Having said that, I have found that these lists are actually rather fun, and they give us a sort of artificial closure, a pause to look back, recollect, reevaluate. So what I've tried to do here is free myself of trying to define the year, or even pretend that this "Best Of" list is definitive. Instead, it's more of a favorites list, with an order that more or less works (mostly less). Some records I didn't get enough time to fully enjoy; some songs probably deserve higher spots but were made rather annoying by incessant playtime ("Royals," "Get Lucky"); some came out as singles last year ("Counting," "Latch," "Don't Save Me," "Wings," "3 Days," "Your Drums, Your Love," etc.); some songs are probably just meaningful to me because of where and how I was when I first heard them. I've only written about the top ten, but there are links for the rest.
Hope you enjoy. It's been a fun year doing Let Me Get; here's to 2014!
100. Modern Jesus - Portugal. The Man
99. Kidnap Me - Cruiser
98. Miracle - Sir Sly
97. A Stillness - The Naked and Famous
96. Airglow Fires - Lone
95. CollardGreens (feat. Kendrick Lamar) - ScHoolboy Q
94. Diane Young - Vampire Weekend
93. Bloodflows - S O H N
92. Don't Wait - Mapei
91. Pumpin Blood (Taken by Trees x Belief Remix) - NONONO
90. Grand Union - Arthur Beatrice
89. Like a Dream - Francis and The Lights
88. Lost it to Trying - Son Lux
87. riff raff is the devil - MR•CARM/\\CK
86. Porno - Arcade Fire
85. Sunset (feat. Yuna Zaraai) - The Internet
84. Jadallah (Goodbye $ummer) - ESTA.
83. El rito - Destroyer
82. Phaedra - Baths
81. Gray Eyed Bird - Slow Machete
80. Snap Out of It - Arctic Monkeys
79. You're Not Good Enough - Blood Orange
78. Red Eyes - The War on Drugs
77. Never Wanna Know - MØ
76. Paper Trails - Darkside
75. Free Your Mind - Cut Copy
74. Tea Leaf Dancers (feat. Andreya Triana) - Flying Lotus
73. I Have No Fear - Tourist.
72. Body Music - AlunaGeorge
71. Fall For You - Young Galaxy
70. Inner Gold - Dead Times
69. Sunday (feat. Frank Ocean) - Earl Sweatshirt
68. All I Know - Washed Out
67. Oostende - Keep Shelly in Athens
66. Million Miles - TV on the Radio
65. Step - Vampire Weekend
64. Demons - The National
63. Bad Idea - AlunaGeorge
62. We Sink - CHVRCHES
61. Walk Us Uptown - Elvis Costello & The Roots
60. Gonna Die - Autre Ne Veut
59. Help Me Lose My Mind (feat. London Grammar) - Disclosure
58. Ronnie Drake (feat. SZA) - Isaiah Rashad
57. Retrograde - James Blake
56. Black Out Days - Phantogram
55. The Heat - Jungle
54. Okay - Holy Ghost!
53. Abdomen - Born Gold
52. The Woodpile - Frightened Rabbit
51. End Boss - Man Man
50. Out of My League - Fitz and the Tantrums
49. Next Year (RAC Remix) - Two Door Cinema Club
48. Solace - f y f e
47. Savage - Ben Khan
46. Breathe This Air (feat. Purity Ring) - Jon Hopkins
45. Fire - Bipolar Sunshine
44. Silver - The Neighbourhood
43. My Friends Never Die - ODESZA
42. Chocolate - The 1975
41. Ada - JMSN
40. We Were in Love - Ta-ku
39. The Breach - Dustin Tebbutt
38. The Power - Fryars
37. Time Will Tell - Blood Orange
36. Comrade - Volcano Choir
35. À tout à l'heure - Bibio
34. Hemiplegia - HAERTS
33. Riptide - Vance Joy
32. Doin' it Right (feat. Panda Bear) - Daft Punk
31. Dance a Little Closer - Holy Ghost!
30. Cotton Candy - PAPA
29. When a Fire Starts to Burn - Disclosure
28. If I Could Change Your Mind - Haim
27. Bound 2 - Kanye West
26. Last Dance - Rhye
25. Murakami - MADE IN HEIGHTS
24. Old Love / New Love - Twin Shadow
23. You're the Best - Wet
22. Farrah Fawcett Hair (feat. André 3000) - Capital Cities
21. Diver - AlunaGeorge
20. Humiliation - The National
19. Song for Zula - Phosphorescent
18. Alive - Autre Ne Veut & Fennesz
17. Dying to Start Again - Lovelife
16. Elevate - St. Lucia
15. Always - Panama
14. Track 2 (Str8 Outta Mumbai) - Jai Paul
13. You & Me (feat. Eliza Doolittle) - Disclosure
12. Under the Tide - CHVRCHES
11. Afterlife - Arcade Fire
10. Hiders - Burial
"There's a kid somewhere..."
This is one of those songs that give me goosebumps, perhaps in part because I now know it was intended to be a sort of "angel's spell." Far different than most of Burial's other work, "Hiders" reaches new heights, its broken vocals climbing higher out of characteristic sounds of crumpling and dripping. Usually, Burial's music is beautiful yet grimy, constantly pulled back into the ambient sounds of some dystopian back alley. But this time, it's transcendance, ascension to some otherworldly chorus. Heartbreaking, breathtaking. An angel's spell indeed.
