Pitchfork StaffDec. 23, 2013
One year ago, we never would have guessed Daft Punk would have one of the highest-selling albums of the year and one of the biggest singles in the world. We couldn't have imagined that Beyoncé would throw her new album up on iTunes in the middle of the night with no advance warning, or that Morrissey's autobiography would ever see the light of day. We thought we'd probably never hear another David Bowie or My Bloody Valentine or Boards of Canada album again. We couldn't have possibly prepared ourselves for the "Bound 2" video.
Yeah, it was a very busy year.
Now, we take the time to look back at the biggest stories of 2013. Below, you'll find a list of some of the artists that generated the most news this year. On the following pages, we've gathered thoughts on some topics that we believe helped define 2013 (elaborate album rollouts, comebacks and reunions, the fights against Spotify and cell phones), as well as lists of the best music moments on TV, some of our favorite Vine and Instagram video accounts, beefs of the year, and musicians that we lost in 2013.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned to Pitchfork News for much, much more in 2014.
Daft Punk by Nabil
*Newsworthy Artists of the Year*
*Daft Punk*
It began with about 15 seconds of Nile Rodgers' unmistakable guitar sound, the band's logo, and those two iconic robot helmets. It was the return of Daft Punk, heralded during a "Saturday Night Live" commercial break.
For those first couple bursts of promotion, it didn't matter what new Daft Punk music sounded like. Even if they'd become a jug band, people would still be excitedly tweeting about it. With only that initial few seconds of new music, people were understandably pumped. Somebody even made a 10-hour loop of Rodgers' riff on YouTube.
Random Access Memories was an event. The duo's first proper album since they took a pyramid on tour and scored Tron was clearly very expensive to make. The list of contributors was staggering: Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder, Todd Edwards, Chilly Gonzales, the Strokes' Julian Casablancas, Paul Williams, DJ Falcon, Panda Bear. It was a masterwork of audiophile geekery. And that geekery paid off with a slew of 2014 Grammy nominations.
The promotional madness continued post record release. They put out a music video for "Lose Yourself to Dance", which kept to the aesthetic of the early promos, and another one for "Instant Crush". They hung out with Ron Burgundy. They had a racecar, condoms, action figures. A giant box set. There was the whole Colbert/VMAs debacle.
Amazingly, they still haven't performed these songs live. At all. But their first announced performance, at the 2014 Grammy Awards, indicates that we may be in for another Year of Daft Punk to come. -- Evan Minsker
*Beyoncé*
Radio silence can cause people to imagine wacky things. From this vantage, it’s almost comical to consider the speculation the world drummed up about Beyoncé in 2013, the year she logically was due to follow up 2011's excellent 4. Had she scrapped plans for her rumored fifth album altogether, or was she putting it off because she couldn’t get it right? Was she nervous about the fall’s pop tidal wave of Miley, Katy, and Gaga? Was she pregnant with a second child already?
We should’ve known she was up to something extra special. Beyoncé, the world’s reigning queen of overachievement and perfectionism—not to mention talent—would never have let another year pass without something bigger and better to show for it. Never mind her performance of the National Anthem at Barack Obama’s second Inauguration Ceremony or the neat little way she resolved the ensuing lip-sync controversy. (“Any questions?”) Forget her performance at the Super Bowl, the marathon tour of stadiums around the world, or the political mini-tizzies caused by the Pepsi campaign, the Cuba trip or the pledge to veganism. Erase her Tumblr, her Instagram, and her self-directed, self-shot, self-produced autobiographical documentary from your memory. They all just seem like expert decoys now. -- Carrie Battan
JF Lalonde
*Arcade Fire*
It's easy to forget that the elaborate roll-out to Arcade Fire's massive fourth album Reflektor began in the most unassuming way possible: When a fan tweeted at them ("you're my favorite"), the band replied, "Thanks. Our new album will be out October 29th." At which point the internet collectively freaked out. Things got more complicated from there, though.
Arcade Fire had an odd love/hate relationship with digital life in 2013. The album's first single, the percussive, James-Murphy-produced "Reflektor" (which featured backup vocals from David Bowie) was a rather scathing critique of time spent "staring at a screen" ("We're so connected, but are we even friends?" Win Butler warbles), and everything about the enigmatic marketing campaign leading up to the record's release—the secret shows billed as "The Reflektors", the Reflektor logo graffiti tagged (in most cases) in washable paint—seemed intended to create the sort of band-crafted mystique that's become so difficult to maintain in the age of internet. It made perfect sense that Spike Jonze picked them to score his film Her, a vaguely dystopic story about a man who falls in love not with a flesh-and-blood person but a Siri-esque operating system.
