Albums and Abominations

By Benjamin Huber-Rodriguez     12/3/13 6:00pm

2013 is practically gone, and we have seen a lot of great records put out in what is sure to go down as an important year for music in recent history. Rather than rank albums head-to-head in a giant end-of-the-year list, I decided to give various eclectic awards to a select group of albums that represent the entire spectrum of music released this year.

Best album to listen to on a rainy day

The National, Trouble Will Find Me

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The National's sixth LP continues the band's signature style of morose, brooding, vaguely hopeful music about the disappointments in adult life but tackles new challenges such as marriage and fatherhood as well.

Best Track: "Don't Swallow the Cap"

Best album artwork

Okkervil River, The Silver Gymnasium

   While the cover art is definitely sweet, the reason Austin-based Okkervil River takes home the prize is the handmade map inside the record of lead singer Will Sheff's hometown in rural New Hampshire. The map shows various locations associated with songs on this concept album about

growing up. 

   Best Track: "It Was My Season"

Album most likely to make you cry

Waxahatchee, Cerulean Salt

Katie Crutchfield's second album as Waxahatchee is a somber affair peppered with electric and acoustic guitar ballads about the pains of strained relationships and the hardships of of growing up in the rural South. Her voice is often defiant, but the quiet, sincere cracks in her confidence are heartbreaking.

Best Track: "Swan Dive"

 

Best debut album

Torres, Torres

Mackenzie Scott's music combines raw desperation with bleak, barren guitar tracks to create the enveloping gorgeous sound embodied on Torres, an album that juxtaposes the beauty of life with the hardships of failed relationships with friends and family.

Best Track: "Honey"

 

Most disappointing album

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Mosquito

When Yeah Yeah Yeahs emerged on the New York City rock scene in 2002, they did so as dirty, manic freak-punk rockers with nothing to lose from distorting their sound and being as lyrically abrasive as possible. While the band had grown in strides over  its first three LPs, Mosquito is a step backward in almost every direction. Where before, thrashing punk songs felt in-your-face, they now seem like shallow jokes in comparison, and the quieter ballads carry none of the emotional depth found before. The cover also wins for worst artwork

of the year.

Best rap album

Earl Sweatshirt, Doris

The debut LP from the 19-year-old member of Los Angeles' Odd Future rap collective highlights the deftness of Earl's twisting, rhymes-with-rhymes techniques over dark, austere backbeats. His lyrics are cynical but sincere portraits of life as a rapper and the emotional turmoil he has been through leading up to and after his attendance at a school for troubled boys in Samoa. 

Best Track: "Chum"

 

 Best summer album

Cayucas, Bigfoot

The debut effort from Santa Monica's Cayucas is an eight-song output about day trips to the beach and late nights with your favorite girl, all set in the endless Southern California summer. The surf-rock guitar and tropical feel make it perfect for lounging at the pool or road-tripping to the shore.   

Best Track: "East Coast Girl"

 

Album 

of the 

year

Vampire Weekend, 

Modern Vampires of the City

The whip-smart, catchy, triumphant, cautious and overall ingenious third effort by New York City-based Vampire Weekend comes off as a coming-of-age novel about entering adulthood as written by your future self. The arrangements are gorgeous, each track feels unique and essential, and all listeners can likely find a lyric here and there that touches them in ways little other

music does.

   Best Track: "Step"

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