My best music of 2013 playlist
It has become my habit that at the end of each year I usually put together a “best of” playlist of the music that I have been listening to, or has meant something, that year.
I’m a bit late finishing the 2013 version at the end of January 2014. Although that’s not as bad as my ‘best of’ for 2011 which didn’t get finished until September of 2012!
When I originally started doing this I’d pull together three or four CDs worth of MP3s in iTunes. I then progressed to mixing many of the tracks together DJ style using some music mixing software. Last year things changed again as I began using the music streaming service Spotify to pull together (a larger) playlist.
One of the great things about Spotify is it makes sharing the result much easier. So for those who might be interested here is the full playlist of over nine hours of my best tracks of 2013:
My listening continues to be biased towards various kinds of electronic music and is again heavily influenced by Gilles Peterson’s Sunday afternoon show on 6 Music, but there is the usual mix of genres and a good dollop of jazz. The musical year started with the impressive performance on Jools Holland’s New Year’s Eve show by The Hives — which is why they start the playlist. Highlights over the following twelve months included an unexpected new David Bowie album, a new album from Wolf People (or Lucy’s brother’s band as they are known in my house), the début album from Laura Mvula, more goodness from Little Boots, and the fabulous madness of the Janelle Monáe album. Another highlight was Jamie Cullum’s stylish cover of a Björk’s ‘Unison’. By contrast my most listened to album in 2013 was ‘Once I Was an Eagle’ by Laura Marling (iTunes/Amazon/Spotify) which is a brilliant piece of song writing and worth listening to in full.
There are a few tracks that would be part of the playlist but aren’t on Spotify. So for completeness I’ve listed them below (all links open in SoundCloud):
- Shoulda Known (Ganz Remix) – Louis Futon (Free Download)
- Live Your Life (MeLo-X Motherland GOD Mix) – Yuna (Free Download)
- Pulse of the City – Om’Mas Keith (Free Album Download here)
- Dionne – Osunlade
- Skirt (Switch Remix) – Kylie Minogue
You can also read my ‘best of’ music posts from previous years. This is what I wrote for 2012, for 2011 and again for 2010.