The Arcade-Fire-vs.-the-Internet beef took an interesting turn in November, when they announced that—like at the Reflektors shows—"formal attire or costume" would be encouraged on their 2014 arena tour. Not everyone was happy about this, and the reaction prompted the band to issue a statement: "Please relax. It's super not mandatory. It just makes for a more fun carnival atmosphere when we are all in it together."
Luckily, the hugely ambitious double-album Reflektor was able to capture that carnival atmosphere in its best songs, from the soul-surging sing-along "Afterlife" to the kinetic, confetti-strewn "Here Comes the Nighttime". The actual music that Arcade Fire gave us in 2013 is what will endure, not the bottomless Twitter debates about formal attire—or even those giant papier-mâché heads. Rule #1 of the internet is that haters are gonna hate, so in the end all of the chatter surrounding the band that had nothing to do with the record itself ("just a reflection of a reflection of a reflection...") had a way of proving Reflektor's point. -- Lindsay Zoladz
Ebru Yildiz
*Kanye West*
What might the year in music have looked like had Kanye West broken into the fashion industry on his own terms before recording Yeezus? A world without Kanye’s spark-plug energy and thirst for vindication sounds downright dull. We might not have heard the mythical dark album recorded in a spare Parisian apartment, which swept in everyone from Daft Punk to Chief Keef and Justin Vernon to oodles of underground producers, all whittled down to elemental form by Rick Rubin at the 11th hour. We might not have witnessed the thrillingly unconventional Yeezus promotion: the stark projections on buildings across the world, the non-existent album cover, the "Saturday Night Live" performance that was almost violent in its dark minimalism.
We also might not have experienced Kanye’s resurgent relationship with the press, where he continued to slap away the boring rules of interviewer-interviewee conduct in order to make himself heard. There would’ve been no endless endless scroll of impassioned quotes about the nature of creativity and classism and racism and populism and glass ceilings, no brand new volume of Kanye-isms to pass around. (And distilled to meme form for your 2014 New Year's resolution-making needs) No chances for Kanye to put Jimmy Kimmel and his dopey arrogance in its place, or to publicly shame Nike and the paparazzi alike. No chance for Kanye to overstep his boundaries a bit and remind Sway that he doesn’t have the answers, man. No nipple-less Kim Kardashian on a motorcycle in front of what amounts to a Lisa Frank sticker book. No exhilarating foil to Jay-Z’s corporate shilling.
Kanye fans everywhere can thank the fashion industry for lighting a fire under his ass and helping write one of the most exciting stories of 2013.-- Carrie Battan
*Sky Ferreira*
It was a year of triumph for Sky Ferreira. After a long journey through the music industry, the 21-year-old pop singer finally released an incredible debut LP on her own terms. She managed to carve out a space for herself rather than falling in line with prevailing pop trends. From there, she released surreal, unsettling videos, posed for a provocative album cover, and planned a major tour with the loudest and most controversial pop star of the year. She was also arrested for drug possession, but it didn't slow her down.
With Night Time, My Time, Ferreira's music situated itself as more powerful than any of this surrounding noise—in the wake of last year's lane-shifting single with Dev Hynes, "Everything Is Embarrassing", the new songs proved to be even better. On stage, she covered Elliott Smith and Cat Power; like those songwriters before her, Ferreira comes off as an artist who is misunderstood, but who offers reason to listen along and decode her messages.-- Jenn Pelly
Colin Kerrigan
*Jay Z*
In 2013, Jay Z changed the rules. But not in the ground-up, revolutionary sort of way he'd maybe like you to believe. Shawn Carter is a celebrity millionaire, and his #newrules came because he made a promotional album release deal with a corporation. Samsung bought one million copies of Magna Carta Holy Grail to distribute to its smartphone owners on a data-mining app. While Billboard said those Samsung sales wouldn't count toward the charts, the RIAA ended up changing their rules, making it so Jay released a platinum album the moment it hit shelves.
Regardless of the corporate promotion, Magna Carta was album full of A-list contributors: Justin Timberlake, Frank Ocean, Nas, Beyoncé, Rick Ross, Timbaland, Pharrell, Swizz Beatz, Mike Will Made It, Hit-Boy, The-Dream, Mike Dean, No ID, and others. (Rick Rubin, though featured in the album's promos, was not involved. That seemed like a weird move, especially considering those ads happened shortly after Rubin worked on Yeezus.) It was a costly album worthy of a guy who helped Baz Luhrmann on the music for The Great Gatsby (and who became a talking point in the White House press room). Was it a good album? Eh.
