Favourite Songs of 2013 (So Far):

2013 has been superb for music so far, and with albums from Arcade Fire, Wu-Tang Clan, Earl Sweatshirt and many others still to come the quality is only set to continue. Here's a selection of tracks (in no order) which I feel have particularly stood out amongst the year's finest hits:

Pusha – T – Numbers on the Board

Whilst Kanye West fans endlessly debate the merits, failures and croissants of Yeezus, his best work this year continues to be underappreciated. Co-produced by Kanye and Don Cannon, ‘Numbers on the Boards’ is a masterful exercise in precision and restraint. Pusha rhymes over a sparse drum beat and swampy bass, punctuated with distorted crowd cheers and in one instance a perfectly off-kilter 3 second Jay-Z sample.  Though the lyrics are standard hip-hop braggadocio, Pusha-T’s confident and relaxed delivery make his unlikely claims of balancing rap stardom and a large scale drug operation feel more legitimate than similar boasts by peers like Rick Ross. These elements come together to form a snarling beast of a track, the sound of old hands at the peak of their abilities.

The Strokes – Happy Ending

Any band whose recording career starts with two modern classics will struggle under the weight of expectation with every subsequent album. Following the muted reception to 2011’s comeback Angles, this year’s Comedown Machine had a decidedly low key release, the band neglecting to take part in interviews, tour or film music videos. The album, the last required to fulfill their contract with RCA, has a melancholy sense of finality to it, summed up best in penultimate song ‘Happy Ending’. Coming in at under 3 minutes, its punchy guitars and Julian Casablancas’ mumbled delivery give it that trademark Strokes sound, strutting along until guitar melody and vocals soar together during their catchiest chorus to date. If this really is goodbye then they've gone out on a hell of a high note.

Daft Punk – Get Lucky

There’s little more that can be said about Daft Punk’s omnipresent comeback. Undoubtedly the sound of the summer, Daft Punk revived disco and created a classic which is the total antithesis of the dominant EDM chart topping fare. Nile Rodgers won over a generation of new fans, and Pharrell was reestablished as one of the most sought out singers and producers in pop music. Random Access Memories may not have been the instant classic many were expecting, but there's no doubt that we’ll all still be listening to this song in twenty years time. 

(Make sure you've got the album version, not the single version, which bizarrely omits the superb intro.)

Fuck Buttons – Brainfreeze

Unlike Daft Punk you won't hear Fuck Buttons bellowing out across festivals this summer, but their sound is just as much an answer to electronic music's generic rut as that of the French hitmakers. Brainfreeze, the opener on superb new album 'Slow Focus', is a call to arms, equal parts medieval and futuristic. Military drum beats are matched with swathes of noise which don't stray to far from Fuck Buttons previous template of heady peaks and still troughs, but it's the added menace which sets it apart from their earlier work. Where their songs were once celebratory, they now feel threatening, on the cusp of violence, the added aggression creating a track which could just as much soundtrack a rave or a riot.




Unknown Mortal Orchestra - So Good At Being In Trouble 

Riding the same psychedelic wave as fellow Antipodeans Tame Impala, Unknown Mortal Orchestra distinguish themselves with their R+B slant. This cut from aptly named second album 'II' is a stripped back paean to lost love. Ruban Neilson soulful voice relays a story we're all familiar with over blues guitars and a drum beat primed for a hip-hop sample. The joy, just as with UMO's first album, is in realising that New Zealanders could be quite so funky.


Honorable Mentions:

Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know?, David Bowie - Where Are We Now?, Deerhunter - Monomania, Dornik - Something About You, Disclosure - White Noise, Iggy Azelea - Work, Kanye West - Bound 2, James Blake - To The Last, My Bloody Valentine - In Another Way, No Age - C'Mon Stimmung, Rudimental - Hell Could Freeze (Skream remix), Wavves - Sail To The Sun