My Top 10 Songs of 2013, a list.

I listened to a lot of songs in 2013. Some of them were good. Some of them were awful. Some of them were incredible, and memorable enough to include on this list-- yet another year end list-- that covers my top ten favorite songs of the year.

Because I am such a generous and kind music blogger, I made a 2013 "hot mix" of these ten songs, sequenced together from number ten, all the way down to number one. So please feel free to download this mix, burn it to a c.d. and play it in your car, or put it on at a party and impress your friends by passing off my good taste as your own.

Anhedonic Headphones presents: #2013 Hot Mix.

10. "Roar," Katy Perry

I listened to a lot of pop music this year—something I normally would turn up my nose and scoff at. It’s mostly due to this blog, because I found early on that if I only wrote about and reviewed albums and artists that I already liked, I’d eventually run out of things to talk about.

So I started opening myself up to things I usually wouldn’t. Also, the sudden indie interest in pop music, making it suddenly “cool” to like or at least appreciate an artist like Miley Cyrus, made the whole thing nearly inescapable.

I got to the party late on “Roar” by Katy Perry—like, incredibly late. Pretty much right before the album, Prism, was released. I realized how incredibly fun this song was when she performed it on “Saturday Night Live,” and even though the audio mix was awful and her vocals were buried; I could still tell there was something about this song.

Is “Roar” lyrically insipid? Sure. Of course it is. Katy Perry is by no means some kind of deep songwriter (see the rest of Prism) and nor do we need her to be. “Roar” is, by all accounts, an incredibly fun song—a shout-out-loud refrain that makes you feel good. And the entire song itself has that “top down, speakers up” summertime fun vibe—this thing, if it hasn’t already, is destined to be used in a well edited together trailer for a movie about young people doing fun, young people things.

The reason that “Roar” works so well and is so memorable is because it’s so gigantic—but it strikes a balance between how huge the refrain is when it kicks in, in comparison to how restrained the verses are—specifically how simple they are, making use of a two synthesizer lines: one very plinky, the other very bassy.

9. Lotte Kestner, "Pairs"

The problem with releasing a song or an album within the first four to five months of the year is that by December, it’s very easy to unintentionally sleep on things that you enjoyed, but just maybe forgot about because so much other stuff has come along then.

To make it from, say, February to December, something has to be really memorable.

Anna-Lynne Williams did just that with the song “Pairs,” taken from her record, The Bluebird of Happiness, released in February under her musical moniker Lotte Kestner. From the very first moment I heard “Pairs,” I knew there was something special about it.

It wouldn’t be an end of the year list from me if there weren’t something incredibly somber on it, and “Pairs” is that song. It’s far from complex—a slow and rhythmic piano progression leads the way for Williams’ fragile and melancholy voice.

As I had indicated in my original review of Bluebird, it’s on songs like “Pairs” that Williams, as a lyricist, shows off her ability to break your heart. Tracking the course of a relationship headed for possible disaster, she first remembers happier times—“My pockets full of breadcrumbs. We watch the ducks in pairs, and this time we won’t say, ‘We forgot again to bring something for them.’” to the devastating end—“Afraid I’m going to lose you, ‘cause that’s the way it works. When’s the last time you said, ‘Everything’s just so perfect the way it is.’”

There is no resolution at the end of “Pairs.” It’s a chilling and lonely sounding song, and as Williams whispers “Everything’s just so perfect,” the song quietly fades away. It’s the kind of song that stops time; that knocks the wind out of you, and makes you pay attention, even if it is hard to do so.

8. "Not a Bad Thing," Justin Timberlake

Justin Timberlake almost had me with “Mirrors.” I say “almost” because for, like, five minutes, dude created an incredibly powerful pop song—but then he loses control of it—which is the problem that every song on the first part of the 20/20 Experience had.

But, Timberlake did get me with “Not a Bad Thing”—a moment of pure pop perfection tucked in at the very end of the second part to 20/20. Slowing down the same dreamy, thickly delayed guitar work from “Mirrors,” he turns out a simple, and rather charming love song—a little saccharine, sure, but you can’t really fault him for that. It’s also surprising that Timberlake sneaks in a quick “you might fuck around and find your dreams come true with me,” in every refrain, though not overly committing to dropping said “f-bomb,” and by not drawing attention to it, you do a double take during the first listen.

While both parts to 20/20 may be viewed as his contractually obligated return to pop music, and I don’t think there’s anything on those records that will still be referenced seven years down the line (like how people still try to bring “sexy back” to this day) a moment of musical truth occurs on “Not a Bad Thing”—all the elements are in the right place at the right time.

7. "The Wire," Haim

I nearly missed the boat with Haim.

After they spent 2012 building a buzz for themselves, and before they started appearing on every magazine cover within the final months of 2013, it was “The Wire,” the fourth single from Days Are Gone, that made me stand up and notice.