The decadence didn't end with the ultra-expensive list of contributors or the unveiling of the album cover next to the actual Magna Carta. It was marketed as a piece of "high art"—work to be considered alongside the many artists Jay loudly endorsed: Picasso, Basquiat, Leonardo, etc. He didn't make a video: He made a short "performance art film" for HBO. It documented a Marina Abramoviç-esque endurance piece where he rapped "Picasso Baby" for six straight hours (in the company of Abramoviç herself, Judd Apatow, Fab Five Freddy, Picasso's granddaughter, and many other famous people).
Maybe all big albums in the future will be released via corporate-sponsored apps. Or maybe, they'll just arrive online unannounced, fully-formed, and accompanied by videos for every track. Maybe Jay Z's wife was the real rule-changer of 2013 after all.-- Evan Minsker
Erez Avissar
*Drake*
Anyone looking for an example of an effective album rollout in the era of new media can do no better than Drake. Rather than tease his record in slow, unsatisfying increments, Drake shared a steady collection of hits—"Started From the Bottom", "Girls Love Beyoncé", "No New Friends", "The Motion", "5AM in Toronto"—that were so strong they could've shaped the year in music had Drake not eventually eclipsed them with, you know, the actual album.
Before he even announced the details of Nothing Was the Same or released its marquee single ("Hold On We're Going Home"), Drake set the tone by inviting music's heaviest hitters—including his frenemy and role model Kanye West—to revel in his glory in his own backyard. Meanwhile, Drake the Regular Guy continued to charm: giddily taking shots out of his Grammy, having a heartfelt conversation on stage at NYU with Elliott Wilson, hamming it up for Ellen DeGeneres and Chelsea Handler, smoothing over any tiffs that came his way before they got serious. Drake has been many things, but this year's the first he can call himself a model of professionalism and savvy. -- Carrie Battan
Jason Bergman
*M.I.A.*
Maya Arulpragasam's year kicked off with mini spat in which she claimed that her label, Interscope, was holding back release of her new album Matangi because they didn't like its… "excess of positivity." The tiff set the stage for the sometimes odd interplay between her newfound inner zen master and the string of controversies she found herself in leading up to the release of her fourth album. (Matangi did, against all odds, arrive in November).
At one point, M.I.A. threatened to leak the record, only to grow quiet and eventually wind up just streaming it the good old-fashioned Vevo way the week of its official release. When the revelations about NSA surveillance came to light, she pointed out on her Tumblr that the stuff she'd been lambasted for and told was juvenile—all that Google connected to the government stuff in 2010—was more prescient than people gave her credit for. When slapped with a $1.5 million lawsuit by the NFL over that famed middle finger at the Super Bowl, she turned around and asked her fans to help her draft an Encyclopedia of all of the ways the league behaves "unwholesomely". Generally understood to have a complicated bond with the world of high-fashion, she created a line for Versace that seemed to go off without a snag. And that embattled documentary stuck in a tug-of-war between director Steve Loveridge and Roc Nation? It's back on, with the help of a UK non-profit organization that helps fund documentaries. Sometimes things do actually work out for M.I.A. -- Carrie Battan
Trent Maxwell
*Justin Timberlake*
In 2010, Justin Timberlake made one of his many cameos on "Saturday Night Live", appearing in a sketch with Andy Samberg called "Actor II Actor". The premise was that the two actors would have a serious conversation, specifically about acting, à la "Inside the Actor's Studio". After some straight-faced posturing and introductions, Samberg blurts out his first question with a cheeseball smile: "When are you gonna make some more music?" Timberlake then gets faux-upset and storms off. Samberg shouts after him: "Everyone wants to know! We just wanna dance again!"
In the seven years since FutureSex LoveSounds, Timberlake had become the star of romantic comedies, action films, Oscar-nominated features, several Lonely Island shorts, and those "History of Rap" videos with Jimmy Fallon. But most of his work as an actor was an unsatisfying reminder that he hadn't put out any music in a while. Then, right at the start of 2013, he was back, talking about how much music means to him. He said he was ready. With a dramatic monologue, he made it sound like he was a perfectionist, secretly cutting into his movie star hours by toiling away at his next great pop opus.
In March, he shared a new batch of Timbaland-helmed songs: seven- and eight-minute orchestral soul-pop odysseys, at that. After his long absence from pop music, he had a predictably huge year: an enormous-selling album, a hit single featuring Jay Z (and one not featuring Jay Z), guest spots on Jay's album, and a seemingly endless series of arena shows.
During the VMAs, Timberlake delivered a career-spanning medley—new material, early solo work, and a very brief 'NSync reunion that served as one of the night's more underwhelming moments. Seeing Justin dance next to JC Chasez and Joey Fatone confirmed that he doesn't really need to look back. (It was a lot like Beyoncé's Super Bowl Halftime Show reunion with Destiny's Child: extremely brief mid-performance teases that ended with the former bandmates walking off stage so the stars could get back to singing their hits by themselves.) Timberlake's done well on his own. He escaped the boy band era and emerged a decade later with artistic credibility and a pile of new hits. He doesn't need to revisit the all-denim years.
