Last year I discovered (for myself, that is) enough good new music to do my first serious annual music ranking, listing my top 40 songs of 2012, a list that I originally intended to just go to 20 titles but that kept expanding as I kept writing and exploring. This year, I started the exploring a little sooner, and also ended up on a few promotional lists that exposed me to even more new stuff, so by midyear it was very clear to me that I’d have more than enough songs to get to 100. I had over 150 candidates if you count all of the album tracks I liked enough to consider, but forced it down to 100 (which didn’t work out that well, as you’ll see shortly).
As with my list of the top albums of 2013, this list is my personal preference. If I don’t like a song, it’s not here. That wipes out some critically-acclaimed artists entirely, including Daft Punk, Haim, Vampire Weekend, Deafheaven (and please, people, death metal and black metal are not the same thing), Rhye, the Lumineers (more like Ho Hum), American Authors, James Blake, Foxygen, Majikal Cloudz, Phosphorescent, Jason Isbell (I just do not like country music), and My Bloody Valentine. Other folks liked that stuff. I didn’t.
Some songs that were among the last ones I cut from my list, in no particular order, looking just at artists that didn’t make it: Birds of Tokyo – “Lanterns;” Midlake – “Antiphon;” Harrison Hudson – “Curious;” Cumulus – “Do You Remember;” Young Galaxy – “Pretty Boy;” The 1975 – “Chocolate;” Blondfire – “Waves.” The last two got the axe for lyrics too stupid for me to abide. I’ve mentioned several other songs I liked, but not enough to get them into the top 100, within the comments below.
I’m going to start with two extra tracks that were the final two cuts from the list, ones I actually wrote up at first before realizing I’d forgotten two other tracks that belonged on here.
Wild Nothing – Dancing Shell. One of my biggest misses from my 2012 list was Wild Nothing’s Nocturne, which I picked up in January on the recommendations of several readers and loved for its dream-pop leanings with experimental twists – but with more guitar than most bands in this subgenre employ. “Dancing Shell” is more dance/electronic than straight-ahead rock but showcases the creativity of Jack Tatum, who records all of Wild Nothing’s music himself, with other members joining him just for live shows. His 2013 EP wasn’t as good as Nocturne but including this song lets me mention again how badly I whiffed by not including the album on my list from last year.
Ejecta – Jeremiah (The Denier). A side project for Neon Indian’s keyboardist Leanne Macomber, Ejecta offers spacey electro-pop, although I think they’ve received more press for their debut album’s cover, which features a nude Macomber posing as if one of the great Renaissance masters was about to paint her. That might just be overshadowing the music, which has the early-80s New Wave leanings of most electro-pop but pairs it with Macomber’s languorous, breathy vocals to temper its brightness. “It’s Only Love” is also worth checking out.
And now, to the top 100. This entire list, including both of those bonus tracks, is available as a Spotify playlist, in order. Amazon and iTunes links go to full albums, where you can just buy the specific song I mentioned (this reduced the number of links I had to create).
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, came out in 2011, with more to come next year.
($5 there via amazon), just their second album since 2004, featuring what I think is their best single since 1995’s “Hyper Enough,” the musically upbeat “Me & You & Jackie Mittoo,” which opens with a much darker sentiment than the music would lead you to expect: “I hate music – what is it worth?/Can’t bring anyone back to this earth.”
” other than that it’s remarkable that a 16-year-old could write better lyrics, with more imagery, than nearly every adult songwriter working in American pop music today. I don’t even love the song for its music, but I love the creativity it shows – and after CHVRCHES this is my daughter’s favorite alternative/pop track right now.
” wins the award for “song I didn’t want to like, but can’t help myself.” It’s too damn catchy.
” is a focus track right now on Sirius XM’s Alt Nation/XMU, which does trigger my inherent skepticism of anything the music industry wants to push on us … but it’s actually a pretty good song, the first single from a band that rose from the ashes of Envy on the Coast. Marrying the staccato guitar style of late-70s punk/art bands like Gang of Four with neo-soul choruses you might associate more with Fitz and the Tantrums, “21 Flights” is a rousing stomper that forges a different kind of indie-rock aesthetic.
