Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away
It’s not perfect by any means, but this album entranced me. Now 56, Cave is one of those rare individuals who has successfully railed against the decline in inspiration and potency that often afflicts songwriters of a certain age. That much is clear listening to the soaringly beautiful Mermaids, which skews the myth of the siren, and Push the Sky Away’s ominous, ultimately uplifting title track.
Eleanor Friedberger – Personal Record
I’ve also grown to love this buoyant and highly inventive indie/power-pop album, but only after seeing it on another publication’s Best of 2013 list and checking it out on Spotify. Friedberger is best known for being one-half of the NYC indie duo The Fiery Furnaces. Solo, she has something of Aimee Mann’s wit and eloquence, but takes more left turns (witness her bossa nova-infused curio Echo or Encore).
Looking forward to...
The 2014 release I’m most eagerly awaiting is the new, as-yet-untitled album by Roddy Frame, the founding member of Aztec Camera. Frame was in sparkling form when he played his band’s revered 1983 debut High Land, Hard Rain in its entirety at a string of recent UK dates, and it augurs well that his new album will be released on AED Records, the label co-founded by his old pal Edwyn Collins. I’m also keen to hear the mooted newies from AC/DC and Adele (the latter’s 21 has now sold more than 28 million copies, so no pressure there, then).
* James McNair
Daft Punk – Random Access Memories
It’s all Daft Punk’s fault. The French duo’s pioneering first two albums inspired a flood of producers – from Skrillex to deadmau5 – to create sweet beats from their bedrooms. With the market near saturation point, the Parisians switched the game again by going back to the studio to release one of the most organic-sounding recordings in the dance genre. From the world-conquering, effervescent single Get Lucky to the elegiac The Game of Love, nearly everything on this timeless release comes across as lovingly crafted, with the robotic vocals sounding moving – as only Daft Punk know how.
Queens of the Stone Age – ...Like Clockwork
What do you do when you recover from a near-death experience? You spend some time with your loved ones. This is what the Queens of the Stone Age singer, guitarist and band leader Josh Homme did after complications from a knee operation. To cure the stress, he dragged his best friends Dave Grohl and Trent Reznor to the studio and began working on what is arguably one of the best releases of his stellar career. Where previous QOTSA recordings were ferocious affairs, most of the power of ...Like Clockwork comes from its quiet intensity and razor-sharp songwriting. Elton John delivers his most zany piano performance in Fairweather Friends and Grohl glues everything together with another impeccable drumming display.
Looking forward to...
After many false starts and fake rumours, the Tool singer Maynard James Keenan recently confirmed the psychedelic metal group are writing new songs for a planned 2014 release. Let’s hope this is the case. Tool’s last album was in 2006 and was titled 10,000 Days – here’s hoping the title isn’t prophetic.
* Saeed Saeed
Beyoncé – Beyoncé
Just when you think you’ve got it all set up, as the great Ann Peebles once sang, Beyoncé tears up your Best of 2013 list. Mid-career self-titled albums can suggest a departure and Beyoncé certainly made some bold statements here – the sudden December release and the impressively realised visual-album concept must have made many major artists reconsider their future strategies. That said, this novel campaign would have seemed frivolously extravagant had the music not taken brave leaps, too: moody electronica, mutant disco and some uncompromising lyrics raised eyebrows, while the mid-song sample of a Nigerian feminist’s speech was arguably pop’s most important minute of the year.
KT Tunstall – Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon
Another pleasant surprise, if much lower-key, was the Scottish singer KT Tunstall’s return to relevancy with an album inspired by traumatic events: the recent break-up of her marriage and death of her father. The result was a clearly therapeutic, often deeply moving, delight, sympathetically produced by Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb. Full of melodies that would melt the antipathy of even the frostiest critic of Tunstall’s earlier works, this is one of those albums that makes other records seem oddly shallow by comparison.
Looking forward to...
Once folk-fuelled contemporaries of Mumford & Sons, the youthful Londoners Bombay Bicycle Club have proven more versatile, progressing from heartbreaking acoustic balladry to experimental electronic pop. Their fourth album – due in February – looks set to push their inquisitive envelope further. Mixed by Mark Rankin, who also worked on QOTSA’s ...Like Clockwork, it promises techno beats, marimba and Bollywood samples: quite apt, given the band’s name.
* Si Hawkins
Kanye West – Yeezus
Amid more gossip-column inches than the royal wedding, it would be easy to forget that Mr Kardashian actually made his name as a musician, rather than a photographer-baiting angry (not-so) young man. But West was having none of that, spitting out the most ire-filled record of his multimillion-selling hip-hop career so far. The best evidence of this? New Slaves, an electro-rap menace that variously calls out racists, big business, reporters, the US prison service and, in fantastically foul-mouthed fashion, the entire male population of the upmarket American district The Hamptons. All of which might make some of his future social engagements with Kim somewhat awkward.
The Dillinger Escape Plan – One of Us Is the Killer
Those under the mistaken impression that metal is solely an aural preserve for stroppy teenage boys should really inject a dose of New Jersey’s The Dillinger Escape plan into their earbuds. Over a boundary-breaking career, they’ve become less a band than a constantly evolving machine of intimidating musical precision. This fifth album saw them hit new heights via the slashed-throat emotional outpourings of the pocket-rocket vocalist Greg Puciato versus his band’s dizzying rock chops, indebted to jazz, breakbeats and cinematic soundscapes. Brutally beautiful.
Looking forward to...
Azealia “212” Banks’s much-delayed debut album should prove whether she’s the hottest female rapper this side of Nicki Minaj or a one-hit wonder. Other than that, Kanye West is promising the follow-up to Yeezus in the summer, while the next Radiohead record and a BBC sessions album from the massive Massachusetts metallers Converge will do rather nicely, too. Oh and, on a personal note, first-time visits to the SXSW and Roadburn festivals.
* Adam Workman
Laura Mvula – Sing to the Moon
From an unlikely start as a composition student at the Birmingham Conservatoire, the British singer Laura Mvula’s first album appeared out of nowhere, fully formed, fully resolved and utterly different from anything else out this past year. Short on confidence, she had to be encouraged by her husband, the classical baritone Themba Mvula, to write songs – and what magical music she made. With a voice that has the lyrical sass of Jill Scott and the declamatory rhythm of Nina Simone, she somehow pulls together her background directing choirs, her interest in composers such as Olivier Messiaen and her understanding of orchestration to create an album that is at once catchy, intangible and blindingly original.
Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience, 1 of 2
Just over a decade after Justin Timberlake’s escape from boy-band shame with the release of his debut solo album Justified, his third LP confirms his status as the mainstream artist even music snobs love. Between some cracking singles, including Suit & Tie – already a classic – are some long-playing risks that pay off, with disco and soul grooves that are exciting, complex and irresistible. It’s weirdly compelling, it’s good-natured, it’s melodic, it’s super-smooth and it’s all sprinkled with Timbaland’s hit-making gold dust.
Looking forward to...
After six years without an album, newly signed to Capitol, Beck – one of the music industry’s most eclectic musicians – will make two albums in 2014. The first, Morning Phase, to be released in February, is a companion piece to his charged 2002 album Sea Change, and with its symphonic melancholy will be a reminder that Beck’s emotive power goes far beyond the clever-clogs irony of his early career.
* Gemma Champ
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