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 Ellery James Roberts: "Kerou's Lament"
02 Kanye West: "New Slaves"
03 Torres: "Honey"
04 Gesaffelstein: "Pursuit"
05 Pusha T: "Nosetalgia" [ft. Kendrick Lamar]
06. Big Black Delta: "Side of The Road"
07. Run The Jewels: "Run The Jewels"
08. Tim Hecker: "Virginal II"
09. Miley Cyrus: "Wrecking Ball"
10. Sky Ferreira: "You're Not The One"
Favorite Albums of 2013:
01 Kanye West: Yeezus
02 Run the Jewels: Run the Jewels
03 Waxahatchee: Cerulean Salt
04 Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
05 Rhye: Woman
06 Joanna Gruesome: Weird Sister
07 Haim: Days Are Gone
08 Danny Brown: Old
09 Cate Le Bon: Mug Museum
10 Young Galaxy: Ultramarine
Most Played Song of 2013: I like my hip-hop hard, abrasive, and polarizing, so there were relatively few moments since the June release of Yeezus that Kanye West's "New Slaves" was far from the top of my Spotify play queue. For me, not only did "New Slaves" pretty much lay waste to every other hip-hop single this year, but Ye's seething, pointed rage and industrial-powered production makes everything in his stellar back catalog seem saccharine by comparison.
An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: I went on a big Joan Didion kick earlier this year, the bulk of which conveyed a pretty terrifying picture of late 60's/early 70's Los Angeles. After devouring Slouching Toward Bethlehem and The White Album, I unconsciously found myself drifting toward Love's 1967 masterpiece Forever Changes, a kaleidoscopically urgent record which painted a similarly grim and fatalistic picture of the increasingly unstable Sunset Strip music scene and its decadent, disillusioned decay.
Musical Highlights: Driving down country roads in and around Chautauqua Lake, NY with my wife and her sister this summer while blasting Yeezus and Run the Jewels and repeatedly laughing at Killer Mike's ability to create and deploy the adjective "murderful." Using Ellery James Robert's epic "Kerou's Lament" to soundtrack the first dance at our wedding. Popping Long.Live.A$AP on the jukebox for a nice 12-song block at my local dive whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Musical Lowlights: Some folks are fans of Rich Homie Quan's underground success story "Some Type of Way", but I'm not one of them. It seemed like every time I hopped in my car for a quick errand and tossed on WAMO (Pittsburgh's hip-hop radio station) I was punched in the face with Quan's pumped up warble... and would always find myself rapping the strange earworm hook for hours afterward.