2013 in Music

When I started compiling this list earlier this month, I had some trouble because 2013 was such a hard year to focus on the good music. I mean, there was just so much bad. Bad music with a bad message (“Blurred Lines”), good music with bad connotations (“Wrecking Ball”), bad, bad music with a fair message ripping off about eight 80s songs (“Roar”). That’s not even addressing the Biebs.

                But New Years is about new beginnings, so let’s avoid the bad. I regret posting this the day after the Grammys because—unbelievably—they got it right at least once and it looks like I’m following along. But good was good this year.

Here they are, the best albums of 2013, according to me.

Best Album of 2013

Daft Punk—Random Access Memories

                Unavoidable. I could try to bump up one of my Honourable Mentions and write a long explanation for not doing the obvious but, aw screw it, I’m doing the obvious. These guys have always been game changers, but to come leaping out at dance expectation with  funk re-imagining is bold, surprising, and almost makes it easy to ignore their employment of Pharrell Williams—forever marred by his appearance in Robin Thicke’s dinosaur song no matter how many Despicable Mes he does—or of the actual lyrics of “Get Lucky.” It’s too good.

Choice track: Okay, well, ignoring Pharrell and the fact that this song is pretty much the summer anthem of 2013, “Get Lucky” is your choice track. But the rest of the album is solid gold, and I’m currently into “Contact.”

Honourable Mention 1

Sykamore—Petal

                If I chose simply on number of listens, this is my runaway winner. It was tough not choosing this as

Numero Uno, but I’ve already explained myself. This is a superb album, flirting at times with country (notable in the custom of that genre’s mentioning of US cities and states), but the back half achieves something much grander. This is a singer-songwriter with an unbeatable voice whose production team has taken her to the next level. Watch this young lady: she’s for real.

Choice track: “Slow Dancing”

Honourable Mention 2

Pearl Jam—Lightning Bolt

                I’m not going to defend my bias: I’m a huge PJ fan. This is a great PJ album, but for different reasons than their last few. There are about five magnificent songs on this, as good as any of their best in the past ten years. But “Mind Your Manners” and “Sirens” are two of the best songs in the entire Pearl Jam canon. Supreme, and that much greater because they’re so different. The album is good, great even, but these two tracks stand out so far that the rest of the album is in their shadow.

Choice track: Yeah, well, when you spend the whole thing talking about two songs . . . but looking past them, give yourself some time to indulge in a band that’s still better than most. Try out the title track.

Honourable Mention 3

The Civil Wars—The Civil Wars

                Apparently this is a very apt name for the band and the album. The two things I know about this duo are that they sound great (also flirting at times with that country sound, but it’s okay) and apparently they can’t stand each other. They’ve gone on hiatus—which long time fans are used to. But if you want to hear male and female leads and harmonies that complement each other perfectly, and both singers are capable (I’m looking at you Of Monsters and Men), this is your stop. Well, a stop. See below.

Choice Track: “The One that Got Away”—but don’t miss the cover of Smashing Pumpkins “Disarm.”

Honourable Mention 4

Nine Inch Nails—Hesitation Marks

                This album got a lot of great reviews, but many of them—like Rolling Stone’s for example—make the foolish claim that it’s good because it’s reminiscent of The Downward Spiral. That completely ignores Trent Reznor’s growth as an artist, how far he’s come in his song writing and arrangements. One need only listen to his other 2013 release with How to Destroy Angels or listen to one of his film soundtracks or see him preforming to a stadium full of confused 30+ year old stoners to understand that the teenage angst has been buried. It may not be better than that seminal work, but it’s richer. As involved a listen as Daft Punk, NIN has grown up with us.

Choice track: “Copy of A.”

Honourable Mention 5

Me & the Mrs. The Ghosts of What Became

                So, imagine if you took the good of Mumford and Sons and the Civil Wars, wrapped around themes of marriage, love, loss, and faith. What would you get? This. A great little indy release tucked away in Southern Alberta and available on bandcamp.com (meandthemrs), it’s worth more than a few listens to hear the tricks of timing changes, and two capable vocalists—this was the year of female/male vocal match-ups. But unlike the Civil Wars, these guys will be sticking around as they’re just getting started, and embarking on a major recording project in 2014.

Choice track: “I Lose Heart.” It’s like folk prog.

The Rest of the Good

Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite—Get Up!

                Ben’s always been a guy to experiment. Forays into pop and gospel, slide guitar. But since he last recorded with the Innocent Criminals—his most commercial material—he’s been deeply entrenched in the blues. Introducing the wider world to virtuoso harmonica player Musselwhite was a fine move, but it does feel like Harper’s limiting himself a little.

