The D Man's Top Twenty Albums of 2013

2013 was a great year in music.  Similar to 2000, 2003, and 2007, the year teemed with excellent albums.  Big and important artists--indie and mainstream--released big and important records. Vampire Weekend released an American pop classic.  Arcade Fire hit #1 on the charts with the dark and dancey Reflektor.  The National made it four great albums in a row with the velvety arrangements of Trouble Will Find Me.  Even established and successfully arty bands like Sigur Ros and The Flaming Lips defied conventions and dropped potent records deep into their respective careers.  And Daft Punk, of course, ruled the world.

Kanye West made headlines with the most provocative record of his career.  Where his earlier records used deftly curated soul samples for musical uplift, Yeezus used them for pulverizing confrontations.  Though the production values, song structures, and lyrical themes are forcefully rendered, the record's relentless assault proved to be too much.  The D Man has always balanced his appreciation of aesthetic greatness with that most basic of pursuits: the pleasure of listen after listen.  The records on this list settle into that sweet spot of praiseworthy (even challenging) artistic merit and accessible enjoyment.

Speaking of the polarizing West, sometimes The D Man hears from well-meaning people that there is no good music anymore.  The music on the radio is trash and the lyrics are offensive, etcetera etcetera etcetera.  One odd duck even told me that there has not been a decent record since The Beatle's Rubber Soul.  My response: you have no clue where to look.  Let me help you.

The D Man agrees that mainstream radio is a wasteland of over-sexed, uninteresting, and, yes, offensive music.  But if you are looking there for artistic or moral guideposts, you will be lost and left wanting.  Notwithstanding such deplorable distractions, the world is still alive with beautiful human noise.  Go exploring.  Check the interweb.  Read some magazines.  Visit a record store.  Click on this blog.  Ask for directions.  Trust me, there are many artists who make them like they used to, and their music can augment your aesthetic and emotional sensibilities.

If you proudly limit yourself to Mozart or show tunes, you are not sitting on higher moral ground.  The Western world and its music wasn't exactly pure when Eine kleine Nachtmusik or Oklahoma premiered (slavery or Nazis anyone?).  Mozart had multiple affairs with his pupils and Broadway has long been a den of iniquity, so can their fruit possibly be good?  What makes a classical chamber piece or an overwrought musical number more meaningful or dignified than, say, The National's "I Should Live in Salt?"  In my mind, such cultural and moral assumptions are quaint, misplaced, or uninformed.  Notable artists have created superb music in every age and in every format.  George Handel's Messiah is a religious and devotedly Christian masterpiece.  But so is Sufjan Stevens's lesser known, quiet folk album Seven Swans.  They were created more than 260 years apart by singular artists in tune with inspiration.

If you have decided that you can live without contemporary music, there is nothing inherently wrong with your decision.  Just know that your life will be a little less interesting.  This year alone, you would have missed out on the pure ecstasy of a Daft Punk track, the melodic wordplay and striking originality of Vampire Weekend's "Step," the devastating (and danceable!) Reflektor, or the instrumental awesomeness of Sigur Ros.  If you are a Believer like The D Man, you probably feel strongly that the world has been lovingly arrayed for your benefit and enjoyment.  Don't stick your head in the sand because you may accidentally run into an awful Miley Cyrus song.  Keep your head up.  Be open.  Pay attention.  And you just might hear the beautiful human noise.

There is a new documentary about Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes.  It reminded me of his final comic strip in the splendid series.  His philosophical and aesthetic outlook sums up best what The D Man is trying to say.

1. Random Access Memories / Daft Punk

If love is the answer, you're home.  -"Touch"

Dad, can we listen to the two mysterious robots?  When Colin slipped into the car and asked me this question, I felt exhilarated.  My six year-old son would ask for Daft Punk on dozens of ocassions as my boys piled into the back seat, and it became quite clear that the global-dominating French duo would provide our soundtrack for the year, our family album of smooth and dancey disco-funk.  By delivering love and balming heartbreak throughout interstellar space, the robots seemed to open up our collective future possibilities.  We were connected.  My boys (and I) simply loved these songs.

The robots are sad!  Yes, son, they are sad, proving that even the most hard-wired among us can get down in the mouth, can sometimes feel like losers in the game of love.

Why is he talking?  That is weird.  Yes, it is weird, which is one of the reasons the synth pioneer's spoken word is so affecting as it precedes the record's most clever drop: "My name is Giovanni Giorgio.  But everybody calls me Giorgio."  Cue the laser-tight synthesizers running into the distance.

This song makes me think about when I was little.  It makes me sad.  The techno theater of "Touch," with its soliloquies, its children's choir swells, its love is the answer message, developed into the ridiculously incredible track that intrigued my boys the most.  They debated about the song's meaning.  They wondered at singer Paul Williams's sadness (and couldn't possibly know that he had long ago written two of The D Man's favorite songs).  A few weeks ago I turned around as Williams finished the song with his vocal introspection.  Colin was crying in the back seat.  "Touch!  Sweet touch!  You've almost convinved me I'm real."  Touching, indeed!

Another story.  One summer evening I came home and popped my head out the back door.  The sun was setting and it was perfect.  Dylan and Colin were swinging together on our little playground. They were singing "Doin' It Right."  Dylan was repeating the robot refrain: "Everybody will be dancing and be doin' it right!"  Colin was singing the Panda Bear part: "If you lose your way tonight that's how you know the magic's right!"  They were performing the entire duet with surprising accuracy.

Question: what other record this year could produce such a magical moment?

The D Man could wax on about Nile Rodgers's glittery guitars saving the planet, could break down Pharell's in-the-zone performances, could delight in the future moment when my boys will finally understand the gloriously innocuous double-entendre of "Get Lucky," could celebrate the pristine production and the $2 million it took to record the album in an age where such studio investments have almost entirely disappeared, could bemoan the meathead, sexist, and artless state of most EDM and house music, or could praise two anonymous French dudes for breathing life back into music in 2013.  There is no need to do any of that, of course

From the backseat, Colin summed up the record best:  When I listen to Daft Punk,  I feel cool.

