2013 Year In Review: Top 75 Songs

Another fine year in music is coming to an end. Gonna do things different this year and list my 75 favourite songs in alphabetical order instead of a countdown. Countdowns are kind of silly.....but I will point out my track of the year. You can listen to 65 of the songs in the playlist at the bottom of the post.  Links are provided for tracks that were not available for the playlist.

My favourite albums, gigs and other fun stuff will be forthcoming in another post.....

Favourite Songs:

Alpine- "Gasoline"
Arcade Fire- "Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)"
Arcade Fire- "Reflektor"
Arctic Monkeys- "Do I Wanna Know?"
Arctic Monkeys- "Arabella"
A$AP Ferg- "Shabba"(Ft. A$AP Rocky)
Austra- "Home"
Courtney Barnett- "Avant Gardener"

Courtney Barnett: "History Eraser"

David Bowie- "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)"
David Bowie- "Where Are We Now?
David Lynch (Ft. Lykke Li)- "I'm Waiting Here"
Dirty Beaches-"Casino Lisboa"
Beck-" I Won't Be Long"
Braids- "Amends"
Braids-"In Kind"
Brendan Canning- "Bullied Days"
Chelsea Wolfe- "The Warden"
Chvrches- "Recover"
Classixx-"All Your Waiting For" (Ft. Nancy Whang)
Comanechi-"Patsy"
Cults- "High Road"
Cults- "I Could Hardly Make You Mine"
Daft Punk-"Get Lucky"
Diana- "Perpetual Surrender"
Dum Dum Girls- "Lost Boys & Girls Club"
Elephant- "Skyscraper"
Factory Floor-"Fall Back"
Foals-"Bad Habit"
Foals-"My Number"
Foxygen- "No Destruction"
Foxygen- "San Francisco"
Haim-"Falling"
Haim-"The Wire"
Jagwar Ma- "The Throw"
Joanna Gruesome-"Sugarcrush"
Keep Shelly In Athens- "Madmen Love"
Keep Shelly in Athens-" Oostende"
The Knife- "Full of Fire"
The Knife- "A Tooth For An Eye"
M.I.A.-"Bring The Noize"
Janelle Monáe- "Dance Apocalyptic"
My Bloody Valentine- "New You"

My Bloody Valentine- "Only Tomorrow"

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds- "Jubilee Street"
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark- "Metroland"
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark- "Night Cafe"
Phoenix- "Entertainment"
Poliça- "Tiff" (Featuring Justin Vernon)
Poliça- "Chain My Name"
POND- "Giant Tortoise"
Primal Scream- "2013"
Prince Innocence- "Golden Hour"
Pure Bathing Culture-"Pendulum"
Frankie Rose- "Sorrow"
Savages- "She Will"
Sleigh Bells- "Bitter Rivals"
Splashh- "Sun Kissed Bliss"
Still Corners- "Berlin Love"
Toy & Natasha Khan- "The Bride"
Kurt Vile- "Wakin On A Pretty Day"
Vampire Weekend- "Diane Young"
Vampire Weekend- "Ya Hey"
Warpaint- "Biggy"
Warpaint" Love Is To Die"
Washed Out- "It Feels Alright"
Washed Out-"Paracosm"
Wax Idols: "AD RE: Ian"
Wild Nothing-"A Dancing Shell"
Yamantaka//Sonic Titan- "One"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs- "Despair"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs-" Sacrilege"
Young Galaxy- "Pretty Boy"
Youth Lagoon-"Dropla"

Favourite Track Of The Year: Young Galaxy- "New Summer"

New Music: Young Galaxy- Sea Drug + Talk To Her

Back from a two week hiatus of blog posting. Good to clear my head, relax and not worry about posting music. Perfect time to do it to, there hasn't been that much really good new music released over the last couple of weeks. There are some exceptions of course, including a couple of fresh tracks from Young Galaxy.

Young Galaxy continue their victory lap for releasing the fantastic Ultramarine, one of the best albums of the year. As a matter of fact the band are up for the Polaris Music Prize which is awarded tonight at The Carlu in Toronto (right across the street from where I live). YG are my personal favourite to win the prize which probably means that they won't win.

Last month it was reported that the band will come out with a deluxe edition of Ultramarine and they premiered a brand new song titled "Crying My Heart Out" which is one of the many extras on the new album. Now the group have shared another couple of bonus tracks from the LP which will be out tomorrow (September 24th) via Paper Bag. "Sea Drug" and Talk to Her" follow the same Swedish synth pop formula that made this such a successful year for the band. Listen below:

New Music: Young Galaxy- Crying My Heart Out

Montreal synth pop band Young Galaxy last spring released Ultramarine, one of my favourite albums of the year, so far. The LP contains a collection of some of the best indie pop tracks of the year including what I believe is the song of the summer. Seriously, YG's "New Summer" is way better than "Blurred Lines" or that Daft Punk song everybody is into.

