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Noisey's Best and Worst of 2013 - Ezra Marcus

2013 was sick, honestly.

by VICE Staff

December 11, 2013, 7:08pm

Around this time last year I was alone in a rented room in an empty house in a suburb of Sydney, Australia, nearing the end of my semester abroad. After six months of flexing and finessing in a country with a $17 dollar minimum wage and a strong culture of meat pies returning home seemed substantially less than tight. I foresaw a half-ass senior year of "new media" classes followed by a swan dive into the tender embrace of my parent's couch. On a lark, I applied for a Noisey internship. Three days later Sasha and Drew interviewed me over Skype—I wasn't wearing pants. Fast forward through 12 months of transcriptions, suburban teen music festivals, shirtless DJ sets, hundreds of Ginger Ales from the Vice fridge, awkward phone interviews with rappers who keep dropping the phone, countless memes…here we are. Follow your dreams, kids.

Best Songs

20) Machel Montano - The Fog (Murlo Remix)

Murlo killed 2013, excavating underground tunnels between grime, soca and dancehall. I never DJed without dropping this sublime Machel edit at least once.

19) Glasspopcorn - My Circle

If you're mad that the best beat of the year came from a white 17-year-old from Tempe Arizone who wears Hood By Air and raps about Google+ I can't help you.

18) Diamondblackheartedboy - Chinonyeelu Uchechi Amobi

Imagine a haunted Best Buy where every night the washing machines come alive and hook up.

17) DJ Dog Dick - My Identity

Wounded howl of love and loss from Brooklyn's mangiest.

16) Jon Rafman + Oneohtrix Point Never - Still Life (Betamale)

Oneohtrix collaborates with visual artist Jon Rafman for a horrifying trip down the rabbit hole, so to speak.

15) Mummz - Opening Knell

Quasi-mystical NYC weirdo Mummz drops in and out of patois while he mutters about trapping souls in the basement and sacrifices chickens to George Bush. The real star is producer Microndiamond, coming with the year's strongest thug-techno look.

14) Nicole Cherry - Memories

In a year full of comebacks the most surprising was No Doubt, whose spirit strangely decided to manifest itself in a bossed-up 14-year-old Romanian girl with cornrows. 2013 was sick.

13) Fredo Santana ft. Kendrick Lamar - Jealous

Fredo was rap's hottest fashion accessory this year, showing up in fashion shoots and high profile music videos like a cute bag. Now it's Kendrick's turn—he wears him well.

12) Felicita (feat Chlo) - Doves

Eating a lot of sugar can be a really intense physiological experience, where you feel your pupils dilate and your metabolism speed up.

11) Justin Bieber - All That Matters

Hands down best song of the year to have sex to.

10) Gabe Day - Green Auras

Honestly, did any artist take a bigger creative risk this year than Gabe Day? Consider the distance at which this kid's nuts must hang in order for him to hop in the game like, "By the way, my father is Daniel Day Lewis, and if you have a problem with that, you are as bad as a racist." Obvious privilege issues aside this is self-immolating punk performance art on a GG Allin level. "Gabe Day Lose It?" Repping Sarah Lawrence? The Africa chain? The "Let Nas Down" beat?! Priceless. We are all Gabe Day.

The video was taken down, but Perez Hilton uploaded it on his site.

9) Rabit - Sun Showers

In the mid 00's Wiley released a legendary white-label series of "Devil Mixes," grime instrumentals stripped to nothing more than basslines. Houston's Rabit flips the script on "Sun Showers"—it's just a synth, dripping like an icicle at dawn. If you love something, take away everything but your favorite part.

8) Duke Dumont - MNEK

This is the corniest Topman-aztec-print-shirt-tastefully-buttoned-all-the-way-up music and I can't get enough. 2013 Moby, basically.

7) Miley Cyrus ft. Future - My Darling

Miley's flawlessly systemic media takeover was orchestrated by a massive mainframe artificial intelligence occupying acres of cooling tanks underneath the Arizona desert. Picture white-robed label executives sitting cross legged before it's blinking monolith, waiting patiently for their instructions. At last a slip of paper drops from the mouth of the machine. The breathless execs scramble to read three words—"Call Future Hendrix."

6) My Bloody Valentine - Wonder 2

I was ready to ignore this album before it came out. No disrespect but the concept of investing emotion in something that sounds kinda like Loveless…nah, kid. Like, imagine if Da Vinci came back and painted a series exclusively of busty, facially ambiguous brunettes. I was right—the album's boring, an hour and change of MBV doing their thing on autopilot. Until the last song. "Wonder 2" is pure bite, six minutes of scorched-earth jungle and whooshing airplane noise that redeems the whole affair.

5) Shy Girls - Under Attack

I listened to this song more than any other that came out this year. If you don't like it you aren't human.

4.) Lonnie Holley - Six Space Shuttles and 144,000 Elephants

Lonnie Holley spent a year of his childhood chained to a pile of rocks after trying to escape from a juvenile work camp. He spent the next six decades carving sandstone figurines and twisting sculptures out of wire and string. He'd sing to himself while working, but never relased any music until last year. Lonnie makes visionary Americana for an America only he can see. He's the most Arthur Russel-type innate pop genius since Arthur Russel. He also gave the most affecting interview you will read in 2013, bet.

3.) Ana Caprix - Fullbody

You didn't think the objectively third best song of the year was going to be an ambient Travi$ Scott remix. You were wrong. Pull up.

2.) Destiny's Child - Nuclear

From a marketing perspective this makes no sense. Destiny's Child reunite for one song with Pharrell, combining two of my childhood's strongest brands for what ought to have been a monster in our Buzzfeed nostalgia economy. Instead we get…what, exactly? Definitely not "Say My Name". Rather, Pharrell laces a chill-out breakbeat with minor-key synth stabs, the girls gently coo about nothing, and 1996's iciest club smash barely breaks a million views.

1.) Sad Andy ft. Little Pain - I Hate Myself

All millenials are depressed, trust me. Imagine a happy, satisfied millennial: somehow impossible to conceive. Maybe we're whiny, narcissistic princelings riding out the last years of American imperialism in a cocoon of social media. Everyone seems to thinks so. But maybe we're on to something. Maybe our constant interconnection and access to endless data sources has exposed us to a sense of radical collectivism glimmering just out of reach, a PLUR Elysium that the solipsistic, navel-gazing, and generally obnoxious generation above ours just can't vibe with. Maybe we're depressed because the world they gave us is fucked up and we could make a better one if our inner cities weren't warzones, our culture wasn't a toothless playground for corporate interests, and we didn't have so much college debt :)

Same list with Drake and Kanye included:

20) Kanye - Guilt Trip

19) Drake - Tuscan Leather

18) Kanye - Blood On The Leaves

17) Kanye - I'm In It

16) Drake - The Language

15) Drake - Come Thru

14) Kanye - I Am A God

13) Drake - Own It

12) Kanye - Bound 2

11) Drake - Connect

10) Kanye - Hold My liquor