The vocal melody seems to head in odd directions. You don't honestly need to know anything about what he's singing, but beneath is a lot of complexity, especially in the musical arrangement. This following song, 'Step,' by Vampire Weekend is clever (in the way that Elvis Costello might be clever) but not clever for its own sake (in the way that Elvis Costello might be). Reminds me a bit of Alt-J, the kind of lush pop that time-traveled forward from the seventies to 2013, while picking up a few technological tricks on the way. The Man entitled 'Modern Jesus' is wonderful. They are young people who sing about young people things, and that's OK.Īnyway, I'm feeling a bit lazy, so what I'll do is just six songs that I listened to a lot this year. Katy Perry and Rihanna are also on the list. I know that hipsters like Haim, but honestly I can't bring myself to listen to them. I have heard their music and I also like them.Īnd then you go the top 10 singles, and it's got stuff by Lorde, Palma Violets, and Florida George Line. So that brings me the remaining two acts: Vampire Weekend and Kanye West. Among the others on the list, I have heard of The Weeknd, Miley Cyrus, and Drake, but I have not heard any music by them.

According to them, the top 10 best albums included those by Earl Sweatshirt, Pusha T, Local Natives, Paramore, and Kacey Musgrave. Let's go to a fairly mainstream middle brow list, for example, something like Entertainment Weekly. This is most starkly reflected when I look at year-end lists from some websites, and I find (once again) that not only have I not heard or seen or read what is considered the best of the year, I have not even heard of the people on these lists. and still not know what the hell is going on with other people's preferences. In other words, it is possible to be fairly engaged with music, movies, TV, etc.

Others have made this point before, but the way in which popular culture is fragmented is really striking these days. So how did 2013 stack up in terms of culture in my life? I confess that my interests don't reflect any kind of coherent sensibility but I did enjoy a bunch of stuff: music, TV, films, books, and whatever.

Album paramore 2013 blogspot blogs