Top 10 Albums of 2013

I'm well aware that nobody cares what an old man thinks the best albums released in 2013 are - I'm not exactly any band's target audience or some sort of taste-maker - but 'tis the season for year-end lists and all that, so here I go anyway.  It may be self-indulgent, but it's certainly better than listing other people's favorite songs, n'est-ce pas?

All things taken into consideration, 2013 wasn't really all that great a year for album releases in my humble opinion, which isn't to say it was a bad year for music, it's just that so much amazing material was released the past couple of years and many bands spent much of this year still touring behind those previous releases. Some other bands put out some perfectly fine new albums this year that sounded perfectly in keeping with their prior output - no loss of quality at all, but didn't break any new ground or otherwise become the singular recording by which the bands will come to be identified by, which is fine - a band doesn't have to and shouldn't redefine itself with every new album, but those status quo releases, while still quite good, weren't satisfying enough to make a Top 10 list.  Or at least my Top 10 list.

It was a great year for concerts, so I'm not saying the year was without its merits, it's just that you might not know it from the recorded output.  Still, having said all that, there still were several great releases, both from new artists (Savages, Courtney Barnett) and established masters (Yo La Tengo, Joseph Arthur), and much in between.  

So here's my Top 10 list, presented in alphabetical order (it's really impossible for me to say any one of these is better or worse than any other).  It's a pretty predictable list and I don't think there's any surprises here, but here you go anyway:

C Is For Courtney Barnett - A Sea of Split Peas




F Is For Foxygen - We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors




J Is For Joseph Arthur - The Ballad of Boogie Christ




L Is For Local Natives - Hummingbird

M (or O) Is For of Montreal - Lousy with Sylvianbriar

P Is For Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold



P Is Also For Pickwick - Can't Talk Medicine




S Is For Savages - Silence Yourself

U Is For Unknown Mortal Orchestra - II

Y Is For Yo La Tengo - Fade

Hope you enjoy, and please don't be offended if I left out your favorite - it's not that I didn't like it, it's probably that I just forgot to include it!