2. Modern Vampires of the City / Vampire Weekend

Modern Vampires of the City is an American pop-music classic. Vampire Weekend's glorious third album is arguably stronger than their first two albums, which was almost inconceivable given the strength of those records and the feeling in some quarters that they had exhausted their available musical avenues.  Man, were the unbelievers wrong.

Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Chris Baio, and Chris Tomsen are no longer college kids and their arch insights have given way to arresting ruminations, yielding to heavier subjects like the thin-lines in long-term relationships, the tenuous nature of (un)belief, and the creeping fear of aging and death.  And they manage to unpack these burdens while remaining the most accessible and enjoyable pop band on earth.  The album's target demographic is broad, and in no particular order: suburbanites, New Yorkers, aging hippies, Yiddish professors, kids, preppy college students, Orthodox Jews, lapsed Catholics, faithful Mormons, housewives, and girls who want to marry Koenig.

Koenig's incisive lyrics are optimistic, clear-eyed, and deeply troubled. But as arty as his observations sound, and as penetrating as his eye-brow raising Jewish doubt may be, the band's underlying music is the saving grace, a perfect blend of heady populism and high-brow accessibility.  As usual, the melodies are moneymakers. And Batmanglij's and Baio's rhythm section is consistently creative.  With the record's meticulously produced bass, drums, and keyboards, the album is both spare and maximal, with everything coated in studio bubble wrap.  Significantly, the lead Afro-guitars from the first two records are almost entirely missing--Koenig doesn't even play guitar on the album tracks--yet the band simultaneously reinvents and retains the Vampire Weekend sound.

So where to start scratching the surface? 

How about the gorgeous two-part harmonies during nothing-like-it opener "Obvious Bicycle."  (Are you listening high school a capella teachers?). How about the unbelievers bound to the tracks of the train, wondering what holy water contains a little drop, little drop for me? ("Unbelievers").  What about the French Revolution harpsichord synths entombed within boombox and walkman, and the vivid love/rap song complete with references to Angkor Wat, the Communist Manifesto, Modest Mouse, and the Resurrection ("Step").  Or perhaps the warped barbershop baby-baby-baby during a punny song about dying young ("Diane Young").  I suppose we could start with the joyful bounce of bass on "Everlasting Arms," and those infectious guitars forever reminding Paul Simon that he missed out on writing this one. 

Of course, there is the stunning novel-as-song "Hannah Hunt", detailing the cross-country disintegration between longtime companions--weeping willows, hidden eyes, and Santa Barbara lead to a torn up New York Times, a brilliant piano sendoff, and the narrator's final exclamation, an album centerpiece of sorts: if I can't trust you then damn it, Hannah.  There's no future.  There's no answer.  Though we live on the U.S. dollar, you and me, we've got our own sense of time.

Or we could dive into more detail and discuss the perfectly-placed spoken word on the frenzied "Finger Back:"

Sing next year in Jerusalem
You know, the one at
W. 103rd and Broadway?
Cue this Orthodox girl fell in love
With the guy at the falafel shop
And why not?
Should she have averted her eyes and
Just stared at the laminated poster
of the Dome of the Rock?

Or maybe we turn to the hopeful, searching pleas in the soaring harmonies of "Worship You:"

We worshiped you
Your red right hand
Won't we see you once again?
In foreign soil, in foreign land
Who will guide us through the end?

But then we should finally consider "Ya Hey," a play on Yahweh, that inscrutable Old Testament prankster, where Koenig wrestles with His seemingly strange games and the dissolving belief of modern Zion and Babylon:

Through the fire and through the flames
You won't even say your name
Only "I am that I am"
But who could ever live that way?
Ya hey, ya hey, ya hey

Does he find some sort of musical solace?  Perhaps that brief moment where

outside the tents
on the festival grounds
as the air began to cool
and the sun went down
my soul swooned as I faintly heard
the sound of you spinning "Israelites" into
"19th Nervous Breakdown."

One thing is certain: during my first run through the album, I swooned.  And knew that I was listening to an all-time classic record.  Whether the realization dawned during the piano in "Hannah Hunt" or the guitar breakdown in "Everlasting Arms," I cannot be sure now.  But it was an engrossing feeling, a self-aware recognition of timeless pop genius unfolding in real time.  Perhaps other listeners experienced the same sensation with Bridge Over Troubled Water, Pet Sounds, Rumours, or Graceland.  Believe it.

3. Trouble Will Find Me / The National

Trouble Will Find Me is a flawless collection of elegant rock songs.  With slow burns and gradual builds, private torches and communal liftoffs, the record is all devils and grace.  The thirteen tracks are cohesive and impeccably sequenced, an exquisite exercise in dour transcendence.  And the songwriting is so rich with melody and world-weary texture, it would almost be insufferable were it not so velvety.

If you are counting at home, The National have now recorded four excellent/classic albums in a row: the elliptical rock of Alligator, the masterful apartment stories of Boxer, the brooding grandeur of High Violet, and the private demon theater of Trouble Will Find Me.  Like the band's previous albums, this record is a musical grower, slowly revealing layer after layer of personal paralysis and heartache.  And seven months after its release, the record is still growing and taking shape and making a case as the band's very best to date.

To spare you from my overwrought praise, I will simply point you to my review of the band's superlative summer concert.  I cannot sum up the The National in 2013 any better.  But I will share with you some of my favorite lines from the record, which display Matt Berninger's wry empathy, caustic wit, and heartwrenching monologues.