Oh, yeah... he also released a second album this year, but the less said about that, the better. -- Evan Minsker
Pooneh Ghana
*Death Grips*
How did Death Grips do this again? After a monumental 2012 marked by two great albums, a dick-pic of an album cover, and enough unexpected moves to result in their dismissal from Epic Records, you'd expect drummer Zach Hill and MC Stefan Burnett—now rejoined by producer Andy Morin—to remain quiet. But even Death Grips' silence in 2013 spoke volumes. In between sharing a series of videos and dealing with their old label, it seemed the group was working on building its mystique back up. Hill, unexpectedly, had not been touring, despite being the band's crucial, physical force. In May, we received first word that yet another Death Grips LP was in the works, to be released by an imprint aligned with Capitol. Hill had also undertaken the ambitious project of writing, directing and scoring a feature film.
As it turned out, that was all just the calm before the storm. Instead of playing a Lollapalooza after party, the "show" featured an unmanned children's drum kit, a projected screenshot of an emailed suicide note, and pre-recorded Death Grips music. Fans destroyed their equipment after learning the group wouldn't play. Then it turned out that the band had never intended to play at all; nor did they intend to play any of their scheduled shows. Was it brilliant, minimalist performance art in the vein of John Cage? Or just a dick move?
And then, out of nowhere, they released another unannounced record, Government Plates, again for free. In the wake of a polarizing conversation about what the group owed its fans, Death Grips had the last word. -- Jenn Pelly
*Morrissey*
It was a year of high highs and low lows that kept Morrissey fixed to our cultural consciousness once again. On the one hand, there was the monumental 400-plus-page autobiography for Penguin Classics, which shared and spawned revelations about Morrissey's sexuality and became an instant bestseller. On the other hand, tour cancellations and postponements and apology notes abounded due to ongoing health concerns. In January, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with a bleeding ulcer; "The reports of my death have been greatly understated," he said. In March, he cancelled a show due to pneumonia. "I hope this isn't the end," he wrote that month, and later, in July, "Each year of life brings us nearer to our decline, but I will continue to seek a listener until I'm dead in a ditch." In November, Moz was again in the hospital for a concussion and whiplash.
2013 also brought many more classic entries in the long, long list of Morrissey's political fights, not to mention many opportunities to revel in the general wonder of his speech. He called the Royal Family "mentally defective" and, in true Moz form, spoke out about the death of Margaret Thatcher, noting, "No British politician has ever been more despised by the British people." There was his "Thankskilling" note to President Obama, his call to action against foie gras, his fight with Jimmy Kimmel and the cast of "Duck Dynasty", and the saga in which he nearly convinced the Staples Center to go 100% vegetarian. He capped off the year by performing at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, a fitting, triumphant ending to a turbulent year. -- Jenn Pelly
*Jai Paul*
Didn't it seem like we'd know more by now? Back in April, someone claiming to be Jai Paul—the enigmatic and devastatingly talented London pop eccentric who prior to this year had released only two songs, 2010's "BTSTU" and 2012's "Jasmine"—uploaded 16 untitled tracks to Bandcamp. At first, it seemed like this was his long-awaited self-titled debut. (One early theory was that Paul had pulled a Death Grips and released it himself online without the approval of his label, XL.) But a few days after it appeared, the album was pulled from Bandcamp. XL issued a statement saying that these songs were "a collection of various unfinished recordings from Jai's past" that had been uploaded "illegally." Paul (or at least someone claiming to be him) made a (verified) Twitter account just to confirm that he had not uploaded the demos. "Statement to follow later," he said. But one never did. Eight months later, cryptically, this remains his only tweet.
The same questions we were asking back in April remain unanswered today: Are these songs finished products (Paul's previous singles both had a patchy, unfinished quality about them) or demos? Is it possible that, despite what he tweeted, Paul (or his label) did leak the album in an effort to drum up publicity? Or was it leaked by the thief who (allegedly) stole Paul's laptop? And, most naggingly of all: how much longer will we have to wait for Paul's "official" debut?