” (currently free to download from amazon) reminds me quite a bit of Helium, whom I mentioned earlier – Polvo’s lead guitarist eventually joined Helium while he was dating lead singer Mary Timony. Speedy Ortiz also has a female lead singer and intentionally dissonant guitar lines. I think Pavement comparisons are also inevitable, thanks to Sadie Dupuis’ off-kilter vocals style, where she sings the verses like she’s about to fall down a flight of stairs.
” is a major improvement over his first single, “It All Feels Right,” which felt like it went on for fifteen minutes with no purpose. It’s amazing what a faster tempo and a keyboard sample can do.
” fell out of the 1960s into 2013 with its handclaps, rising vocal harmonies, and Hammond organ. I get a similar vibe from Temples’ music, especially their one minor hit, “
,” but Terraplane Sun does that revivalist sound better.
” has been out since the spring. It’s a curious mix of heartfelt, folkish verses with high-flying Beach Boys-style choruses, over a rapid two-step drumbeat that gives way to a slower, tribal percussion pattern that backs up those verses. It’s like a new, new New Wave.
.” So retro it should be played on an 8-track.
.” I can’t be the only one who saw her name and assumed she was related to Crazy Phil, right? Anyway, the singer of the theme to the series Orange is the New Black is actually a Russian emigre, no relation to the Wall-of-Sound guy, and she’s been recording music for a decade but is just now breaking out on the strength of this stop-and-go energy rush of a single.
” reminds me a lot of another of my favorite alternative-pop tracks of the year, Smallpools’ “Dreaming,” pairing sunny vocals with tightly-produced guitar and keyboard lines. “Little Games” opens up its production behind the chorus with more reverb to the rhythm guitars to add texture to the overly-polished vocals.
” (from the EP of the same title), puts their snotty-rock approach to better use, ditching the most annoying elements and allowing the inherent pop songcraft to make its mark.
, which will be released later this week. The Australian quintet produces electronic-pop music that shows off lead singer Jarrah McCleary’s background in classical piano, with a sound similar to Yeasayer but a slower, more soulful vibe. The title track should show up quickly on alternative radio thanks to the catchy chorus and the little piano flourish that follows it.
” is the lead track from their latest album and would likely make Eddie the Head proud of what he’s wrought.
” is such a close homage to early punk-thrash efforts like Agent Orange, Sacred Reich, or Corrosion of Conformity that when I first heard it I assumed it was some deep track from the mid-1980s I’d never heard before. I enjoy throwbacks like this, although they can get old quickly because the formula is too familiar.
, but have seen little breakthrough here in the U.S. other than having HGTV rip off their song “Fluorescent Adolescent” for the theme music to the show “Income Property.” Their first album was smart, often obnoxious, and punchy, a nod to old-fashioned rock-and-roll values but with more thoughtful and clever lyrics than their influences could ever deliver. Lead singer Alex Turner showed an innate sense for melody and drama, which he developed further over the Monkeys’ next three albums as well as with the baroque-pop side project The Last Shadow Puppets, but the band’s overall sound seemed directionless as they moved further from what made them instant stars in the first place.
, and Homme appears on two tracks here – is evident throughout the album, as the Monkeys have borrowed a bit of QotSA’s blend of melodic sludge rock on tracks like “Arabella,” “Do I Wanna Know?,” and “One for the Road,” with Homme singing background vocals on the last one of those. The key to QotSA’s popularity has always been that Homme has the heart of a pop songwriter, and has the ability to translate that sensibility into other genres, like the stoner metal of Kyuss or the bar-blues of Eagles of Death Metal. Turner showed he could branch out with The Last Shadow Puppets, whose underappreciated album was like a lost 12-inch from the age of mono, but now he’s bringing that broader songcraft back home with an album that is heavy and slow, sinuous, and eloquent. It’s his best work yet, more mature and confident without ever seeming cocky, functioning as a complete work as well as a collection of great singles. If America doesn’t catch on to the Arctic Monkeys now, they likely never will.