• I should live in salt for leaving you behind.
• Every day I start so great and then the sunlight dims.  The less I look, the more I see the python's in the limbs.  I do not know what's wrong with me, the sour is in the cut.  When I walk into a room I do not light it up.
• And if you want to see me cry, play Let It Be or Nevermind.
• I see you rushing down.  Tell me how to reach you.  I see you rushing down.  What did Harvard teach you?
• I am in your arms.  I wish someone would take my place, can't face heaven all heavenfaced.
• Oh, when I lift you up you feel like a hundred times yourself.  I wish everybody knew what's so great about you.  Oh, but your love is such a swamp.  You don't think before you jump, and I said I wouldn't get sucked in.  This is the last time.
• Graceless.  I'm trying, but I'm gone.  Through the glass again, just come and find me.  God loves everybody, don't remind me.  I took the medicine and I went missing.  Just let me hear your voice.  Just let me listen.
• Grace.  Put the flowers you find in a vase.  If you're dead in the mind it will brighten the place.  Don't let them die on the vine, it's a waste.  Grace.
• I can't blame you for losing your mind for a little while, so did I.
• Tried to call you from the party, it's full of punks and cannonballers.
• All the L.A. women fall asleep while swimming.  I got paid to fish them out then one day I lost the job.
• You didn't see me I was falling apart.  I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in the park.  You didn't see me I was falling apart.  I was a television version of a person with a broken heart.
• They can all just kiss off in the air.

4. Reflektor / Arcade Fire

On Arcade Fire's fourth album Reflektor, the band gazes across the gulf and explores the emotional terrain at the edge of life and death, that great chasm before our universal change.  Though the views prove difficult, even elusive, the music drives forward into the darkness, undaunted.

Paul said we see through a glass, darkly.  Reflektor grapples with the hazy and distorted image coming back, lyrically and musically exploring themes of death, obfuscation, and modernity.  Of course, when a rock band is as earnest as Arcade Fire, there is bound to be backlash.  Some critics have maligned their overzealousness or asexuality.  So you want detached irony?  Pavement broke up fifteen years ago. You want sexual energy? The (faux) prowess of Kings of Leon will do just fine.  Arcade Fire is still a band for serious-thinking people, and if you would rather drink and score, go listen to Jet. 

Sure, Reflektor may not share the same heft as The Suburb's holistic and epic post-suburban narrative.  And the record may not share the same heart-ripping urgency of Funeral.  But the band is too good to ever get comfortable, and Reflektor takes real risks, resulting in numerous righteous-sounding and forward-thinking tracks.  It is the sound of a band charging at the vanguard and brimming with unusual and vivid ideas.  Most of the tracks throb with an insular and weird danceable energy, the cavernous bass lines pounding deep and mysterious throughout the record's entirety.

The opening title track is one of the year's great dance-rock tracks, introducing bongos and Bowie into the band's canon.  In Kierkegaard's The Present Age, he discusses the "reflective age," a troubling self-absorption at the expense of passionate action. In our age of digital narcissism, the Danish philosopher's words ring through the years when Win Butler sings it is all "just a reflection of a reflection of a reflection." And it is a perilous proposition "to fall in love, on a stage, in a reflective age," especially when being viewed through a camera lens, or worse, being terrorized by heads buried in phones.

"We Exist" follows with an anthemic rebuttal that would have easily fit on Neon Bible.  Then things get even more interesting with the next four songs on Side One, as the band demonstrates their ability to thread together wild and disparate moments.  "Flashbulb Eyes" is a scuzzy island jam, a twisted Haitian voodoo club mix, while "Here Comes the Night Time" moves clubgoers even further toward doom, hailing the impending twilight with dread-filled bass and steel drums. "Normal Person" blisters the dispassionate conformist with Dinosaur Jr.-style riffs and "You Already Know" lights up a weirded-out sock hop.  This is not the usual fare that reaches #1 on the Billboard charts.

The record's themes climax with Side Two's triumvirate of "It's Never Over (Hey Orpheus)," "Afterlife," and "Supersymmetry."  The album's cover art features Rodin's sculpture Orpheus and Eurydice, and their tragic love is emblematic of our terrible parting.  We stood beside a frozen sea / I saw you out in front of me /  Reflected light / A hollow moon / Oh Orpheus, Eurydice / It's over too soon. 

On "Afterlife," Butler resists death and tries to pierce the veil, but it proves to be the darkest glass.

Afterlife, I think I saw what happens next
It was just a glimpse of you, like looking through a window
Or a shallow sea
Could you see me?

If peace is to follow between now and then, perhaps it is part of some larger design, which is hinted at by the gentle pulse of closer "Supersymmetry."  But even then, the sting of death is omnipresent:  I know you're living in my mind / It's not the same as being alive.

We want connection in our fractured world, that divine spark to manifest itself, but the smoke-filled skies are deeply disconcerting.  Reflektor holds a mirror up to our modern age (the preachers! the technology! the disconnection!) and the image is frightening.  Are we connecting to the real thing? Are we connecting to each other?  And will we ever see our loved ones again?  Sometimes Arcade Fire's troubled agnosticism reveals an underlying desire to believe, and it is possible the band uses their songs to combat the riddling fear, hoping to ward off the inevitable.  But even if the stars simply wink out, make no mistake: Arcade Fire will be playing well into the darkness.

5. Mark Kozelek

No songwriter had a better 2013 than Mark Kozelek.  The original songs on his two collaborations with Jimmy LaValle and Desertshore are prime examples of his revered songcraft--and twenty-one additional reasons why he is a songwriter's songwriter.  As his canon evolves and expands, it is too easy to place him among our very best.

Mark Kozelek never seemed like one for electronic music.  As a master of the open-tuned electric and nylon-string guitar, Koz surprised longtime listeners when he laid down his axe and collaborated with synth-symphonist Jimmy LaValle, best known for his work as The Album Leaf.  Strangely enough, however, the partnership proved fruitful for both artists, as it teases out some of the most interesting writing of Koz's career and breathes new life into LaValle's music.

The songs on Perils from the Sea are like electronic tone poems, where Koz shares deeply personal observations and experiences over LaValle's intricate keyboards and drum machines.  Koz's stories are delivered by a kind of slowcore rapping, if there is such a thing, and he uses the open-ended soundscapes to jumpstart his melancholic musings.  Koz pulls no punches--"like when Manny Pacquiao had an easy night"--and one critic compares his impressive lyrical flow to the hard-hitting Rakim, a godfather of unceasing vocal runs.  (The extensive lyrics to Perils are hardly contained on a fold-out poster).  Though Koz's world-weary cadences are almost lackadaisical, there is a powerful force produced by his counterpunching, especially when his out-of-vogue mastery of rhyme and meter seems so spontaneous.

