Top albums of 2013

| Music Editor

10. Mikal Cronin- “MCII”

If 2012 brought a torrent of great punk and noise rock releases, last year was marked by emotional vulnerability. It seemed everyone, from veterans (The National, Drake, Vampire Weekend, Christopher Owens) to promising youngsters (Chance the Rapper, Kelela, Earl Sweatshirt, Autre Ne Veut), was determined to spill his guts for all to see. Bridging last year’s gnarly distortion-fest with this year’s open-wound confessionals was Mikal Cronin, whose sophomore record, “MCII,” kicked off the summer in high fashion.

On the surface, bright hooks and punchy riffs make “MCII” seem like a quintessential summer album. But Cronin’s lyrics present him as deeply uncertain. Suddenly, his music’s cheery demeanor starts to feel like an attempt at catharsis. He many not have life’s answers, but he makes confusion sound both exhilarating (“Shout It Out”) and heartbreaking (“Don’t Let Me Go”).

Cronin’s willingness to tackle life’s most pressing concerns gives “MCII” more weight than the average power-pop album. It can console you in times of need and soundtrack moments of exuberance. It can mirror your sadness and lift you out of a funk within the course of a single song. Its fist-pumping anthems and tear-soaked ballads get messier and more luminous with each spin.

With “MCII,” Mikal Cronin hit the sweet spot between pop’s melodic impulses and punk’s inclination towards loudness, turning the noise in his head into some of the most delightful noise I pumped through my headphones all year. You can’t fake heart, and “MCII” has it in spades.

9. The Flaming Lips- “The Terror”

Without doubt, I’ve listened to “The Terror” the least of my ten favorite albums from last year. Maybe that’s because it dropped with little fanfare, failing to inspire the kinds of critical discussion that would lead me back into its twitchy wormhole. Or maybe it’s because it suffered from the “been there, done that” tag placed on late-period works from prolific artists. But in all likelihood, my reticence to revisit “The Terror” almost certainly results from its aggressive inaccessibility.

Like “Embryonic,” The Flaming Lips’ previous album, “The Terror” turns away from the polish of their early aughts releases into dense thickets of static. I’ll forever contend that the Lips are at their best when they let their freak flags fly (sorry “Soft Bulletin” fans), and “The Terror” reveals the depths they can plumb when they leave the confetti canons of their legendary live shows behind.

This is an album that hangs in your subconscious well after it ends, scrambling your thoughts into radioactive soup. It moves in feedback loops, rather than straight lines, constantly folding back in on itself. Psychedelic music is often designed to create a blissful high, but rarely do we see the bad trip, or the crash back to Earth. “The Terror” is both of these, plus a few nightmares thrown in for good measure. It’s not always pleasant, but it resonated on a frequency few albums approached last year.

After four years of worrying singles encased in gummy fetuses would turn The Flaming Lips into a novelty act, they cast my fears away in one heady swoop. Fearless freaks once more, they flew towards the sun, only to have their wings burn to a crisp. And how perversely beautiful the wreckage was.

8. The National- “Trouble Will Find Me”

In the months following its release, “Trouble Will Find Me” got lost in the shuffle of the high-profile albums that preceded and followed it. Not the striking evolution “Modern Vampires of the City” was, nor “Yeezus”’s wheelie-popping, zeitgeist-consuming fireball, “Trouble Will Find Me” was simply reliable. And The National has made reliability their M.O. since 2005’s “Alligator.” Two elegant, understated stunners (2007’s “Boxer” and 2010’s “High Violet”) later, here they are, noble indie-rock statesmen settled into the rhythms of adulthood. They no longer owe money to the money to the money they owe, or need drugs to sort their problems out.

At least it doesn’t sound that way. “Trouble Will Find Me” is distinctly warmer than “High Violet”’s frayed edges. Depending on your mood, it can force you to ruminate over past failings or lull you to sleep. Were Goldilocks to taste-test it, she would deem its soft, pillowy texture just right.

Sure, they’re not doing anything new here. Matt Berninger’s solemn baritone, the Dessner’s dense guitar interplay and Bryan Devendorf’s nimble drumming have been put to better, more heart-shattering use. But “Trouble Will Find Me” was a great record from one of our finest bands, and that was more than enough.

7. Vampire Weekend- “Modern Vampires of the City”

2013 was a make-or-break year for Vampire Weekend. After, two endearingly precocious albums full of brainy afro-pop placed the band among the 21st century’s most promising up-and-comers, album number three was to point the way forward for the Ivy League quartet. But judging from the live previews of the band’s new material—culled from YouTube and a BBC session—something was rotten in the state of New York. Precious, fussy, and too clever by half, these songs found the band at their most snobbish, beckoning haters to cry East Coast elitism.

