News / / 13.12.13

CRACK’S TRACKS OF THE YEAR: 10-1

We all like a choon/banger/track/anthem. And if you’re at home listening to hours of drone and 45 minutes ambient techno explorations, we were definitely having more fun than you shaking our tail feather to a selection of these lovely ditties over the last twelve months. Presenting Crack’s 50 tracks of the year. And yes, Get fucking Lucky did make it.

 

50. Ace Hood – Bugatti (feat. Rick Ross & Future)
49. Ducktails – Ivy Covered House
48. Jungle – The Heat
47. !!! – Slyd
46. Fat Trel – Make It Clap
45. Justin Timberlake – Mirrors
44. Pev + Kowton – Endpoint
43. The Bug – Louder (feat. Flowdan)
42. Drake – Started from the Bottom
41. Pixies – Bagboy
40. Arctic Monkeys – Do I Wanna Know
39. Sophie – Bipp
38. Torn Hawk – Born To Win (Life After Ghostbusters)
37. Joy Orbison – BRTHDT-T!
36. Foals – Inhaler
35. Huerco S. – Aphelia’s Theme
34. Rhye – Open
33. Eagulls – Tough Luck
32. D’Marc Cantu – Size & Shape
31. Flaming Lips – The Terror
30. Rachel Row – Follow The Step (KiNK Beat Mix)
29. A$AP Ferg – Shabba Remix (feat. Shabba Ranks, Busta Rhymes & Migos)
28. Mount Kimbie – Made To Stray
27. Daft Punk – Get Lucky
26. Paul Woolford – Untitled
25. Barnt – Tunsten
24. Benjamin Damage – 0x10
23. Velour – Speedway
22. JME – Integrity
21. Wavves – Demon To Lean On
20. Mano Le Tough – Primitive People (Tale Of Us Remix)
19. These New Puritans – Fragment Two
18. Kanye West – Bound 2
17. Blondes – Elise
16. Pissed Jeans – Health Plan
15. Lightning Dust – Diamond
14. FKA Twigs – Water Me
13. Moderat – Therapy
12. DJ Rashad – Drank, Kush, Barz
11. Floorplan – Never Grow Old

 

10. Beau Wanzer

Balls of Steel

(L.I.E.S)

beau_balls


 

2013, the year the evil techno overlords really stepped it up. With deliberately distorted, almost unspinnable records coming in reams across the board by the likes of Delroy Edwards and Funkineven, from the cream of this year’s extensive L.I.E.S. crop came Balls Of Steel. Almost novelty in its clattering and self-consciously-nightmarish drawl, this tune has been creeping into sets since the beginning of the year. “I’ve got balls of steel” still lingers in our minds from the weirdo soundtrack of the year. Anna Tehabsim
 


 

9. Pusha T feat. Kendrick Lamar

Nostetalgia

(GOOD Music / Def Jam)

pusha-t-my-name-is-my-name-cover


It’s Nosetalgia’s raw bursts of guitar which first grab you, but it’s the cross-generational chemistry of the voices that gives it the depth of a classic. After Pusha T recalls his coke-shifting exploits in razor-sharp detail, the baton is passed to Kendrick, who steals the show by playing a damaged child of the crack epidemic: ‘I was born in ’87, my Grandaddy a legend, now the same shit y’all was smoking is my profession’. You can forget all the drama about that Control verse, this was K.Dot’s greatest moment of the year. Davy Reed

 


 

 

8. Thundercat

Oh Sheit It’s X!

(Brainfeeder)

Thundercat-Heartbreaks-and-Setbacks


 
 
Drawn from an album reflecting upon the loss of collaborator Austin Peralta, bass virtuoso Thundercat was an unlikely source for the feel good hit of the summer. But with far-out production courtesy of his best bud Flying Lotus, Stanley Clark-inspired bass line, a depthy, euphoric wub and silkily crooned lyrics about partying on ecstasy, Oh Sheit It’s X! was unrivalled as the naughtiest jam of 2013. Jack Bolter

 


 

7. Earl Sweatshirt

Hive

(Tan Cressida)

earl_hive

 

Here’s how to shrug off the mythology surrounding your name and the demands of Odd Future’s controversy-hungry fanbase: casually spit insanely dexterous, assonance-packed rhymes over a prowling bassline that sounds like it wants to egg your car and steal your phone without breaking a sweat. One of our era’s most gifted rappers is loitering on streets of LA’s Fairfax neighbourhood with his friends. He’s hooded, his eyes are bloodshot and he doesn’t want to sign a fucking autograph. Hive is his anthem. Davy Reed

 


 

 

6. Ten Walls

Gotham

(Innervisions)

tenwalls

 

