 DEATH GRIPS | Government Plates
35 SZA | S
34 TINASHE | Black Water
33 STILL CORNERS | Strange Pleasures
32 EMPRESS OF | Systems
31 TORO Y MOI | Anything In Return

30 3:33 | $.
29 DJ RASHAD | Double Cup
28 CLASSIXX | Hanging Gardens
27 DARKSIDE | Psychic
26 RICH HOMIE QUAN | Still Goin In / I Promise I Will Never Stop Going In
25 CUUSHE | Butterfly Case
24 ARIANA GRANDE | Yours Truly
23 QUASIMOTO | Yessir Whatever
22 DEAN BLUNT | The Redeemer
21 HAERTS | Hemiplegia + remixes

20 KNX. | Anthology
19 RECYCLE CULTURE | In Transit
18 CHARLI XCX | True Romance
17 THE KNIFE | Shaking the Habitual
16 POSTILJONEN | Skyer
15 VARIOUS | After Dark 2
14 WHITE DENIM | Corsicana Lemonade
13 ARCA | &&&&&
12 PURE BATHING CULTURE | Moon Tides
11 GROUPER | The Man Who Died In His Boat

10 FKA TWIGS | EP2
09 JAI PAUL | leaked demos
08 DIANA | Perpetual Surrender
07 BLUE HAWAII | Untogether
06 EJECTA | Dominae
05 ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER | R Plus Seven
04 BURIAL | Truant / Rough Sleeper (2012)
03 JULIANNA BARWICK | Nepenthe
02 DANNY BROWN | Old
01 AUTRE NE VEUT | Anxiety

ban autre ne veut

Can't vouch for the quality

Think you can...

09 JAI PAUL | leaked demos