Photo by Fourth Floor.

Another year in the books, another year-end list to commemorate 365 days in music. A recent tradition in DCist history, we’ve once again racked our collective brains to put together a list of our favorite albums from the past year. If you’re just joining us for the first time this year, each writer submits a list of albums and extrapolates on their personal number one.

If you want to listen to anything on the list, there is a Spotify and Rdio playlist of everything below with the exception of Bill Callahan, Run The Jewels and My Bloody Valentine which are not available on either streaming platform.

Paramore: Paramore

“Now I can move on to facing big girl problems/No more high school drama/graduated with honors.” Thesis statements usually don’t come as easy as they do on the eponymous fourth album from the former Warped Tour heroes Paramore. Tumblr-spats and heartache defined the band’s past few years as Hayley Williams and her band were left picking up the pieces. And while there are plenty of parting shots (“Grow Up“, “Anklebiters” to name a few) across the sprawling, 17-song album, Paramore has released one of the most surprising, continuously captivating and flat out fun albums of the year. Williams has the sass, chops and lungs to sell the majority of the record (even the clunkers), but it’s the chemistry between bassist Taylor York and Nine Inch Nails drummer Ilan Rubin that really propels this record—the completely unnecessary-yet-necessary drum solo at the bridge of “Part II” comes to mind. And then there’s “Still Into You“: a nugget of pop confection so sweet it could give you a cavity. Paramore is dead. Long live Paramore.

Dean Blunt: The Redeemer
Kacey Musgraves: Same Trailer, Different Park
Pusha T: My Name Is My Name
The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die: Whenever, If Ever
Shotgun Jimmie: Everything, Everything
RP Boo: Legacy
Run The Jewels: Run The Jewels
Bill Callahan: Dream River
Majical Cloudz: Impersonator

— Andy Hess

Deafheaven: Sunbather

The latest album from San Francisco’s Deafheaven has been described as metal for people who don’t like metal, but I don’t think that’s a fair description. Sunbather transcends genres, yes, but it’s an album that shouldn’t be pinned down by definitions of genre. Black metal riffs and screeching vocals collide with walls of shoe-gazey soundscapes to create the most cinematic album i’ve heard all year. Sunbather isn’t an album you listen to so much as experience.

Roomrunner: Ideal Cities
Run the Jewels: Run The Jewels
The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die: Whenever, If Ever / Crash of Rhinos: Knots (The two best emo revival albums of the year. Couldn’t pick a favorite between these two).
My Bloody Valentine: m b v
Baths: Obsidian
Speedy Ortiz: Major Arcana
Haim: Days Are Gone
Waxahatchee: Cerulean Salt / Swearin’: Surfing Strange (It’s not fair to have to choose between Crutchfield sisters. Whether they’re making music together or in different bands, it’s always excellent).
CHVRCHES: The Bones of What You Believe

— Matt Cohen

My Bloody Valentine: m b v

Loud. Challenging. Visceral. I made the mistake of attempting to describe My Bloody Valentine to a few family members this fall when I stayed with them after seeing their Philadelphia concert. The best I could come up with was an unfair, “Well, it’s not pretty music.” There’s no catchy refrains a la Superchunk. No hip-swinging beats like Disclosure. But there is beauty here. Intermixed in the reverb, amongst the feedback and repetition, and interspersed in the often barely audible lyrics. It’s music that challenges our notion of beauty, and to some, even the notion of music itself. Despite all that, more than any other album this year, m b v continues to impress me with each successive listen.

The Dismemberment Plan: Uncanney Valley
Yo La Tengo: Fade
Superchunk: I Hate Music
Washed Out: Paracosm
KILN: meadow:watt
Rhye: Woman
Parquet Courts: Light Up Gold
Haim: Days Are Gone
Boards Of Canada: Tomorrow’s Harvest

— Brandon Hirsch

Paramore: Paramore

Coming off a well-publicized split of the band’s founding members, the brothers Farro, Paramore was left picking up the pieces and deciding where to go next. After three gripping non-album singles, Paramore hunkered down and created the band’s defining statement and my favorite record of the year. The seventeen track self-titled album is all over the place in terms of sound. Opener “Fast in My Car” and piledriver “Now” are louder moments, band’s go full on pop with “Still Into You,” and the album is punctuated by three ukulele driven interludes. Paramore even take influence from R&B with album highlights “Grow Up” and “Ain’t It Fun” going as far to incorporate a choir in the later. They say living better is the best revenge, and Paramore sure are riding high.

Fuck Buttons: Slow Focus
Haim: Days Are Gone
Kanye West: Yeezus
Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
Run the Jewels: Run the Jewels
Disclosure: Settle
Waxahatchee: Cerulean Salt
Rhye: Woman
Arctic Monkeys: AM

— Rohan Mahadevan

As opposed to 2012 where a few albums stood out (Kendrick Lamar, Ty Segall, Grass Widow, Fiona Apple) because nearly everything else was god awfully mediocre, 2013 had so many solid albums that leaving a few of them off of my top ten list was actually painful. My apologies to Bill Callahan, Thurston Moore and Ty Segall. What’s more, there are two other albums tied for the top spot. As a fan of music, I must say this is a wonderful problem to have and one that I haven’t dealt with since 2007.

Queens of the Stone Age: …Like Clockwork

With apologies to all of the high profile reunion tours, this album has been 2013’s most welcome return. Josh Homme’s ability to reveal the seductive qualities in heavy of guitar riffs has sharpened in his absence, as has his talent for exuding an air of toughness even as his voice veers toward falsetto. That dichotomy of and accessibility and edginess (coupled with a dry, wicked sense of humor) has always been a cornerstone for the best Queens of the Stone Age material. Yet while the faster and more hook-laden tracks like “My God Is the Sun,” “Fairweather Friends” and “I Sat By the Ocean” initially lure in the listener, the slower, piano-driven songs reveal a vulnerability in one of rock and roll’s more cocksure frontmen. It serves to make …Like Clockwork the best album QOTSA has recorded since 2002’s Songs For the Deaf and the year’s most surprising masterpiece.

Run the Jewels: Run The Jewels
Speedy Ortiz: Major Arcana
Roomrunner: Ideal Cities
The Woolen Men: The Woolen Men
Mikal Cronin: MCII
Superchunk: I Hate Music
Disclosure: Settle
Parquet Courts: Light Up Gold
My Bloody Valentine: m b v

— Valerie Paschall

Robert Glasper Experiment: Black Radio 2

For the second time, the Robert Glasper Experiment has proved jazz can still works in contemporary spaces. Led by keyboardist Robert Glasper, the Experiment recruited top-flight vocalists like Emeli Sandé, Eric Roberson and Bilal to make what, at its essence, is a jazz album with a heavy dose of hip-hop-inspired R&B of the neo-soul variety. Ok, that’s a clunky description but it’s apt. However, in a slight departure from the aforementioned formula, Glasper & Co. team with Norah Jones to conjure up the spirits of the once robust D&B/broken beat scene of the late-1990s/early naughts on “Let It Ride.” It’s important to note that “Let It Ride” has local ties in that it was penned by D.C.’s own, and former Three Stars artist, Muhsinah.

Various Artists: Purple Snow: Forecasting the Minneapolis Sound
Run The Jewels: Run The Jewels
The Foreign Exchange: Love In Flying Colors
Terrace Martin: 3ChordFold
Aurra: Satisfaction
Ghostface Killah: Twelve Reasons To Die
The Internet: Feel Good
Hiatus Kaiyote: Tawk Tomahawk
Tiny Hearts: Stay EP

— Jacarl Melton