The 5 Best Albums of 2013

Since 2013 was such a good year for music, I decided to do one of these lists.  Here are the 5 best albums that I listened to this year:

5.) Lorde - Pure Heroine

I remember the first time I heard "Royals" on the radio.  I was in my car (does anyone ever listen to the radio outside of the car anymore?) stopped at the intersection of Harlem and Ogden, and the DJ on XRT (I think it was Jason Thomas, but I'm not positive) said he was gonna play a song off an album called "Pure Heroine," spelled "H-E-R-O-I-N-E," by someone named Lorde.  And she was only sixteen.  I was interested right away - XRT isn't usually the type of station to play bullshit from teen pop stars.  As soon as she sang "Every song's like gold teeth, gray goose, tripping in the bathroom," I knew I needed to get this album.  It exploded over the next few weeks, but I kept putting off getting the full album, until I heard the second single, "Team."  It takes serious balls for a sixteen-year-old girl to sing, "I'm kind of older than I was when I reveled without a care."  That song hit me even harder than Royals did, 'cuz now I knew that it wasn't just a fluke:  this girl had talent.  The rest of the album is incredibly solid, though "Team" is still my favorite song.  The minimalist style and production is an excellent change of pace from much of today's pop music, and the surprisingly deep lyrics tie everything together into a perfect little condemnation of today's pop music and the lifestyle it champions, all the while remaining accessible.  This is a record that will influence pop musicians for a generation to come, and hopefully will mark the beginning of a great deconstruction and then reconstruction of the genre.


4.)  Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP 2

The "sequel" to Eminem's much-lauded 2000 album does something I don't think anyone expected:  it tops the original.  While I've always generally been more of a fan of Eminem's older music, I can say unequivocally that MMLP2 is his best album in a decade and among the best rap albums of all time.  The album starts off with the seven-minute "Bad Guy," which is as angry as it is epic, and from then on Eminem favors individualistic, standout songs with the perfect balance of rock and pop influences.  Special mention goes to "Stronger Than I Was," a straight ballad that sounds unlike anything Eminem's done before (he actually sings on it, and it's not bad!) and Legacy, the production of which recalls his older song Stan.  The obligatory-feeling collaboration with Rihanna, Monster, doesn't come close to their last collaboration (Love the Way You Lie) but it's a good single that reignites the album after the mid-album lag.  Aside from a baffling collaboration with the douchebag from Fun (on "Headlights") there is literally nothing to criticize here.  Watch for the hilarious sample on "So Far...", a decision so absurd on paper that it transcends reproach.

3.) Vincent Todd - Skeletrons

You've almost certainly never heard of Vincent Todd, which is too bad, because his 2013 album Skeletrons is such a roller-coaster of genres, styles, and emotions that I couldn't help myself from including it on this list.  A departure from the straight-electronica of his previous records, Todd's songs range from lo-fi punk to rock-and-pop influenced electronica, sandwiched between two soundtrack-worthy instrumentals.  The absolute standout is the stadium-ready "Walk Into the Light," which has one of the best choruses you'll ever hear.  This is an album that needs to be listened to front-to-back for its greatness to be understood, but the experience is well worth it.  Watch for a cover of Bowie's "Aladdin Sane" that trucks the original and sprints all the way to the end zone.

Here's the best part:  you can listen to the entire album here.


2.) Jimmy Eat World - Damage

Jimmy Eat World's eighth studio album took me a few listens.  It's a loose concept album about the end of a relationship, but what makes it different from most breakup albums is the way it explores the topic from the POV of both parties.  Instead of a melodramatic high-school breakup, Damage is about the destruction of something more like a marriage and how it affects two adults who are no more emotionally prepared than if they were in high school.  Frontman Jim Adkins sings in the first track, "There's something I feel I haven't felt since, since I was a kid, you made my heart just break, it just breaks."  Damage may stand as the only album that successfully captures the trauma and heartbreak of a divorce without coming off as overly sentimental or fake.  The stripped-down closing track ends the album on a decidedly nihilistic note:  "You were good, you were good, and you were gone."

1.)  Paramore - Paramore

I never really liked Paramore, outside of a few songs.  I'm weary when members of the band quit during recording of an album, and I absolutely hate self-titled albums.  So then why was Paramore's self-titled fourth album, recorded just after co-founders Zac and Josh Farro left the band, my favorite album of 2013?  Simply put, Paramore cut the bullshit and grew up as a band.  They've tempered the worst of their lyrical faults and made an ambitious, fluid album incorporating styles you'd never think them capable of pulling off based on their earlier material, and nine times out of ten, they succeed.  The ukulele-driven interludes give the album an inexplicable sense of direction and story, and the band shows that they grew up listening to Jimmy Eat World with the nearly 8-minute closer, "Future."  Special mention goes to the album's single, "Still Into You," which sounds like an Avril Lavigne song (although it's far better than anything she's released in the past six or seven years), which after years of Hayley Williams being the "anti-Avril" was a ballsy decision on the band's part.  After this album, I'm forced to conclude that all of the awful songwriting displayed on the band's first three albums can be blamed on the Farro brothers, and with them gone, Paramore has nowhere to go but up.

