Thanks to the magical place known as the internet, everybody
in the world is currently compiling lists of the best songs and albums of 2013,
and as a member of said institution (INTERNET!), I will commence with my list
of the ten best songs of 2013. I simply haven’t listened to enough albums to
make an even remotely educated list so I will instead focus on this, at which
I’m at least not woefully underprepared.
I self-imposed a few ground rules for the list. First of all,
I’m only listing singles—I don’t have the time (well, I might, but I’d rather
not admit that to myself) to sift through every album of the year but I have
listened to enough radio, sought after enough music on my own, and listened to
major singles from end-of-year lists to at least give this a shot. Also, I’m
limiting myself strictly singles which had their initial release in 2013—singles
released in 2012 from 2013 albums do not count, nor do singles released in
2013, say, in the United States but released earlier elsewhere.
As a final disclaimer, any omitted songs have been omitted
because I hate them and if you disagree it’s because you are stupid, not
because I merely don’t think it is in the ten best singles of the year. Here it
goes!
10. New—Paul McCartney: Sir Paul’s solo career has been
ridiculed by music snobs for a couple of generations now for a few reasons. The
most obvious is that it doesn’t stack up to his work with The Beatles, which is
true. Another is that his songwriting is regarded as lightweight, which is an
unfair generalization based mostly on John Lennon’s criticisms of him and not
his actual discography. But at this point, with Macca in his seventies, I’m not
expecting him to write something as inventive as “Eleanor Rigby” or “Helter
Skelter” again, but I do want to enjoy his songs. He’s gotten tepid from time
to time, but with “New”, it felt like a classic Beatles tune. It’s not raucous
by any means, but knowing that the same man who wrote “Got to Get You Into My
Life” wrote this one isn’t a shocker. And, as importantly as his
songwriting—the man hasn’t lost a note vocally. Only when expecting a stone
cold classic along the lines of “Let it Be” or “Maybe I’m Amazed” would this
not be considered a joy.
9. You’re Not The One—Sky Ferreira: It is entirely possible
that Sky Ferreira’s lone single (to be fair, she’s 21—give her some time) is in
reality more the result of a combination of serendipity and high production
values than her own vocal talent, but that’s not really for me to judge. This
song features the lethal combination of utterly feminine vocals and a
claustrophobic production that, in a year in which David Bowie and Nine Inch
Nails each released solid albums, manages to out-Bowie and out-Nine Inch Nails
them each. The chorus’s vocals, matched with the instrumentation, borders on
haunting.
8. Mind Your Manners—Pearl Jam: I don’t remember at what
point I became aware of Pearl Jam’s existence, but at no point from then until
this summer did I ever think in a billion years that I would rank a Pearl Jam
song among the ten best of anything. Admittedly, I’ve never understood the
fascination—all I heard were mumbled vocals and power chords. So when I learned
that the new Pearl Jam single was causing division among their notoriously
loyal fans, I had to find out what was so different. And instead of hearing a
bastardized Springsteen song like I expected, I heard a fast, hardcore punk
inspired riff and Eddie Vedder’s mumbling no longer mattering much to me. All
of a sudden, this grunge group I never had much time for sounded like they were
the friggin Dead Kennedys or something. Had I not already known it was a group
of guys closing in on fifty, I’d have been excited for a youthful punk revival.
But as it is, I’ll accept this. It was my favorite Pearl Jam song ever after
one listen.
7. What Doesn’t Kill You—Jake Bugg: For those of you who do
not follow the NME on Twitter, Jake Bugg is a nineteen year-old English
wunderkind who has completely won the hearts of the British music press due to
his personal charisma and retro-but-not-too-retro musical style. He’s sort of a
Justin Bieber for music snobs, which isn’t to say that his music isn’t
incredibly accessible; it’s just not what you’d expect from somebody his age.
Depending on the song, he echoes Donovan or Bob Dylan or Neil Young, though
with this particular song, which lacks the pop bona fides of 2012’s “Lightning
Bolt” but has the fire you’d expect from an artist who wants you to notice him,
it’s a strange hodgepodge of influences. The riff sounds like Arctic Monkeys
(some fans have accused him of strict plagiarism); the vocal sounds a little
like Young drunkenly doing an impression of Dylan (this is meant to sound like
a relatively good thing though maybe I suck at analogies, I don’t know); and
while the chorus doesn’t live up to the liveliness of the verses, it’s hard to
not listen and hear that something new and exciting is happening. If I continue
to make this list, I suspect Mr. Bugg will be on here for some time.
6. Love Illumination—Franz Ferdinand: The same reasons that
will prevent Franz Ferdinand, generally speaking, from topping lists like these
are the same reasons that form their appeal and in turn make them a contender
to rank somewhere on these lists. They are decidedly not a transcendent band;
instead, they have merely churned out a string of fun, danceable singles.
Ironically, of course, by being this type of band (Who are the historical
parallels anyway? The B-52s? That doesn’t seem right but, I mean, kind of?),
they’ve cemented themselves as their own unique entity. And this particular
single hits the entire Franz Ferdinand checklist: Processed guitar sound,
playful vocal harmonies, and campy lyrics.
