We’ve already taken you through the villains of 2013 – but it’s also been a good year for music. Here we take you through the best songs of the year.
20. Bugatti – Ace Hood ft. Future and Rick Ross
19. Bashful – Kwes
18. Freak, Go Home – Darkside
17. Misunderstood – oOoOO
16. Badman City – Kahn ft Flowdan
15. Aleph – Gesaffelstein
14. Harm in Change – Toro Y Moi
13. Grammy (Soulja Boy Cover) – Purity Ring
12. Aerial – Four Tet
11. No Doubt – Lil Silva ft Rosie Lowe
10. Organ Eternal – These New Puritans
TNP’s move toward the orchestral is embodied in this majestically understated number.
9. Sosa(d) – Lil Cloud x Druture
Chief Keef’s slurred threats moulded into a thing of ambient beauty.
8. The Owls – Felicia Atkinson
Drone so delicate and exploratory it’s almost jazz. Like a feminine Fuck Buttons.
7. Boring Angel – Oneohtrix Point Never
A simple, yet kaleidoscopically beautiful, progression.
6. High Street – Blood Orange ft Skepta
A wistful paean to London meandering in and out of a ghostly beat like a preoccupied youth wandering through the backstreets of Tottenham after dark.
5. Semena Mertvykh – Boards of Canada
At the last, Boards of Canada’s much-heralded LP ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’ descends into understated oblivion.
4. The Mahdi – Underachievers
For all the noise around Chance the Rapper, there was no better hip-hop made in 2013 than this- conscious, gorgeously produced and with flows potent enough to make grown men weep. ‘We be that Elevated Mafia.’
3. Blackpool Late Eighties – James Holden
Holden’s 2013 LP ‘The Inheritors’ was like the malformed brother of Oneohtrix Point Never’s more widely acclaimed ‘R Plus 7’, an analogue exploration of the weird pathways of the human mind. Blackpool is a rare moment of beauty amidst the fractal insanity.
2. Enter Paradise – Vatican Shadow
Simultaneously guttural and apocalyptic.
1. Niggaz Dying – Fat Trel
If Chief Keef read Nietzsche, he might produce something like the auto-tuned nihilism of Niggaz Dying. The cavernous production leaves plenty of space for the lyrics to have full impact as a chilling rebuttal to those who think hip-hop exclusively glorifies violence. ‘They shooting for nothing. They shooting to kill.’
and…
Biggest disappointment: Cyril Hahn- Perfect Form
In many ways, 2013 was the RnB bootleg wunderkid’s year, as his star continued its meteoric rise in a wild collision of astronomical metaphors. But could he translate his ethereal house template to a proper solo release and chart success? No. The result was sickly sweet, anodyne and immediately forgettable, leaving the faltering deep house revival still searching for a figurehead with more musical personality than Ben Pearce, that guy from Disclosure or that other guy from Disclosure.