Now Young Galaxy are poised to release a deluxe edition of the LP on September 24th via Paper Bag. There will be a bunch of extras including this song “Crying My Heart Out”, a dance pop song that has New Order written all over it.

New Music: Young Galaxy- New Summer

Frigidly cold here in Toronto again today and it is a real bonus to hear songs at this time of year with themes, titles, lyrics or even sunny sounding songs that make you long for summer. Young Galaxy fits that template with their latest, " New Summer," which is the third track previewed from their upcoming new LP. Listen below:

Young Galaxy will release their new album, Ultramarine, April 23rd via Paper Bag.

For fans of School of Seven Bells, Chvrches.

No Joy Release A Little Bit Of Happiness + Other New Music & News

Montreal indie gazing band No Joy seems to have done a 180 degree sound shift on this new track off of their forthcoming new album. There is still a hint of shoegaze, but they have traded in their wall of sound grunge for  much cleaner sounding dream pop- at least it sounds that way on their new track "Lunar Phobia".

The band were originally supposed to record their new LP, Wait To Pleasure, with the Raveonettes Sune Rose Wagner, but that never materialized and No Joy decided to work with Jorge Elbrecht (Chairlift). The result is a lot more keyboard and pianos, much cleaner production and an overall much more happier sounding group. At this rate they may have to change their name. Listen to "Lunar Phobia" below:

Wait To Pleasure is out April 23rd via Mexican Summer

No Joy- Lunar Phobia


Lots of new music, videos and news from the first few days of the week including:

French alt pop band Phoenix finally released a preview from their new album this week. "Entertainment" sees the band progress in to more anthemic territory as they try to equal the popularity of Coldplay and Mumford & Sons. Much better than those bands though. Listen below:

Phoenix will release Bankrupt on April 23rd via Glassnote.

Phoenix- Entertainment

Primal Scream finally made it official that they have recorded a new album after hinting about it for several weeks. Surprise!!! Kevin Shields does make a guest appearance, playing guitar on the lead single, "2013" Watch the creepy video for the track below:

The album is titled More Light and will be out in May.

Primal Scream- 2013

Young Galaxy have released a second track from their upcoming new album. Listen to "Fall For You" from Ultramarine which will be released on April 23rd.




Doldrums is streaming his new album, Lesser Evil, over at Pitchfork Advance. You can also download the song "Golden Calf" from the album below:




Listen to the title track, " Hit The Waves'',  from Swedish indie poppers The Mary Onettes new album. The LP will be out on March 12th.




Bat for Lashes has released a new video from her excellent The Haunted Man LP. Watch the Where The Wild Things inspired clip for "Lilies" below:

Bat For Lashes- Lilies

Jangle rockers DIIV keep on rolling and have put out a video for their Oshin track "Wait" which features a cast of indie girls, including 'it girl" Sky Ferreira. Watch the NSFW video below

DIIV- Wait

The Juno Awards nominations were announced yesterday and with it the usual parade of awful bands and singers. There are some bright spots amongst the deadwood, mostly in the Alternative and Electronic categories, including nods to Metric, Grimes, Purity Ring, Japandroids, Daphni and Crystal Castles. See the full list here:

Metric- Breathing Underwater

Jack White was named Record Store Day Ambassador. Watch a video of his acceptance over at the Record Store Day website and also read his diatribe about all things impersonal.

Jack White- Freedom at 21

Last week we told you about a new Music Festival happening in Toronto in the first week of July called The Toronto Urban Roots Festival. They have announced a few more artists that will take part including Belle & Sebastien, Neko Case, Flogging Molly and The Joel Plaskett Emergency. More acts will be annouced throughout February and March.

Belle & Sebastian- Another Sunny Day
Neko Case- Deep Red Bells

Robbie Furze has announced through his band's Facebook page that Milo Cordell has left The Big Pink. Cordell will leave to concentrate on his up and coming record label, Merok, while Robbie Furze has confirmed he will continue to work on the new Big Pink album.

The Big Pink- Crystal Visions

Finally, another week, another rock 'n roll death. This time the founding member, singer and bassist Kevin Ayers of the legendary 60's psychedelic band, The Soft Machine, has passed away. The singer died in his sleep last night at the age of 68.

Soft Machine- Moon In June

New Music: Young Galaxy- Pretty Boy

Swedish musician/producer Dan Lissvik is back to helm the just announced new Young Galaxy album Ultramarine. Lissvick was responsible for YG's  brilliant, underrated Shapeshifters record and if the new single Pretty Boy is any indication there will be more synth pop goodness on the new LP. The track has a Balearic feel to it and features singer Catherine McCandless sweet voice crooning about a former flame. Listen to the track below:

Ultramarine drops April 23rd via Paper Bag Records.

For fans of School of Seven Bells, El Perro del Mar.