A year has gone by where I never decided on a favourite song or album, and nothing has been able to hold my attention for long enough for me to give it an arbitrary #1. So instead I present to you 20 songs that I enjoyed throughout 2013, ordered alphabetically because I'm not in the mood to quantify things.

 

Let's do it.

 

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LADY GAGA AURA ARTPOP

 

AKA Opening Track of the Year

 

Well that was a bit of a mess, wasn't it?

 

As someone who enjoyed 'Born This Way' more than expected, I was intrigued by GaGa's attempt at a concept album pitched a little closer to her comfort zone. In the end 'ARTPOP' ended up being a tremendous mess, but it did at least spawn three essential tracks. "Do What U Want" looks like delivering a proper hit single when she needs it more than ever and "Sexxx Dreams" has sounded delicious ever since that iTunes Festival debut, but the nod has to go to the song that kicks off the whole shebang. 'Aura' gets right what so much of the record gets wrong - completely wacky, and throwing together wildly disparate components with little regard for taste or artistry. Yet it works, and as a mission statement you don't get much better than the robotic cries of DANCE SEX ART POP and its maddeningly catchy breakdown.

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KANYE WEST BLACK SKINHEAD YEEZUS

 

AKA Kanye of the Year, because that just deserves its own category

 

It takes balls to follow up perhaps the most critically revered album of the last five years with a record devoid of almost everything that made its predecessor so thrilling. But then again it also takes balls to compare yourself to Nelson Mandela and accuse the President of not caring about black people, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised at anything Kanye gets up to anymore. Race issues loom large over 'Yeezus' and nowhere more overtly than on its lead single of sorts.

 

Also, the moment when a black hip-hop star gets a record produced by a masked French house duo and the result sounds like Marilyn Manson is probably the moment when popular music culture implodes.

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ARCTIC MONKEYS DO I WANNA KNOW? AM

 

AKA Riff of the Year

 

First things first: that 10/10 review in the NME was ridiculous for an album that sags so noticeably in the middle. That said, not since Liam Gallagher was singing about Alka-Seltzer has British rock sounded quite so cool as when THAT guitar riff hits. Effortless.

 

HAIM FALLING DAYS ARE GONE

 

AKA Debut of the Year

 

If you were to force me at gunpoint, I'd probably declare 'Days Are Gone' as my album of the year - it managed to surpass expectations despite the hype bandwagon going into overdrive over even the idea of a family band of three (very) attractive sisters playing fashionable Fleetwood Mac melodies. Of course the almost R&B stylings of the studio version we know and love of "Falling" doesn't really have much relation to the stop-start heaviness of the band's live performances, but both versions kept me suitably enthralled throughout the second half of the year and it's the song I keep coming back to most.

 

all so far r wonderful

 

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THE LONELY ISLAND feat. ROBYN GO KINDERGARTEN THE WACK ALBUM

 

AKA Club Jam of the Year

 

Without anyone really noticing, The Lonely Island returned this year with an album which defied the ultimate law of comedy music - that of diminishing laughs. 'The Wack Album' has the edge on 2011's 'Turtleneck and Chain' in almost every respect, and the group's daliances with electronic effects finally came to full fruition with a club jam so perfectly satirical you wonder why they hadn't come up with it before. Add a stopgap dance video perfectly lampooning Robin #Thicke before it became trendy and a fully fledged production involving Paul Rudd and P. Diddy and you've got comedy gold.

 

 

 

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THE 1975 HEART OUT THE 1975

 

AKA 2014 Single of the Year

 

Delivering three and a half (even I don't love "The City" that much) of the best singles of the year ought to earn a young band a break in 2014. However, if the rest of their album is anything to go by there's at least a couple more left just waiting to be hammered by XFM and "Heart Out" is the pick of the bunch. The simple, repeated chorus line is surprisingly affecting and no '80s pastiche is complete without a sax solo.

 

 

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ARCADE FIRE IT'S NEVER OVER (HEY ORPHEUS) REFLEKTOR

 

AKA Album Cut of the Year

 

On second listen to 'Reflektor''s title track I had convinced myself that I wouldn't be listening to anything else all year. After the third I went and listened to 'The Suburbs' in full as I was already tiring of the new song's charms. The album as a whole is brilliant and frustrating in equal measure, especially given how much I loved its predecessor, but for the second album in a row the song that quickly became my favourite was the one that I initially dismissed for not quite building to the rousing climax you expect from RK Flyer.

