Vampire Weekend: A confetti shower is probably the very least you'd expect after topping both the critics' and readers' albums of the year list
The ultimate, definitive Best Albums Of 2013
The votes are in, the counting's done. Here's YOUR views on the best music released in 2013
SEE POLL OF POLLS 2009 RESULTS
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SEE POLL OF POLLS 2010 RESULTS
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SEE POLL OF POLLS 2011 RESULTS
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SEE POLL OF POLLS 2012 RESULTS
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Huge thanks to the many many hundreds of you who sent us your
top five albums of the year.
Without further ado, here's the top 50. And below we offer our
thoughts on what it all means.
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- 575 Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires Of The
City
- 395 The National Trouble Will Find Me
- 375 Arcade Fire Reflektor
- 352 Arctic Monkeys AM
- 310 Kanye West Yeezus
- 271 Daft Punk Random Access Memories
- 245 Burial Truant / Rough Sleeper
- 244 Deafheaven Sunbather
- 185 My Bloody Valentine m b v
- 173 John Grant Pale Green Ghosts
- 164 Chvrches The Bones Of What You
Believe
- 146 Jon Hopkins Immunity
- 144 Laura Marling Once I Was An Eagle
- 138 Julia Holter Loud City Song
- 130 Queens Of The Stone Age ...Like
Clockwork
- 111 Foxygen We Are The 21st Century
Ambassadors
- 110 Kurt Vile Wakin On A Pretty Daze
- 107 James Blake Overgrown
- 86 Darkside Psychic
- 85 Haim Days Are Gone
- 81 Disclosure Settle
- 80 Parquet Courts Light Up Gold
- 78 Savages Silence Yourself
- 77 Mikal Cronin MCI
- 75 The Knife Shaking The Habitual
- 72 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Push Away The
Sky
- 71 The Future Of The Left How To Stop Your
Brain In An Accident
- 65 Boards Of Canada Tomorrow's Harvest
- 64 Janelle Monae The Electric Lady
- 63 Unknown Mortal Orchestra II
- 61 El-P And Killer Mike Run
the Jewels
- 59 Phosphorescent Muchacho
- 57 These New Puritans Field of Reeds
- 56 David Bowie The Next Day
- 55 Foals Holy Fire
- 55 John Murray The Graceless Age
- 55 Matthew E White Big Inner
- 54 Sigur Ros Kveikur
- 51 Caitlin Rose The Stand-In
- 50 Earl Sweatshirt Doris
- 50 Prefab Sprout Crimson / Red
- 48 Tegan and Sara Heartthrob
- 47 The Flaming Lips The Terror
- 46 Local Natives Hummingbird
- 45 Steve Gunn Time Off
- 45 Villagers {Awayland}
- 43 Eleanor Friedberger Personal Record
- 42 Frightened Rabbit Pedestrian Verse
- 40 Goldfrap Tales of Us
- 39 Justin Timberlake The 20/20
Experience
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Rather neatly, our readers' choices for the best albums of
2013 correspond directly with our sources' end of year poll of
polls at the two extremes: Vampire Weekend are
No.1 in both and Justin Timberlake No.50 in
both.
However the accord between the two lists at the very top is not
exactly 100% affinity. While in the critics' rankings, Vampire
Weekend's Modern Vampires Of The City was neck and neck with
Kanye West's Yeezus right up until the last votes,
in the readers' view it is streets ahead of the competition, which
chiefly came from The National and Arcade
Fire whereas West has merely achieved a respectable 5th
spot.
Inbetween No.1 and No.50, while there are plenty of familiar
names, there are also many intriguing variances.
One of the biggest surprises in the critics' ratings judging from
ADM user comments was the lowly position achieved by
Deafheaven's Sunbather (our all-time No.4
highest-rated album) while it attracted enough love from readers to
see it finish at No.8.
Burial's Truant / Rough Sleeper is one place
above Deafheaven but didn't figure at all in the critics' rankings,
but this is easily explained by the fact that most review sites and
publications do not include EPs.
Two of the most striking deviations occur with David
Bowie and Disclosure, the former
finishing at No.7 in the critics' list but only placed at No.34 by
users, the latter the critics' No.10 and the users' No.21.
Perennial critics' favourite Nick Cave also fared
rather less spectacularly in the users' list than in the
critics'.
Conversely, there is more cheer for Foxygen to be
had from the readers' verdict than from reviewers' opinion: their
2nd album struggled to 41st position in the poll of polls but users
put it at a relatively lofty 16.
Similarly, Future Of The Left's How to Stop Your
Brain in an Accident, a very recent ADM chart topper, was probably
released too late to be given any consideration at all by reviewers
but is enjoyed sufficiently by readers to see it at No.27.
As a general conclusion though, with the notable exception of the
Deafheaven album the overall make-up of the two top 20s shows a
much greater degree of confluence than they did last year. Does
this means that the "professional" music lovers have been more
influential in 2013? We're sure they'd like to think so. We're sure
our users would disagree.