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Music

Noisey's Best and Worst of 2013 - Drew Millard

Lots of music happened this year. Here are some of Drew's favorite albums and singles from said year.

Hey y'all, it's Drew, the Features Editor of Noisey. I mostly put rap albums on this list because I like rap music the most, but there were lots of really good records that came out in pretty much every arena or scene or barren BandCamp page or whatever. Read Dan Ozzi's list here, and read my favorite albums and singles of the year below, followed by a bunch of really crazy shit.

DREW'S TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2013

10. French Montana—Excuse My French

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You don't have to be Olivia Benson to know that French Montana did not craft the most drum-tight record of the year, but with ever burr of "HAAANH" punctuating verses that sound like Bob Dylan off a pint of lean, yet another nail was struck in the coffin of a million sentient backpacks trying to "bring New York back," so that's really all you can ask for.

9. Secret Boyfriend—This Is Always Where You’ve Lived

Secret Boyfriend is a dude named Ryan Martin. He lives in Carrboro, North Carolina, and was heretofore known mostly as the weird guy at noise shows around town who closed his set by beating himself in the face with a symbol, creating an avalanche of sound so intense that you could feel his agony in your dick. Let This Is Always Where You've Lived wash over you, attempt to parse nothing, and enjoy your safe distance from Martin’s bloody visage.

8. Robb Bank$—Tha City

Turns outthe greatest gift Shaggy could give the world wasn't "It Wasn't Me," but instead his dreadheaded maniac of a son who's down with SpaceGhostPurrp and shoots words at you like Marcus Fenix emptying rounds from a DayGlo AK-47 with unlimited bullets. Overwhelming at times but never boring, Robb Bank$ crafts a demonic, insular world, one that dares you to enter it but rewards—nay, demands—repeated listens and positions Bank$ as one of the most interesting figures in rap’s increasingly flattening playing field, as well-positioned as any other weirdo for an unlikely 2014 crossover.

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7. Ryan Hemsworth—Guilt Trips

Up from the 00100100th chamber of the internet rises Ryan Hemsworth, a sentient cloud of HTML with R&B on his mind and twee in his heart. What separates him from the gaggle of other producers working within the same aesthetic realm is this dude actually has songs that live and breathe, rather than simply condensate in some barren SoundCloud, never to be heard from again. Guilt Trips is an album worth coming back to, something Hemsworth’s contemporaries and pretenders would pay an e-safe of Bitcoins for.

6. TY$—Beach House 2

This is a mixtape for the quiet times. Put Beach House 2 and savor the moment with the one you love by popping molly and having an orgy, or getting gone off patron punching that one guy in the face, slow-motion style, or embark on a new beginning by indulging in some infidelities, tying your new lover up and making them suck the poop out of your asshole (sensually, of course).

5. Danny Brown—Old

You’ve heard this already, you have opinions on it already, Danny Brown rules, I’m out.

4. Cam’Ron—Ghetto Heaven, Vol. 1

Cam’s the Larry David of this rap shit, and he gives nary an iota of a fuck. Need proof? He makes T.I. rap over “In the Jungle” and it sounds great despite the presence of logic in this universe. He solicits 2 Chainz for a feature, only to fade his verse out faster than you can say “Tity 2 Necklace.” There is a song called “Instagram,” and another the uses the phrase “Emoji mad face.” He raps over Cults’ “Go Outside” and it sounds so good it actually redeems those hipster shitheads’ entire career. There are so many joyous moments on this tape that if you do not enjoy it, you are not truly alive.

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3. Diarrhea Planet—I’m Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams

They said shirts were a thing bands had to wear. They said technical chops weren’t punk and that choruses were a thing a band needed if they wanted to be poppy. They said four guitars was too many guitars. Diarrhea Planet are here to prove that all of those phantom people I just made up were totally full of shit. Starting with the pulse-quickener “Lite Dream” and never letting up, I’m Rich merges an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink guitar attack with fuck-it indifference and misery, and it’s perfect. Oh, and choruses? Fuck ‘em. Why have a chorus when everything in your record is already a hook? This record could have come out in 1986, 1992, or now, and it’d still be one of the top albums of the year.

