Anteater's 25 Favorite Albums of 2013

dca · 12-16-2013, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anteater

Nice. I imagine this is what Drake thinks he sounds like. thanks for the suggestion

not much grabbed me hip hop -wise this year, but Lewis Parker's The Puzzle Episode 2: 'The Glass Ceiling' and MC Melodee & Cookin Soul's 'My Tape Deck' were good albums.

Anteater · 12-17-2013, 07:16 PM

^ Yeah, as I mentioned, I like a fair amount of hip-hop this year, but David Dallas was the only one of the bunch who put out an album that hit me hard enough to make it on my top list. Drake was disappointing this year. :-/

So, time for #15!

15. Ed Motta - AOR

Genre: AOR, Westcoast, Bossa Nova, Jazz Pop, "Yacht Rock"

Sounds Like: Steely Dan, Christopher Cross, Stevie Wonder, Chicago, early Toto, late 70's Fleetwood Mac

Now this killer little album is the very definition of a left field slap upside the head: AOR is Brazilian soul/funk singer Ed Motta's first ever record released into the English/International market. And while I've been peripherally aware of his uncle Tim Maia (who is a big decades-old player in the bossa nova/MBP scene), Mr. Motta's own output has always been released exclusively in Portuguese since his own career started back in the late 80's. On top of that, he owns one of the largest vinyl collections on the planet and is supposedly a real purist when it comes to how things go down in studio. So after his debut record in English happened to come my way, I gave it a spin not expecting much...

*picks jaw off floor*. So, to put it mildly, this guy has a marvelous voice that just screams CHARISMA in fat neon letters through your speakers. Doesn't hurt that he has a huge range coupled with a tone that could melt coffee stains off the carpet either. And how 'bout dem songs eh? Well, they're all miniature poptastic masterpieces that would have been at home on any of those L.A. classic jazz-rock records of the late 70's like Aja by Steely Dan or maybe on one of the more inspired Chicago recordings. And to make the deal even sweeter, consider the fact that this dude goes out of his way to use analog equipment through both the recording and mastering processes. Pure ear candy, ladies and gents, candy I say!

2013 didn't have too many albums of this pedigree (much less this style), but for anyone who misses Steely Dan and good jazz-pop in general...well, this is a mandatory acquisition. Seriously!

14232949 · 12-17-2013, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dca

Nice. I imagine this is what Drake thinks he sounds like. thanks for the suggestion

not much grabbed me hip hop -wise this year, but Lewis Parker's The Puzzle Episode 2: 'The Glass Ceiling' and MC Melodee & Cookin Soul's 'My Tape Deck' were good albums.

Are you mad?
I will never understand this forum's complete misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Drake.
Why on earth would Drake want to send like this generic whiteboy rapper. The guy is nauseating and woefully bland.
'Oh, it was hard. Just trying to make a better life' Boring. Heard it all before, plus this guy, David Dallas, just mumbles. No charisma, no intrigue, no distinguishable characteristics.
Verses are bland and uninteresting.

In fact this guy embodies everything Drake and more specifically Nothing Was the Same is not.
Anteater you said 'Drake was disappointing this year' despite releasing his best record to date, not to mention many, many good to great guest spots.
There's no way any logical person can put Nothing was the Same below David Dallas or whatever his name and album are called.
Nothing was the Same was more diverse, had better production, verses, production and songs that are versatile enough to play in almost any social setting. If I played David Dallas to any of my friends, they'd skip the track. I know I was painfully tempted to.

In terms of hip-hop, Nothing was the Same finds itself only behind Acid Rap in regards to AOTY.

Anteater · 12-17-2013, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mankycaaant

Are you mad?
I will never understand this forum's complete misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Drake.
Why on earth would Drake want to send like this generic whiteboy rapper. The guy is nauseating and woefully bland.
'Oh, it was hard. Just trying to make a better life' Boring. Heard it all before, plus this guy, David Dallas, just mumbles. No charisma, no intrigue, no distinguishable characteristics.
Verses are bland and uninteresting.

In fact this guy embodies everything Drake and more specifically Nothing Was the Same is not.
Anteater you said 'Drake was disappointing this year' despite releasing his best record to date, not to mention many, many good to great guest spots.
There's no way any logical person can put Nothing was the Same below David Dallas or whatever his name and album are called.

In terms of hip-hop, Nothing was the Same finds itself only behind Acid Rap in regards to AOTY.

Uh huh...okay then. I'm not on bad terms with Drake or whatnot. He's no Kendrick Lamar (who had better guest spots this year anyway), but Take Care was a better album than Nothing Was The Same and all the big R&B players kick his ass on hooks this year, so there ya go.

Now as for Dallas: he's a DIY guy whose last record The Rose Tint caught my attention back in 2011 (and it didn't need 50 different producers lulz), so when his new one hit and I spun it a few times, I realized it worked for me where others didn't quite click. End of story.

If you actually go and check out what reviews there are out there on Falling Into Place, you'll notice they're all pretty positive. If he was just some "nauseating" white rapper who wasn't doing something right, you'd be seeing a different sort of response on the whole.

Let's be perfectly clear though: nothing I said in my review was insane, and Dallas isn't bland just because he isn't topping charts or marching in with your favorite producers (your comment on "better verses, production, etc." is subjective anyway, so I'm leaving it at that). This isn't NPR or Hip-Hop Nation or Pitchfork or wherever else you go for validation on rap, which is where he's going to be topping lists because...well, exposure is everything. And Acid Rap? Lol: Chance sounds so nasal that the acclaim he's getting is a bit baffling TBH. Kudos on the production though...

Anyway, If you want to expouse the fantasticality of Drake and others, I would suggest making a list of your own. You'll give everyone who never spent any time with him this year an excuse to go spin the album and the rest of us who heard it already an incentive to enjoy it all over again.

Thanks for your response by the way.

Anteater · 12-18-2013, 10:00 PM

14. Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience (The Complete Experience)

Genre: Neo-soul, Funk, Electro-Pop, Experimental, R&B, Art Pop

Sounds Like: Michael Jackson, Prince, modern R&B

In a curious turn of events that not even Nostradamus could have seen coming, Justin Timberlake went full prog n' B this year with his 20/20 Experience duology of albums, complete with many songs coming close to the 10 minute mark and enough ideas between three songs to fill complete LPs of many an artiste on his level of exposure. But instead of slipping on the big banana of commercial ruin-via-alienating-core-audience, the former N'Sync crooner danced his way right up to enough $$$ and #1 chart topping to make his career all over again and then some. For those of you who didn't experience either Part 1 nor Part 2 this year though, I suppose the big question is: what's the big deal?

Well, that's the funny thing: as the year went on and on, I began to realize that Justin's affluent & indulgent creative relationship with producer Timbaland and their seemingly ill-thought tendency to give the majority of the songs a lot of running time has ended up rubbing off on me with repeat listens: like the progressive rock I call my musical foundation, deeper cuts like 'Don't Hold The Wall', 'True Blood' and 'Spaceship Coupe' weren't really built to capture your attention in any sort of immediate fashion: they're classic highly polished longplayers, tailored for a different audience than Yes or Genesis but accomplishing the goal of bleeding into you over time like runny paints on a vast canvas. But as the big singles like 'Suit & Tie' and 'Take Back The Night' illustrate, Timberlake is still a master fisherman who knows just where to drop the lure.

As I've mentioned offhand before, 2013 is going to be remembered as the year where R&B peaked at a creative zenith we haven't seen since the early 80's...and albums like the 20/20 Experience are a big part of why it happened.