Music is awesome, isn’t it? Whether intentional or not, music is a big part of everyone’s lives. It’s all around us: on TV, in ads, in our headphones and earbuds attached to our smart phones with streaming audio. Chances are if you’re reading Submerge, you love music too. Even though there is more great music being made than ever and access to it is becoming easier and easier, it’s still sometimes hard to know where to look to discover new tunes. Enter Submerge’s annual year-end best-of list! In 2013 there were so many amazing albums released that we actually expanded this story to feature the top 30 instead of the top 20. You’ll notice that a lot of this list, approximately 50 percent, is local. That’s not by mistake. That’s not because we tried to include local albums just to round out our list. No, we just have that much talent right here in our own city.

Compiled by all of our contributing writers and staff, we hope this list will help you discover something new. And because all of our attention spans are so short nowadays (are you still with us?), we kept our reviews to 140 characters or less, because we all know that reading someone’s short, to-the-point Twitter post is a helluva lot better than reading someone’s four-paragraph-long Facebook rant. Now, set forth and discover some new jams! Who knows, your new favorite band/album may be waiting for you somewhere on this list.

30.

Danny Brown
Old

Fool’s Gold

What can you say about Danny Brown? He’s rap’s Jim Morrison, The Lizard King. Old has been on repeat since the day I got it. And will be.

29.

Run the Jewels
Run the Jewels

Fool’s Gold

As dope as promised, it gets no better than this. Killer Mike is at his best, and El-P provides the perfect sonic-scape for destruction.

28.

Biosexual
The Window Wants the Bedroom

Debacle

Fantastically produced debut album of avant-garde supergroup featuring the great Jocelyn of ALAK, brother Michael RJ Saalman and Zac Nelson.

27.

Paper Pistols
Deliver Us From Chemicals

Self-released

2 can do it all. Skinner & Lydell are all binary: beard/belle; drum/voice; age/youth; decadent/austere; beautiful/music.

26.

EGG
Overly Easy

Self-released

If Cake and Phish had a baby? Close, but doesn’t quite describe this amazing band. An infectious sound that makes you wanna get up and GO.

25.

M.I.A.
Matangi

N.E.E.T.

M.I.A. is pissed off, and still fresh as ever, rapping over aggressive beats and keeping the Sri Lankan sound alive.

24.

The Men
New Moon

Sacred Bones

Brooklyn noise punks retreat to a rural cabin, finding a balance between a Mudhoney dustup and a Grateful Dead peace-in.

23.

Gauntlet Hair
Stills

Dead Oceans

Gauntlet Hair dropped the dopest, weirdest album we’ve heard in a minute and then immediately broke up. Spacey, strange, with a dash of pop.

22.

Jacuzzi Boys
Jacuzzi Boys

Hardly Art

The Miami trio switched things up with a more polished than pure garage sound. Still playful and infectious, just adding new dimensions.

21.

Gap Dream
Shine Your Light

Burger

Mid-tempo sex appeal born of psychedelic melancholy and rock ‘n’ roll disco; drugs, dance, drugs, booze, dance, fuck.

20.

Miley Cyrus
Bangerz

RCA
 
Crying cats ftw! The most dissed/discussed AoY; w/ hits by Dr. Luke, Pharrell & Mike WiLL, twerk! This is Miley’s year.

19.

Chuuwee
Thrill

Self-released

With rap albums you usually either get bangin’ trap beats OR real lyricism. On Thrill you get both. One of Sac’s best in top form.

18.

Century Got Bars & Bru Lei
Midtown Marauders

Self-released

A flawless Tribe tribute and audible tour of this fair city’s nucleus. If you’ve spent more than five seconds in Midtown, you want this. 

17.

David Bowie
The Next Day

RCA

Charming, confidently progressive with kick-ass guitar solos. It’s classic Bowie with a modern, enthusiastically suspended twist.

16.

Black Sabbath
13

Vertigo/Universal

Pure smokin’ stoner doom rock at its finest! Timeless lyrics and riffs. This album picks up where the band left off with Ozzy 30 years ago.

15.

Nails
Abandon All Life 

Southern Lord

Yeah, it’s a light version of Unsilent Death (the most brutal album ever), but it’s still hard and evil enough to kill your grandma.   

14.

Bombino
Nomad

Nonesuch

A perfect album for trekking the Sahara. Blues guitar, smooth Tuareg vox, steady rhythm. Produced by Dan Auerbach (of The Black Keys).

13.

Meat Puppets
Rat Farm

Megaforce Records

Return to form for desert-baked Brothers Kirkwood. Simple, honest, catchy… Bare bones and poignant. May the Puppets live forever.

12.

Foals
Holy Fire

Transgressive

With Holy Fire, these British boys delivered their most focused (and heaviest) album to date, bringing a new meaning to “modern rock.”

11.

City of Vain
Back Against the Wall

Self-released

Sacto punkers bring forth one of the best punk rock records of the year, not just locally, but globally. Warm tones and classic style!

10.

Middle Class Rut
Pick Up Your Head

Bright Antenna

More fierce rock ‘n’ roll from Sac’s Dynamic Duo…and we <3 it! Grimy grooves and distorted chaos mark MC Rut’s best album to date.

09.

Horseneck
The Worst People Ever

Artery

Booze-fueled bone-breaking sludge metal with a sense of humor. This EP gives Sac’s heavy music fans something to smile about.

08.

