Anteater's 25 Favorite Albums of 2013

14232949 · 12-17-2013, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dca

Nice. I imagine this is what Drake thinks he sounds like. thanks for the suggestion

not much grabbed me hip hop -wise this year, but Lewis Parker's The Puzzle Episode 2: 'The Glass Ceiling' and MC Melodee & Cookin Soul's 'My Tape Deck' were good albums.

Are you mad?
I will never understand this forum's complete misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Drake.
Why on earth would Drake want to send like this generic whiteboy rapper. The guy is nauseating and woefully bland.
'Oh, it was hard. Just trying to make a better life' Boring. Heard it all before, plus this guy, David Dallas, just mumbles. No charisma, no intrigue, no distinguishable characteristics.
Verses are bland and uninteresting.

In fact this guy embodies everything Drake and more specifically Nothing Was the Same is not.
Anteater you said 'Drake was disappointing this year' despite releasing his best record to date, not to mention many, many good to great guest spots.
There's no way any logical person can put Nothing was the Same below David Dallas or whatever his name and album are called.
Nothing was the Same was more diverse, had better production, verses, production and songs that are versatile enough to play in almost any social setting. If I played David Dallas to any of my friends, they'd skip the track. I know I was painfully tempted to.

In terms of hip-hop, Nothing was the Same finds itself only behind Acid Rap in regards to AOTY.

Anteater · 12-17-2013, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mankycaaant

Are you mad?
I will never understand this forum's complete misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Drake.
Why on earth would Drake want to send like this generic whiteboy rapper. The guy is nauseating and woefully bland.
'Oh, it was hard. Just trying to make a better life' Boring. Heard it all before, plus this guy, David Dallas, just mumbles. No charisma, no intrigue, no distinguishable characteristics.
Verses are bland and uninteresting.

In fact this guy embodies everything Drake and more specifically Nothing Was the Same is not.
Anteater you said 'Drake was disappointing this year' despite releasing his best record to date, not to mention many, many good to great guest spots.
There's no way any logical person can put Nothing was the Same below David Dallas or whatever his name and album are called.

In terms of hip-hop, Nothing was the Same finds itself only behind Acid Rap in regards to AOTY.

Uh huh...okay then. I'm not on bad terms with Drake or whatnot. He's no Kendrick Lamar (who had better guest spots this year anyway), but Take Care was a better album than Nothing Was The Same and all the big R&B players kick his ass on hooks this year, so there ya go.

Now as for Dallas: he's a DIY guy whose last record The Rose Tint caught my attention back in 2011 (and it didn't need 50 different producers lulz), so when his new one hit and I spun it a few times, I realized it worked for me where others didn't quite click. End of story.

If you actually go and check out what reviews there are out there on Falling Into Place, you'll notice they're all pretty positive. If he was just some "nauseating" white rapper who wasn't doing something right, you'd be seeing a different sort of response on the whole.

Let's be perfectly clear though: nothing I said in my review was insane, and Dallas isn't bland just because he isn't topping charts or marching in with your favorite producers (your comment on "better verses, production, etc." is subjective anyway, so I'm leaving it at that). This isn't NPR or Hip-Hop Nation or Pitchfork or wherever else you go for validation on rap, which is where he's going to be topping lists because...well, exposure is everything. And Acid Rap? Lol: Chance sounds so nasal that the acclaim he's getting is a bit baffling TBH. Kudos on the production though...

Anyway, If you want to expouse the fantasticality of Drake and others, I would suggest making a list of your own. You'll give everyone who never spent any time with him this year an excuse to go spin the album and the rest of us who heard it already an incentive to enjoy it all over again.

Thanks for your response by the way.

Anteater · 12-18-2013, 10:00 PM

14. Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience (The Complete Experience)

Genre: Neo-soul, Funk, Electro-Pop, Experimental, R&B, Art Pop

Sounds Like: Michael Jackson, Prince, modern R&B

In a curious turn of events that not even Nostradamus could have seen coming, Justin Timberlake went full prog n' B this year with his 20/20 Experience duology of albums, complete with many songs coming close to the 10 minute mark and enough ideas between three songs to fill complete LPs of many an artiste on his level of exposure. But instead of slipping on the big banana of commercial ruin-via-alienating-core-audience, the former N'Sync crooner danced his way right up to enough $$$ and #1 chart topping to make his career all over again and then some. For those of you who didn't experience either Part 1 nor Part 2 this year though, I suppose the big question is: what's the big deal?