Listeners have glimpsed Koz's inner world before, most recently during his autobiographical and off-the-cuff yarns on Sun Kil Moon's Among the Leaves.  But his unflinching admissions here have never been so direct, so heartbreaking.  On "What Happened to My Brother" he sings about a family member's isolation and addiction, the heartache of their "first violin" going solo.  On "1936" he confesses his foolish boyhood mistakes that broke his mother's heart.  On "Ceiling Gazing" he lies awake at night and ruminates about his grandfather's death, his sister's divorce, and his girlfriend's companionship.  Throughout the record, he discusses familial discord, tragedy, and death with piercing poetics.  Koz loves the powerful closer, and The D Man was floored by "Somehow the Wonder of Life Prevails," a fitting thematic capstone to his twenty-five years of songwriting.

Perils from the Sea is a nocturnal collection that is best rendered by headphones.  Listeners can pick up the subtle nuances of LaValle's electronic arrangements.  (The Jonsi-produced In A Safe Place is still one of The D Man's all-time favorite listens).  And listeners can fully appreciate Koz's vocals, which he recorded and turned around within a short time of hearing LaValle's tracks, sometimes within twenty-four hours.  Despite this unlabored approach during their Postal Service-like recording process, the songs are fully formed.  "Caroline" is one of the best songs Koz has recently written.  And "Gustavo" is one of the best songs of the year, period, a funny and moving tale of the illegal immigrant that Koz hired to fix up his house.  "Gustavo" and "You Missed My Heart" also proved to be revelations as a live acoustic experience, easily two of his finest moments in his recent slate of solo shows.

 

*******

On "Livingstone Bramble," a Crazyhorse-style guitar churn, Mark Kozelek sings about his day. Livingstone Bramble / had a pretty good run though / with Ray Boom Boom Mancini / I watched it last night on my TV / on classic ESPN / laying in bed next to my girlfriend / drifted off looking at the ceiling / with a pretty good feeling / and I laid awake all night long / thinking man that Bramble sure was strong.  The next day at his San Francisco studio, his vibe is loose and assured.  And I worked out a couple of songs and I played my guitar all day long.  He even brags about his guitar virtuosity, name-dropping fellow guitarists with his tongue firmly planted in cheek: I can play like Malcom and Neil Young / and I can play circles round most anyone / I like Kirk Hammett and Steve Vai / but I hate Eric Clapton and Nels Cline / I hate Nels Cline!  This funny line is enhanced by the artsy guitar send-off that sounds just like a Cline solo at a Wilco show.  Clearly, Mark and his mates are having a great time.

Mark Kozelek & Desertshore is a casual record spanning the spectrum: Motown swing, classic rock, folk, alt-country, slowcore, and piano ballads are confidently developed across ten distinctive tracks.  Desertshore consists of former Red House Painters guitarst Phil Carney, classic pianist Chris Connolly, and Sun Kil Moon drummer Mike Stevens.  The band first recorded an instrumental album on Koz's Caldo Verde label, 2010's Drifting Your Majesty.  On their second effort, the excellent Drawing of Threes, Koz played bass and wrote and sang vocals on six tracks, resulting in gems like "Randy Quaid."  This time around the band decided to make Koz's residency permanent across the entire record, and the collaboration is a time-tested sound that appeals to no trend other than fine songcraft and musicianship.

Lyrical themes range from a day spent in New Orleans, an encounter with Church of Satan Founder Anton Lavey, and the passing of friends and relatives.  On the jazzy swing of "Mariette," Koz describes his stay in the Big Easy while Carney's luminous, textured guitar shimmers and Connolly's beautifully understated piano runs through the city.  I hear the drunken hearts / coming up from St. Charles / here in New Orleans / can't complain about anything / the sweet taste of everything / walking down Magazine / or down Esplanade / for the cool oak tree shade.  On the roiling track "Hey You Bastards I'm Still Here," Koz remembers watching Papillon and Kung Fu with his Dad, dreaming about moving to the West Coast, and meeting Lavey in San Francisco.  And if I'm ever near the corner he lived on / I always think about the day I met Anton / his old Victorian was black as bondo / they tore it down now it's shiny new condos.

On the poignant and folk-tinged "Tavoris Cloud," Koz half-jokingly recalls the death of his longtime cat:  I miss my afternoon naps / my kitty cat sleeping on my lap / she died August 2011 / I just got back from Norway / she slipped off to kitty heaven.  Then his mind drifts to boxing:  Last night I had to laugh out loud / when Hopkins beat Tavoris Cloud /  at the age of 48 / no fighter ever was that great.  Finally, his thoughts grow somber and rest on the death of his friend, the longtime drummer for American Music Club: 2012 last July / for a week I cried and cried / when I got the news that my old friend Tim Moon had died.  Koz shares the crushing news as if it just happened yesterday--and sometimes I still cannot believe / Tim Moon he died at 53! / there in Petaluma in his kitchen / oh how his wife and daughter miss him!  All of these thoughts circle back to his own mortality, his own weaknesses, and his own journey through life:  And though I moved out here I know / I'm still that kid from Ohio / who's living in a world / I'm still getting to know.

The seemingly off-hand details of Koz's personal life provide profound meaning in his songwriting.  It is the minutiae that matters.  Whether he tears up at Steve McQueen's defiant message in Papillon or finds strange solace in the cemeteries near his home, Koz shares deep thematic connections that are culled from the everyday.  And when these intimate observations coincide with the sweeping moments of his life--the mistakes, the loves, and the deaths--his lyrics often move toward the sublime.  Unlike the painstaking poetics of albums like April or Admiral Fell Promises, his writing here is relaxed and plainspoken, a conversational approach that befits the music's unhurried direction. And while this record went somewhat under the radar, it will prove with time to be numbered among his best.

6. Wakin On A Pretty Daze / Kurt Vile

Kurt Vile's free-flowing Americana seeps into your consciousness.  An amalgamation of classic, stoner, and folk rock, like Tom Petty skewed through an alternative lens, Vile's music hits the right vein again and again.  On his fifth solo album Wakin On A Pretty Daze, Vile unfurls blissed-out guitar magic, another effortless yarn in his unspooling vibe.

