Top 50 Music List of 2013, Mixtape 1!
Grab the mix by clicking this text, and then let’s get to the Devil’s Music.
1. The Future Of the Left, “Singing Of The Bonesaws”
This song made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. Like early Art Brut, only crankier. Taken from their album How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident. Band webpage here: http://futureoftheleft.net/
2. Mazes, “Hayfever Wristband”
I just discovered Mazes this past year, and all their records are outstanding. I like this song for especially feeling sorta like what you’d get if Michael Quercio of the Three O’Clock was the lead singer of the Volcano Suns. From their album Better Ghosts. Band webpage here: http://www.wearemazes.com/
3. Dutch Barn, “Come Down”
If there’s a trend to 2013 I stand firmly in favor of, it’s a return to the amazing music and style of the 1990’s. Dutch Barn are a UK band who totally nail a sound that feels like late-period Feelies covering Pale Saints. This is a great song to drive/play air drums to as well, just saying. Band website here: http://dutchbarnband.com/
4. Mark Mulcahy, “She Makes The World Turn Backwards”
Mulcahy was the leader of the great 1980s band Miracle Legion. The tragic loss of his wife a few years back seems to have pushed him back to making music, and his 2013 record Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You might be the best thing he’s ever done, which is saying something. Website here: http://mezzotint.com/markmulcahypreorder.html
5. Youth Lagoon, “Mute”
There are some Youth Lagoon songs that don’t do much for me, but on this track when the that weird synthy fanfare kicks in (is that a mellotron?) it’s so woozy and swoony that it makes my heart catch. From the evocatively titled album Wondrous Bughouse, webpage here: http://www.fatpossum.com/artists/youth-lagoon
6. Sam Phillips, “Pretty Timebomb”
Every few years Sam Phillips makes an album, and since divorcing herself literally and figuratively from the over-blandness of former husband T-Bone Burnett’s production, her records are unfailingly interesting and excellent. From her latest album, Push Any Button. Her web site is here: http://samphillips.com/
7. British Sea Power, “Guillemot Girls”
I’ve always liked the idea of this UK band more than I’ve liked their records, but in 2013 they did the soundtrack to a film called From The Sea To The Land Beyond and it all just clicked perfectly. The album has the same title as the film, the webpage is here: http://www.britishseapower.co.uk/
8. Sweet Apple “I Wish You Could Stay (A Little Longer)”
Sweet Apple is the collaboration of some old school indie vets, notably John Petkovic of Cobra Verde and J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. Their previous record was a bit hit or miss, but this single, a preview track from a forthcoming 2014 album, is one of the best songs I heard all year. Just a brilliant job of pop song craftsmanship, where everything is just PERFECT…including the guest duet vocal from Mark Lanegan. Band Website (with the single) is here: http://sweetapplesongs.com/
9. The Resonars “Tomorrow Gears”
God bless Matt Rendon and his band The Resonars. As you can tell by listening, The Resonars live in a world where The Creation, The Action, and The Move still rule and 1967 loops back on itself again and again. From their excellent 2013 album Crummy Desert Sound (one of my favorite album titles in recent memory, that.) Available here: http://burgerrecords.11spot.com/search-by-artist-2/the-resonars/the-resonars-crummy-desert-sound.html
10. The Limiñanas, “La Meloncolie”
A great Francopop cut of sheer Gainsbourg-ian genius, this is the slinky seductive catsuit beat you’ve been looking for. From the album Costa Brava, website here: http://troubleinmindrecs.com/bands/liminanas.html
11. Unknown Mortal Orchestra, “Secret Xtians”
As great as UMO’s debut album was, the follow-up seemed destined to disappoint. It’s actually very solid, and this track rules. The record is called II, and the band’s site is here: http://unknownmortalorchestra.com/
12. Ex Cops “You Are Lion I Am Lamb”
The teaser singles for this NY-area dreampop band in 2012 hinted at great promise, and their January record delivered. This is one of the most gorgeous hooks of the year, period. Don’t trust Spotify’s year date on this, it’s 2013, from the outstanding album True Hallucinations. Trust me on this. Web page is here: http://excopsband.com/index.html
13. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, “Nightwater Girlfriend”
Every year it feels like SSLYBY puts out a great record that deserves to be a hit. These folks from my old home state of Missouri are just amazingly, consistently excellent. Dig the way they sway and swing the beat here halfway through. From the 2013 album Fly By Wire, the band page is here: http://sslyby.com/
14. Minor Alps, “I Don’t Know What To Do With My Hands”
2013’s “Had me at hello” moment was finding out that this band was a collaborative project of Juliana Hatfield and Matthew Caws (of the excellent Nada Surf). All over this record I kept feeling like “They should’ve done this years ago”, so perfectly do their voices and writing styles blend into a glorious whole. From their album Get There, here’s hoping they do this again. Band’s hub is right here: http://minoralps.tumblr.com/
15. David Bowie “Valentine’s Day”
A bittersweet discovery, as I’ve not given many latter-day Bowie projects the time of day. Upon the tragic death of Scott Miller, however, I discovered that his favorite record of the year to that point was this astonishing return to form here. And so here it is: Bowie’s record, The Next Day, really is terrific and has some of his best songs in decades. Website here: http://www.davidbowie.com/
16. Smith Westerns, “Glossed” and “XIII”
I started out loving these Chicago suburb wiseacres, and then I sort of got tired of them equally quickly. Imagine my surprise at discovering their growth and evolution on their 2013 album Soft Will. This track is absolutely gorgeous with a monstrous melodic hook that should’ve made it a massive hit. Better still, “Glossed” flows seamlessly into “XIII” on the record, giving this mix a delirious two-fer to close out the first tape. Band’s website is here: http://www.smithwesternsmusic.com/
Tomorrow, Mix Tape 2, which is all Arcade Fire songs in a loop.
The Very Best Music of 2013. Period.
In the past whenever I’ve scraped enough time to do a year-end list of the best music from the previous 12 months, I’ve always presented it with a sort of genial “Aw shucks-ness”, saying that a particular grouping of songs or albums were just my personal choices for my favorites, but that there were other just-as-worthy lists out there.
Every year I’ve done that, I get the feeling that folks who read my list tousle its hair, cluck it on the chin and say “Aw, that’s a nice list.”
Hell with that.
This year’s list is the definitive list of the best songs representing the best albums and/or artists of 2013. Period. End of story. There’s no equivocating here. You might see other lists out there, polluted by crappy artists who have no business being under such consideration. For instance, if you put Haim on your list, I at least hope the damn check cleared for you. (As radio fodder/vacuous pop crap, Haim are fine. Wonderful in fact. If they’re in the same list as Kurt Vile, though, you’re trying too hard.) Don’t call this a bias against being popular, either. Some of the best songs of 2013 were exceedingly popular, and they’re represented here. We got your back, in other words, and yeah, I’m aware that this is one of a gajillion lists of best music of 2013 out there. What I’m saying is this: my list is the one that matters, that won’t fail you, that actually really is the best music of 2013.
So there.
What I did last year I’m doing this year. Instead of blathering on and on and boring everyone with a wall of words, I’m instead doing a mix of the best of the year in songs. What I did was select 50 songs from the year. They’re either the best songs, or the songs I think are most representative of what the album they’re on is about, or are the best way for someone unfamiliar to find their way into an artist or album they might not know. That’s the criteria: outstanding song, representative song, and/or easiest access into the rest of the record or artist. Most of the time, it’s a mix of all three of those things.
Thus, I have for you the Top 50 of 2013. You know why this Top 50 is better than anyone else’s Top 50? Here’s why: THERE ARE 52 SONGS IN MY TOP 50! Rolling Stone or Pitchfork will give you a Top 20 or Top 100 or whatever…but you know how many records or songs will be in their lists? Yeah, exactly. 100 or 20 or however many they say. Are they unfamiliar with the concept of a lagniappe? A baker’s dozen? I’m promising 50 songs, but delivering 52. That’s clearly better. Empirically, even.
