PowerPop Review's Very Best of 2013 Albums – Part 1

As with many recent years there has been an over abundance of phenomenal music being made despite the fact that a large percentage of it is not being heard via commercial outlets. Those of us who have had rock music as the backdrop of our lives will continue to seek out the music we love despite the forlorn state of the music industry. On a positive note there are more places to discover music than ever before be it via sites like Soundcloud, Bandcamp, CDBaby, eMusic, independent music blogs & streaming music services.

This best of list reflects those particular albums that need to be heard. I had hoped for the list to be posted much sooner than this but I wanted to make sure that it was an accurate summation of those albums that were truly loved in addition to the ability of holding up in future time.

Hope some of you reading this list will fall in love with a musician and/or band's music, seek out their output and support them either by purchasing their music or seeing them perform.

Breaking with tradition, Mr Qwerty & I are publishing our best of lists separately for 2013 – this is mine.

Debra47

Gary surveys the tip of the Top Ten

Top 10 in no particular order

01 Eric Barao - Eric Barao

02 Dark Ocean Colors - Close Enough to See

03 Ulysses - Kill You Again

04 Shake Some Action - Full Fathom Five

05 Jacco Gardner - Cabinet of Curiosities

06 Split Sofa - Coloured Dream

07 Corin Ashley - New Lion Terraces


08 Groovy Uncle / Suzy Chunk - One Vowel Away From The Truth



09 Electric Soft Parade - Idiots


10 Mothboxer - Three

PowerPop Review's Best of 2013 - The Next Ten 

And the next ten:

11 Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs                                                - Under the Covers Volume 3


12 Grip Weeds - Inner Grooves


13 Chris Stamey - Lovesick Blues


14 Contrast – A Sinister Flick


15 Stephen Lawrenson - Obscuriosity


16 Resonars- Crummy Desert Sound


17 Mikal Cronin – MC11


18 Schnauser - Where Business Meets Fashion


19 Michael Mazzarella -Love In Laureltide Green


20 House Of Love - She Paints Words In Red

PowerPop Review's Best of 2013 - The Rest

And the rest:

21 Ex-Norwegian – Crack

22 And The Professors – Our Post Mortem

23 Hot Nun – Hot Nun

24 Jo Dee Purkeypile – Messenger

25 Autumn Defense – Ten Full Paces

26 Beachwood Sparks – Desert Skies

27 Elephant Stone – Elephant Stone

28 Wiretree – Get Up

29 Robert Vincent – Life In Easy Steps (De-luxe issue)

30 Higher State – The Higher State

31 Sadies – Internal Sparks

32 The Green Pajamas – November

33 Steve Cradock – Travel Wild Travel Free

34 Brendan Benson – You Were Right

35 Nines – The Nines

36 Grapes of Wrath – Good To See You

37 Richard X. Heyman – X

38 Alfa 9 – Gone To The Ground

39 Any Version Of Me – We Are You

40 Dom Mariani and the Majestic Kelp – Turn Up The Sun

41 8 x 8 – Azalea's Room

42 Dutch Barn – Didn't Suit Me Anyway

43 Brother Kite – Model Rocket