2. Kevin Gates—The Luca Brasi Story

Kevin Gates is sad! Kevin Gates likes Nicholas Sparks! Nah, seriously, Kevin Gates is one of the most fully-formed rappers to break this year, a novelistic storyteller who crams pathos into both his voice and words, an old soul who thrives off of being misunderstood by everyone from his romantic interests, compatriots, his label, and even himself. This is one of those records that people will be listening to a decade from now, still saying, “How the hell did he pull that off?”

1. Kanye West—Yeezus

Yeah, you already knew where this one was going to end up.

BONUS ALBUMS:

Yung Lean—Unknown Death 2002

I might not be listening to Yung Lean this time next year, but I listen to a fuckton of Yung Lean right now, and sometimes, that’s good enough.

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Lil Durk—Signed to the Streets

The Drill Scene in Chicago has only gotten wilder and better in recent months, and perhaps its finest document so far is this here mixtape. Consider this a stand-in for "All Chicago Rap from 2013."

THE TOP TEN SINGLES OF 2013

10. Drop City Yacht Club feat. Jeremih—“Crickets” (Viceroy Remix)

Jeremih’s hook is further proof that dude is constantly just like 17 levels above everybody else, and Viceroy’s rework of the original beat swims with the dolphins in St. Lucia.

9. Florida Georgia Line feat. Nelly—“Cruise (Remix)”

Who knew that going country would revive Nelly’s career? Nelly, apparently, that’s who. Florida Georgia Line (hilariously abbreviated as FLAGAL) are the midpoint of all recorded music, in a good way. Their ace in the hole is reinterpreting country traditions for the Wal-Mart-rap set, a demographic that everyone was heretofore too cool to acknowledge. This goes down like a cup of coffee loaded with a dollop of Fireball whiskey—sweet, a little spicy, and edgeless to the point where you just might reach Nirvana if you play it enough times.

8. Kitty—“Second Life”

The force is strong with this one, and on “Second Life,” she proves she may become a Jedi yet.

7. Trinidad Jame$ feat. Rich Homie Quan—“Jumpin’ Off Texa$”

Write Trinidad off for his misguided Maino beefs, one-hit wonderdom, and shitty BET freestyles all you want, but he’s still a force to be reckoned with. Teaming with the similarly fiscally minded ATLien Rich Homie Quan and producer Young Chop for this tour de force of yelped adlibs and fuck-your-couch shirtless shit-talking, Jame$ makes a pretty fucking strong case that he just might escape that all-gold cage he accidentally rapped himself into.

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6. Valient Thorr—“No Strings Attached”

God-tier pop-metal straight up your ass, like Thin Lizzy garnished with positive based energy, and that’s all I have to say about that.

5. Chance the Rapper feat. Ab-Soul—“Smoke Again”

Yes, Chance the Rapper prodigiously talented and has an exuberant imagination and has been imbued with a wisdom beyond his years, but for whatever reason, Acid Rap didn’t stick to my ribs like it did for most of you hypebeasts. Maybe it was the hype yet again outstripping the actual substance, or maybe it was that none of the other songs could stack up against “Smoke Again,” providing zero precocious romanticisms or philosophizing, instead just finding two great-ass rappers stomping all over a whopper of a martial beat. The mood is light, all the context you need provided by the hook: “I gotta smoke again, I got shit to do.”

4. Sophie—“Bipp”

“Bipp” takes the big-room EDM concept that anything can be a hook and refits it for sweaty basements and weird warehouses in Bed-Stuy you have to do secret handshakes to get into. A “Clarity” for the indie-toothgrinder in your life.

3. Chief Keef—“Go to Jail” / “I Kno”-->“Baby Whats Wrong With You”--> “Yesterday”

Four Chief Keef songs count as one single because this is my list and you're not allowed to ask questions. Anyways, Chief Keef is truly the rap game’s Grateful Dead, ten years after Jay Z decided that term needed to exist. If Keef had made the entirety of Almighty So in the same style of the tape’s last three tracks it would be the album of the year. “Go to Jail” is the prelude to the other three songs’ concerto, because duh.