Even better, with 52 songs, I broke them into 3 separate mixes, each about 60 minutes long. The songs are absolutely positively in no order of quality. Instead, I picked songs out that flow together, and put them in an order that makes for a great listen while, say, you walk from the National Gallery Of Art to the Jefferson Memorial and back to the train station…or drive from Virginia to Vermont to ski and back. There’s an ebb and flow and back and forth here.
What I am going to do here though is live blog listening to the tunes here to tell a bit about why they’re here and why I picked ’em. Nothing huge, just a sentence or two. We’ll do Tape Numero Uno today, Tape #2 tomorrow, and Tape #3 on Thursday. Let this page be the placeholder for all that, with cross links to the other mixes.
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Me And You And Obamacare.
Since today is a traveling day for me, I thought I’d bang out a blog post or two to pass the time. In fact, having just paid my first new premium for my Anthem/BCBS insurance policy bought through Healthcare.gov, I thought I’d maybe say a few words about the ACA. You know. Obamacare.
My initial impressions were a bit mixed. I got through online somehow back in October. Yes, really. My experience playing Day One in MMO games served me well, here. Getting in was no more difficult than playing Guild Wars 2 on a beta weekend in 2012…except, of course, that no one is legally mandated to have tried to get into a GW2 beta weekend, and we’re all mandated to have health coverage. Because of that, yeah, I get the frustration folks had.
For me, though, I felt like I was ahead of the curve. Got online, did some comparison shopping. Before I pulled the trigger on buying a policy, I decided to do some research about which policy to buy by checking some satisfaction rates and also to see which nearby doctors are more likely to be in which networks around me. I logged off that day in October, and my email informed me I had three messages waiting at Healthcare.gov that I’d need to respond to. Fine and dandy. Given the time frame, I didn’t try to log back in for weeks. I knew they were fixing the site to make it work better. I’d wait it out.
I decided to check back and finish my application process around November, but when I did, I ran into roadblocks. Those three notices I’d received an email about? Yeah, the system forced me to read them or respond to them before I could proceed. Problem: there was no way–none–to read the notices. I could temporarily dismiss the notifications that I had messages, but I couldn’t read the actual messages themselves! The system forced me to read them first before I could continue with setting up my policy, too. It was kind of Kafka-esque, and very frustrating. A person on the phone I spoke with was little help. We went around in circles. It became clear to me that to apply for my policy by phone, I’d have to start over from scratch and spell out everything phonetically and that would be an awful chore.
I should also mention feeling a bit under the gun now, too. My individual policy would be cancelled by the ACA in January because it failed to offer a prescription benefit or the necessary preventative care stuff required by the new law. It also was costing me an arm and a leg to pay for this nonsense, awful coverage. Even as bad as it was, though, the thought of having NO health insurance was worse. I needed to get my Obamacare on, and stat. And so every few days from Thanksgiving onward, I’d check in with Healthcare.gov to see if they’d rectified the glitch I was experiencing. It didn’t seem too hopeful. I couldn’t log in with Firefox, for one thing, only the Chrome browser. I was getting worried.
This past Tuesday was the most recent time I decided to give it a try. I’d forgotten to use Chrome, and didn’t realize until I was logged in that it had actually worked again for me in Firefox. Well. That was a promising start. Even so, once I was in, there were the three notifications of messages awaiting me…and there was still no way to see the messages themselves. Nuts. Before I logged off and figured out a way to budget an entire day on my phone setting up my insurance, I decided to go to the part of my online application that was blocked until I responded to the messages I couldn’t read…the stuff I’d started back in October.
It was like a Christmas miracle. The system let me proceed with my application. I nearly jumped out of my office chair fetching my nearly 6-week-old notes on which coverage to buy. I found the policy I was seeking out quickly. I clicked it. I clicked through a few more pages. I confirmed I was ready to buy. I got a notice that I’d be contacted by my new carrier ASAP….and then a screen message telling me I was good to go and all signed up. It took, honestly, about 10 minutes total from the point I logged back in to the point I was done.
The upshot of all of that goes like this. I have health insurance, and pretty decent health insurance going forward now. I’m also paying about $12 less per month to get it than I was for my previous policy. More stuff is covered for me, too, including prescriptions and copays. It was a bit messy, a bit vexing, and not a little bit frustrating from October to December getting signed up, but from my personal experience I can tell you the damn website works 100 percent better in December than it did in October or even November.