This year in dance music was encompassed by a particular sound, given a platform by the Innervisions crew of Âme, Henrik Schwarz and RA’s DJ of the Year Dixon. Taking it ever further down, and still making people go nuts, Gotham was an Ibiza omnipresence and a shimmering kingpin of those hands-in-the-air tracks that went deeper than deep. Anna Tehabsim

 


 

5. Factory Floor

Fall Back

(DFA Records)

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It seems we’re almost entirely alone in feeling a little underwhelmed by the overall effect of Factory Floor’s debut full-length. But in truth, we’d set our standards unrealistically high for the best live band in the UK. While the self-titled long player couldn’t quite sustain the thrill, placing tracks in isolation affirmed just how special they can be, and none could match the propulsive drum fills and post-techno blip-crunch-sigh-squeal of Fall Back. Make no mistake: Factory Floor still fucking rule. Geraint Davies

 


 

 

4. Jon Hopkins

Open Eye Signal

(Domino) 

johnhopkins

 

Open Eye Signal’s rich, surging, searing momentum pulverises with swathes of noise that fold in on themselves and re-emerge, more titanium than before. Played live, it devastates all those in its wake. We saw DJ Koze finish his set with it at a UK festival this summer – it was ridiculous. Seeing Hopkins himself tease out the track live at our own Simple Things festival was glorious. The stand out track from Hopkins’ magnum opus, Immunity – that also came in at second place in our albums list – we’d say Hopkins has had a pretty good year. Anna Tehabsim

 


 

 

3. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Jubilee Street

(Bad Seed Ltd.)

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A girl’s gotta make ends meet, even down on Jubilee Street.” On its February release, the greatest storyteller in contemporary music beguiled all who encountered his tale of solemn streetwalker Bea’s travails on a fictionalised version of an unassuming Brighton stretch. With its cumulative cries of “look at me now! I’m vibrating! I’m glowing! I’m flying!” and a peerless orchestral swell, it immediately joined the canon of Nick Cave’s greatest moments. Taking on a life of its own over the course of the year, the surges only grew more incredible, even more moving in its live appropriation; it ebbed and hastened, crashed and thundered. It is, and will continue for many years to be, one of the most flawlessly constructed songs in memory.  Geraint Davies

 


 

 

2. Arcade Fire

Reflektor

(Merge Records)

Reflektor

 
Remove the pre-amble, the videos, the concepts, the celebrities getting involved; remove James Murphy, the costumes, the glitter, the video and even the fact David Bowie guests on it. This is an eight-minute disco track that feels like four, with the full version played on daytime radio with gusto from all who picked it up for a bloody good reason; this was many people’s favourite band forging a new and insatiable path. Now add all the aforementioned extras and you had the bona fide fireworks moment of the year. Thomas Frost

 


 

1. Fuck Buttons

The Red Wing

ATP Recordings

fuckbuttons

 


For over half a decade, Andrew Hung and Benjamin Power have defined a certain, glowing, uncategorised form of musical enlightenment. But never quite like this. The Red Wing is a fucked up anthem. It’s undoubtedly a track, a song, a standalone moment, not a contributing element to a greater whole. It’s the most engrossing, satisfying and physically affecting offering in the catalogue of a duo whose entire career has consisted of turning the actively unfriendly into the irresistibly involving.

Striding into life with a juddering, uncharacteristic hip-hop clang, one of this country’s most enduringly fearless acts constructed the kind of earth-shattering clamour of enveloping fuzz drone we’ve come to expect, or even demand. Searching top end growl seeps down into a roaring bottom end pulp, cutting straight to the gut; a bottom end which went on to pierce its way through fields and tents across the world as the unbridled highlight of the duo’s live bombast.

Over eight or so minutes, flickers of light glint amongst the density; growing, pulsating, and finally plunging whole into a blinding flood, a splattering of pylon crackles tumbling into the expanse. As the grotesque mass of the thing perishes in a blaze of sheer static power, you find yourself gasping, drained, flicking a drooping finger towards rewind – the tangible end of something immeasurable. Oozing from a decent set of headphones, no song this year soundtracked so many bleary late night walks, so many barren-stomached sunrises. The Fuck Buttons formula had found its zenith, and we’ll never, ever stop listening to it. Geraint Davies

Crack spoke to Fuck Buttons’ Benjamin Power about the Track of the Year.

“Although we find it hard to pick favourites from our records as the journey as a whole is impossible without every milestone, The Red Wing stood out as a track we thought could be released as a single. Where rhythm is concerned it’s something very different to our previous work. We love it, and are very happy that it has been received in the way it has. There’s a noticeable change in the audience when we play it live. It feels great to know that Crack Magazine wanted to make this their Number 1 track of the year. Thank you for sharing our vision, here’s to 2014.”


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