One of ten children and now a devoted father to two of his own, Vile was raised in West Philly and has made the city his inspirational canvas and long-term home.  For the album's cover and video for "Wakin On A Pretty Day," Vile painted up an inner-city building with clever references to his songs.  On the video for "Never Run Away," he is featured in a series of this-is-my-town clips, dressed in his signature white-on-white, long-haired zen ensemble.  His love for his hometown was recently reciprocated when the city presented him with the Liberty Bell Award, apparently the "highest honor" that Philly offers.  And GQ named him rocker of the year, validating the six-string king as more than just a local icon.

Though he still needs more confidence in his live vocal delivery, his in-person guitar playing is golden.  He rocked a righteous set at the Urban Lounge that featured an impressive interplay between acoustic and electric guitars.  Like the studio tracks, Vile switches back and forth from acoustic to electric, and his talented bandmates--affectionately called The Violators--jam with the ease of long-time garage and couch friends.  The follow-up to his excellent Smoke Ring for My Halo is the kind of album that curmudgeonly record store clerks will swoon over for years to come.

Vile told Spin that Wakin On A Pretty Daze is like Fleetwood Mac's Tusk.  "It's totally our Tusk, but no cheese, just rock.  You turn it on and it sounds like me.  But the guitar playing is better and the ideas are new.  It's classic, it's epic, with many more solos." His lyrics are loosely autobiographical but open enough to invite listeners in with his stream-of-consciousness abstractions, delivered with his distinctive and sprawling vocal phrasing.  He sings about his life as it passes by--feeling good, being bummed out, loving his wife and kids, traveling on the road--and he has the unique ability to capture nonchalant but memorable lines as the jams just roll on.

7. Kveikur / Sigur Rós

It is difficult to discuss a band when you cannot understand what they are saying.  Perhaps that is why writers typically describe Sigur Ros as a sonic experience: eerie, alien, otherwordly, and yes, beautiful.  Because the only signifiers are the sounds themselves (including Jonsi Birgisson's voice), the emotional and aesthetic depth of the music can only be described by the varying and subjective degrees of how you feel.  Listening to the band is nothing short of tapping into your primal responses.

For The D Man, no other music makes me feel this way--an array of emotions spanning perceived epochs, like watching a fast-motion camera capturing skies that will never repeat themselves again, or  observing a thousand moons rising with a thousand turns of the earth.  Their best tracks conjure up untold ages of men, ghosts, summers, winters, suns.

On 2008's Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, the band's quirky post-rock migrated to verdant, orchestral, tribal-thumping places, which subsequently led to the colorful sound of Jonsi's feather-clad solo album. But the band retreated into the barely-there sonics of 2012's Valtari, a lovely but largely ambient affair.  Compared to Valtari's ethereal droning, Kveikur is the equivalent of bone-crunching black metal, undoubtedly the band's most aggressive work to date.

"Brennisteinn" is the heaviest song Sigur Ros has recorded.  The song's bass-lines are barges breaking through north Atlantic ice, and its guitars are oceanic squalls dispensing heavy rains.  "Hrafntinna" chimes with a foreboding, subterranean fury, a racket of perfectly placed dissonance and Jonsi's bow-played guitar.  "Isjaka" competes with the band's best tracks, a towering grey sky spiraling into the majesty of warped strings.

Like the Danish band Mew, Sigur Ros implements hints of Scandinavian metal, and perhaps with the loss of founding keyboardist Kjarten Sveinsson, the band focuses on their rediscovered rhythm section, taking firm command of the harder-hitting material and merging it with their haunting melodies.  The result is a rattling rock album with driving bass-lines and uncanny drum patterns, a reinvigoration of their sound that stands among their best work.

Is there a non-English speaking band that has captivated Western listeners like these Icelanders?  None come to mind.  It has always been difficult to pin down outside influences in the band's catalog, let alone find a contemporary with similar success crossing the language divide.  The band has bridged the gulf by the hurtling force of their imaginative creations, and their remarkable success can only be explained by their emotional resonance and peculiar-sounding genius.

8. Muchacho / Phosphorescent

The D Man wrote the following run-on sentence for his review.  The only rules were no editing and no going back and doing it in less than five minutes.  It was for the best.

Phosphorescent is Alabama bred Matthew Houck and his album Muchacho is a stirring Southwestern romp pluck full of horns and guitars and a strange bubbling synth layer underneath with fits and starts like a geyser and a band of marauders camping by the fire bemoaning their predicaments and someone pulls out a sad guitar and sings about the loves he lost and the relationships he ruined and the peace he never found and the scars he never revealed and the end result was the saddest but truest campfire ever assembled on the dust-riddled plains and out sprung "Song for Zula" which is easily one of the best tracks of the year and those string flourishes and bass thumps were unlike anything else and the riffy rock of "Ride On/Right On" was as cool as it gets and the video was even better because Houck hipped around in his rhinestone cowboy duds and sparkled and danced and made you wonder with his sincerity and whether the performance was even an inside joke and the songcraft is so beautiful and brutal and wistful and hopeful and how can this not be one of the best records of the year and an original statement that moves in the same circles as Okkervil River or other literate folkies and alt-country dropouts but this even moves beyond that into a haunting and pastoral place that opens up the night stars or sears under the blazing heat of the sun depending on which track you are listening to and there should be no question that "Muchacho's Tune" will be featured in some canteen scene where the hero is drowning sorrows in a beer and the bartender looks on with a towel draped over his shoulder and then maybe later in the film "A Charm, A Blade" comes on when the hero gets his horse back and decides to ride toward the encampment where he knows that danger and salvation waits but his love will forever be out of his reach.

9. Woman / Rhye

Woman luxuriously ruminates over the joys and difficulties of intimacy.  A smooth soul album dedicated to marital bliss and romantic connection, Woman displays an appreciation for high-minded togetherness and celebrates the beautiful women in our lives.  Push play.  Embrace.  Make love.

The Canadian/Danish duo of Robin Hannibal and Mike Milosh embellish their stripped-down R&B with mystery.  They do not appear in their videos.  They do not conduct publicity rounds.  Even when they appeared on national television, they flooded the stage with lights and fog to recede into the background of their orchestrations.  Everything is about connecting to the words and feelings.