Needless to say, I was wrong. A couple of listens to the finished product revealed the humanity absent from the low-quality live recordings. Yes, these are Rostam Botmanglij’s most studied arrangements, but they’re also his most radiant, playing with timbres warped just beyond recognition. Case in point: “Hannah Hunt,” which features a coda that contains the most perfect half-minute of music released last year.

For his part, lead singer Ezra Koenig dug beneath his astounding cultural literacy into the existential quandaries that gnaw at the souls of young intellectuals. In doing so, he replaced the emotional distance of Vampire Weekend’s first two records with heartrending intimacy.

Just a few short years from real adulthood, I’ve found new layers of resonance with each listen. While I’m terrified by the prospect of complete independence, at least I have Vampire Weekend to guide me through the ups and downs.

6. A$AP Ferg- “Trap Lord”

It wasn’t the most innovative or psychologically dense hip-hop release of 2013, but I’ll be damned if “Trap Lord” wasn’t the most fun. A trap-tastic voyage into the nethers of urban America, “Trap Lord” introduced us to A$AP Ferg, an electrifying new talent who proved the A$AP Mob is more than de facto leader A$AP Rocky’s entourage.

Some criticized Ferg for his preoccupation with senseless hip-hop clichés, but he executes them with industrial force. I dare you to find a turn-up anthem nastier and more satisfying than “Dump Dump,” or a posse cut more gloriously stupid than “Work Remix.” They may not give Ferg the opportunity to flaunt his colorful flow, but he nails cartoonish bluster like few of his peers.

But there’s plenty of head-spinning lyrical artistry too. At his best, Ferg bends words like silly putty and shoots them off of the walls with the unhinged glee of a sugar-addled child. His elasticity is on full display on “F*** Out My Face,” on which he delivers one of the year’s best verses.

Rapping in double time, Ferg cycles through inflections and intonations like a schizophrenic psychopath. Sadly, it’s only thirty seconds long, but its brevity makes it all the more captivating. Honestly, I still don’t know what he’s saying, but he delivers his bars with such conviction that it’s almost beside the point.

And then there’s “Shabba.” Brash and goofy and slightly ominous, its pleasures are undeniable, as Ferg and Rocky bounce all over percussive ticks, bass booms and what sounds like a xylophone riff from a dusty 70-rpm record. But it’s the hook, on which Ferg insists his “eight gold rings” equate him to “Sha-Shabba Ranks,” that simply cannot be forgotten.

A$AP Rocky may have an exquisite ear, but A$AP Ferg’s full of the explosive potential his cohort lacks. If “Trap Lord” is just a preview of things to come, prepare yourselves. A$AP Ferg is about to set the hip-hop world on fire.

5. Chance the Rapper- “Acid Rap”

From the outset, Chance the Rapper insists that he’s “even better than he was the last time,” and boy, is he right. His first mixtape, 2012’s “10 Day,” showed promise, but just a year later Chance returned with an offering that delivered on his vast potential. For 54 minutes, he snaps, crackles and pops over the sounds of Chicago soul, giving us a three-dimensional portrait of his current self.

At times, he’s cocky, scared, lonely, confused, grateful and just about every other feeling one could imagine, but above all, he’s frighteningly insightful. Navigating the fraught terrain between youth and adulthood, Chance imparts more wisdom than one could ever expect from a teenager. (He was 19 at the time of the mixtape’s recording.)

After a song-and-a-half of clever juvenile musings, Chance lands an early knockout blow with “Paranoia,” the second part of “Pusha Man.” Any hip-hop fan has heard tales of senseless violence and institutional failure, but Chance makes the troubles of Chicago’s darker corners intensely personal. By the time he reaches the breakdown, on which he trembles, “I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too,” you can’t help but fall for this prodigious new talent.

With his squeaky rasp of a voice and fascination with free-associative wordplay, Chance recalls Lil Wayne in his prime. Like Weezy, he approaches language with the wide-eyed curiosity of an infant and the wit of a master poet. He loves the way words sound, and he’s able to make them ring with the joy of discovery.

If you’re still sour from Chance’s underwhelming WILD performance, cleanse your palette with one of the most remarkable mixtapes in recent memory.

4. Drake- “Nothing Was the Same”

At the end of his sophomore album, “Take Care,” Drake promised “my juniors and senior will only get meaner,” which, at the time, seemed laughable coming from one of hip-hop’s most sensitive voices. But given time to reflect on “Take Care” and a string of standout singles leading into this year’s “Nothing Was the Same,” maybe he’d earned some vitriol. He certainly didn’t start from the bottom, but for the past two years, Drake’s been leading the charge for a generation of young innovators blurring the lines between hip-hop and R&B.