Choice Track: “I Ride at Dawn”

Hayden—Us Alone

                I was in the demography of mopey late teens who sat girlfriendless in our rooms and listened to “Bad As They Seem” on repeat. I followed him for a while, saw him live once, but somewhere around the turn of the century I lost track of Hayden. Apparently I wasn’t alone. His reclusion is so chronic that for a while he was rumoured dead. Nope, all that died was his gravelly voice, but still give his Jack Johnson phase a chance.

Choice track: “Rainy Saturday”

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis—The Heist

                Perhaps you’ve heard of this one. Hey, is Ryan Lewis the most useless celebrity since the Kardashians? This album has some great songs, but really, that’s all I can listen to. The filler is just that, and hip-hop filler is worse than most. But, he’s (they’re?) to be forgiven for writing a song with a message as good as “Same Love” as satirical as “Thrift Shop” or as good as the choice track.

Choice track: “Ceiling Can’t Hold Us” is one of the best tunes of the year.

Biffy Clyro—Opposites

AND

Arcade Fire—Reflektor

                Here’s the thing about a double album: if you’re going to release one, you better make dang sure that you’ve got great material to justify your pomposity. Arcade Fire and the lesser-know Biffy Clyro both were coming off of superb previous releases of the all killer, no filler variety. But they’ve gone with the kiss of death. As good as these albums are—and they are good—they’re bloated, full of random extras and musical navel-gazing. Had they been trimmed to the length of their last releases, they’d be as good and maybe better.

Choice tracks:

Biffy—“Stingin’ Belle”

Arcade—“Normal Person”

Iron and Wine--Ghost on Ghost

               As good as this was when it first came out, it just didn't stick with me. He sort of has that one sound syndrome, and once you've had you're fill, there's no returning to it. However, enough growth between albums that I'm hopeful that he's on to something great.

Choice track: "Grace for Saints and Ramblers"

Dream Theater—Dream Theater

                I’ll eat some crow. If you read these every year (and I’m not narcissistic enough to think anyone—including my mom—does) you’ll know that two years ago I ragged pretty hard on this band’s first release after founding drummer Mike Portnoy jumped ship. It was weak, even though prog metal is kind of like pizza: even when it’s bad. . . . They sounded like they were covering themselves. No new ideas. Well, they wrote that before signing drummer Mike Mangini and on this self-titled album his contribution is wondrous. It’s like they’ve rediscovered time signatures.

Choice track: And yet, my favourite is the power-ballad “Along For the Ride”  

Apologies to Blue Rodeo, the Winery Dogs, and Atoms for Peace--I'm focused on the good. 

Top Ten Reasons Pearl Jam's Greatness Ensures Some Folks Will Remain Haters

My favorite band turned twenty this month, and it was celebrated through a tour, a documentary film, and the announcement of a new album. Yet, there are some that feel the need to hate, and to always hate, what anyone else likes. Sometimes valid points are made, but sometimes good journalists sound like that jerk in the back of Chem class who just targeted what the rest of us dug and hated it:
http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/music/music-previews/backspacing-alt-rocks-deletion-8069/

It may be true that you should never write about someone you love or someone you hate, but then most opinions would be tepid and dull. Here, then, is a top ten list with a ridiculously long title.

10. Ten. It must suck to be permanently judged for something you did in your early twenties. But never mind the new Conservative crime bill. Ten was and remains a great album, one of the best and most important of the 1990s. The grunge faction (whoever the hell they were) felt it was too commercial. Because playing solos and having more than simple chord progressions is considered "commercial"? 'Scuse me, Mr. Cobain? Did you actually watch the video to "Heart Shaped Box?" I don't feel this is the best album of the band's career, but it is the decider. If you define them by Ten, no matter that it sold a gazillion copies, then you don't know much about them as a band.

9. They've stayed together and no one has died. If Kurt Cobain and Layne Stayley were alive today, their bands would likely not be together anymore. Nirvana and Alice in Chains were built around too simple a formula, and even some of the greater ones like Soundgarden eventually toppled. Yes, AiC has a new singer and Soundgarden is sort of back together (when Pearl Jam will loan Matt Cameron on drums), but these are reunions. The original magic is over.
     Bands built around young men's angst don't have anywhere to go when young men become older men with their own kids. Pearl Jam was built to last from step "Once." As with the other greats, they evolved, they played what suited them--and still do--in the period of life they were living.
     Aside from Andy Wood, the original singer of Mother Love Bone (the ur-Pearl Jam), they have been exceptional among the bands of their time and place for the lack of stupid death surrounding them. And further to that . . .

