The Low Highway is the 15th release for Steve Earle. Featuring his longtime band The Dukes, it is not on the list of his best albums. Still, I did not pay it near enough attention ten years ago. I am a Steve Earle fan, and this is a great record to start this list because it is a great example of how making these Top 20 lists ten years after the fact allows me to rediscover albums that I really like. If you know Earle’s work, there are no surprises here. If you are a Steve Earle fan, you will like this one. Most of the tracks are slow to mid-tempo, and Earle’s trademark lyrical brilliance are present throughout. The instrumentation leans toward the Nashville side of his songwriting, but Earle has always been a roots rocker more than a country artist and this record lands on the Americana side of country on most tracks. This is a great way to start this list. 

Waxahatchee’s album Cerulean Salt is a great way to continue the list. The band’s indie-rock version of roots rock shows them searching for the country sound that they would land on in a few years. With the rock and roll spirit of Steve Earle and a desperate desire to find a secret connection between Dolly Parton and the Velvet Underground, Waxahatchee toiled with this indie-rock sound for several albums and this one is a fine example. They have never presented a songwriting style as interesting as Big Thief or Liz Phair, but they are always worth a listen by anyone looking for something different than another dude yelling about shit.  

My favorite modern bands in 2013 were The Mountain Goats, The Hold Steady, The National, Frightened Rabbit, and Vampire Weekend. Although Mountain Goats and Hold Steady did not release new albums in 2013, the other three bands on that list did. None of those releases are my favorites by those bands, but they are still solid entries in each band’s discography. The first of those three to make my list is the 6th album by The National. Trouble Will Find Me is not as good as Alligator or Boxer, but the following the band built with those earlier albums led to this one becoming their highest charting release up to that point. The sound the band created with their early records has not changed much over the last ten years, but if you like that sound then you welcome every National release with an open heart.

David Bowie had not released an album for ten years when he released The Next Day in 2013. This was his 25th studio album and his next to last before his death in 2016. Bowie had nothing left to prove at this point in his legendary career. After reinventing himself a dozen times during his 50 years of stardom, any new music he produced was solely for his own artistic desire. Amazingly, he and producer Tony Visconti (he was the theme of the very first Faux Show!) created a great album that stands as one of his best since the early ’80s. It isn’t as good as his final album to come in 2016, but it is as good as rock music got in 2013. It is only 10 years later, but already it seems like no one is ever going to make rock and roll of this quality again as we move further into the 21st century.

Black Roots are a second generation roots/dub reggae band from Bristol, England who started recording in the late ’70s. They released a comeback album in 2012, after a ten year hiatus, called On The Ground. In 2013 they released a dub version of the album and it is a perfect throwback to the dub sound of the ’70s. Spark one up, sit back, and relax.

Hagar’s Song is a gorgeous jazz duet album with Charles Lloyd on sax and flute and Jason Moran on piano. Charles Lloyd is a jazz icon and one of the last living jazz legends from the ’60s. He started his career by replacing Eric Dolphy in Chico Hamilton’s group in 1960 when Dolphy left to join Charles Mingus’ group. Lloyd worked with many of the best musicians of the ’60s and ’70s, including his years in the Beach Boys touring and recording group of the ’70s, and was one of the most important bandleaders of his era. He was always an innovator looking to stretch the sounds of jazz and his instrument. This lifelong search for new sounds culminated in his ECM recordings of 1989-2013. These albums investigate a sonic landscape where there are no boundaries and the music is never presented as one may expect. His final recordings for ECM are this 2013 album. The music is transcendent. This is a prime example of why jazz music is the music of the soul.

Whether recording as his band Porcupine Tree, as a solo artist, or in collaboration with others, the music of Steven Wilson defines progressive rock from 1990 to the present. The torch once carried by Robert Fripp (King Crimson) and Peter Hammill (Van Der Graaf Generator/Peter Gabriel) is now firmly in the hands of Wilson. He still records and tours, is responsible for producing dozens of remasters of classic prog rock albums, works in ambient and electronic music, and collaborates with artists ranging from Israeli rocker Aviv Geffen to Opeth progressive death metal innovator Mikael Åkerfeldt. His 2013 album is arguably his greatest solo work.

My Bloody Valentine invented the alternative rock style known as shoegaze with their albums Isn’t Anything (1988) and Loveless (1991). Then a maelstrom of factors led to their destruction. Their influence is still heard throughout alternative rock. While Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, and Nirvana receive all of the credit for defining the music of the ’90s, My Bloody Valentine were just as important. Their 2013 album m b v is now an oasis in their discography. Released over twenty years after their 1991 genre-defining album, it has never been followed by another release. They could still release another record in ten years, but if this is their final album then it is a great way to finish.

I listened to a lot of metal in 2013. To make things simple, I’ve grouped my four favorites here at the Top 10 mark. These next four albums present a mix of four different types of metal by both old and new artists, starting with Surgical Steel by Carcass. Carcass are one of the most important metal bands. Starting in 1984, they are credited as innovators of thrash, death, melodic death, and grindcore metal. They have only released seven albums in 35 years, but they include some of the classics of the genre. This is their sixth and my third favorite by the band.

