52/13 - I'm Clearing Zones Like I'm Indy Jones

It is the last Monday of the year. And what a year! As far as new music is concerned, I think 2013 is one of the best years I've lived through. It's offered so much goodness, I'm not even gonna bother sticking to the Top5-format in bookending it. So without further ado, here are my two top 10s of the year gone by:

TOP 10 ALBUMS 2013

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

After all, a perfect pop album is a rare thing. For once they managed to mix it all in exquisitely balanced measures: intellectual cleverness and emotional resonance; complex arrangements and catchy melodies; popcultural references and spiritual longing. There is nothing here not to love.

James Blake - Overgrown

The sound of loneliness perfected once again. The beauty of the world at its most piercing. The release of a masterfully crafted beat.

Savages - Silence Yourself

Finding a new favourite band is wonderful. It's more than music. It's that feeling of, yes, this is now, this is mine, ours. These guys know exactly what they're doing, and I'm with them all the way. Awe, trust, power. Then; catching them live. Getting blown away. Feeling like this is what it would have been like if I'd been at one of those legendary gigs of the bands and musicians who passed long before I had the chance to see them. Knowing that this is something I will talk and brag about for a long time yet. Knowing that Savages will make more music, and they're just not the kind of band that will conform or falter. Ever.

Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels

Last year they separately released one of 2012's best albums, and one of 2012's best songs. This year they joined forces for the least laid-back victory lap ever. No other rapper came close, in my book. Sure, Kendrick's Control-verse was fierce, but this album is like that verse stretched out for forty minutes, and delivered by two, equally ruthless and relentless voices. And the music! Ohmagahd. There's dronestrikes, there's guitarsolos, there's dolphins... If the rhymes did not have me so pumped up and razorfocused, my jaw would drop to the ground in pure sonically induced astonishment.

Darkside - Psychic

One of our time's great geniuses of sound strikes again, in another new constellation. This might be Nicolas Jaar's finest production yet. It's certainly the most impressive, album-wise. A fearlessly composed journey, from the first spacey drone, to the last echoing note. Music for an altered state of mind.

The Knife - Shaking the Habitual

Nothing else sounds like the Knife. Not even the Knife. Noone else dares to make music as weird, political and sincere as this. Not much makes me hopeful about the world's destiny. But listening to this does. We can do whatever we want. We can create new ideas. We can change the world. We will.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away

The phantom menace. Skeletal incantations that seem to encompass the dark history of the world within its tiny minimal walls. Repetition and fragmentation in a classical, modern and postmodern song-cycle.

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

Easy to sing along to. Easy to get lost in. Easy to pick apart in pieces, and still enjoy immensely.

Julianna Barwick - Nepenthe

I'm of the old-fashioned opinion that albums should be enjoyed as a full package. I still buy cds. Some albums really make it worth it. An elegantly designed cover, a series of atmospheric photographs inside the sleeve, a list of beautifully titled songs. It all adds up. To a subtle, sublime and seductive whole.

Janelle Monáe - The Electric Lady

It's just one amazingly great tune after another. On a concept album about a cyborg rebel. It's almost too much to take in. Which is why I know I'll keep listening to it and rediscover it for years.

And here's a string of other albums I've enjoyed this year, that would've easily made top 10 of any lesser music-year: Sigur Rós - Kveikur, Atoms for Peace - Amok, Earl Sweatshirt - Doris, Arcade Fire - Reflektor, The National - Trouble Will Find Me, Julia Holter - Loud City Song, Iron & Wine - Ghost on Ghost, Oneohtrix Point Never - R Plus Seven, Kanye West - Yeezus, Queens of the Stone Age - Like Clockwork, Arctic Monkeys - AM, Junip - Junip

TOP 10 SONGS 2013

Darkside - Golden Arrow

Orgasmic build-up of the year

James Blake - Retrograde

Voice-scaling of emotional mountaintops of the year.

Janelle Monáe ft. Miguel - Primetime

Retro-futuristic powerballad of the year. Is that ok? Yes. Yes it is.

Vampire Weekend - Step

Joyously melancholic meta-pop of the year.

The Knife - Raging Lung

Post-patriarchal, anti-capitalist marching song of the future.

Savages - Strife

Invincibility song of the year.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sacrilege

Plead and pray of the year.

Daft Punk - Get Lucky

Irresistible even-my-mum-loves-this megahit of the year.

Arcade Fire - Here Comes The Night Time

Genius tempo-change of the year.

David Bowie - Where Are We Now?

Saddest song of the year.

Oh and Queeblo released his first song this year too... And tbh, it might be the best of the bunch.