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.
Favorite Tracks of 2013:
01 Thee Oh Sees: "I Come from the Mountain"
02 Neko Case: "I'm from Nowhere"
03 Suede: "It Starts and Ends with You"
04 Julia Holter: "Horns Surrounding Me"
05 Dieuf-Dieul de Thies: "Na Binta"
06 Bombino: "Amidinine"
07 Kanye West: "Black Skinhead"
08 Yamantaka // Sonic Titan: "One"
09 Arctic Monkeys: "Fireside"
10 Savages: "City's Full"
Favorite Albums of 2013:
01 Savages: Silence Yourself
02 Thee Oh Sees: Floating Coffin
03 Neko Case: The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight...
04 Julia Holter: Loud City Song
05 Sigur Ros: Kveikur
06 Suede: Bloodsports
07 Yamataka // Sonic Titan: UZU
08 Vieux Farka Toure: Mon Pays
09 Bombino: Nomad
10 William Tyler: Impossible Truth
Most Played Song of 2013: I think I listened to Genesis' "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" more than anything released in 2013, and probably a few other older songs to boot, but for 2013, I'm fairly sure it was Janelle Monáe's "PrimeTime", which has a chorus so intuitive that I can't believe no one had written before.
An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: It's nothing unusual for me to spend a lot of time with old music—I probably spend more time each year listening to things made before I was born that I do keeping up with the new—but if I had to isolate one album, it might be Sparks' Kimono My House, which is loopy and flamboyant and catchy as hell in a way that's supremely pleasing if it catches me in the right mood. Other times, it's a little overwhelming, but I rather like that it's an album that's become a sparring partner. Some days, it hits the spot; others, I grapple with it until I give up.
Musical Highlights: I saw only one show this year before my son was born: the Gerald Clayton Trio at a jazz cafe with very expensive, very good food, and I was so close it felt like the chords were spilling out of the piano directly onto me. It was a good last gasp before a long live-show hiatus in favor of infant-raising. Another was listening to Yeezus for the first time and immediately recognizing Omega's "Gyöngyhajú lány" in the second half of "New Slaves", because I'd just been listening to that Omega album a few days earlier. Omega might have been the best band to form in Communist Eastern Europe. Anything that gives them a little extra exposure in the West would be a good thing. That it was one of Kanye's best songs is icing.
Musical Lowlights: I won’t remember these a year from now, so I won’t dwell on them now.