Is “The Wire” the best song on Days Are Gone? Maybe. Maybe not. On an album that fun, it’s really tough to say. Does Alana Haim’s “shucka-whoo” nod to Michael Jackson make me smile every time I listen? Of course it does. Do you want to sing along with the “I know I know I know” line in the verses? Yes. The answer is always yes.

“The Wire” works because of the tight and slick production values. Usually, studio trickery can hold a band back, but in the case of Haim, the big, expensive sounding production courtesy of Ariel Rechtshaid always works in their favor.

Liberally borrowing from The Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight,” “The Wire’” showcases the sisters Haim’s Fleetwood Mac-influence, as opposed to the heavy 80s/90s R&B leanings that are present on the rest of the record, and that’s one of the reasons why it’s so memorable and so successful as a well-written pop song.

6."Shucks," Dungeonesse

Way back in the halcyon days of May, when the Dungeonesse LP was released, I had dubbed the whole thing (all 35 minutes of it) my “Summertime Jam 2013.” This was way before Haim came along, or at least before they were on my radar, and even though the second half of Dungeonesse is a little hit or miss, I was willing to look past that because the first five songs are so unfuckwithable.

So it pained me just a little that Dunegonesse did not make the cut on my list of the top ten albums of 2013—it was on the “shortlist” if you will, and if I was someone who had time and could be bothered to put together either a longer list (say, twenty albums) or a grouping of honorable mentions, it certainly would have turned up there.

From the first five songs on the album, it was rather difficult to narrow it down to just one to include on the list of my favorite songs of the year. While “Drive You Crazy” seems like an obvious frontrunner, I disqualified it because it was released as a single in December of 2012.

“Shucks” serves as the opening track on the record, and from its bouncy synth wobbles to the unabashed 80s/90s r&B and Top 40 homage with the percussion, it serves as a bit of a mission statement for the album. And that mission is—you’re going to have a good time.

You can’t help but shimmy and shake as Wye Oak’s Jen Wasner coo’s “I know it doesn’t look like much, but it’s love and I know that it’s good enough,” while her partner in crime, fellow B-More musician Jon Ehrens, mans the drum machines and keyboards. “Shucks” is a good reminder that sometimes music doesn’t need to take itself so seriously all of the time.

5. "Headline," Sister Crayon

Every time I listen to Sister Crayon, I can’t help but be impressed. It was just two years ago (well, three now, almost) since they released their debut LP, Bellow. And the post trip-hop duo of Terra Lopez and Dani Fernandez returned this year with the incredibly mature and serious EP, Cynic.

While all of the songs on the EP are very personal and real, the one that stood out the most was “Headline.” Based around a sample of an upright bass that file in nicely with live percussion from drummer Josh Badura, Lopez subtly raps her way through the verses, and then shows off her other-worldly howl—allowing it to grow and become more unhinged with each refrain.

“I’ve been so tired since I was born,” she says at the beginning of the second verse. And like their “Band Influences” says on Facebook (Jeff Buckely + Mothers + Absent Fathers), Cynic is tied together by the concept of broken homes and what it’s like growing up and eventually coming to terms with the resentment you keep buried within. “Headline” is a stunner because it is so honest and blunt, cramming all of that raw emotion into a very accessible, and very beautiful, 4-minute song.

4. "Maybe You're Right," Miley Cyrus

While she managed to twerk her way through “We Can’t Stop,” and she rode a literal wrecking ball in the nude for the video to the power ballad “Wrecking Ball,” Miley Cyrus is way more than a stuck-out tongue and gossip page headlines.

Her new album, Bangerz, as a whole, was incredibly uneven, and the namesake tracks fell flat, the “balladz,” as I called them, were amazing, and tucked away near the end of the record, “Maybe You’re Right” shows off that Cyrus has actual talent.

Incorporating some very Coldplay-esq “whoas” in the background, “Maybe You’re Right” is a go-for-broke sized song—the refrain is just huge, with Cyrus just belting it out.

According to the Wikipedia entry for Bangerz, it credits five people plus Cyrus as songwriters—so exactly how much of this is her alone is up for debate, but certainly one can look into the lyrics as being semi-autobiographical to an extent due to her well publicized relationship (and subsequent demise) with actor Liam Hemsworth.

“Maybe You’re Right,” while not “single” material really, for three minutes and change, is a cathartic experience—for both you, the listener, and for Cyrus herself. It's honest and unabashed about it-- the moment when she lets out, "It's too late for us to be in love right now," there is no denying how real that is, and serves as a reminder to us all the power of pop music.

3. "Come Down to Us," Burial

Excuse me, I’m lost….

This is the first thing you hear on “Come Down to Us.” It is an incredibly unsettling snipped of dialogue, that is taken from Communion, an obscure 1989 motion picture about alien abduction—a theme that makes perfect sense given the other bits of speech lifted and inserted throughout the course of Burial’s late in the game masterpiece, Rival Dealer.

“Come Down to Us” is still just as powerful today as it was the first time I listened to it.  That’s the beauty that is Burial—his music makes such a lasting impression, you’re never really ever to shake it. If anything, it’s the kind of song that only becomes more powerful, and more life affirming with each subsequent listen.

