Sunday, December 8, 2013

The Early Year-end Music Lists of 2013

There are still 23 days left in 2013 for musical artists to release new tracks or albums, but none of those tracks or albums will appear on any of these year-end lists.  I love year-end lists, so I can hardly complain about them starting so early, but it really does feel like they show up earlier and earlier every year.  For myself, I'll be sticking to my tradition of waiting a full year.  Look for my best of 2012 list sometime in the next month.  Wait another year for my best of 2013 list.  In the mean time...

Paste Magazine features both a song list and an album list:

Paste's top 50 songs of 2013

Paste's top 50 albums of 2013

Pop Matters gives us the top songs of the year and the top albums in various categories

Pop Matters top 75 songs of 2013

Pop Matters top 10 best indie rock albums of 2013

Pop Matters top 10 best indie pop albums of 2013

Spin provides their lists in annoying slide show format

Spin's top 50 sings of 2013

Spin's top 50 albums of 2013

Stereogum also uses the slide show format, but it's a wee bit less annoying because there's a little more content.

Stereogum's top 50 albums of 2013

Pretty Much Amazing gives us a top 100

Pretty Much Amazing's top 100 songs of 2013

Pitchfork also goes to 100 with top tracks and a top 50 album list

Pitchfork top 100 tracks of 2013

Pitchfork top 50 albums of 2013

Drowned in Sound has just 20 albums, but only scrolling and no clicking is required, which is really thoughtful of them

Drowned in Sound top 20 albums of 2013

A New Yorker blog provides a very pop-centric top 40 songs list

Top 40 songs of 2013 (New Yorker blog)

Billboard has a critics picks list, which is also, of course, very pop-centric.  It's valuable though to have pop-centric critics lists because often critics ignore pop and some pop is definitely a lot better than other pop.

Top 20 songs of 2013 (Billboard critics list)

NPR thinks a top 100 should be listed alphabetically by artist.  I disagree, but here it is.

NPR's favorite 100 songs of 2013

NPR's top 10 folk and americana albums of 2013

NPR's top 50 favorite albums of 2013

Allmusic suffers from the same inability to rank their selections, but they alphabetize by last name (phone book style) rather than NPR's first name first approach (iTunes style).

Allmusic's top 50 albums of 2013

eMusic has a top 100 albums list with a rather odd interface.  They claim the "experience" of looking at the list is optimized for iOS7.  I think I'd like it better as a read rather than an experience, but I'm old-fashioned that way.

eMusic top 100 albums of 2013

Uncut has a top 80 albums list.  Why 80?  Twice as good as 40?  I don't know.

UNCUT's top 80 albums of 2013

I found all of the above a bit more predictable than I would have hoped, so I went searching for a few more obscure lists.  I haven't actually had that much luck so far.  Maybe those looking for hidden gems wait until after the year has really ended, much as I do with my own lists.  These were at least a little bit different in one way or another:

Secretly Important 10 best albums

The L Magazine best 20 albums of 2013

Chart Attack's 50 best songs of 2013

Top 10 songs of 2013 from The Boot

More lists will follow soon enough.  I'll update this post when they do.

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