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...

There's a small problem in finding yourself disillusioned with the charts: you can find yourself arriving rather late to the party when something actually decent comes along. Around October last year, the Lawrence brothers were finding small success with their single Latch , featuring another future chart-botherer Sam Smith (of Naughty Boy's La La La fame), and I was none-the-wiser. In 2013, however, it has been much harder to escape the sound of Settle . Their stream of successful singles has soundtracked the UK's summer in a way far less irritating than Robin Thicke could. It's a welcome surprise, really - 2013 has been excellent for chart music in Great Britain. Icona Pop, Daft Punk, Duke Dumont, Rudimental, Avicii and Naughty Boy have all been extremely enjoyable #1s, and although Disclosure's best attempt at the same feat was a #2 back in February, they rather embody this display of fresh British talent.  After a brief spoken intro we sli...