1. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

Give in. Lose yourself to dance. "I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many... I am Random Access Memories."

2. My Bloody Valentine - m b v

How amazing is this album? What would they have had to do not to be overlooked in the 8-15 range on year end lists?

3. Kanye West - Yeezus

4. Rhye - Woman

They delivered on those early singles and how.

5. Joanna Gruesome - Weird Sisters

Such a perfect band for me: silly retro 90s tweecore

6. Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

7. Moonface - Julia with Blue Jeans on

Devastating. Also maybe the only outright sad album on my list?

8. Yuck - Glow and Behold

Amazing to lose your band lead/singer and make what MAY be a BETTER album? Gin Blossoms shit right there.

9. Danny Brown - Old

Listen to it as an album.

10. Julianna Barwick - Nepenthe

Ditto.

11. Austra - Olympia

Has maybe my favorite 5-song set of the year, but with some filler. so #witchy

12. Sky Ferreira - Night Time, My Time

13. Blood Orange - Cupid Deluxe

So cool.

14. Caitlin Rose - The Stand-In

It took a lot to get me interested in an alt-country album. Caitlin did it.

15. Blood Ceremony - The Eldritch Dark

My favorite metal album of the year sounds more like Jethro Tull than Deafheaven

16. Pure X - Crawling up the Stairs

Fav Austin band releases their best record.

17. Zola Jesus - Versions

Better than the originals.

18. Haim - Days are Gone

19. Pusha T - My Name is My Name

20. The Knife - Shaking the Habitual

So good, so hard to listen to.

21. Factory Floor - S/T

Totally delivered on all the debut hype.

22. Potty Mouth - Hell Bent 

Amazing sloppy debut. Band I most want to hang out with.

23. Colleen Green - Sock it To Me

Always overlooked because of deceptive simplicity.

24. Cassie - Rock a Bye Baby

My favorite R&B nasty girl releases an excellent DRRTY mixtape

25. Eleanor Friedberger - Personal Record

I forgot; this should be higher but I'm too lazy to change this list.

26. Califone - Stitches

It bums me out that everyone overlooks califone when they consistently release excellent records.

27. Darkside - Psychic

28. Autre Ne Veut - Anxiety

29. Psychic Teens - Come

BAUHAUS 2

30. Laura Marling - Once I Was an Eagle

I know I'm forgetting stuff, sorry! Honorable Mentions include over-anticipated releases from FIDLAR, CHVRCHES, Mazzy Star, Savages, and Julia Holter. Those albums were good but not as good as I wanted them to be. Also still need to process the Beyonce.

Some of my Favorite Music Videos of 2013
I know I forgot a lot.

Odonis Odonis - Better
This is a cheap, unoriginal music video, but I love how it reminds me of old Austra videos, and the cult dancing is solid. The cheap masks are pretty creepy too.

Dizzee Rascal - I Don't Need a Reason
As absurd and awesome as the song

Solange - Loves in the Parking Lot
Solange seems to do no wrong.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sacrilege
The fancy reverse narration doesn't get in the way of a good music video.

Ciara - Body Party
Sexy song, sexy video

Haim - Falling
Oh just some cute Stevie Nicks wannabes in what seems to be a witchy Abercrombie and Fitch shoot? YES PLEASE

Pissed Jeans - Romanticize Me
Simple idea flawlessly executed

Ghost BC - Year Zero
Nice Mini-horror movie for a really catchy pop song.

Pusha T feat Kendrick Lamar - Nosetalgia
Simple and in your face

Disclosure - When A Fire Starts to Burn
Maybe it takes a sermon to get me into Disclosure?

No Joy - Hare Tarot Lies
Love the creepiness of this video.

Mykki Blanco- Kingpinning
My favorite visual rapper makes so many great videos. This one is his most simple, making the basic rap video interesting, His live show with Boychild was transcendent.

Beach House - Wishes
Still pretty bored by Beach House, but every Eric Wareheim video is must-see

Savages - Shut Up

Best live performance video, I think... but I think I'm forgetting something.

CHVRCHES - Lies

Their videos got a little too slick for me, but I like the Depeche Mode vibe here

Blood Orange - Time Will Tell

Huge fan of people-dancing-alone videos

Austra - Reconcile

THIS TEACHER IS AWESOME

Taylor Swift - 22

Don't Pretend you don't like it. I want her T Shirt

Milosh - Slow Down

So simple and emotional and great

Joanna Gruesome
This and the next video are my favorites of the year, and weirdly similar.

LIZ - U Over Them

I want this on repeat forever.

Top 10 Movies of 2012

1. The Kid with a Bike
   The only masterpiece this year is the best movie by the most consistently great filmmakers of the century. A movie that makes all other Dardenne movies better in retrospect, and inherits Bresson's title of secular scripture. Stages the best miracle in film that I can think of offhand.
2. The Master
   After trying to make the Western perverse with There Will Be Blood (hint: it already was), Anderson takes on the other great American genre: the Romance. Still doesn't quite earn the relationship that the actors give it (is that a genre convention?), but the motorcycle scene is special, as is the “Slow Boat to China” scene, if unearned.
3. Damsels in Distress
   Stillman once again manages to show compassion for his characters while decidedly not identifying with them; in other words, the opposite of the alt-American comedic tradition of Woody Allen and Wes Anderson (closer to Altman). Realism is not the point in a movie that is about frivolity.

4. 5 Broken Cameras
   The best documentary I saw all year also tells one of the best narratives. An incredibly explicit political film also tells an incredibly personal story. A better film about filmmaking than “This is Not a Film.” I can't believe that Sugar Man bullshit won the Academy Award.
5. Zero Dark Thirty
   The antithesis of Zodiac does a better job telling us just what someone would do for certainty, and it is more terrible than I could imagine. The “100%” scene is so dark and politically disturbing, and the final shots are among the most haunting of the year. People who criticize this film's politics don't seem to appreciate how open it is to letting them articulate their problems with it. You can't make a politically “correct” film about counter-terrorism and have it be any good.

6. The Deep Blue Sea
7. Prometheus
   The inverse of Alien. Whereas Alien was excellent for its claustrophobia, Prometheus makes us afraid of openness. Alien was tight and focused; Prometheus is convoluted and all over the place. But the movie's pessimism is profoundly affecting, beautiful and uncompromisimg. Shaw's faith is appropriately underexplained and unflinching. Appropriate quote from Melancholia (which would be a good double-feature partner): “The earth is evil. We don't need to grieve for it.”

8. Django Unchained
   Not a great film, but its cruelty and brutality confirms that Inglourious Basterds was. Tarantino's interview with Gates is worth a read. Worthy of all the debate it has created.
9. Bernie
   Jack Black gives the best acting performance in several years. A darkly hilarious movie that gets explores religiosity and sexuality without getting preachy or reductive.
10. Ruby Sparks
    I have no defense for liking this rom-com that most people I respect will despise. I think it does a great job of deconstructing the Manic-Pixie-Dreamgirl fetish, though, even while engaging with it (wouldn't it have to?). And towards the end it contains a perverse scene of cruelty the likes of which every Romantic Comedy should aspire to.