I also feel happy and relieved about having good coverage again in my life. This is a wonderful feeling. I see that, according to the government, about two million folks have signed up for coverage either through Medicare expansions or through private carriers now. I also see a few people–including people I follow in social media or who are people who I’m friends with–skeptically posting up doubts as to the extended viability of the ACA and still talking nonsense about repeal.
This is silliness. It’s here. It isn’t going away. There are two million of us signed up now. There are going to be millions more by the close of Open Enrollment in March. You thought there were media “horror stories” ginned up about cancelled coverages in November? Imagine the stories out there if they tried to yank back a useful thing like health insurance from millions of people like me who were able to finally get good coverage. The political reality is that the votes simply do not exist to repeal the ACA in the near or perhaps even longterm future. It’s a dumb point.
What isn’t a dumb point is talking about ways to make this new system better. It isn’t dumb to talk about Medicare expansion for states that stupidly didn’t accept it but need to. It isn’t stupid to talk about ways to make the application process better. It isn’t stupid to talk about ways to continue to change and alter the system for the better. It isn’t a dumb thing at all to critique the way things lie right now, and to talk about useful ways to continue to evolve our broken healthcare delivery system into something better. I’m willing to read and listen to pundits and politicians and friends who have realistic and legitimate ideas or means to help build on the ACA’s foundation and make it better, and I really don’t care who’s name is attached to it. If Louie Gohmert and John Cornyn come up with a bill that makes the system work better, I’ve no problem with calling those improvements LouieCare. I still think it’s ridiculous that I’m paying hundreds of dollars a month for health insurance, for instance. My income hardly qualifies me for any sort of subsidy. I personally do not believe that healthcare is a benefit, but more of a right. Maybe. I’m probably on the fence enough to listen to arguments either way.
That being said, here’s where I’m going to get fairly irrational. When I see people I know–people whom I’ve been friends with, had a beer with, commiserated with–still polluting my timelines and news feeds in social media with nonsense about trying to do away with the ACA, I can’t help but read such things with a different set of eyes now. If you’re one of those folks, realize this: when you talk about repeal and doing away with the ACA, what I’m reading is that you’re wishing upon me ill health and poverty. If someone wishes upon me ill health and poverty, I tend to take such things rather personally, as you will. I tend to respond by telling the ill-wisher how I feel about that, and it very likely would be using language one normally only hears from angry sailors. It isn’t a “cloak of the internet” thing, either. I’m perfectly happy to tell someone who’s wished me ill health how I feel about them in person, as well. Not in a threatening manner, mind you, just in a “Hey, you’re being a jerk” kind of way.
The point? The ACA is here. It’s real. It probably isn’t going away for a long time, if ever. Do you hate it? Ask yourself why, and try to divorce political agenda from it. Realize and understand that people you know, and perhaps people you care about, will be depending on the protections and provisions of the ACA for health insurance. Understand that these people–regardless of political affiliation–may be very grateful that this flawed, hopefully work-in-progress system now exists, and that for some of us who pay for things like cholesterol meds every month that it represents one hell of a benefit (and one that allows us to sock more money away into the economy in a perfectly capitalist, trickle-down libertarian sort of way.) Think about those things, and think about urging political forces that tilt quixotically against Obamacare to maybe channel that energy into making those windmills work better instead.
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Mary I’m Tryin’ To Be Cool. (Holiday Music Mix 2013)
Ok, so not the latest I’ve finally posted a holiday mix, but close to it. Sorry! The older I get, the more I understand how easily and readily people will trade money for time. You can always make more money, but time? Time vanishes, and I am always wanting more of it!
At any rate, this mix has gone through about 17 different modifications over the last week alone. Some of you may have gotten a CD with an earlier mix. Sorry about that. This one’s better.
This was a weird year. In some ways it was just awful. I lost people I loved, folks dear to me who I admired. There were good things, too, though. Lots of them. I won’t bore you with details like one of those Christmas letters, (which I really like, but apparently I’m in the minority!) I’ll just say that overall I’m ending 2013 being cool with it as far as years go.