Luckily, Jai Paul (if we can call it that) is good enough to make these questions feel like secondary concerns. All year these sixteen tracks have been passed around online and—with or without Paul's approval—have taken on a life of their own. (Case in point: check out all the amazing results when you search "jai paul BTSTU choreography" on Youtube.) In a year when more established artists went to great (and pricy) lengths to create some sort of mystique surrounding their album releases, mystery was a hot commodity. But nobody committed to enigma more thoroughly in 2013 than Jai Paul. Will 2014 be the year that we finally get a glimpse of the pop genius behind the curtain? As he murmurs in the third track, which fans have taken to calling "Zion Wolf": "Well see." -- Lindsay Zoladz
*The Best Music Moments on TV*
Arcade Fire's "Here Comes the Night Time" NBC special
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Beyoncé's Super Bowl halftime performance
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Stephen Colbert (and many special guests) dance to Daft Punk's "Get Lucky"
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Kanye West interview with Jimmy Kimmel
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Kanye West, Charlie Wilson, and the Roots perform "Bound 2" on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon"
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Haim do "The Wire" on "Saturday Night Live"
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Drake plays "Who Has Drake Dated?" With Ellen DeGeneres
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Drake and Sampha debut "Too Much" on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon"
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Janelle Monáe performs "Dance Apocalyptic" on "Late Show With David Letterman"
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Cookie Monster takes on Icona Pop's "I Love It" on "Sesame Street"
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Cat Power performs "Bully" on "Later... With Jools Holland"
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Vampire Weekend perform "Unbelievers" on "Saturday Night Live"
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Tyler, the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, and Domo Genesis perform "Rusty" on "Late Show With David Letterman"
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Danny Brown and A$AP Rocky on Kathy Griffin's talk show "Kathy"
David Bowie by Jimmy King
*The Year in Comebacks, Reunions, and Returns*
It was an absurdly busy year for this kind of thing. Right when you thought a follow-up to Loveless would never materialize, it showed up. Had you long given up hope on, say, a Neutral Milk Hotel reunion tour? That happened. Trent Reznor changed his mind and got Nine Inch Nails to tour and put out an album. The Replacements played some shows. David Bowie celebrated his 66th birthday by announcing a new record. Boards of Canada broke their silence. So did Throwing Muses. Justin Timberlake and Lily Allen both returned to music. Fleetwood Mac and Dave Chappelle did arena tours. Daft Punk released their first proper album in eight years. The Postal Service got back together, playing huge festival sets and sold-out arenas alongside Jenny Lewis. Cult acts like Medicine, Cibo Matto, Throwing Muses, Linda Perhacs, and the Grifters resurfaced. There were even victories for 1990s pop nostalgists as TLC, Destiny's Child, and 'NSync all got back together (however briefly).
So what prompted all of these grand returns? Fear of the rise of holograms? Obviously, a long-belated reunion is a potential cash cow. But there's also the sense that some of these artists had artistic drive and the desire to breathe new life into their old projects. Either way, festival attendees and music nerds everywhere reaped the rewards of having some of their favorite artists back in action. -- Evan Minsker
*The Year in Comebacks That Shouldn't Have Come Back*
But then again, not every comeback was necessarily welcome. While the Pixies returned with their first new songs in about a decade, they did it without Kim Deal. Then, they got rid of the replacement Kim. Also: Their new songs are really bad. (Remember when the Pixies were honest about just touring for the money? I guess we were all better off back then.) The Dismemberment Plan and the Strokes both delivered forgettable albums. (Honestly, I completely forgot that the Strokes came out with an album this year.) Greg Ginn got Black Flag back together, sued a bunch of his old bandmates, released some really bad Black Flag songs, and put out one of the worst album covers of all time. Deltron 3030's album was a slog and, for some reason, featured David Cross and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Lauryn Hill's post-prison track "Consumerism" was a disappointment. These were 2013's unfortunate returns—let's hope that next year's supposed OutKast reunion avoids a similar fate. -- Evan Minsker
Arcade Fire Reflektor Graffiti, Via Arcade Fire's Instagram
*The Year in Elaborate Album Rollouts*
Artist after artist milked the album rollout for everything it was worth this year, building hype outside the traditional "here's a music video, here are some tour dates, here's a new single, here's another" structure. There were enormous spectacles like Lady Gaga's artRave. Daft Punk relished sharing just a few pieces of the puzzle at a time—their short "SNL" promos featuring "Get Lucky", the posters with their masks plastered all over music festivals, the weekly interview videos featuring the album's contributors, etc.
There were multi-pronged corporate tie-ins for Jay Z and Justin Timberlake. Kanye West and Arcade Fire took a more guerrilla approach to street marketing. Before announcing the album's title--or even that there was any album at all--Reflektor was written into an insignia and chalked up across the globe. Kanye wasn't so subtle, projecting his face onto buildings worldwide. That's how "New Slaves" was first heard—no music video, just a sullen giant Kanye head on the side of a building loudly rapping, "You see there's leaders/ And there's followers/ But I'd rather be a dick than a swallower."
