We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.
Favorite Tracks of 2013:
01 Drake: "Worst Behavior"
02 Kanye West: "Blood on the Leaves"
03 Lorde: "Royals"
04 Florida Georgia Line: "Cruise (Remix)" [ft. Nelly]
05 Kanye West: "New Slaves"
06 Miley Cyrus: "We Can't Stop"
07 Drake: "Come Thru"
08 Vampire Weekend: "Ya Hey"
09 Justin Timberlake: "Mirrors"
10 A$AP Ferg: "Hood Pope"
Favorite Albums of 2013:
01 Kanye West: Yeezus
02 Drake: Nothing Was the Same
03 Beyoncé: Beyoncé
04 Haim: Days are Gone
05 Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
06 Deafheaven: Sunbather
07 Lorde: Pure Heroine
08 Kacey Musgraves: Same Trailer Different Park
09 Sky Ferreira: Night Time, My Time
10 Ariana Grande: Yours Truly
10a A$AP Ferg: Trap Lord
Most Played Song of 2013: I can’t seem to… REMEMBER?
An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: Definitely Elvis’ Christmas Album because of the podcast Jenn Pelly, Mark Richardson and I did for the Pitchfork Weekly app made me go back to that, but I also really played the hell out of Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life this year. Mark sent me a ton of Seger for our abandoned "Mark and Corban’s Rock Tank" column—the name was the key—so I went into that too.
I still listen to Taylor Swift's Red every day.
Rereading the Harry Potter series was not the game-changing pop culture touchpoint that it was for others, but Lorde seeing a picture of my hometown hero George Brett and getting inspired to write "Royals" is good enough for me, forever. I still can't believe that happened. It must be a trap.
Musical Highlights: This is definitely freshest in my mind, but I really enjoyed the experience of Beyoncé and Nothing Was the Same being dropped on our heads overnight and staying up to listen to them. It wasn’t necessarily the fact that everyone was racing to tweet about it or write about it—that just added another layer of noise to an already overloaded experience—but just the fact that everyone in the world was hearing it with fresh ears is a fun thing to think about. These days whenever I really want to read or listen or watch something, I get this anxiety about not being able to do it as fast as my mind wants to do it. That’s how I felt Thursday night/Friday morning. Kind of an awesome feeling.
Musical Lowlights: I bought tickets to see Chief Keef in New Haven, which he cancelled hours before he was set to perform because he neglected to get on his plane. Fortune struck when he booked a show in Kansas City the weekend I was there for a wedding... which he cancelled again hours before the show while the warmup DJ had already started playing. I got refunds, but the sum total is surely lower than the perceived value of the experience. <moderate sadness emoji>