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.” I have ridiculed them for being too quiet and verging on boring, and I do stand by that – their Mercury Prize-winning debut album couldn’t hold my attention except for two songs, “Crystallized” and this one, which features 
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.” It does kind of figure that the only TV on the Radio song I like is far and away their most conventional song; their more typical, experimental stuff leaves me cold. Maybe I’d be a lousy music critic as a result, but this is the song I want on my iPod.
.” I am supposed to love these guys because I like Mumford and Sons, but the only tracks of theirs I’ve liked are this and “I And Love and You.” However, if you do like the Avett Brothers, let me again recommend 
.” If the Arctic Monkeys wrote an upbeat song with depressing lyrics about the archetype of the depressing band, you’d get this.
.” A good song about a great novel. Elefant lead singer Diego Garcia put out 
of Argentine-influenced music this spring.
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.” Named for a famous motorcycle, the VBS still exist but without the lead singer, Cassandra Snow, who made this song what it is with her double-time staccato delivery, telling the story in mock-comic tones of a mental breakdown over a punk-ska backdrop. 
.” Not their best effort, but the best of their efforts after 
, the album that put them on the map.
.” Yes, the theme to Veronica Mars, although I never did like that show (not for lack of trying it).
.” The lyrics struck me as mostly nonsense, but I love the menacing feel to the sparse music, especially the bass line that introduces the song.
.” Hook-laden as usual, with lines like “leave this academic factory,” how could you lose?
.” I’m not quite sure what to call Air – “Radio #1” was sort of alternative rock-ish, but “Girl” is this soft, ethereal ballad that might fit on adult contemporary radio. I give them credit for making 
.” Almost a grudging inclusion – I have never understood the critical fuss over these guys, although I understand their popularity given how watered-down their pop-rock is. Remember their (likely fake) feud with the Bravery? It was the alternative equivalent to the Backstreet Boys versus N*SYNC. Anyway, this was their first and biggest hit and, to my ears, the least saccharine.
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.” The decade saw plenty of output from these guys, nearly all of it disappointing, neither as original as Definitely Maybe and What’s the Story, Morning Glory nor as over-the-top as Be Here Now. This song was the closest to the formula of their first two albums as they have come since the century ended.
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.” Still the most dead-on Joy Division imitation I’ve ever heard – and I mean that in the best way possible. I’ve liked plenty of Interpol singles, but the competing guitar lines behind the bridge of leading into the driving, muted chorus give “PDA” a melancholy tone few other rock songs match.
.” The whole album – recorded between jail stints for Scott Weiland – was solid, including the heavy opening track “Down,” but the psychedelic “Glide” and the somber ballad “Atlanta” were the two that broke the group out of their narrow box of 70s-infused alternative rock.
.” The alternative rock equivalent of Johnny Damon or Javier Vazquez – a song without a peak (this was never something I was skipping through my iPod playlist to hear) but that has held its value for years after release.
.” Another ’70s-influenced band – that huge guitar riff just fills your ears, and I think the lack of a singable chorus hurt their chances on this side of the pond. “
” gets an honorable mention, but that flopped here as well, and they have possibly the least radio-friendly band name since Pussy Galore.
.” The triumphant return of Del tha Funkee Homosapien.
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.” Just barely qualifies, as it was released in the final weeks of 2009, and didn’t really come to my attention until it won the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance this past February. (I still wonder if the song won because it deserved the award, or because it had the requisite old guy on board in John Paul Jones.) Them Crooked Vultures is what Masters of Reality were supposed to be when they brought Ginger Baker on board for their second album; the two groups are connected by M.O.R.’s singer, Chris Goss, who co-produced Queens of the Stone Age’s Era Vulgaris.
.” Talented, yes. Troubled, yes. But the fact that she died young shouldn’t affect anyone’s assessment of her music. I think her best work was likely ahead of her, if she’d stayed sober enough to produce it. What we’re left with is a Brien Taylor career and theories on what might have been.
.” Not sure if they’ll fully break out of the college-music niche where they’ve found so much success, as the looseness of their sound may not play well with the mass audience, but the singer’s lackadaisical storytelling vibe and the stoner-rock influences in the music offered us something different, at least for one album.