Other artists used the reach of the internet to reveal their new work in creative ways. Cut Copy set up billboards in locations across the world featuring the words "Free Your Mind". With a smartphone, you could visit the billboard in person and listen to the song. Boards of Canada, on the other hand, played the long game. They leaked some extremely limited edition vinyl to independent record stores, embedding hidden codes in the sound snippets. Fans online scrambled to solve their puzzle, and when they did, Tomorrow's Harvest was revealed. Then, they literally led their fans into the desert to hear the album for the first time.
By the end of 2013, it was a refreshing change of pace when Death Grips and Beyoncé said, "Hey, here's our album," and that was it. All these wild goose changes can be fun, but at a certain point: enough already. -- Evan Minsker
Ari Marcopoulos
*The Year in Kendrick Lamar's "Control"*
The internet first heard Kendrick Lamar’s verse on Big Sean's “Control” late in the evening of August 12. As of this writing—almost exactly four months later—a Google News search will still produce new headlines like this one: “J. Cole Disses Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Control’ verse.” A bit belated, Cole’s words join a never-ending ripple of reactions that have ranged from the gleeful and invigorated (A$AP Mob’s Hot 97 freestyle) to the silly (RiFF RAFF) to the thoughtfully bored (El-P, Killer Mike) to the melodramatic (too many to name) and the devastatingly level-headed (Nicki Minaj, Drake).
“That verse was a moment to talk about,” Drake told an interviewer in September. "But are you listening to it now, at this point in time? Okay... It was real cool for a couple weeks... But if I ask you, for example, how does that verse start?” Drake was bristling in the face of those who dared name Kendrick Lamar as legitimate threat to his throne. But he was also making a comment about the power "Control" held in a universe obsessed with talking points, quick-fire opinions, and responses to responses to responses. (For the record, the verse begins with Kendrick telling “Flex to drop a bomb on this shit.” I had to look it up.)-- Carrie Battan
*The Year in Pharrell*
Like the legend of the phoenix: Pharrell Williams rose from the ashes and was on fire this year. Yes, he was featured on two of the biggest songs of the summer ("Get Lucky" and "Blurred Lines"). He also showed up on Tyler, the Creator's Wolf, assisted on an Azealia Banks track, and sang the hook for one of 2 Chainz' best songs. He made a music video that lasts 24 hours. For some reason, he teamed up with Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis to deliver the Natural Born Hitters mixtape. He worked with Earl Sweatshirt, Frank Ocean, Jay Z, Beyoncé, Pusha T, the Weeknd, Miley Cyrus, and the Lonely Island. He's teaming with Johnny Marr for the new Spider-Man soundtrack, apparently. So what prompted such a successful year for Pharrell? We're just going to assume it was that holistic Daft Punk fizzy water. -- Evan Minsker
*The Year in the Fight Against Cell Phones*
Like most of our plugged-in waking hours, show-going has been subjected to social media's culture of over-sharing. Every live-tweet and Instagrammed band pic may seem inconsequential on its own, but together these small, shared parts have been like nuts and bolts, shutting one door and opening a new one for the contemporary concert experience. In 2013, artists began to more visibly resist the effects of Generation Elsewhere and its habit of distracted fandom. The glow of an active device seemed worthy of a critical glare.
In April, Savages continued spreading the hyper-present gospel of Silence Yourself by encouraging fans to forget their phones: "OUR GOAL IS TO DISCOVER BETTER WAYS OF LIVING AND EXPERIENCING MUSIC,” read a note tacked around venues. Yeah Yeah Yeahs shared likeminded directions at a New York show: "PUT THAT SHIT AWAY". The Unsound festival in Krakow banned photography and filming on phones; in September, a clip surfaced of Arcade Fire's Win Butler smacking an iPhone-shaped piñata. KEN Mode posted on Facebook: "An open warning to people attending our shows: if you stand in front of us and text while we are performing expect to either be bathed in quite directed mucous or have your phone kicked from your hands by a man with a guitar or bass in his hands. Expect it. No more being polite. Ever. If you want your phone ruined, do it."
In an interview, Devon Welsh of Majical Cloudz summed up why it's important to detach in the sacred setting of a concert: "My phone and wallet are reminders of who I am when I'm just living my life," he said. "When I go onstage, I don't want anything to do with that." -- Jenn Pelly
*The Year in the Fight Against Spotify*
The debate surrounding Spotify and similar streaming services is focused on a central point: What is music worth? How do we bring real monetary value to digital music? But the debate is clouded with other questions, like how major labels benefit from Spotify's current business model while independent artists are paid virtually nothing for their songs.
