music-and-concert-reviews-you-wont-see-anywhere-else
#31 album of 2013 – Pop Full Stop by Statuesque
Artist: Statuesque
Album: Pop Full Stop
Statuesque is the name under which Stephen Manning has played (all but the drums) and recorded his intensely literate, feyly melodic Brit-pop songs since the late 1990s. Their older albums — peaking for me with 2004’s superb Choir Above, Fire Below — often gave a striking imitation of full-band performance and professional production. I imagine that’s expensive and time-consuming for a hobby, though, so by 2013’s Pop Full Stop he’s settled […]
#32 album of 2013 – All My Friends by Jack o’ the Clock
Artist: Jack o’ the Clock
Album: All My Friends
Two years ago, I chose Jack o’ the Clock’s How are We Doing, and Who Will Tell Us? as my #1 album of 2011. In retrospect I’d put it at #2 — behind They Might Be Giants’s Join Us — but it’s an extraordinary record, blending pretty folk/Americana and nicely-sung storytelling with avant-garde influences and surrealism, so I’ll tell you about five of its highlights before I continue.
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#33 album of 2013 – Yeezus by Kanye West
Artist: Kanye West
Album: Yeezus
Reviewing Kanye West’s Yeezus is a double challenge for me. On the one hand, Yeezus was chosen by music critics as a whole, in the giant Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll, as the #1 best album of 2013 (so my rating it as #33, though intended as a compliment, opens the question “Why are you dissing it?”). On the other, I’m pretty sure a majority of *my* readers don’t like Kanye […]