.” This was Reed Johnson’s walkup music from when he came up with Toronto at least until I left the club, which didn’t help him hit right-handed pitching but made it easier to watch him try.
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, as well as the song I thought most likely to find an audience on U.S. radio stations at the time. That didn’t work out as planned.
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.” Wikipedia, which is never wrong, says that this was the most-played track off Kid A, which is easy to believe as it’s the most accessible song on the album and one of the few with a hint of a guitar. I’m an early Radiohead fan, meaning the moment they switched off the guitars, I mostly switched off of them. I may be the only person on the Internet who didn’t lose his shit over 
(“Bodysnatchers” is solid, but didn’t make this list). They may remain critical darlings, but OK Computer was their peak.
.” The 
.” I’ll give it to Damon Albarn – he has pretty good taste in rappers, going for De la Soul here for the lead single off 
. As I type this, the album is on sale for just $5 on amazon.
.” And the first track on their next album, “
,” was great and much more uptempo, which deked me into buying the entire thing only to discover that it sucked. They seem to have drifted into critical and hipster revile; I don’t love this song the way I did when it first came out, mostly because the more you listen to the lyrics the more trite they seem, but it’s the rare piano-without-guitar song I do like and will find stuck in my head for hours.
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.” One of their goofier songs, but with the typical Jack White twist (“I don’t need any of your pity, I’ve got plenty of my own friends/They’re all above me”).
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.” One of the DJs on XMU loves these guys, which is how I came across this melodic, guitar-heavy track three or four years after it came out. The first time I watched 
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.” Great song, but overplayed to the point where I can still only take it in limited doses. One of the top intro bass lines in rock history … which is apparently not played on a bass guitar. Clever.
.” The 
” was recorded in the 1990s but wasn’t released until 2001, so it qualifies through the back door, although it’s a little too folky for me to put on this list.
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.” Done right, rock tinged with Irish folk music is among my favorite styles of music. Talk about an odd connection, though: a not-yet-famous Katy Perry stars in 
.” I admit it – hearing this for the first time, I went right back to ’87 and the first time I heard Appetite for Destruction. Of course, back in ’87 it blew my ears off, while in 2004 it was a little quaint. 
.” Too clever by half? Mute Math seems to have a reputation as a brilliant band, and the whole playing-backwards trick was pretty cool, but “I know there’s got to be another level/Somewhere closer to the other side” might as well be a Backstreet Boys lyric. Good thing the hook in the chorus is so catchy.
.” A slower, folkier song than most of their output, based on the cliched provincial cab driver met by the band – this one in San Francisco, as the story goes – but I’ll give Kelly Jones credit for a more detailed picture of the driver’s attitude and for putting such a unique stamp on the song with his raspy vocals. It’s mostly on this list for its hook, though.
.” So I really don’t get the distaste for these guys. Too popular? Too much ’70s soft-rock influence? Overreaction to the abysmal XY album? Antipathy towards Gwyneth? This song has faded for me the more I listened to it – and it was overplayed, big time, to the point where I needed an escape hatch – but it’s a well-written, ambitious pop song, on an ambitious and rather complete album; even NME, among the most sneering of hipster publications (and I admire them for it), gave the album an 
.” So last time around, I called these guys one-hit wonders, and a few readers responded by telling me where “Panic Switch” placed on the charts. Not only was that song just riding the coattails of “Lazy Eye,” I think now with more time since those songs were released, we can agree this is the one still receiving airplay, and this is the only one worth remembering. (Let’s not even talk about “The Royal We.”) Anyway, am I the only one who wasn’t sure if the lead singer was male or female? Great song in the single edit, but the outro to the album track is just late-60s wanking, and I doubt there’s been a bigger letdown for me when learning the actual lyrics to any song. “That same old decent lazy-eye?” Uh, okay.