This year, the circular conversation finally prompted artists like Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich to take action and remove their music from Spotify, including the Atoms for Peace album Amok and Yorke's solo album The Eraser. It set an example and made a case for individual action—one band's decision mattered—but mostly, Yorke and Godrich used their position to leverage further discussion. "I'm not bitching about not getting paid," Godrich wrote this year. "I feel a responsibility to speak up when I see something going on which I think is unfair." David Byrne agreed that the dominant streaming services are harmful for young artists; Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis said he'd rather have his record stolen than streamed on Spotify.
All the while, Spotify explained that with time the company will expand to new regions and acquire more paid subscribers, and payments will increase for new artists. The company had a significant gain in getting the Led Zeppelin catalogue and launching a free mobile version. But still, the power of those skeptics pushed Spotify to launch the Spotify Artists website, which attempts to break down its business model. With that, the debate rolls steadily along to 2014. -- Jenn Pelly
John Londono
*The Year in the Fight Against Sexism*
Right after finishing up her Visions world tour, Grimes (aka Claire Boucher) took to Tumblr to write a particularly powerful post—a kind of feminist manifesto for the digital age. "I don't want to have to compromise my morals in order to make a living," she began, and then ran down a strongly worded laundry list of the instances of sexism she's experienced in the music industry: men who feel entitled to touch her on the street, musicians who underestimate her talent and technical prowess because she's a woman, and "creeps on message boards discussing whether or not they'd 'fuck' me", to name just a few.
The post's brutal honesty struck a nerve with fans and other musicians alike; it was "liked" or reblogged almost 20,000 times. A few months later, in September, Lauren Mayberry of the Glasgow electro pop band Chrvches wrote a similar op-ed in The Guardian, taking to task the men ("I'm sorry, but they are all men") who left obscene comments about her on the group's Facebook page. Mayberry challenged the complacent attitude that this is just something that women in the music industry "need to learn to deal with.""Is the casual objectification of women so commonplace that we should all just suck it up, roll over and accept defeat?" she wrote. "I hope not."
Of course, artists speaking out against sexism in the music industry is not some kind of recent trend. But the Internet does provide new platforms for them to speak out with (as they say) #nofilter. Grimes and Mayberry's words resonated with a new generation of feminists who have used the internet as a tool for connecting with like-minded people—exemplified by the thriving feminist blogosphere and Tavi Gevinson's teen girl web zine Rookie—but also have to contend with its new challenges ("creeps on message boards", etc.)
These words bridged the gap between generations and resonated with more established feminist artists, too. In a Pitchfork interview last month, riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna commended Grimes' Tumblr post—and cited Boucher herself as an inspiration. "I'm probably around 20 years older than her," she said "And it's cool to have someone so much younger than me who, in a way, I look up to." -- Lindsay Zoladz
*The Year in the Talkhouse*
With his website The Talkhouse, music journalist Michael Azerrad has facilitated a space for artist-on-artist music criticism, as well as features and essays by active musicians. What may have seemed like an experiment at the time of its launch has proven to be one of the most reliable sources of great music writing on the web.
In the site's first piece, Screaming Females drummer Jarrett Dougherty reviewed the self-titled LP from Swearin'. It took off from there, featuring St. Vincent on Arcade Fire, Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz on Miley Cyrus' Bangerz and the Lana Del Rey film Tropico, Dean Wareham on Mazzy Star, Amy Klein on Kurt Vile, the Men's Ben Greenberg on Black Flag, and dozens more. Mish Way, the singer of White Lung, is a frequent writer for the site—an especially fascinating personal essay found her exploring her own scream. Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend wrote a hilarious take on Drake's Nothing Was the Same, telling the (fictitious) story of a motherfucker who never loved him.
The site's greatest feat thus far—and one that seems hard to top—was the review of Kanye West's Yeezus by the late Lou Reed. It was the last piece of writing Reed published before his death. Reed called Yeezus "seriously smart." "There are moments of supreme beauty and greatness on this record," Reed wrote. "No one's near doing what he's doing, it's not even on the same planet." This review proved how the artist-on-artist formula can make fans see both musicians differently.