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2. Nipsey Hussle—“All Get Right”

Turns out the true heir to the Dischord DIY crown (it’s made out of cardboard, obvs) is a smart-as-hell, pissed-to-heaven gangster out of L.A. who had to damn near to scream at Complex to remind people he matters. The New York media cares too much about New York, anyways.

1. Brownstone—“If U Love Me” (Brenmar and Murlo Remix)

I hold this song's excellence to be self-evident.

THE TOP 11 LISTS I MADE BECAUSE IT IS THE END OF 2013

THE TOP FIVE RECORDS I LIKED A LOT THAT I DIDN’T PUT IN MY TOP TEN ALBUMS LIST BECAUSE EVERYBODY ALREADY KNEW THEY WERE FIRE OF 2013
5. Haim—Days Are Gone
4. Blood Orange—Cupid Deluxe
3. Vampire Weekend—Modern Vampires of the City
2. Migos—Young Rich Niggas
1. R. Kelly—Black Panties

THE TOP THREE ALBUMS I LISTENED TO THE MOST THIS YEAR FOR REASONS I’M STILL NOT ENTIRELY SURE OF OF 2013
3. Fall Out Boy—From Under the Cork Tree
2. Eminem—The Marshall Mathers LP
1. At the Drive-In—Relationship of Command

THE TOP SIX WEIRDEST INTERACTIONS I HAD WITH MUSICIANS OF 2013
6. Talking about shoes with Pete Wentz
5. Riding in The-Dream’s Maybach and him claiming the car’s curtains were made of panties
4. R. Kelly singing the first half of “I Wish” to me for no apparent reason
3. Diddy demanding I interview him
2. Accidentally sort-of causing Foxygen to break up
1. Trying to roll a blunt for Mike Jones and failing miserably

THE TOP TWO RAP JOKES I THOUGHT OF THEN REVERSE-ENGINEERED CONSPIRACY THEORIES FOR OF 2013
2. Scam’ron
1. The Robb Bank$ Decepticon

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THE TOP ONE LOOKS I GAVE ERIC SUNDERMANN WHILE HE WAS SITTING ACROSS FROM ME IN THE OFFICE OF 2013

THE TOP FIVE WAYSI SAID “BRO” OF 2013
5. “Brah”
4. “Breh”
3. “Broh”
2. “Bruh”
1. “Bro”

THE TOP FIVE ARGUMENTS I DIDN’T CARE ABOUT OF 2013
5. IS LORDE RACIST???
4. IS EMINEM IRRELEVANT???
3. IS JAY Z A SELL-OUT???
2. IS THERE A POP-PUNK REVIVAL???
1. IS KENDRICK LAMAR THE BEST RAPPER ALIVE???

THE TOP SIX SLICES OF PIZZA I HAD AT VINNIE’S OF 2013
6. Plain, topped with BBQ sauce, parmesan cheese, nutritional yeast, and red pepper flakes
5. Grandma
4. Pepperoni, topped with BBQ sauce
3. Cowboy
2. Buffalo Chicken
1. Inpeption (Pepperoni with pepperonis on top of and under the cheese)

THE TOP TEN FREE SNACKS FROM THE VICE SNACK AREA I ATE FOR LUNCH WHEN I COULDN’T AFFORD VINNIE’S OF 2013
10. Fritos
9. Animal Crackers
8. Apples
7. Oreo Minis
6. Doritos
5. Chips Ahoy
4. Bananas
3. Trail Mix
2. Cheetos
1. Chex Mix

THE TOP FOUR FLAVORS OF K-CUP COFFEE AVAILABLE IN THE VICE KITCHEN OF 2013
4. Morning Edition Medium Blend
3. Hazelnut
2. Jet Fuel
1. Revv

THE TOP FIVE PACKAGES PR FIRMS SENT NOISEY OF 2013
5. Ten dildos made to look like the dicks of superheroes
4. An up-to-date translation of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis
3. The entire Trukfit 2013 fall line, including a checkered full-zip onesie
2. A Lonely Island “YOLO” seven-inch
1. One unisex vibrator

Drew Millard is an actual crazy person. He is on Twitter - @drewmillard