All that said then, no agenda to this year’s mix, besides being music I want to hear this time of year, I mean. It occurs to me that more than any other year, the ladies are well represented this year, moreso than any other mix I’ve done. For instance, there’s a terrific song by Amelia Fletcher, a twee-pop founding light from Tallulah Gosh and Heavenly. If you’ve not paid attention, since ramping down her music career a bit, Ms. Fletcher got her Ph.D in Economics from Oxford and is now a professor in the subject. Which is awesome.
What always strikes me this time of year, too is how many sad songs there are at Christmas. I think I know why that is: it’s just easier for an artist to do a cheapie cash-in holiday single and try to maintain artistic cred by faking their way through it all by playing it off as a chance to do another Taylor Swift hurt feeling wallow. That’s why I’m so happy I started listing to so much Lisa Mychols in the last few months. Lisa’s been a fixture in the L. A. guitar pop scene for a while now. One of the first things she ever released was a record of Christmas songs, and she’s redone it with better equipment. It’s called Lost Winter’s Dream, and it’s fantastic. When she sings songs of happiness or sadness on that record that revolve around the holidays, she’s not fooling around, or playing it off for a cheapie cash-in. The song I picked this year (and it was tough deciding on just one) is so sincere about being in love and loving this season that it’s heartbreaking and pure. (Seriously, world at large, you should be listening to way more Lisa Mychols than you currently are.
Ok, so what else? I finally got a chance to use the Aztec Camera song I’d been wanting to. Any time you can put Roddy Frame into a music mix, you really ought to do it. There’s also a traditional Welsh Christmas carol here, “Hwiangerdd Mair”, sung by Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci’s Euros Childs the way only people who were raised speaking that amazing language can do it. (The title translates as “Mary’s Lullaby”.) There’s an amazing rocker by The Bellrays, who always just knock my doors off–think Tina Turner fronting a garage rock band if you’re not familiar. There’s some jazz, some rockabilly, some serious, some silly.
Merry Christmas, y’all! Hit that eggnog hard!
Mary I’m Trying To Be Cool
Track List:
1. Velocity Girl “Merry Christmas, I Love You”
2. Big Star “Jesus Christ”
3. The Ping Pongs “Don’t Wanna Wait Till Christmas”
4. Amelia Fletcher & Hit Parade “Christmas Tears”
5. The J’s With Jamie “Cool Yule”
6. Aztec Camera “Walk Out To Winter”
7. The New Pornographers “Joseph Who Understood”
8. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci “Hwiangerdd Mair”
9. The Bellrays “Merry Christmas Baby”
10.Debbie Dabney “I Want To Spend Christmas With Elvis (Heartbreak Noel)”
11.The White Stripes “Candy Cane Children”
12.Dressy Bessy “All The Right Reasons”
13.Charlie Parker “White Christmas”
14.The Ettes “Stars In The Sky”
15.Cheap Trick “Come On Christmas”
16.The School “Kiss Me In The Snow”
17.I Am The World Trade Center “Rockefeller Tree”
18.Eric Matthews “Have Yourself A Merry Christmas”
19.Lisa Mychols “Listen To The Bells Ring”
20.Solomon Burke “Presents For Christmas”
21.Combustible Edison “Christmas Time Is Here”
22.Ella Fitzgerald “The Christmas Song”
23.Kathy & Jimmy Zee “Santa Claus Rock and Roll”
24.Kurt Vile “Snowflakes Are Dancing”
25.Still making with that song here.
(If you didn’t figure out to click the title of the mix, you can also just click this.)
(Other than that familiar final song, whole thing is fairly work and kid safe.)
(As with every year, everything’s in one big mp3, about 70 minutes worth of music. If you hear something you like, spend some of that Christmas loot on an artist!)
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Christmas Mix Eve!
Ok, originally I’d meant for this to actually be me posting up my annual Holiday Music mix, but there have been a few complications this year which are currently resolved…but instead of getting this posted today, it’ll have to be tomorrow. There’s still a wee bit o’ tinkering I’d like to do to the version I post here.
So yeah. It’s coming! Promise!
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Popnarcotic 