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Thursday, 19 December 2013

SYSTEM DISRUPTOR'S TOP 50 SONGS of 2013


In the first year of the Lorde, it was hard to ignore her, especially living in New Zealand.  Hard to ignore her as she became the first solo New Zealand artist to top the US charts. Hard to ignore her as mass saturation of her every move, every lunch she shared, every comment she made was news. Mention of her youth, her canny sense of riding the wave of a backlash against capitalism. Everything she did was acknowledged to the point where I was bored of Lorde. I tried to not like her songs but Royals was something that I couldn’t shake so it made this list. 

Looking down the list, I noticed that there were quite a few songs by artists who I would describe as post-grunge-the likes of Coliseum and Roomrunner. Fitting in that this year saw both the 20th anniversary reissue of In Utero and Nirvana’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There’s also an appearance by Pearl Jam, who released another pretty underwhelming album with one decent  in Mind Your Manners. 

Kanye West and Vampire Weekend were the only two acts to have two songs to feature on the list. In Modern Vampires of the City, Vampire Weekend made my year’s favourite album. I’ve always been a Vampire Weekend fan-boy and I’ve been a bit bemused by some of the backlash directed against them. Modern Vampires of the City doesn’t have any immediate songs but it has a collection of great songs, signaling a more mature but not more boring album. Yeesus by Kanye West has left me divided-I like a number of songs on it but as a whole, I can’t say it’s a great album, certainly not in the league of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Kanye has never been a great lyricist or even a great rapper but he does make interesting compelling music. He might be impatient for croissants but he remains music’s most vital artist

Shabba- A$AP Ferg feat A$AP Rocky           
The Way We Fall-Alela Diane
Invisible-Annie
Reflecktor- Arcade Fire
Do I Wanna Know?- Arctic Mondays
Control- Big Sean
You're Not Good Enough- Blood Orange
New Seeds- Boards of Canada
Fuzzbang- Coliseum                       
Avant Gardener- Courtney Barrett                                   
Get Lucky ft. Pharrell Williams-Daft Punk           
Lonely- Danny Brown           
Love is Lost-James Murphy remix- David Bowie                       
Sunday (ft Frank Ocean)- Earl Sweatshop                                               
No Religion (ft.The Underachievers)- Flatbush Zombies                                   
Primetime (feat. Miguel)- Janelle Monáe                       
Open Eye Signal- Jon Hopkins                                   
Black Skinhead- Kanye West           
New Slaves- Kanye West           
Banana Clipper feat. Big Boi- Killer Mike/El-P                                               
Full Of Fire- The Knife           
Wakin On A Pretty Day- Kurt Vile           
Royals- Lorde           
Weight- Mikal Cronin                                               
Only Tomorrow- My Bloody Valentine           
Graceless- The National                                                           
Higgs Boson Blues- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds                                                
Tide Waits for No Man- Nikita the Spooky and a Circus of Men           
Stoned and Starving- Parquet Courts                                               
Mind Your Manners- Pearl Jam           
Entertainment- Phoenix                       
The Captain- The Phoenix Foundation           
Song for Zula- Phosphorescent           
Nosetalgia (ft. Kendrick Lamar)- Pusha T                                               
Cat & Mouse- Radkey                                               
Blurred Lines ft. T.I., Pharrell-Robin Thicke                                               
Weird- Roomrunner                                               
She Will- Savages           
Tiger Tank- Speedy Ortiz                                               
Toe Cutter-Thumb Buster- Thee Oh Sees                                               
Strandbar (Disko Version)- Todd Terje                                               
South Paw-Tomahawk           
Does It- Tricky           
Mercy- TV On The Radio                                               
So Good At Being In Trouble- Unknown Mortal Orchestra           
Diane Young- Vampire Weekend           
Ya Hey- Vampire Weekend           
Harlem Roses- Vinny Cha$e           
Byegone- Volcano Choir                                               
One- Yamantaka/Sonic Titan                                                

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