With that in mind, “Nothing Was the Same” is both a victory lap and an assertion of his current dominance. Operating under the assumption that “motherf—— never loved ” him, Drake spends much of the album battle-rapping with everyone who ever doubted him. Except the haters don’t get a chance to respond, and even if they did, we wouldn’t care, because Drake’s bigger and better than any of them (except Kendrick Lamar, still the king of the West Coast, New York and whatever the hell else he sets his sights on).

And it’s not because he’s terribly inventive like mentor Lil Wayne. No, it’s because he’s an open wound, spilling all over his naysayers. At his worst, Drake’s narcissistic to the point of delusion, but he’s never anything less than compelling. His lyrics read like stream-of-consciousness diary entries, revealing depths of insecurity few rappers would dare to approach.

But Noah “40” Shehib’s icy soundscapes are what elevate “Nothing Was the Same” above guilty pleasure territory. They swirl and billow like Arctic winds, grounded by stuttering snares and machine-gun ticks. It’s that same balance—between focused aggression and scattershot reflection—that lies at the heart of Drake.

Half way between psychotic and iconic, half way between I want it and I got it, Drake’s a force to be reckoned with. “Who else making rap albums doing numbers like it’s pop?”

3. Jai Paul- “Jai Paul”

On April 14th, the future of R&B made its way onto SoundCloud courtesy of Jai Paul, or so we thought. It was later revealed that these sixteen tracks were probably leaked from Paul’s stolen laptop, but a little digging indicated it might have been a promotional stunt from XL, Paul’s label. Either way, they were truly stunning.

In most cases, I support an artist’s right to release his work when he deems fit, but sometimes control must be wrestled away from an obsessive perfectionist. Why Paul didn’t deem these songs fit for release, I’ll never know. They sound like transmissions from an alien planet, re-writing a language we never knew existed.

While the demos are certainly grounded in Prince’s genre-mashing and the smoky haze of modern R&B, there’s something about the way Paul constructs and mixes sounds that’s positively revolutionary. Bursting at the seams with seemingly every idea that’s ever popped into his head, “Jai Paul” filters extraterrestrial frequencies through a lo-fi vortex of black magic.

Neither entirely sexy nor druggy, the demos sound like the inner-workings of Paul’s mind, twisting and turning as his synapses see fit. In sharp contrast to the average R&B crooner, Paul’s voice remains buried under the layers of distorted samples, just another instrument in his insular orchestra.

Nine months later, we still know next to nothing about Jai Paul or his intentions to release a proper studio debut. But for now, these demos will more than suffice. In a year full of surprise album releases, “Jai Paul” took the cake for its ability to inspire awe at every turn.

2. Kanye West- “Yeezus”

Well, it’s been seven months since Kanye unleashed “Yeezus” upon us, and we’ve analyzed, counter-analyzed and dissected it to the point of insanity. The last month in particular, with its endless steam of top-10 lists, has seen ungodly amounts of discussion on this cluster-bomb of an album. So, what’s left? Has it lost any of its growling intensity?

Of course not. “Yeezus” was designed to withstand over-exposure from us mere mortals, pummeling anyone who dares question its relevance. Dozens of listens later, it still retains that explosive energy that took me aback the first time. You can almost hear West teetering on the edge of psychosis, letting his rotten id poison an already overbearing personality.

He dared us to hate him, and some certainly did. But for the rest of us, we were given something immensely rewarding. A major label release that ventured into territory dark enough to make even the most courageous record exec squirm. West could have stuck to the gorgeous, multi-layered production of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” and avoided some of the hostility thrown his way by those unable to bear his outlandish boasts. But he’s never been one to play it safe, and that’s why he towers above his peers. We’re all living in Kanye West’s beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy, and culture’s richer for it.

1. Arcade Fire- “Reflektor”

Despite becoming the faces of indie rock, I’ve never seen the genius tag applied to Arcade Fire. Sure, they don’t convey the same brooding seriousness of, say, Thom Yorke, but isn’t there a genius in making records that radiate with a vigor for the wonders of human life? Now, this doesn’t mean that Arcade Fire’s music ignores conflict. Much of it finds them struggling to work through the thornier side of existence, but the turmoil is always laced with the hope that things can better. Rather than turning inwards, Arcade Fire project their concerns for the whole world to see. They long to connect rather than sulk, to help others find that which makes them happy.

And “Reflektor” made me happier than any other record released last year. Looking back, it seems like it was only a matter of time before Arcade Fire turned to dance music, and “Reflektor” takes all of the shouting and straining and existential despair of their first three albums and focuses it into grooves that bear the weight of the world. They play like the apocalypse is just minutes away, filling every last second with their strongest melodies and rhythmic patterns to date.

Forget the elaborate promotional campaign, big themes and gaudy costumes, second for second, “Reflektor” set off more endorphins than any other album released last year. Everything else was just a reflection of its brilliance.

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