5. Colours to Life—Temples: There’s a fine line between
transcendence and dullness, and that fine line is what separates a band like
U2, whose ballads can teeter on the brink of shallow but are still generally
accessible, and a band like Coldplay, whose ballads exhibit similar
craftsmanship to U2’s yet also seem cookie-cutter. “Colours to Life” manages to
cut the line even closer than U2 while creating a better song than U2 has put
out in years by taking a song that fits comfortably in that type of ballad
structure while peppering in echoes of great British Indie from years past.
Johnny Marr is known to be a big fan of Temples, which have released singles
but have yet to release a debut album, and you can hear his influence on the guitar
parts of this song. Perhaps, though, the song is most reminiscent of the Stone
Roses; Temples, as a whole, seems positioned between the sort of indie rock
popularized by The Smiths and psychedelic rock, which is more or less a perfect
summation of the Stone Roses. But whereas the Stone Roses haven’t released an
album since I was five and I remain skeptical that their alleged reunion album
will ever actually happen, Temples seem more than willing to carry the torch.
4. Second Bite of the Apple—Beady Eye: The inherent problem
with Beady Eye and with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, the two spinoff
bands of Oasis (a band for whom my undying love and admiration is
well-established), is that the three total albums released by the bands are
comparatively top-heavy. The last few Oasis albums were easily separated into
Noel songs and songs from the eventual lineup of Beady Eye and due to limited
space, there was minimal filler, but Beady Eye has so far released two albums
with some utterly fantastic songs but also with mediocrity. If you buy into
Oasis-as-modern-Beatles (which I don’t, although there’s an entire section of
the Wikipedia article The Beatles’ influence of pop culture devoted just to
Oasis), then Gem Archer was its George Harrison, quietly writing underrated
songs when given the rare opportunity and elevating the guitar play of the
band. And in “Second Bite of the Apple”, an Archer composition, the lyrics are
minimal and steeped in 1960s neo-psychedelia tradition, relying primarily on
Liam Gallagher’s always-stellar vocals and Chris Sharrock’s steady drumming. It
works.
3. Black Skinhead—Kanye West: Music critics have spent a
decade telling rock fans that they’re missing out on Kanye West by ignoring hip
hop but now more than ever, the critics have it backwards. Rock fans shouldn’t
listen to Kanye West because he’s producing hip hop that’s so good you won’t
care if it’s not really your style—he’s producing what is essentially hard rock
music with rapped vocals. It’s closer to Rage Against the Machine than it is
any old school hip hop artist. And “Black Skinhead”, and the Yeezus album as a whole (which, if I
were opting to make an albums list, would top it in a relative runaway), defies
genre—it’s too heavy to be minimalist but too sparse to fit within the confines
of what we expect from a rock band. But the drums, processed as they may be,
make every word Kanye says feel as intense as he assuredly wants us to feel
they are. People scared off of Kanye based on his public persona are missing
out. There are at least four or five genres where this is the best song of the
year.
2. Get Lucky—Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams: The
summer of 2013 was the Summer of Pharrell, with two songs in which he performed
and co-wrote owning the airwaves. The bigger hit was Robin Thicke’s “Blurred
Lines”, a solid throwback in the vein of early Prince (I know the analogy du
jour is Marvin Gaye but I never quite heard it) which got a lot right but also
got a lot wrong (looking at you, T.I.). But the better song was “Get Lucky”,
probably the overall best liked song of the year. The song, which unsurprisingly
featured Nile Rodgers as guitarist and co-writer, is a disco throwback—straight
disco, not disco-rock or post-punk or whatever other qualifiers you wish to
add. The rhythm section is steady; the keyboards are optimistic and fun; it’s
been at least a decade since a song on pop radio was this overwhelmingly
beloved. I was ready to (and probably did) declare this the best song of 2013
the second I heard it. Unfortunately for Daft Punk, and fortunately for the
rest of the world, it was somehow topped.
1. Do I Wanna Know?—Arctic Monkeys: There’s a strange double
standard in British indie music that led to The Heavy’s “How You Like Me Now?”
being categorized as a soul song and “Do I Wanna Know?”, which granted is by a
rock band, being categorized as a rock song. But make no mistake—this is as
much a soul or R&B song as anything. The Arctic Monkeys are probably the
most consistently interesting band going right now—aside from Alex Turner’s
ultra-British vocal delivery, it would be impossible to know that the band that
made indie rockers like “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” and “Brianstorm”
would evolve to make a tight, emotional tattered relationship song like “Do I
Wanna Know?” Turner’s aforementioned vocals perfectly articulate the lyrics,
which as is typically the case are quite literate for a band that most people
associate with a punk spirit. But on this particular song, he may just be
overshadowed by his own guitar playing, which is strictly rhythmic here but
which overpowers the chorus, creating a soft/loud verse/chorus dynamic as
invented by The Pixies and popularized by Nirvana. Additionally, the
borderline-whispered backing vocals of Matt Helders and Nick O’Malley. And the
guitar riff is one of the year’s best. This was everything you could possibly
want in a great song.
Thanks for reading, folks. And, just as a reminder, if you
disagree with this list, it is because you are objectively wrong and have an
inferior opinion to me.
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