A God-awful Small Affair

In any other year, a lot of these LPs would've slotted in quite nicely to the top ten. 2013 was such a strong year for albums, though, that it resulted in them just falling short. #20 - "Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action" - Franz Ferdinand It didn't exactly set the world on fire and that's a little upsetting. The Scottish band put out one of their finest albums to date last year and it was worth the wait. #19 - "Bankrupt!" - Phoenix Another band we'd been waiting since 2009 to hear from again were the Frenchmen Phoenix - time spent probably accumulating all of those seventy one tracks for the deluxe edition's second disc. You'd be forgiven for sticking to the first, though, since it was a bag of electronic goodness and fist-pumping anthems. #18 - "Torres" - Torres An album that sits perfectly on the fence between poignant balladry and ballsy grunge sounds, I'd heartily recommend this to a...

Thank you for enduring this countdown - there are only more to come I'm afraid. #20 - "Black Skinhead" - Kanye West I wouldn't mind another Marilyn Manson rip-off next year to be honest if they sounded as furious and lively as this. #19 - "You're Not the One" - Sky Ferreira Gorgeous 80s riffs, a soaring chorus and a general amalgamism of everything excellent about recent indie-pop music. #18 - "Closer" - Tegan and Sara I think this is probably the best chorus of the year. It makes doing the grocery shopping feel triumphant. #17 - "Recover" - CHVRCHES Basically this whole teens-thing is full of all my "choruses of the year" before I settle down and get all deep and pretentious for my top ten, yo. #16 - "It All Feels Right" - Washed Out I just can't put into words how well this style of music just clicks with me and turns me into a gooey, reclining mess. #15 - "Q.U.E.E.N. (feat. Er...

One would be forgiven for assuming that no synthpop groups hail from Scotland; the nation doesn't exactly scream carefree pop music after all (or at least, it hasn't since the Proclaimers disappeared into the annals of history). Yet with Boards of Canada and CHVRCHES both making explosive returns or breakthroughs to electronic music in 2013, the wee nation can finally shake off those dour-rock stereotypes. The Glasgow trio of Martin Doherty, Iain Cook and Lauren Mayberry already had an uphill climb ahead of them purely by being a brand new synthpop group in 2013 - I can quite comfortably say that I have around a hundred or so from the past 24 months lurking on my iTunes library - without all of the usual pressures of the  big debut and the critical praise from institutions such as the BBC Sound of Music. The Bones of What You Believe doesn't show that, though, and comes across as one of the most confident and consistent pop records I've come across this decade.  ...