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...

So yeah... this is the second thirty, which in hindsight is rather an arbitrary number, but I've been busy with stuff and just want to build more suspense for the top twenty. So, in the mean time, enjoy these not-quite-good-enough offerings. #50 - "Love Illumination" - Franz Ferdinand Did anyone notice that they released an album? ANYONE? #49 - "New Slaves" - Kanye West Probably the best verse on the album. #48 - "Something About You" - Dornik 2013's spiritual successor to Frank Ocean's Sweet Life . Smooth. #47 - "This Ladder is Ours" - The Joy Formidable They're going to take at least 10 of these to make them as instantly loveable as, say, CHVRCHES, but in the mean time I'm happy to see them bash out jams like this. #46 - "Back Together" - Annie HOUSE-POP HAS REACHED NORWAY. Wonderful. #45 - "5AM" - Katy B I was kinda hoping for some more Diplo following 2012's Danger EP...

    If I'm honest, there haven't been many albums this year that have stood out in record stores or made me stroke my iPod with small fits of affection - out of their sheer appearance, at least. Here, I compile ten that're at least "quite pretty" and OH BOY ARE THEY. #10 - "Nothing Was the Same" - Drake I didn't go much on the album itself, with the exception of a few singles, but the way in which this double-whammy was parodied on t'internet was mildly amusing.   #9 - "Old" - Danny Brown Is it a dig at Macklemore's Heist record? Is it a Napoleon reference? Either way, it's pretty b old ha ha ha ha hahaha hahaha ha. #8 - "Paracosm" - Washed Out It's a matter of time before this pattern is on a T-shirt I buy, I suppose. #7 - "Long.Live.A$AP" - A$AP Rocky Don't really consider myself a fan of him after how drawn out his breakthrough was and how 'm...

You know you live in slightly sad times for music when you go and read a couple of comments about Chance the Rapper, a man who, by any definition, is relatively new on the scene and just starting to pick up praise and support, and finding prissy little bitches like this: he'll probably get a lot more listeners following a tour opening for Macklemore...ugh, why God, why?  Whilst the ready availability for "just some guy"'s thoughts is just an easily ignored phenomenon of the internet age, and a large portion of internet discussion is held by disingenous people just seeking argument for their own entertainment, it's a little discouraging that rappers with even a smidgen of success - and when your free mixtapes are sold on Amazon by bootleggers you can call yourself pretty much there - are subject to the most scrutiny. A rare case where the real name is better than the moniker; Chancelor Bennett's second mixtape (following 2012's 10 D...