Honorable mentions:  The Next Day by David Bowie, Avril Lavigne by Avril Lavigne, Yeezus by Kanye West, Lightning Bolt by Pearl Jam, Mechanical Bull by Kings of Leon.

I Want You to Celebrate Christmas This Year

I want you to celebrate Christmas this year.

Yeah, that's right. You. I know, I don't even know you. You might be Jewish. Or a Taoist. Or a Muslim. Or – gasp! – an atheist! Why would you celebrate the most Christian of holidays?

This is not about consumerism, and it most definitely is not about trying to convert you to Christianity. As commercialized as Christmas has become in the United States and much of the world, it is still about so much more than sales at your local mall. The Christmas spirit epitomizes that which is most fundamental about the world's most pervasive religion: compassion, peace, forgiveness, celebration, brotherhood, gratitude, acceptance, and most of all, love for all mankind. These are human ideals and emotions that being a non-Christian does not preclude anyone – anyone – from having.

If Christmas is a Christian holiday, then it is imperative that we share it. Instead of a commemoration of the birth of our savior, it needs to be a celebration of all the things that He stood for. And we must share it with all those who believe differently, if we want them to understand what our faith is really about. Not to convert them, but to love them, the way He would want us to.

I know many non-Christians do celebrate Christmas, but there are many more who don't. I have Muslim and Jewish friends who do not, as well as atheist friends who only celebrate it because their families do. I want that to change. I want you, whoever you are, to celebrate Christmas, regardless of your personal beliefs or experiences with Christmas, or Christians in general. I want you to buy a tree and decorate it with lights, and put a big star on top. Not because a star supposedly guided the three wise men to Bethlehem, but because it's a part of the imagery, a part of the holiday. The star on top of the tree has transcended the nativity story.

And yes, elements like the tree (and even the date) were appropriated from pagan festivals, many of which predate Christianity. I've often heard this as a criticism leveled against the holiday, but for me it just further strengthens what I love so much about Christmas: its potential to bring all the world together, even if for just one day: everyone of every race and creed and nation, united in peace and love. Just for one day.

I want you to buy presents, if you can afford them, for your children, or your spouse, or your parents, or your friends, or anyone that you love, and I want you to stick them under the tree until December 25^th. If you have kids, I want you to have them write a letter to Santa, then stay up until they fall asleep to eat the cookies and milk and carrots.

You don't have to take them to church, or teach them about Jesus or Christianity, if they don't want to know. Forget about the religious aspect. They will form unbelievably powerful memories that will shape them for the rest of their lives, just as my memories of Christmases past have instilled this love of the holiday in me, and my desire to share it.

I want you to hang icicle lights in front of your house, and drink Christmas Coke, and wear a Santa hat, and listen to Trans-Siberian Orchestra, for the month of December. I want you to sit down with your loved ones on Christmas Eve and watch A Christmas Story on TBS, or Elf, or It's A Wonderful Life, or even Die Hard. Whichever Christmas movie most moves you.

I want the Christmas spirit to flow through you. I want you to smile at everyone you meet, give a gift to someone you dislike, forgive an enemy, drop some change in a Salvation Army bucket, volunteer at a shelter, and most of all, remember to cherish all the things that you hold dear. Your slate is clean, if only for this one day.

I want you to do all of this, even if you are a Jew or a Muslim or a Hindu or Buddhist. I want you to celebrate Christmas even if you are a deist, or a Wiccan, or an atheist or agnostic. Even if you despise religion, and especially Christianity. Especially if you hate religion.

I am not offering our most important holiday up for grabs because I want to spread our faith, or even our message. I want you to celebrate Christmas because it is my favorite time of year, and I want to share it with the world. Regardless of what you believe, we are all one family, and that's another thing that Christmas is about: family.

I beg of you, do not think that you cannot celebrate Christmas because you do not believe in the Christian religion. And so what if our society is saturated with Christmas products and media? So what if corporations use the holiday as an excuse to make money? So what if your favorite radio station changes to a Christmas music format for a month? Christmas can be whatever you make it, as long as you remember the fundamentals: peace, love, acceptance. Who could argue against these concepts deserving a holiday? Let go of any indignation you might feel at one religion making claims to a holiday for what should be universal human ideals. Accept it. Embrace it. Appropriate it. Christians may have created the holiday, but all of us, deep down, want to share it with the world. Everyone. If Christians can admit that our fundamental values transcend even our own religion, then non-Christians should be able to accept that beneath the vitriol of bad Christians and questionable history of the various sects, our message is pure. Christ taught love. Love for all, by all. It is an ideal, and it may never be attainable, but that does not mean that we as a species should not strive for it, if not every day of our lives, then at least this one day a year.

 All I am asking, all that we ask, is that you share our most special day with us.

Hello

Hey, hi, how ya doing?  Good, I hope.

This is my first post.  It only exists to be the first post.  Yeah.

-C