8. None of them has been in rehab. That's not entirely true. They've had their issues. Mike McCready  apparently got addicted to painkillers (when he was in actual pain), and Eddie smokes and also consumes gallons of wine on stage every night. They've got their addictions, but at no point in their twenty years have they had that Aerosmith stage that they barely survived. Jeff Ament was straight-edged for a while, and in the Crowe documentary, Jeff says that he wishes he could show anyone starting heroin a picture of Andy Wood as he died. Heroin use defined the Seattle movement, as acid defined the 60s, and cocaine the 80s, but these guys haven't got that particular monkey. There's no scary "I kicked it" story. Lack of drugs is boring in music, I guess.

7. Music videos? They famously quit doing them after "Jeremy." Then in '98 they released the animated "Do the Evolution." In the last years of the era where music videos still actually mattered, they steered clear of the medium. Then, they started releasing a whole bunch of basic band-playing-in-front-of-camera-or-crowd videos after 2002's Riot Act, after the music video ship had long since sailed. They are much more like their 1970s idols than their peers, for their success has come from steady albums, strong support from and of their fan base, constant touring, and radio circulation, rather than singles and videos.

6. Their philanthropy. I'll never be a big U2 fan, but I love what they do outside of music. I once was a Metallica fan, but I hate who they are offstage. Being a good citizen doesn't make your music better, but if I love your music, it's sweeter to know that you work endlessly for charities and constantly thumb your nose at conservatives and capitalists.

5. Your mom doesn't hate them. They rock, but they also have ballads. They drink and curse, and they play charity concerts. Their average set list sees covers of CCR, Neil Young, The Who and Iggy and the Stooges. Even at my age, far too many people I know base the value of what they listen to by whom it pisses off. (That's somewhat hypocritical. If Stephen Harper declared ire for any band I'd buy their catalogue tomorrow.) They're a nice band. They love their fans, do everything they can at live shows to make it live up to our expectations. My mom thinks they're pretty swell for it.

4. Their music isn't all that woeful. Oh sure, in their youth they had reams of songs about dead dads and abusive childhoods, but their most meaningfully negative vibes like "Betterman," "Bu$hleaguer" and "Even Flow" tend to be more ethically and politically motivated than mopey. They want us to be better people.
     Most music reviewers and many music fans have issues with happy bands. YES has always struggled with credibility because their lyrics are as positive as their moniker. There's no room for positivity in rock music! Pearl Jam are nice guys who love their fans, they're proactive and they write songs like "The Fixer," "Down" and "Wishlist" that are about all things good, and most rock critics just hate goodness.

3. They weren't really all that grunge. I've been skirting this one, but I hate the term "grunge." I hate the Seattle Underground myth. I hate that--for many fans of the sound of that time--the bands were only good before they hit, and Pearl Jam was a corporate (?!) creation no better than a hair band and terribly inferior to its predecessors Green River and Mother Love Bone. I hate that there was a feud between Cobain and Vedder because Cobain criticized them for not being grunge enough. Apparently, "grunge enough" ends with a shotgun blast, so who needs it?
     Grunge is a New York Times name for a rock movement. Pearl Jam was and is a rock band that once wore flannel and Doc Martins. They got big. Success is negatively correlated to popularity in the underground, to being truly grunge-y. Nirvana's survival as a grunge band came, ironically, through suicide.
     Pearl Jam wasn't all that grunge because grunge is impossible to define and remains a stupid term to use to try to encapsulate a musical culture. Pearl Jam was successful, rock, from Seattle (basically), and not willing to be a part of the corporate music machine. Take whatever grunge you will from that.

2. They haven't had a hit single in years, but they still sell. "World Wide Suicide" hit Number 1 on the US Modern Rock charts in 2006, and they've had a lot of #1s and #2s on those hair-split charts (Post Modern Easy Listening Rock Chart), but I think it's fair to say that their last big hit was the 1999, tongue-in-cheek cover of "Last Kiss." Yet they still play to packed stadiums. This is tied to my ultimate point, in that they have a staying power that few bands do. They are a slow-burning fire. They write albums and they tour non-stop. They aren't heavily concerned with singles, but they receive a lot of radio play, even of the recent entries to their catalogue.

1. Greatest Band Ever. Oh, sit down. It's a discussion, not a declaration. It's the stupidest argument in the universe. Want to keep it short? Fine: the Beatles, with Zeppelin a close second.
     Of the bands still going, it's still a long and pointless debate. U2, the Beastie Boys, Neil Young, Aerosmith, Metallica, the Who, Radiohead, the Eagles, CSN--the "old reliables" list goes on and on, and music is far too subjective and personal for a winner to ever be crowned. Pearl Jam, though, is on the list of considerables. They're steady, have never gone away, and many of those who don't love them admit a grudging respect.
     Let's just say, in a very tepid and nice way, that Pearl Jam is one of  the greatest bands ever.