Best of 2013

The Blow @ MHOW, November 2013 (more by Amanda Hatfield) While not as unexpected as My Bloody Valentine or Mazzy Star, The Blow released their first new full-length in seven years, which NPR's Bob Boilen just named his #1 album of 2013...

people outside Other Music on Record Store Day 2013 (more by PSquared) Other Music, the NYC record store (15 E 4th St) and record label (home to Nude Beach, Mutual Benefit, and others), has published its top 30 albums of 2013 list...

Pitchfork just posted their Honorable Mention Albums of 2013, which they say is "not #51 through #70 in our albums poll, but rather, records we thought were exceptional this year and deserved to be highlighted regardless of where they wound up...

intro Nashville's Jeffrey Novak has had a busy year. His band Cheap Time released their new album, Exit Smiles via In the Red, and he made time for a solo album The Lemon Kid which came out last month on Trouble in Mind (stream it via Rdio)...

Pitchfork just posted their Top 100 Tracks of 2013. It's got what some people might call the worst song ever, the song with the most talked-about rap verse of the year, some surprises, and some of the year's most undeniable songs...

Screaming Females at Bowery Ballroom in September (more by Amanda Hatfield) We've been asking around for artists to tell us their favorite albums of 2013, and the people at NJ punk/indie rock label Don Giovanni Records sent over some lists from a few of their artists...

I always look forward to FACT's year-end list, which you can count on to be chock full of (but not limited to) forward-thinking electronic music, pop, R&B and rap, and it's one of the lists where I'm usually guaranteed to find something new...

Dan Deacon @ Horseshoe Tavern/NXNE Toronto 6/13/2013 Longtime BV photographer David Andrako shot quite a few shows for us this year and, while 2013 isn't over yet, he was nice enough to submit his 10 favorites...

intro Sonny & the Sunsets released Antenna to the Afterworld last spring, a concept album about an alien visiting earth that took the band's usually folk-leaning sound in new directions. Wh...

Queens of the Stone Age at ACL 2013 (more by Tim Griffin) Queens of the Stone Age made a solid comeback this year with ...Like Clockwork, an album which has ended up on many year-end lists, including NME, Rolling Stone, Paste, SPIN, Q, Mojo, Amazon and Rough Trade...