Saint Mort’s Top 10 Albums Of 2013
While we’re all busy compiling our favourite things of 2013 (take a look at our top games here, with more to come), Matt Kelly has come up with his list of the top 10 albums of this past year.
Read on to learn his top picks, and be sure to let us know if you agree, and what your favourites were!
10. The Lonely Island: The Wack Album – The SNL trio has released their first album since leaving SNL and it’s arguably their best. The thing with comedy groups is relistenablity, and this is where Lonely Island manages to always shine. The jokes are funny all the time, but more importantly the beats are great and they’re solid rappers. Packed with great guest verses and bizarre concepts, this is a record you’ll listen to over and over again.
9. Chords for Cures Comp Volumes 2 & 3 – I’m not gonna lie, this is super biased. Chords for Cures is my charity organization. Twice a year I release a free “pay-what-you-want” comp featuring amazing musicians of all genres. Hit up our Bandcamp and discover a new favorite band. Sorry for my shameless advertisement (but for real, I love these bands and you should give them a shot).
8. Barenaked Ladies: Grinning Streak – When Steven Page left Barenaked Ladies I was kinda concerned. While I preferred Ed’s vocals. to me Barenaked Ladies was all about the various voices. Their first album without Steven was pretty good and I enjoyed it greatly, but Grinning Streak was the first album where I saw this band could survive without their lead singer. It was the soundtrack of my summer this year.
7. Streetlight Manifesto/Toh Kay: The Hands That Thieve – If there’s anything I’ve learned over the last 15 years it’s that Tomas Kalnoky hates writing new songs. This is mostly a shame for us because lyrically he’s one of the best in the business. When he does finally get around to pumping out 10-12 songs he’s proud of they’re always super satisfying. This year we got the same album twice the ska version of the songs and the acoustic folk versions from Toh Kay (or at least that was plan) In my personal opinion the Toh Kay versions were the superior versions but both are fantastic.
6. John Fogerty: Wrote a Song For Everyone – John Fogerty is one of America’s most legendary musicians. His group, Creedence Clearwater Revival was quite literally the soundtrack of the Vietnam war. For his first album is almost 5 years Fogerty recruited a group of musicians to cover those classic songs. The cameos range from Foo Fighters to Alan Jackson. Each artist does a fantastic job covering the songs with Fogerty and his two original songs actually are pretty good as well really showing off his songwriting skills all these decades later.
5. Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP (Part 2) – I was very vocal in the past of my disappointment by Relapse and Recovery. I found both albums musically and lyrically disappointing compared to the incredible past of Slim Shady. Then in the summer I saw the music video for Bezerk. Immediately I started to think “this album is gonna be pretty amazing” and with the exception of one or two forgettable tracks it’s a fairly perfect album. That being said, I agree with the opinion of my younger brother “Eminem should definitely return now before he makes another album that makes us forget why we loved him.”
4. Queens of the Stone Age: …Like Clockwork – I never knew what to think of Queens of the Stone Age. All I knew was that they were bizarre and I liked it. This years album had them reunited with David Grohl (who drummed on arguably their best album, Songs for the Deaf) and was weirder and heavier than ever before. Queens of the Stone Age will never be a big name band but they will continue to have the massive cult following they’ve acquired over the years if they keep making albums like this.
3. Spose: The Peter Sparker Mixtape – Spose exploded onto the music scene because of a youtube video. The comedic video “I’m Awesome” helped propel him into the limelight and while Spose is still an indie artist (by his own choosing) it doesn’t make him less of a talented rapper. His free mixtape this year (one of two) was amazing filled with songs both serious and comedic.
2. Cossbysweater – This is a slighty biased pick (listen to my interview with Cossbysweater) but in all sincerity this album touched me on an emotional level. Cossbysweater is a weird musician who exists in a world of “comedy” while still being very touching and beautiful. While it’s easy to simply look at her song titles and write her off as a pop culture junkie comedian, the reality is that Allison Goertz (Cossbysweater) uses various pop culture icons as a way to express herself. While a few songs are genuinely funny it’s songs like “Good Kid” (inspired by Freaks and Geeks) or “Things Are Coming Up Milhouse” that open a door into Allison’s personal life and allows the listener to connect with her songs of lost love and being an outcast. Check out her BandCamp here.
1. Five Iron Frenzy: Engine of A Million Plots – I was so excited for the return of my all-time favorite band that there was a chance this would have been my number one even if it was unlistenable. Thankfully it was not. After 9 years of absence Five Iron Frenzy returned with a massive album following in the steps of their underrated FIF2: Electric Boogaloo album. This is not a ska album, this is a hard rock album with an amazing horn section and great backup vocals. Reese Roper proves again why he’s my all-time favorite singer/songwriter. It almost manages to be both their most spiritual and least christian album at the same time. If you were a fan of this band and you weren’t one of the people who helped them have one of the most successful music kickstarters of all time then you are missing out, if you never heard them before, perhaps it’s time to discover them.