But one thing is clear: Milosh's rich falsetto is always at the forefront.  His voice is one of the best things about music in 2013.  And his ear for unforced melodies is commendable in an era with little restraint, especially in a genre where crooners are often indulgent and lyricists trade sophistication for sex.  He knows when to soar and when to pull back.  He knows substance over sleaze.  And he sings with a weight that belies his high register, and with a warm sensitivity for the subject matter that never slips into adult-contemporary cheese.

"Open" may be the most romantic song in years--the very sound of earnest, young lovers.  And "The Fall" is not too far behind in its yearning.  Some listeners have compared the record's easy tempos to Sade, and the duo's deft arrangements and elegant horns and strings make some of those similarities apparent.  But Rhye can also move forward with more thrust, as demonstrated in the groovy directness of tracks like "3 Days" and "Hunger."  Although Rhye is not afraid to get you on the dance floor, their expertise is in the flickering firelight of the after-party.  So grab your woman.  And get moving.

10. The 20/20 Experience / Justin Timberlake

The ten reasons why Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience made the Top Ten:

• Jay Z.  Well, okay, so that isn't a reason.  But Jay Z!
• My favorite song of the record is called "Strawberry Bubblegum."  Don't hate me.
• "Mirrors" is a bona fide radio jam worth listening (and singing!) to in your car.
• Hop into my spaceship coupe!  There's only room for two!  JT wants to take you for a ride in his spaceship coupe!  For real!  Think about that for a minute.  Chillin' with JT in his spaceship coupe--got the windows special tinted for the stars that get too bright!  Man, his spaceship coupe.  
• That part in "Strawberry Bubblegum" where he says it was such a mellow mellow mellow mellow mellow mellow day . . . when you walked by.  Ahh! Ahh!
• Old-school Motown vibes that are actually worthy of old-school MoTown.  That girlllllllll.
• "Tunnel Vision" is cooler and badder than just about every other radio hit.  It is chock full of the hyper-production values that Timbaland greases into every 20/20 track.  Swirly little keyboard things.  Off-kilter little drum beats.  Quick little string strikes and piano runs.  Just lush, dude.
• The best song that Gloria Estefan never wrote.
• That part in "Strawberry Bubblegum" where he breaks it down with a prolonged coda and he even references his former N'Sync hit.  And then I'll love you 'til I make you pop!  Yes, my life is boring as hell.
• #TheDManlovesJustinTimberlake

11. Settle / Disclosure

Disclosure's debut album Settle has an argument to make for the top spot.  The stylish house record is brimming with youthful energy and teeming with in-the-zeitgeist moments.  In a year of endless EDM releases, Settle is the romantically-charged, intelligent, aurally-pleasing pinnacle.  Bookish electronica?  Check.  Sly samples?  Check.  Select live instruments and drums?  Check.  Outstanding guest vocalists?  Check, check.

British brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence (incredibly, 22 and 19 years of age) garnered critical acclaim with their confident debut and grabbed three Top Ten singles in the UK with the infectious "Latch," "White Noise," and "You & Me."  The duo's songwriting feel for electronic music is intuitive and impressive--rarely do lyrics mesh with the underlying beats in such a seamless fashion.  Much like Daft Punk's record, the duo invited excellent collaborators to sing and play on the album, a glossy list of contributors such as Jessie Ware, Sam Smith, and AlunaGeorge.  The guests' unique vocals on almost every track elevate the heady music to communal club-hopping, leaving little doubt that Settle is the music of today.

12. Chvrches / The Bones of What You Believe

CHVRCHES deliver immediate electro-pop music.  With several hook-filled singles released earlier this year, the Glasgow-based band collected their best stuff on The Bones of What You Believe, one of the most memorable debuts of the year.

It doesn't hurt that The D Man has a major musical crush on vocalist Lauren Mayberry.  Not only does she have a law degree and a masters in journalism, but she infuses her lyrics with a gravity that (almost) surpasses the fact that she is quite pretty.  She writes lyrics with a fierce physicality that belies her stature, and listeners are left to wonder how she could ever have a difficult relationship that would merit such tough verbal blows.

Given Mayberry's prominence, someone said the band is like M83 meets Taylor Swift.  Though this may be a decent shorthand to describe their sound, it probably undersells CHVRCHES capabilities.  Veteran musicians Iain Cook and Martin Doherty employ catchy synthesizers and vocal loops, and the trio push electronic boundaries in an accessible vein, finding the same pulse that listeners have come to expect from artists like Anthony Gonzalez or Passion Pit, and embracing of-the-moment electronic textures that never interfere with the underlying hooks.  The band's devotion to big-song melodies is charming and pure synth-pop pleasure.

The big singles carry the album: "The Mother We Share," "Gun," "Lies," and "Recover."  (How about that, a popular indie band with songs that actually sound like singles?)  But there are plenty of nice moments throughout the 12 tracks.  "Lungs" bounces and throbs like the best unreleased Debbie Gibson song.  (Yes, that is a compliment!)  And "Night Sky" and "By the Throat" build up to starry little epiphanies.  Hopefully this is the start of something big.  But if CHVRCHES never break new ground, and if there only success is this album and its hook after relentless hook, that will be enough.

13. Repave / Volcano Choir

Volcano Choir will always be known as Justin Vernon and his friends.  On the band's first album, Unmap, Vernon and his fellow Wisconsinites made an unconventional and meandering record of guitar strings, choir swells, and electronic bleeps.  The music slowly revealed a placeless beauty, somewhere in the void, where matter and sound are still taking shape, still fighting to combine with the emerging topography.  On their second album, Repave, the songs finally make landfall and the result is a strong, cohesive, experimental rock record.