9. Unbelievers - Vampire Weekend
Modern Vampires of the City was fabulous and full of tracks worthy of praise; "Hannah Hunt," "Ya Hey," "Step," and "Diane Young" top Best Of lists on plenty of music sites and blogs. In my opinion, "Unbelievers," the bright atheistic shuffle, the snarky little prayer for some salvation for the hell-bound, is the best track from Modern Vampires. It's brilliant both musically and lyrically––and ridiculously catchy. It keeps its frantic beat all the way to the soaring pipes at the end that turns the unreligious rag into something sweeping and almost majestic––but not before coming back down to earth, letting Ezra Koenig's near-unaccompanied voice finish it out.
8. If You're My Girl, Then I'm Your Man - PAPA
As the Bio on PAPA's website notes, "one review witnessed, 'they hit every note as though they were playing for lunch money,' There are no backing tracks, no auto tune, and no self harmonizing pedals." This sort of rawness is part of what makes PAPA's debut album, Tender Madness, so fabulous. In "If You're My Girl," the warbling vocals, the urgent, soaring ooooh make it a perfect driving-with-the-windows-down track that even Haim can't touch. It's powerful, authentic, and refreshing.
7. Coming Through (feat. Cat Power) - Willis Earl Beal
The song is simple and soulful, but the lyrics are more than that: after a brief intro about the impossibility of truth and the imperceptibility of the future, Willis Earl Beal belts out an ambivalent yet relaxing number, wailing at all of us "don't pick a side, just ride the tide." Abandoning morality and virtue (they "could easily hurt you") might seem frightening, but occasionally it's nice to sit back, be neutral, let the world––and Beal's fabulous voice––wash over us in benevolent apathy.
6. Love is Lost (James Murphy's Hello Steve Reich Mix) - David Bowie
It's the remix that only James Murphy could have gotten away with: a ten-minute-long, Steve-Reich-inspired remix of a new David Bowie song. Born out of the scattered clapping of an audience, the track wades through minutes of glitchy synths, stark piano chords, and hypnotic hand-claps before hitting full swing halfway in. Bowie's lyrics are dark and despairing, "love is lost, lost is love," but Murphy's remix goes further, making the original loss feel like a disintegration, a drawn-out performance of loss, its spare percussiveness and electronic blipping seeming like some sort of ritual ceremony being played out on outdated electronics. Combining the haunting vocals of Bowie, the minimalism of Murphy, and the circling rhythms of Reich, this remix is ten and a half minutes of sheer magnificence.
5. 400 Lux - Lorde
A 17 year old kiwi who dresses like a sorceress, tours with her mom, and is obsessed with olives doesn't exactly fit the mold of artists whose singles incessantly play on Top 40 radio shows. But Lorde, the self-proclaimed feminist who can call out Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, and Lana Del Rey and get away with it, is a child star who puts out good music instead of stirring up controversy. Her droning minimalism and shockingly mature voice are intriguing and mystifying; she's quirky, authentic, and a great lyricist—the last of which can sometimes seem to be in short supply.
400 lux is the measurement of light at a sunrise or sunset on a clear day. Indeed, this track feels like a simultaneous rising up and slipping away, a cycle of languid car rides sung to a cyclical question: "We're never done with killing time / Can I kill it with you?” “Royals” is definitely one of the most important songs of 2013, but for me, "400 Lux" is more intimate, more lyrically interesting, and superbly captures a feeling of intimate melancholy, regardless of the time of day.
4. Chain Smoker - Chance The Rapper
"This is my last shit." There's truly something final about the track, aside from the fact that it's situated close to the end of Chance's phenomenal Acid Rap. A broken brain, uninterrupted drug use, Frank Ocean on repeat, but still a desire that we love all his shit. It seems somehow fitting to close out the year; piano licks and organ sounds and background wailing make it anthemic, definitive, and confident even if it's subtly self-effacing.
3. The Beauty Surrounds - Houses
2. Born Gold - Hunger
The hammering beat, the bright synths, and the sweeping chorus create an off-putting contrast with the lyrical references to illness, dried blood, peeling wallpaper, rising hunger, and bending bones. "Hunger" is tagged only as "Terror" on SoundCloud, and there certainly is a creeping terror to it. But it's too catchy, too light to be anything too frightening, and this contradiction between melody and lyricism, brightness and sickness, airy pop and brooding hunger, only makes it more fabulous.
1. Graceless - The National
The National doesn't specialize in uplifting songs. At least not in the sort of anthemic sunshine-pop that one might associate with infectiously contrived tracks designed to get you going in the morning. In fact, when I saw the band on tour earlier this year, Matt Berninger screeched the lyrics to "Squalor Victoria" and made jokes about opening his wrist with a SOLO cup, all the while putting back his signature bottle of wine.
But with The National, there's always sort of wryness to all the melancholy, an imminent sense of catharsis to all the Sorrow. Perhaps "Graceless" is so good because it manages to walk the line between uplifting and despairing: the driving drums and energetic ending counterbalance the cryptic lyrics that talk of anti-depressants, withered roses, death and weightless invisibility. The music video even features the band members getting wasted in a backyard pool, a far cry from the somber images one might expect.
At the show, after Berninger had finished his bottle of wine, he climbed down into the crowd to do his characteristic crowd surfing, singing that he wouldn't fuck us over, everyone trying to touch him as if he were some sort of wasted Jesus. "Graceless" is the shock, the sorrow, but the need to rise above it; it's the weary abandonment of faith ("God loves everybody, don't remind me") but the need for some other sort of absolution. And maybe, in the climactic finish––"grace!"––the discovery of it.