News DIY Tracks Of 2013: 60-41

We’ve left most of this end of year business to you, dear readers, with the results of our 2013 Readers’ Poll being announced in the latest DIY Weekly. Still, there’s the not so small matter of tracks to contend with. We listen to a lot of music. We like lists. In a year of exceptional music, only the very best make the cut in our top 100 tracks of the year.

Catch up with numbers 100-81 here and 80-61 here.

60. Sunboy - Highway Screamin

Psychedelia’s infiltration into the hearts of minds of young, budding musicians reached its most exciting new chapter with ‘Highway Screamin’. These Colorado kids know what they’re doing, nursing Tame Impala-style riffage and sending it into hyperspace.

59. Parquet Courts - He’s Seeing Paths

Having mastered relentless post-punk throughout debut album ‘Light Up Gold’, the Brooklynites served up a curveball at the end of follow-up EP, ‘Tally All The Things That You Broke’, channelling not their late-70s neighbours, but the hip hop punk-funk of one Beck Hansen.

58. Sampha - Indecision

Before ‘Indecision’, Sampha was just a voice that cropped up on Drake tracks and stayed at the centre of SBTRKT’s debut record. After this, he announced himself as a producer, one just as capable of chopping beats as he was of cooing out melancholic verses.

57. Peace - Wraith

Festival-goers practically put up their tents for this very song. Sweat drips right out of ‘Wraith’, spilling onto a bed of razor-sharp guitars and riffs, riffs, riffs.

56. Savages - Shut Up

Be quiet, Savages demand. Turn off everything. Focus. ‘Shut Up’ is a mission statement, one even clearer and more precise than the extensive monologue that plasters the front of their ‘Silence Yourself’ debut.

55. The Vaccines - Melody Calling

Mellowed out after a visit to LA, we’re still no closer to finding out what the hell happened to The Vaccines on the California coast, but their newfound calm demeanour impresses on this woozy trip of a song.

54. Paramore - Still Into You

Free of the shackles of their past, it seemed about time that Paramore cut loose and did exactly as they pleased. The new-look trio’s first real foray into the world of gloriously shiny happy pop, ‘Still Into You’ is as bouncy, fun and carefree as the title implies, and heck, it’s bloody brilliant too.

53. Los Campesinos! - Avocado, Baby

Devoted to the best children’s book in the world, it’s a given these days that Gareth Campesinos! and band are going to write clever, emotionally-fraught giants. Nothing comes close to ‘Avocado, Baby’, however.

52. AlunaGeorge - Attracting Flies

Beneath the verve and the beat-after-beat flow of AlunaGeorge’s music, there’s usually an underlying message that crackles and bites. ‘Attracting Flies’ is a damning slap in the face, proof that there’s more to the duo than sheer style.

51. Jagwar Ma - The Throw

As baggy as Shaun Ryder’s pockets after a night on the town, Aus dance triumphalists Jagwar Ma often find themselves straying into nine-minute, electronic giants. On ‘The Throw’ however, they keep things concise, and it’s a look that suits.

50. Janelle Monae - Dance Apocalyptic

Not only does she know how to knock a man out with her eyelashes alone, but Janelle Monae is pretty good at writing hits. Funky, jaunty and full of soul, ‘Dance Apocalyptic’ is just that; an insatiable, addictive, energetic hit that explains perfectly why she’s nicknamed The Electric Lady.

49. Mausi - Move

Mausi may not be prolific (yet), but they certainly know how to craft a quality tune. Following up on 2012’s ‘Sol’, ‘Move” is the kind of arms in the air, poppers ahoy anthem that saturates early morning beach bar club nights in sunnier climes. An ear worm with a beat, if they keep up this standard, 2014 will be theirs for the taking.

48. Waxahatchee - Coast To Coast

Katie Crutchfield’s whirlwind year is probably best summed up by this two minutes plus liftoff of a track, which practically maps out all the air miles her band racked up in becoming one of 2013’s breakthrough acts. In a record that’s emotionally heavy the whole way through, ‘Coast to Coast’ hides any overly-expressed sentiment by pouring out every speck of melancholy before you can even blink.

47. Phoenix - Trying To Be Cool

Those self-knowing French sons of a… They know fully well just how cool they are, do Phoenix. Dressed to please in three-piece suits, dating models and directors and bringing out sharp-witted pop like it’s no big deal. Thomas Mars isn’t fooling anyone.

46. Disclosure - F For You

Guest vocalists were made to wait outside the studio for a second. Disclosure decided to have a go at singing themselves, with Guy and Howard Lawrence proving their credentials in one fatal blow. They’re anything but ‘just producers’. For a couple of guys that already map out their own drum patterns, make all these crazed arrangements, to have them picking up the microphone too pretty much takes the biscuit.

45. Arctic Monkeys - Why’d You Only Call Me…

Another slick cut from ‘AM’, the name seems to match it perfectly. Standing as one of the more understated and subtle highlights of the album, it still manages to bear an underlying hint of sleaze, whilst Alex Turner’s witty questioning lyrics are as intoxicating as the subject matter itself.

44. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sacrilege

Gospel choirs might be an over-used tool in festive Top of the Pops (RIP) performances, but they’re definitely under-used in rock. Which is why Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ audacious addition to the lead track from this year’s ‘Mosquito’ is all the sweeter – all the pomp such guest appearances demand, but with added Karen O.

43. Jungle - Platoon

Confident and confusing, Jungle’s momentous opening statement still stands out as a complex introduction that matches up with the London collective’s enigma to a T. Both a strutting pop song and a finitely-executed beast, it gives nods to Jai Paul’s funk-enhanced pacesetting while packing in a fair few ultra-assured grooves of its own. There’s been no longer back ever since Jungle first arrived with this song.

42. Wolf Alice - Fluffy

The single that started it all, ‘Fluffy’ was the first confirmation that Wolf Alice had stepped out of their folkish roots. Not only that, it represented a freakish evolution, a band hellbent on destruction. No, they’re not the most extreme-sounding thing on the planet, but Wolf Alice’s pendulum swing from butter-wouldn’t-melt to stinging and sinister is second to none. ‘Fluffy’ might be cuddly on the outside, but staring within is like looking into the eyes of some crazed devil child. Now that’s exciting.

41. Biffy Clyro - Victory Over The Sun

Beginning with a tender, simplistic guitar line and the soft vocals of Simon Neil, this ‘Opposites’ cut swerves and turns at every musical corner; from the funky pace of the second verse, to the epic leaps and bounds made by the chorus. This is one of those Biffy songs that seems to encompass massive sonics, whilst simultaneously bearing an intimate message and feel. Throw in some spine-tingling strings towards the end, and this is one four-minute musical journey you don’t want to miss.

Check back tomorrow for DIY’s Tracks of the Year, numbers 40-21.