While the unending chatter of social media can feel trivial, The Talkhouse is fostering dialogue between artists that anyone who cares about music can learn from. -- Jenn Pelly
*Beefs of the Year*
Azealia Banks vs. Disclosure
Azealia Banks vs. Angel Haze
Azealia Banks vs. Baauer
Azealia Banks vs. the Stone Roses
Beastie Boys vs. GoldieBlox
Beyoncé and Jay-Z vs. Republican members of Congress
Black Flag vs. FLAG
The Black Keys' Patrick Carney vs. Justin Bieber
Bob Dylan vs. a French Croatian community association
Drake vs. Future
Grimes vs. sexist assholes
Chvrches vs. sexist assholes
Frank Ocean vs. Chris Brown
Guided by Voices vs. drummer Kevin Fennell
Jack White vs. Karen Elson
Justin Timberlake vs. Take Back the Night
Kanye West vs. Jimmy Kimmel
Kanye West vs. Nike
Kanye West vs. Charlamagne and Sway
Kanye West vs. the paparazzi
Kanye West vs. the Anti-Defamation League
Kanye West vs. the entire fashion industry
Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake
Kendrick Lamar vs. Everyone But Nicki Minaj
Lil Wayne vs. TMZ
M.I.A. vs. the Grammys
M.I.A. vs. the NFL
Michael Jackson's family vs. AEG
Morrissey vs. the cast of Duck Dynasty
Morrissey vs. Thanksgiving
Morrissey vs. the Royal Family
Pixies vs. the Kims (Shattuck and Deal)
Queens of the Stone Age vs. Jay Z
RiFF RAFF vs. Spring Breakers
Robin Thicke vs. the Marvin Gaye estate
Sinead O'Connor vs. Miley Cyrus
*The Best Vine and Instagram Videos of the Year*
Move over, Tumblr and Twitter: short videos are the new playground for musicians on social media. We chose some of our favorite artists' Instagram video and Vine accounts from this year. -- Carrie Battan
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Young Chop
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Drake
Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij
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Schoolboy Q
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Tyler, the Creator
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Alana Haim
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Sky Ferreira
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Dev Hynes (Blood Orange)
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Action Bronson
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Flying Lotus
Steve Gullick
*R.I.P.: Musicians We Said Goodbye to in 2013*
*January | February | March*Jason Molina, singer/songwriter of Magnolia Electric Co. and Songs: Ohia
Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner, frontman for the Ohio Players
Reg Presley, author and frontman for the Troggs
Arpad Miklos, gay porn star known for Perfume Genius video
Donald Byrd, jazz trumpeter
Jon Cook, member of Rodan, Crain, and Cerebellum
Tim Dog, rapper and author
George "Shadow" Morton, producer and songwriter
Mark Kamins, DJ and producer
Tony Sheridan, guitarist, singer, and Beatles collaborator
Kevin Ayers, founding member of Soft Machine
Magic Slim, Chicago blues musician
Justin Benoit, member of Cold Cave
Cleotha Staples, founding member of the Staple Singers
Otis "Damon" Harris, member of the Temptations
Richard Street, member of the Temptations
DJ Ajax, producer, DJ, and label head
Magic, rapper with No Limit
Ric Menello, music video director
Bobbie Smith, lead singer of the Spinners
Scott Hardkiss, DJ icon
Paul Williams, rock journalist
Phil Ramone, producer
April | May | JuneGeorge Jones, country music superstar
Chi Cheng, Deftones bassist
Scott Miller, frontman for Game Theory and the Loud Family
Storm Thorgerson, visual artist
Chrissy Amphlett, Divinyls singer
Richie Havens, folk icon
Cordell "Boogie" Mosson, P-Funk bassist
Chris "Mac Daddy" Kelly, rapper
Martin Lloyd, electronic musician with Oppenheimer Analysis
Jeff Hanneman, Slayer guitarist
Peter Rauhofer, DJ and producer
Romanthony, house producer and Daft Punk collaborator
Ray Manzarek, keyboardist of the Doors
Trevor Bolder, David Bowie's Spiders From Mars bassist
Andreas Thein, co-founder of Propaganda
Arturo Vega, Ramones' graphic designer
Bobby "Blue" Bland, blues singer
Alan Myers, Devo drummer
July | August | SeptemberGeorge Duke, legendary jazz/funk keyboardist and producer
T-Model Ford, blues musician
JJ Cale, singer-songwriter
Tim Wright, Pere Ubu and DNA bassist
Jon Brookes, drummer for the Charlatans UK
Allen Lanier, founding member of Blue Öyster Cult
Joey LaCaze, Eyehategod drummer
Prince Jazzbo, reggae artist, DJ, and producer
Ray Dolby, pioneer of high fidelity sound
October | November | DecemberLou Reed, rock icon and founding member of the Velvet Underground
Philip Chevron, Pogues guitarist
Jan Kuehnemund, Vixen guitarist
Marc Trovillion, Lambchop bassist
Soroush Farazmand, Yellow Dogs guitarist
Arash Farazmand, Yellow Dogs drummer
Ali Eskandarian, musician and author
Bernard Parmegiani, composer and sound artist
Junior Murvin, reggae singer
Jim Hall, jazz guitarist
The Child of Lov, R&B/soul singer
Zbigniew Karkowski, noise composer
Ray Price, legendary country singer
Lord Infamous, founding member of Three 6 Mafia
David Richards, producer Reported by Pitchfork 22 hours ago.