The D Man watched a seemingly uneventful but excellent live performance of "Comrade" and shares his observations below:

• 0:00 - 0:25:  We are heading up a freight elevator somewhere inside an old tannery in Milwaukee.  The band wants us to know they are unassuming, authentic, and deeply-connected to their Wisconsin roots.  Or maybe the rent was cheap.
• 0:25 - 0:45:  The band's signature bloops and bleeps and instrumental doodles invite us down the hallway.  Is there another band that works so hard to sound so nonchalant?
• 0:45:  Two things happen.  The warm acoustic guitars kick in, which say hey, this is going to be an organic experience.  But right on their heels, Vernon starts singing with auto-tuned voice modulation, which says hey, this is going to merge the past with the present.  This tactic has worked very well for Bon Iver's ageless but in-the-moment sound. 
• 1:14:  Vernon lifts his hands to his head and reveals a punk-rock bracelet that he could have lifted from someone in Rancid.  Just because he plays with these guys in flannel and button-down shirts, doesn't mean he didn't party with Kanye, ya know?
• 1:26:  Vernon slides into his falsetto, which can slay dragons and bed the prettiest of ladies.  Remember, this is the same guy that wrote and sang "Beth/Rest," the greatest indie soft-rock song of all time.
• 1:49:  The drums pick up and the band plateaus into brilliant vistas.
• 2:16:  Like the best Bon Iver tracks, the musical comedown is even more powerful than the ascent.  In the negative space, Vernon's soul-crushed voice and the acoustic guitars' little curly-cues are even more affecting.
• 2:54:  Vernon messes with his voice even more.  He has found a way to have four signature vocal approaches: the guttural, low-end menace, the heart-wrenching falsetto, the modulated yelp, and the quiet folkie whisper.
• 3:24:  Here we go again: to the mountains! Large trees, heavy snows, endless nights, and crushing heartbreak to follow.
• 3:52: By now you should have noticed Vernon's hair.  Look, this is a dude who lived in a cabin for four months, killed deer with his bare hands, and recorded one of the loneliest sounding folk records of all time.  It's just hair, man.
• 3:59: A modulated F-bomb doesn't count.
• 4:04:  Vernon's intensity leads him to a brief moment of jazz hands.  And we close with more bloops and bleeps and instrumental doodles.

14. Amok / Atoms for Peace

Thom Yorke indulges his love for twitchy EDM and brooding dubstep on Amok.  He convinces his super-bandmates Flea and Nigel Godrich to drive at an insular sound that never escapes its own orbit, a tightly-wound and funky instrumental coil that never expands enough to collapse on itself.  Atoms for Peace are, after all, against going nuclear.

The record serves as a bookend to Yorke's lone solo album, 2006's The Eraser, an underrated performance of spare electronica.  Wanting to play tracks from The Eraser in a live setting, Yorke reached out to his friends Flea, long-time Radiohead producer Godrich, Joey Waronker (drums for Beck and R.E.M) and Brazillian instrumentalist Mauro Refosco, which eventually led to the recording of Amok.  Largely due to Godrich's field-of-depth production skills, Flea's typical bass funk, and Waronker's and Refosco's creative rhythms, the skittering beats are more forceful and abundant, and Amok is a notch better than The Eraser.  

During the band's recent arena tour, they played numerous tracks from both albums, and the live performances were surprisingly pliant and energizing.  The only complaint may be that Flea was not left to wander further afield on the studio versions, as there are moments where the tracks could have opened up to allow more theatrics, especially when compared with the more accomodating live approach.  But we did see Yorke get his swerve on.  Though his guitar-work is interesting throughout and his trademark vocals float across the soundtrack, haunted and disembodied, we really just want to see him dance.  When the the ponytail is long and the dancing is loose, you know that a great Radiohead record is just around the corner.

15. The Terror / The Flaming Lips

This is what it will sound like if the robots win.  This is the soundtrack to the inevitable film.  The camera pans across the alien plains.  The morning sun rises, spare and desolate.  The hazy light slowly crawls over everything.  And the music cues, revealing the terrible truth . . . .

On their thirteenth studio album, The Flaming Lips expand their mastery of emotion with an unsettling sonic experience.  The cover art's blast of existential loneliness sums up The Terror's thesis: you are on your own.  And without the light of love, it is awfully dark.  Explaining this basic concept, Wayne Coyne said that "we wanted to believe that without love we would disappear, that love, somehow would save us . . . and if there is no love, there would be no life.  The Terror is, we know now, that even without love, life goes on . . . we just go on . . . there is no mercy killing."  Scary, indeed.

Unlike the free-wheeling and propulsive psychedelia of Embryonic, The Terror is purposefully restrained, and as the industrial acid-trips drone forward, conveying themes of isolation, fear, and bewilderment, the slow builds that never reach catharsis are almost always unnerving.  Steven Drozd's oddball arrangements carry the album and are built on his sobering synth work, and only the ocassional guitar squall interrupts the march of his ominous keyboards.  Wayne Coyne's accompanying lyrics are stark and declarative, and he sometimes buries his vocals in slight distortions to further alienate his listeners.  Coyne takes pleasure in the artistic freedom that comes with being the most adventurous major-label act that has lasted this long in the business.

As with the stunning turns in Embryonic, The Lips follow another strange path with this record.  Though the band could make new versions of "Race for the Prize" or "Yoshimi" over and over, holding their festival-ready pop like a comfort blanket, their committment to the emotional honesty in their lives--and by extension, their art--is impressive.  By plumbing depths of depression and confusion, they are not necessarily giving up, but merely sharing their deepest fear that the universe may not be on our side.  As a result, The Lips dive into another strange cacophony.

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16. Frozen

Look, The D Man still knows every word to "Part of Your World," arguably the best Disney song ever written.  ("You want thingamabobs?  I've got 20!").  Ariel's land-yearning number put tasteful teenage angst into the hearts of children everywhere, and it started the Disney resurgance that captivated an entire generation.

Long a sucker for movie musicals, I had no idea that is what I was walking into with my kids over Thanksgiving weekend.  The trailers for Frozen gave no indication that there would be singing--and certainly not the kind of singing that will make you stop reaching for your popcorn.  Fast forward fifteen minutes and The D Man was turning a little weepy by the close of the second number, "Do You Want to Build A Snowman?"  Damn, yes, let's build a snowman together . . . sheesh . . . let's build already . . . .