Gorguts have only released five albums since their debut in 1991. They are one of the most influential technical death metal bands. They introduced dissonance and atonality to the metal genre and are as experimental as metal players can get. If they had been around in the ’50s, they would have probably helped develop free jazz with Ornette Coleman. If they don’t release another record then Colored Sands will be their last, but it is a great close to their brilliant recording career.

Deafheaven can be called blackgaze, black metal, black noise, or post-metal. No matter how they are defined , they are one of the most innovative metal acts of the last 15 years. Sunbather is their second album and a seminal example of this new form of metal. Ranging from beautiful instrumental and ambient sections featuring guitars, piano, and audio clips to the most destructive black metal out there, this is not for everyone.

Doom Metal is a type of metal that takes the music of Black Sabbath, the original heavy metal band, and presents it in all its destructive glory. The main characteristics of this style of metal are down-tuned guitars, very slow tempos, and drawn-out vocals in a distorted style. This is not the most popular type of metal, but there have been a wide variety of bands over the last forty years to advance the form. Among all these groups, Stomach Earth released a definitive version of the style ten years ago. The self-titled debut was recorded by one person named Mike McKenzie. As far as I know, there was never a follow-up. I don’t know much more about the man or the band. What I do know is that this is a great album for anyone who likes this type of music. This is the sound of the earth’s destruction. Tread lightly.  

While I was listening to metal in 2013, there was also a lot of great electronic music being released. To make things simple, I’ve grouped four of my favorites next on the list. These next four albums present a mix of four different types of electronic music by both old and new artists, starting with Electric by Pet Shop Boys. The twelfth album for the duo who helped invent electro-pop in the ’80s is a solid collection of songs that keep the dance grooves rolling from end to end.

Electronic duo Fuck Buttons only released three albums in their five-year recording history. Slow Focus is their last and provides a varied mix of electronic sounds in its seven songs. The angry distortion prevalent on several of its tracks raises the album out from the sea of similar-sounding electronic music released in 2013.

I am not a huge Madlib fan, but Shades of Blue is different than the rest of his output. Released on Blue Note Records, it is a collection of reworked Blue Note jazz recordings from the vaults of the label. The music is newly recorded interpretations of these old songs, placed alongside loops of the original tracks using Madlib’s sampling technique that he has perfected throughout the 21st century. This is not hip hop/jazz fusion like the Jazzmatazz recordings of Guru or the early albums by US3. Instead it is a laid back collection of songs that works best as incidental music.

Event 2 is the second, and currently last, album by alternative rap group Deltron 3030. The band is a hip hop supergroup made up of Dan the Automator, Del the Funky Homosapien, and DJ Kid Koala. This album already sounded like a throwback tens years ago. Now it sounds like a dinosaur in the current landscape of rap. I like it.

The Messenger by Johnny Marr is the 2013 album that has been played more in the Faux household than any other album on this list. Johnny Marr was the founder and guitarist for The Smiths but left the band in 1987. It took him 26 years before he released his first solo album. This is surprising because he is the reason that the Smiths ever wrote or recorded a quality song, he is a great vocalist, and he has been recording music with others throughout his entire post-Smiths life. Anyone who loves The Smiths and the music of the ’80s will love this album.

As I stated at the start of this list, two of my five favorite modern bands in 2013 were Vampire Weekend and Frightened Rabbit. The third album by indie music darlings Vampire Weekend is not their best, but that isn’t saying anything since their first two albums are near perfect. Modern Vampires of the City is still one of the year’s best and sounds as good ten years later as it did then. That is probably because the foundation of the sound of indie rock in the 2020s was laid as much by Vampire Weekend as by any other artist. This, and the next album on this list, are why I love going back to rediscover forgotten albums. This is as good as rock got in 2013…

…and so is this. I must admit that the tragic loss of Frightened Rabbit founder, songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist Scott Hutchison in 2018 went unnoticed by me at the time. But I can also admit that the music he left behind is some of my favorite of the last 20 years. No other songwriter of the time was able to put their heart on their sleeve and compose such thoughtful, emotional, and heartbreaking songs. Every Frightened Rabbit album is worth a listen, and although Pedestrian Verse isn’t their best (that would be Midnight Organ Fight) it is still one of my favorites of 2013. If you don’t know the band, and you love great songwriting, listen to this album immediately.   

The best album of 2013 was Random Access Memories by Daft Punk. The internet will tell you it was Yeezus by Kanye West, but you won’t find that record anywhere on my list. If Kanye is your thing, rock on. The internet will also say that Vampire Weekend’s album is the best the year had to offer, and I can’t argue against that opinion. The third album that the internet will tell you was the best is this amazing release by Daft Punk. The song “Get Lucky” seemed to be the most popular song for months. Those who did not already know about the band were unable to avoid them by the end of the year. Picking a #1 album for a year is a very subjective, personal choice but I can’t argue with the millions of other people who love this album. It is about as solid as a release can get and a masterclass in 21^st century electronic music.