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.