Yeezus Wept: Annivyrsary 2013

ISSUE #267

Safe to say three of the most consequential albums of my life came out in 2013: The Front Bottoms’ Talon of the Hawk, Laura Stevenson’s Wheel, and Waxahatchee’s Cerulean Salt. That list doesn’t even touch the dozen other nearly perfect albums from this year—Trouble Will Find Me, Modern Vampires of the City, Cupid Deluxe, Yeezus… 2013 changed music as we know it, and a lot of the biggest artists today cemented their status or debuted this year, from The 1975 to Beyoncé. It’s staggering, a daunting year to try to cover.

But let's start with The National. I can pinpoint when I became a believer: in “Graceless,” after a verse of interplay between drum and bass, I'm interested but also listless. Then, the moment hits—1:02. One single guitar slide is all it takes. Usually it's a lyric that hooks me in a song, but here, it's just one slide. I could listen to that moment for hours—it's my soul ascending to heaven. I remember reading once that the beauty of the National is that there's a point in every song where the form changes, crescendos, but it’s hard to notice until you're already in the middle of it. This song has several of those; separate movements, separate lives. It’s one of my favorites ever now.

Then there’s Waxahatchee. In 2013, I was in a musical rut. It was one of those month-long droughts where I could not find anything new that stuck, resorting to the tired classics—my life mired in molasses—until Cerulean Salt. If there’s an answer to the “favorite band” question, it must be Waxahatchee by default—and Cerulean Salt was my introduction, was what saved me from a cold year. I was working overnight at the front desk of a dorm, staying in a relationship already broken by cheating. In a year I had to quickly grow up, these songs were my solace and soundtrack.

Then, I was walking home one Thursday afternoon in Iowa City that I first heard “Twin Size Mattress.” I couldn’t help it—I was hooked. Whatever you think of them, it’s a song that feels so fully formed that it must have existed forever, and it rightfully launched them to a bigger audience. I would alternate between Talon, Wheel, and “Our Song” on those walks across College Green, and they are some of my most indelible memories.

This was the year I got back into movies, revivified by Letterboxd and the website The Dissolve (RIP). It’s the year I helped start an improv team and met some of my greatest friends to this day. It was a crucible of self-formation, and the whole era was loaded with hits—”The Wire,” “Latch,” “Retrograde,” “Fare Thee Well,” “Open.” The me I know today was born in 2013, and I am forever grateful.

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