Frozen is the best Disney musical since the Disney renaissance films The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King.  The songs have clearly been written with contemporary, pop-heavy ears in mind, but they still retain that classical feel that begets the same magic from Snow White to Cinderella to The Little Mermaid.  No doubt a new legion of children will grow up reaching for the huge notes on "For the First Time in Forever," an excellent lead song that is reprised throughout the movie.  And no doubt Princess Anna and Princess Elsa will inspire the next crop of girls who will eventually make their boyfriends pay for every dinner.  (I kid, I kid).

The original songs by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon) cover all the right terrain with the help of talented vocalists like Tony-winning Idina Menzel and Broadway veterans Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff, and Josh Gad.  There is the big song--here, an anthem of ice-castling liberation (see "Let It Go").  There is the funny, falling-in-love duet (see "Love Is An Open Door").  There is the clever comedy piece, where the snowman Olaf dreams of summertime (see "In Summer").  And there is the witty group sing-a-along, a show-stealing track from a bunch of trolls that recalls some of Disney's best (see "Fixer Upper").  The songs move the storyline forward, enliven the characters, and unthaw listeners' hearts.

Disney's stealth advertising reeled in some unsuspecting movie-goers over the holidays.  But plenty of goobers were grateful for the surprise.  I want to be where the people are.  And where the people are, let there be singing.

17. Free Your Mind / Cut Copy

The D Man is still running on the colorful fumes of Cut Copy's late October concert.  The Australian band's fourth studio album dropped a few days after the show, and it could not have come at a better time.  The album's sunny dance-pop can make any cold day better.  Ever the poptimist, frontman Dan Whitford said that "the record's concept of freedom is one that is universally positive and timeless, and whatever each person's version of that freedom is, it's a good thing to be reminding people or even just ourselves to be free."  Free Your Mind is a call to freedom, love, and the golden sun that shines on us all.  But really it is just an excuse to bob your head in the car, unashamed.

The album was recorded in the band's hometown of Melbourne and later mixed by Dave Fridmann (of Flaming Lips fame) in his upstate New York studio.  Listeners can hear Fridmann's bright cosmic gloss on the 14 tracks, and there is never a moment when the record doesn't sound impeccably produced.  Though the album is not as cutting edge as In Ghost Colours or Zonoscope, the individual tracks are seamlessly connected and demonstrate the band's easy touch with cosmopolitan and starry-eyed dance rock.  Nothing here is forced, and there is a relaxed summertime vibe that underscores numerous references to the sun.  "Shine brighter, shine on / shine brighter than the sun," Whitford implores on the title track.  On "We Are Explorers," he proclaims that "we're on a journey to the morning sun / together."  Whitford believes the unifying light of the solar system will save us, and on track after track he marches on with such mantras.  "Keep my hands pointing to the sky / until the daylight comes, into our minds to rescue us."

The elemental lyrics, of course, have never been the point with Cut Copy.  Big, open-hearted anthems that get the masses dancing, well, that is the point.  After experiencing their recent live performance, it is hard to imagine any current band doing it better.

18. MCII / Mikal Cronin

The D Man supports power pop in all its permutations.  Slick, fuzzy, and everything in between, from The Lemonheads to Brendan Benson to Nada Surf.  So it is no surprise that Mikal Cronin's fuzzied-out guitars were satisfying listening throughout the summer of 2013.  Often a sideman to Ty Segall's blistering garage rock, Cronin's second solo album, MCII, sheds some of the noise for a cleaner and more polished sound, and the result is tuneful guitar rock from front to back.  Perhaps that recent B.F.A. in Music was worth the tuition, as he adds strings, pianos, and statelier arrangements to the feedback.

Cronin's guitar licks never seem to overrun his melodies and hooks.  The ten songs on the relatively short album are consistently strong.  "Weight" shuffles along with pianos and acoustic guitars until the chorus cranks up the fuzz.  "Shout It Out" has a West Coast feel--somewhere between surf rock and breezy Pacific Coast pop--and its infectious guitar squeals are a fun listen.  "See It My Way" displays Cronin's exceptional soloing amid more fuzziness, while "Peace of Mind" changes the pace with tasteful string arrangements.  On the fine closer "Piano Mantra," Cronin loses the guitars and sits behind a solitary piano, showing off his multi-instrumental prowess.  As the strings seep in, he asks can you hear me or is it in my mind?  As if to answer his own question, he picks his guitar back up and drives home the noise.

19. Hold On, We're Going Home (single) / Drake

Shout out to the best R&B radio jam of the year.  The D Man didn't even pick up Drake's new record Nothing Was The Same, but I stopped every time I heard his smooth joint "Hold On, "We're Going Home."  The two-stepping track finds the Canadian-born rapper in full-on Marvin Gaye mode: "I want your hot love and emotion, endlessly."  Enough said.

"Hold On" is a surprising melodic turn for the hardcore rapper.  Drake said he was channeling his inner Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson with the song's classic pop sheen: "I know we're not anywhere near that . . . In approaching this album, I was like man, it would be great if we had a record that was played at weddings in 10 years or that people that are away from their families in the army could listen to.  Something that just has timeless writing, timeless melody."  Mission accomplished.  The D Man foresees a long and happy life at weddings, proms, bar mitzvahs, and awkward church dances where there is a savvy DJ willing to push some boundaries.

20. Yore / Evenings

In the digital age listeners can cherrypick music from endless branches.  This can be a blessing because it allows instant access to untold artists, and it can be a curse because it often engenders distracted, surface-level engagement.  Another internet byproduct: listeners can enjoy music without knowing anything about its source.  This faceless interaction with artists is difficult to weigh in your hands or head.  No record needs to be purchased.  No recommendation needs to be considered.  Just click play on YouTube and do your taxes.

After streaming Evenings' excellent album Yore for several months at work, The D Man figured he should find out something regarding the maker of its hi-fi, sample-laden intricacies.  Recently signed to the Friends of Friends label, Nathan Broadus is a twenty-something student at the University of Virginia.  The warm prettiness of his music makes his very modern mashups sound as if they have been around for a long time.  But Yore is more than nostalgia, it is a record filled with surprisingly soulful soundscapes that deserve both ambient companionship and more meaningful listening.