Just as how I didn’t feel it necessary to re-write my recentpiece on Rival Dealer for my list of my favorite records of 2013, I don’t see needing to pile more hyperbole onto “Come Down to Us,” and use the thesaurus tool in Microsoft Word to come up with different ways to say the same things I’ve already said. Split between two distinct movements (and an epilogue) “Come Down to Us” has the power to haunt, and it has the power to heal. It may very well serve as Burial’s defining statement, and it is really like nothing else I’ve heard in 2013.

2. "Blood on The Leaves," Kanye West

I feel like when talking about “Blood on The Leaves,” it’s worth noting that in his interview with BBC Radio’s Zane Lowe, Kanye West mentioned the song was originally intended as the opening track to Yeezus, which would have completely changed everything about that album—would it have made the record more palatable to some? It does open with the abrasive, thesis statement track “On Sight,” which seems like it were written to be the opening track, because there’s no place else to stick something so direct.

“Blood on The Leaves,” on the other hand, would have set a different tone entirely. It’s the longest song on the album (six minutes even) and it just continues to build and build until West utters the line “unholy matrimony” (and it even builds a little more after that.)

Tying in thematically with the material on Yeezus that deals with the difficulties in West’s love life, by sequencing “Blood on The Leaves” within the second half of the record (after an incredibly raunchy song about sex), it becomes the centerpiece and a show stopping moment.

“Blood on The Leaves” shows West at his most desperate—harkening back, a bit, to the honest delivery of 2010’s “Runaway.” This song, in a sense, is a Yeezus’s ”Runaway”—it’s heartbreaking, poignant, and beautiful. The song is masterfully structured into two distinct sections—the first is the desolate, auto-tuned pleading—“I don’t have the money on my right now, and I thought you could wait,” West’s voice warbles before one of the most powerful moments in the song: “We could have been somebody. I thought you’d be different about it.”

“To all my second string bitches,” begins the second half—gone is the auto-tuned strains on West’s voice, replaced with a breathless and unrelenting rap about what happens when you get your side chick pregnant.

The song hits hard—lyrically, yes, of course, but also musically, thanks in part to the production by Hudson Mohawke (a little “Seinfeld no thanks.gif” on that name there) who samples his own track “Higher Ground” to great the heavy blasts of brass and restrained trap drums.

“Blood on The Leaves” is stark—I mean, come on, he’s sampling Nina Simone singing “Strange Fruit” (a polarizing and bold decision, much like the whole album itself), but even through the anguish, there are still traces of humor, “She Instagram herself like ‘bad bitch alert.’ He Instagram his watch like, ‘mad rich alert.” On an album of 10 unique, sometimes controversial tracks, “Blood on the Leaves” is a jaw dropping accomplishment, cementing itself amongst West’s finest.

1."Pink Rabbits," The National

You didn’t see me, I was falling apart.

I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in a park.

From the moment “Pink Rabbits” clicked for me, which was very early on in listening to Trouble Will Find Me, I knew that it would be my favorite song of 2013.

“Pink Rabbits” is The National at their finest—doing what they do best, and excelling at it. It’s somber as fuck: from the opening melancholy piano strains, to the subtle horn arrangements, to the honest and desperate pleading in Matt Berninger’s lyrics and in his voice, it’s far from uplifting. And that’s why it’s brilliant.

Berninger has always had a way with words, but rarely have I ever heard anybody write so well about depression in such a poetic way—“It wasn’t like a rain, it was more like a sea. I didn’t ask for this pain, it just came over me,” he sings at the start of the second verse.  Then, at the end of the song, the last words you hear are, “You said it would be painless, it wasn’t that at all.”

The National, somehow, became the band that is apparently writing about my life. Or maybe I too am the white girl in a crowd of white girls in a park, and that there’s nothing special or unique about my existence, and that Berninger’s middle-class ennui is just that universal. In 2010, my favorite song was “Conversation 16,” from their breakthrough High Violet. Seemingly a snapshot of my own married life, Berninger, worried that in being the asshole in the relationship, he would eventually turn his wife into an asshole as well (this is a thing that really happens over time in a marriage.)

“Pink Rabbits” is an interesting song, composition wise, because there isn’t a real refrain to it. There are repeated lines, sure, and there are defined “verses,” if you will, but it just kind of goes, and doesn’t let up until the very end. Like all of the best National songs, it’s full of incredibly evocative imagery—“Am I the one you think about when you’re sitting in your fainting chair, drinking pink rabbits?” is so good, it’s like it was pulled from a scene in your favorite novel.

There’s a lot left open to interpretation in “Pink Rabbits.” The imagery in the lyrics is strung along enough to create something that is both solid and ambiguous and in the end; there is no absolutely no resolution.  It’s a heartbreaking song, and maybe it’s because I see just a little too much of myself in it is why it was my favorite from the year.