Well, that's the funny thing: as the year went on and on, I began to realize that Justin's affluent & indulgent creative relationship with producer Timbaland and their seemingly ill-thought tendency to give the majority of the songs a lot of running time has ended up rubbing off on me with repeat listens: like the progressive rock I call my musical foundation, deeper cuts like 'Don't Hold The Wall', 'True Blood' and 'Spaceship Coupe' weren't really built to capture your attention in any sort of immediate fashion: they're classic highly polished longplayers, tailored for a different audience than Yes or Genesis but accomplishing the goal of bleeding into you over time like runny paints on a vast canvas. But as the big singles like 'Suit & Tie' and 'Take Back The Night' illustrate, Timberlake is still a master fisherman who knows just where to drop the lure.

As I've mentioned offhand before, 2013 is going to be remembered as the year where R&B peaked at a creative zenith we haven't seen since the early 80's...and albums like the 20/20 Experience are a big part of why it happened.

The Batlord · 12-19-2013, 10:19 AM

I'm sure I've listened to Fates Warning before, but I generally stay away from prog metal, so it was just kind of a whim to play "I Am". Fantastic. I just closed whatever the hell I was just listening to so I could play this album.

Anteater · 12-19-2013, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

I'm sure I've listened to Fates Warning before, but I generally stay away from prog metal, so it was just kind of a whim to play "I Am". Fantastic. I just closed whatever the hell I was just listening to so I could play this album.

Yeah, the Fates have been around a lonnnng time: the few legit metalheads I met in college a few years back were familiar with some of their mid 80's stuff like Awaken The Guardian or The Spectre Within, but the band has always had trouble marketing outside of the prog demographic from the 90's onwards because of bands like Dream Theater casting such a big shadow.

But yeah, Darkness In A Different Light is about as good a jumping off point for 'em as anything they've ever done, so glad you like it.

dca · 12-19-2013, 11:04 AM

That Ed Motta stuff is very good, never heard of him before. if anything it's almost too steely dan-esque, perhaps needs to inject a bit more of his own style, but very impressive nonetheless. thanks!

Anteater · 12-19-2013, 06:09 PM

^ Yeah, Motta immersed himself so much into that late 70's L.A. rock aesthetic that its almost uncanny. He deserves a billion kudos just for being able to accomplish that in 2013 of all years though.

#13 is a rather curious one guys, so enjoy!

13. Subsignal - Paraiso

Genre: Progressive Pop, Art Rock, AOR

Sounds Like: Sieges Even, The Police, Savatage

When it comes time to review some band or another, its normally pretty easy to find a point of reference in 2013. "Oh, this group has a (insert more prominent artist) influence" or "Hey, this band does ___ genre and ___ genre together". When it comes to German outfit Subsignal though, the act of categorization seemed futile to me even back in 2009 when I had the pleasure of listening to their first record. Sure, there's a progressive metal connection to the former band the lead singer Arno Menses was in called Sieges Even, but the music that you hear on an album like Paraiso (their third LP) isn't really metal at all despite being technically complex and full of virtuosity. There's lots of dynamics and hooks and textures, so "progressive pop" or "art rock" fits, but even then it feels I'm trying to fit a skyscraper into a cardboard box.

Definitions aside, Paraiso was a musical journey I'd find myself tuning into when I couldn't be bothered to put on any country, hip-hop, industrial, prog-rock, jazz, etc. Everyone has those albums that hit some sort of crossover sweet spot and are pleasing to the ear when nothing else quite suits the mood, and this baby fit the bill for me. Great songs, of course, are in bountiful supply, with my top picks being the metallic title track, the choral (and vaguely haunting) 'A Giant Leap Of Faith' and the beautiful orchestral/acoustic led 'A Heartbeat Away'. There's something for everybody though...a drink for every occasion you might say!

