Hasta La Creative!

EDITOR’S NOTE: To close out the year, Ad Age media columnist Simon Dumenco is gathering up selected notable critics’ picks across pop culture and presenting them in convenient, all-in-one servings by category. He starts here with music.

Britain’s The Guardian is known not only for its fearless journalism (in 2013, its coverage of Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations in particular), but for its superb culture coverage. Its team of music editors and writers have created a “Best albums of 2013” landing page that also links to the best mixtapes and tracks of the year as well as plenty of spirited commentary (e.g., Tim Jonze’s “Why I hate Get Lucky, everyone’s favourite song of 2013”). The Guardian’s pick for best album of 2013: Kanye West’s “Yeezus.” While acknowledging that, musically, “for some listeners, the sound is simply too unpleasant” and lyrically it’s full of “grandstanding and aggression (quite frequently sexual),” the paper, in an un-bylined post, concludes that “the grand provocations in Yeezus are matched, step for step, by its craftsmanship.”

Rolling Stone presents its “50 Best Albums of 2013” list as a countdown. At No. 50 there’s Beck’s “Song Reader” (“a sly collection of folky swing tunes, steeped in Beck’s absurdist wit”) and at No. 1 you’ll find (surprise?) Vampire Weekend’s “Modern Vampires of the City” (“In 2013, no other record mixed emotional weight with studio-rat craft and sheer stuck-in-your-head hummability like this one”).

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