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.” I understand that “Clocks” is The Hit for these guys, but I was burned out on that song within a year, even before the Jays used it in a video montage at the end of the 2003 season to pay tribute to Roy Halladay’s (presumed, at the time) Cy Young-winning performance. I heard this song at a Coldplay concert from their first tour, and that opening riff made it the most memorable song of the night, even though I’d never heard it before. A reader pointed out the similarity between this song and Ride’s “
.” The best White Stripes song not written or recorded by the White Stripes. The 
.” I’m not sure I would have even discovered this if it wasn’t by the former lead singer of the Stone Roses, since it garnered no airplay that I know of in the U.S. and is probably the most bizarre song on the list, with no percussion and an incongruous trumpet solo. Then again, Brown’s solo stuff has all been weird and compelling, so while this isn’t as good as “
,” it’s his best song of the decade.
.” The skinny ties and matching outfits were stupid, but they churned out a few memorable bone-crunchers, including this song and “Walk Idiot Walk.”
.” If you’re into old-school guitar rock at all, you had to like this song, right? The opening lick was hypnotic, and the producer tweaked every bit for maximum bombast. Sort of a guy’s guy song. I would have been surprised if they’d ever cooked up anything close to this good again.
.” I didn’t like this album (Neon Bible) save this one song, which will probably remind you a little of Eddie and the Cruisers but in a good way.
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. The whole album, Haughty Melodic (an anagram of “Michael Doughty”), was excellent, although this was clearly the best track. I still miss Soul Coughing.
.” Cee-Lo’s “
,” from his 2002 solo debut, gets an honorable mention here, too. He can sing, but I think subsequent events made it clear Danger Mouse was the real artistic force behind this collaboration, while Cee-Lo provides the voice and the charisma.
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.” And let me just state for the record that I was all over this song a year before Budweiser stuck it on their commercials. There really is no justification for using a song this good to advertise a beer that bad.
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album would cross over, but their sound was probably 25 years late and five years early, as ’70s guitar rock seemed to make a comeback at the end of the decade with songs like Wolfmother’s entry on the list. The lead singer does look rather like a hobbit, though.
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.” I don’t generally get excited about politically-themed lyrics, but these were spot-on, in large part because Jack White picked a topic you could actually address in three minutes of words. Oh, and the song rocks.
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,” which also backs up Kool G Rap & DJ Polo’s “Streets of New York.”
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.” The best Prince song by an artist other than Prince – but not the top Prince homage on this list.
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.” Requires no explanation, I assume.
.” Not their usual straight-ahead rocker, but they manage to update a Motown-esque sound into their minimalist musical style with plenty of wordplay in the lyrics. I probably could have put another half-dozen White Stripes songs on this list without much of a stretch.
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.” Yet another Prince homage, reimagined through an alternative-rock lens. I liked Muse’s first album, Showbiz, released in 1999, but after that found them increasingly pop-oriented even as their music became more bloated with layers of instrumentation. But “Supermassive Black Hole” was such a departure from their usual material, a rare example where their over-the-top showmanship helped the song play up instead of down, with a funk-tinged groove behind the requisite falsetto vocal. This song is the most egregious omission from the first list; I simply hadn’t heard it, not when it came out, not until late in 2010. That period from late 2005 till the fall of 2006 was just a void for me, between changing jobs, becoming a father, and enduring probably the longest period of depression of my life; I shut down and missed out not just on art but on an incredibly important time for my family. And, worst of all, I wasn’t even aware I was depressed – my memories of the period are simply shrouded in fog. Um, anyway, this is a great song.
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album is a $5 download this month on amazon. Doesn’t have the standout single but it’s one of the most important hip hop albums of the last twenty years, in my opinion.
came out in May of 2009.
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”) but the best on their newest album. The hint of brass brought me back to one of my favorite bands of the ’90s, Animals that Swim, who never quite found an audience for their albums of original tracks that sounded like drinking songs.
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yet again) is a marvel, from “Winter Winds” to “White Blank Page” to “Roll Away Your Stone,” but “Little Lion Man” had the strongest hook, and its crossover on to American radio and eventual gold certification was one of the biggest stories in music this year.
” does have a lot of Vince Clarke in it, fun for a few nostalgic listens but without great staying power.)
” – Last Shadow Puppets (
” – the xx (
” – Interpol (
” – Fratellis (
” – Titus Andronicus (
” – Black Mountain (