Besides the great songwriting and diverse instrumentation which is utilized to excellent effect though, special attention needs to be given to the lyrics and overall atmosphere. The whole album burns with an elusive, yearning quality that sticks to your bones. Take, for instance, the chorus from the title track-

Quote:

I’m the world in which I walk
I am the compass to my own Paraiso.
Weight of mountains on my back,
but nothing stops me,
an impulse to rely on-

The wind is old, so is my heart
So young the dreams that stir my faint bravado.
Somewhere sometime, someplace else-
A distant promise lights my lost Paraiso

Paraiso, of course, means paradise. How many people since ancient times have lived and died seeking some external mythical destination where their happiness might be quantified? Such desire remains a pertinent and present part of human nature: many would rather wish for a promised land to appear before them instead of looking inside themselves for real solutions...and if that's not relevant I don't know what is.

So raise a toast to Subsignal for giving us one of the most human albums I've heard this year. Hell, buy 'em two rounds for making it catchy as hell to boot!

Graeme O'Neil · 12-19-2013, 06:51 PM

Nice list so far. Funny that you didn't mention my standout tracks on Monae's album (What An Experience, Primetime) or JT's album (Drink You Away, Blue Ocean Floor).

Anteater · 12-20-2013, 09:17 PM

^ Well, lots of good songs on both records. I'd actually find it kinda weird if we all liked the same songs from each, lol!

Anywho, met000000l for all! \m/

12. Carcass - Surgical Steel

Genre: Death Metal

Sounds Like: Themselves

So it's time for some snarlz, riffz and headbanging goodness: there's been enough spectacular death metal, black metal, grind, etc. this year to fill 15x AOTY lists and they still wouldn't be enough to cover everything (and I enjoyed a good many of them!). But for what it's worth, I think I picked the crown jewel of the lot for 2013. And yes, I do take travelers' checks.

So, just to be clear - I'm not gonna be a complete elitist tard and tell you I completely despised this band's previous (and until this year, final) release Swansong: I didn't even listen to that album til nearly twelve years after it fell flat commercially back in 1996. I personally thought it was so-so, but for the hardcore fans who loved these death metal pioneers from their illustrious start all the way up to 1993's groundbreaking Heartwork I'm sure people felt it was a sonic betrayal of the worst kind....oh well, shit happens and people move on. Bands do too, and I don't think anyone ever thought these guys would ever record another album. But hey, miracles do happen...and Surgical Steel is one baddass motherf-in miracle if there ever was one. A masterpiece even: the sort of record that only comes about when some fanatic at the soundboard decided to have the band listen to all the classic early 80's Judas Priest vinyls on repeat for a week while keeping some Roid Rage'd asshole on staff outside to hose down Jeff Walker and Bill Steer every time they didn't blast the producer out of the next room (though I'm sure Colin Richardson is used to it by now if his time with Cannibal Corpse taught him anything). I'll bet there was bourbon too. Lots of it!

So is this the best ball busting, throat scarring, shredtastic sorta-melodic death metal album of all time? Who knows, but its got 2013 in its pocket and laughing about it all the way to the bank. And if you doubt my words, one whiff of opening instrumental '1985' or the gravity defying 'Noncompliance To ASTM F 899-12 Standard' should pulverize that skepticism into bonemeal.

Quite eerie when you think about it though. Seventeen years after releasing their worst record + vanishing off the face of the Earth to join a bunch of smaller-time groups, they suddenly rise from the dead, kill all their competitors and worshipers in one fell swoop...and created a new classic in the process. Almost makes you want to believe in God. Or maybe the Devil.

The Batlord · 12-21-2013, 09:34 AM

I still need to go out and buy that. Brilliant ****ing album. If he has a brain in his head Michael Amott should be kicking himself for sticking with Arch Enemy cause that album just made them even more irrelevant than they already were. Why would anyone want to listen to Rise of the Tyrants when they could just put this on instead?

12-19-2013, 11:04 AM	#26 (permalink)
dca Music Addict Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 69	That Ed Motta stuff is very good, never heard of him before. if anything it's almost too steely dan-esque, perhaps needs to inject a bit more of his own style, but very impressive nonetheless. thanks!

12-19-2013, 06:51 PM	#28 (permalink)
Graeme O'Neil Groupie Join Date: Dec 2013 Posts: 10	Nice list so far. Funny that you didn't mention my standout tracks on Monae's album (What An Experience, Primetime) or JT's album (Drink You Away, Blue Ocean Floor).