Tel Cairo
Voice of Reason

Illicit Artists

Tel Cairo is the best kind of weird. If Kurt Cobain made hip-hop music in space it would sound like Tel Cairo’s Voice of Reason.

07.

Foxygen
We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic

Jagjaguwar

Flamboyantly lilting pop with occasional Jagger twists; creates proneness for nymph-like prancing, sometimes mincing.

06.

Death Grips
Government Plates

Self-released

A dizzying mix of poetry, yelling and other stuff people hate. But in the eloquent words of MC Ride, “Fuck your idols/ Suck my dick.”

05. 

Screature
Screature

Ethel Scull

A solid debut by the Sacramento quartet. Guttural lyrical torrents coalesce with shadowy, rhythmic tones, blending into a dynamic framework of sound.

04.

!!!
THR!!!ER

Warp Records

Your favorite dance-punk band is back again with more rump shaking, baby making, all-night-party-inducing tunes. Instant classic!

03.

Cove
Candles

Self-released

It’s an insightful album. An emotional excavation replete with lyrical fluidity, melodic flirtations and a groovy aftertaste.

02.

Doombird
Cygnus

Eightmaps

Vivid percussive landscapes seen through a celestial-tinged lens. Spacey harmonies embedded within hypnotic textures and bright timbres.

01.

Chelsea Wolfe
Pain Is Beauty

Sargent House

A beautifully haunting album. Wolfe’s ghostly vocals, layered with cascading guitars, violins and synths, will put you in a trance.

Childish Gambino, Danny Brown

Ace of Spades, Sacramento – Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Childish Gambino’s Camp Gambino Tour sold out Ace of Spades months in advance. The line to get in stretched the length of the R Street block and wrapped down 14th, halfway to S Street. Inside it was a patient wait through one opener to see a young Hollywood actor from NBC’s Community, Donald Glover, take the stage as a rapper.

There’s no use hiding it. The opener was Detroit’s Danny Brown. A recent signee to Fool’s Gold Records and the artist I anointed as Rapper of the Year 2011 in another publication. As for Childish Gambino’s debut record Camp… I gave it a few listens in November and deemed it overrated. Glover’s Camp record is not as painful as Brian Austin Green’s One Stop Carnival album in the ‘90s, but if he’s serious about rapping over acting he’ll live in the shadow of Drake. But what the hell do I know? Danny Brown had a few pockets of fans in the first row shouting his gratuitous lines from his XXX album back at him. Childish Gambino had wall-to-wall admirers reciting every word to a song that shares its title with a TV show, canceled after 12 episodes.

It was his show for the taking and it’s easy to revel in the limelight with such positivity electrifying Ace of Spades. No songs faltered or lulled the set. It was hit, hit, hit for Gambino and even the time lapse for an encore seemed insignificant. He was impressive, but I did not leave converted.

My struggle with Glover/Gambino does not stem from questioning his talent as a performer or even as a songwriter. He’s a clever rhyme writer, interspersing wit culled from his stand-up like, “I sound weird, like nigga with a hard R” and references to Invader Zim. His balance between nerding out and sneaking in sentiment testifies to his mass appeal. He tours with a talented backing band, half of which look as though they toured with Travis McCoy, while the others possibly play violin behind Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. His stage presence is not the issue, and the giant screen displaying lyrics, forest landscapes and scenes from the streets of New York City were not the issue. It lies in not knowing how to perceive his craft.

The name Childish Gambino was conceived through the use of a Wu-Tang name generator, making it difficult to assess it as genuine or satire. The campy name paired with Glover’s notoriety as a stand-up comedian, his far superior talent in my opinion, and presence on a sit-com, lean towards the notion he’s a parody. So why weren’t we all laughing? Why was everyone singing along in earnest?

There were opportunities to laugh–plenty of them. Danny Brown exposed himself as an avid participant in cunnilingus by performing “I Will” and wagging his oblong tongue between his missing front teeth. He earned a few laughs beyond the front row by letting his followers deliver punch lines from “Monopoly” like, “Stank pussy smelling like Cool Ranch Doritos.” Childish Gambino is not short on humor either. He and Brown are contemporaries in rap humor as both love bragging about their sexual virility and their haters’ lack thereof. Guess which line is Danny Brown’s and which Childish Gambino’s is:

“I fuck bad bitches to Stacy Lattisaw, while y’all niggas got blue balls like an Avatar.”

“My dick is like an accent mark, it’s all about the over Es.”

The first quote is Brown on “Adderall Admiral.” The second is Gambino on “Bonfire.” Did you get it correct? I could split fine hairs like this for paragraphs and end up with an even part resembling the top of Crispin Glover’s head, but what’s the use? Danny Brown doesn’t have a television presence, which is still more powerful and influential than being critically lauded on the Internet.

Glover’s an act worth the price of admission. Place him in the recent crest of celebrities like Zooey Deschanel and Scarlett Johansson, who’ve earned successful recording careers. The trend could be gruesome and transparent, were the named figures less talented. It’s undeniable that their recording triumphs are assisted by their TV and film notoriety. Glover is privileged, but his closing statement on “Bonfire” (“Man why does every black actor gotta rap some?/ I don’t know, all I know is I’m the best one.”) hints that he’s aware. It could be worse. The actor/artists could cover Celine Dion instead of Tom Waits, perform alongside Sugar Ray instead of M. Ward, and bring Mac Miller on tour instead of Danny Brown. They should always be commended for their fine taste.