 

As it was with "We Used To Wait", "It's Never Over"'s greatest strength is its subtlety. Nothing feels out of place, yet you could still imagine it being recorded first time in a single six minute rush of suppressed emotions. All too often on 'Reflektor' I find myself bemoaning the band's prioritising of groove over songwriting, then I find myself dancing along to "It's Never Over" and think maybe I could get used to this disco twist after all.

 

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EVERYTHING EVERYTHING KEMOSABE ARC

 

AKA Imaginative Percussion of the Year

 

Probably the song I've played more than any other throughout the year. Given that the positively wacky "Cough Cough" yielded a top 40 hit at the tail end of last year, we were probably forgiven for expecting the equally infectious but altogether less risky follow-up to smash. It wasn't to be, and it's worth remembering that for Everything Everything "less risky" still involves a chorus only fully audible to dogs.

 

Some good stuff here so far, 'It's Never Over' definitely one of the best on 'Reflektor'. 'Kemosabe' made me take notice of EE for the first time properly and I do like 'Heart Out' on listening there, never bothered with the album as 'The City' was nowhere near as good as the previous two and I never liked 'Girls' at all. They bored me a lot at Reading too, though that was definitely part down to the majority of the crowd only being there to hear the one song they knew.

I'm actually liking a lot of these :o GOOD WORK.

 

I agree with you about the Arctic Monkeys, I do really like AM but the amount of praise that it gets from NME/Q et al is baffling.

Edited December 28, 201311 yr by ★ G R I F F ★

Great so far! This makes me very glad that I'm not the only one doing this alphabetically! Ranking songs is hard.

 

Go Kindergarten is an excellent choice!! And yay Haim.

That Loney Island song is epic, how have I not heard it before?

Robyn's parts on that track are so good but I don't like the rest of it at all. Do I Wanna Know is easily my favourite ever song by the Arctics, they missed my charts narrowly with both their single and album.

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JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE MIRRORS THE 20/20 EXPERIENCE

 

AKA Comeback of the Year

 

Let's face it, "Suit & Tie" was the warm-up. It's hard to think of another star in recent times easing themselves back in the public consciousness quite so effortlessly as JT does here with that opening wash of synthed-up guitars. From then on it plays out as the happy, less conflicted flipside of my Timberlake favourite "What Goes Around...", but manages to never feel like a direct retread. Shame it all went tits up from this point onwards.

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FOALS MY NUMBER HOLY FIRE

 

AKA Festival Anthem of the Year

 

A band that I never particularly cared for before they put out "Inhaler" this time last year, it makes sense that I began to appreciate Foals much more after seeing them pull off their first big festival headline slot at Latitude this year. Their encore of "Inhaler" and "Two Steps, Twice" was my highlight of the summer and those two songs remain my favourites but the song that finally gave them a proper hit single isn't far behind. "My Number" marks a shift back towards the breezy nature of much of their debut but without ever seeming as lightweight. I'm not big on the rest of the album but they are undoubtedly one of those bands that you don't truly know until you've seen them live.

 

great choices so far; Kemosabe, Black Skinhead, Falling and Do I Wanna Know? the main ones!

 

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DUKE DUMONT feat. A*M*E NEED U (100%)

 

AKA Dance Track of the Year

 

We were safely assured back in April that this would be inescapable over the summer. Little were we to know that the Daft Thicke leviathan was warming up to flatten everything in its way, and maybe "Need U" has only retained its charm because it was never around long enough to annoy us. Either way, this remains one of the best examples of the house revival that gripped 2013.

 

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PARAMORE NOW PARAMORE

 

AKA "How was this not a massive hit?" of the Year

 

I have literally no idea what happened here. Strip away the buzzsaw guitars and it's basically "Roar" - maybe a few cute animals wouldn't have gone amiss in the video alongside all the destruction and silly eyebrows. "Now" isn't quite the epic that its trailer suggested but it still delivers a gigantic chorus that should have been a radio staple until the end of time. Oh well, maybe next time.