We’ve got some modern classics lined up among today’s section of our Best Albums of 2010-2014 list. Get ready to dance, but also prepare to be entranced in early morning stupors of tranquil, gorgeous bliss. We’ll be talking about even more great albums in the days to come, so keep an eye out for most of our ongoing list. Until then, check out these ten solid collections and listen to them all on today’s Spotify playlist.

Best 50 Albums Of The Decade So Far (#40-#31)

Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2

Colin Stetson’s New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges is the damnedest thing. Stetson recorded every track in one take, and every sound you hear is made by him and his muse, the saxophone. Thanks to a carefully rigged microphone setup, we hear every click, breath, and note he makes as he plays, sounds which are then manipulated (but not looped) to sound like some sort of alien mating song. It’s percussive, almost electronic-sounding music that’s beyond compare. My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden and Laurie Anderson also feature on the album, but Stetson’s the real star of the show. He apparently mastered the art of circular breathing before recording the album, which allows him to create a stream of uninterrupted sound. If you haven’t experienced New History Warfare Vol. 2 yet, I’m envious; it’s one of the coolest, most unique things you can put into your ears (besides, I don’t know, a gold-leaf q-tip, or something). [Bernard]

D’Angelo/The Vanguard – Black Messiah

He kept us waiting (almost 15 goddamn years, actually), but D’Angelo made his triumphant return to the music game in 2014 with Black Messiah, an avant-garde collage of jazz, hip-hop, soul, and funk that is frankly mind-blowing. The funny thing about Black Messiah is, a lot of the time, you can’t hear what the hell the man is saying. His voice is either too nasally or gets so fuzzed out at times that it sounds like he’s talking into a toy megaphone, but that’s okay; once you accept that he’s virtually unintelligible, you notice that the emotion in his voice is actually accentuated by being so obstructed. (Look up the lyrics, and your mind will be blown again.) The instrumentation is a wonderful cacophony of loose jazz grooves and whirring synths that recall a bygone era of progressive R&B and soul, reminding us of how expansive the possibilities are of a genre typically wrongfully regarded as narrow. In short, D’Angelo blew open the doors. [Bernard]

Twin Shadow – Confess

As Twin Shadow, George Lewis Jr. digs into the pop-friendly realm of blistering self-assessment where the only obvious method is to pump out insanely engaging, dance-friendly numbers. Throughout Confess, listeners aren’t sure whether to root for Lewis or hope he’ll just stop investing in unrequited love. Regardless, Confess sees him getting over his humble debut album, Forget, as an electronic star with a predisposition for bad decisions.

Confess has given Lewis a chance to develop songs further than Forget, which was much more synth-heavy, featuring vocals that were slightly warped. The music on Confess adheres to a genre of his own creation, which appears to be a collage of sounds from the ‘80s. “Beg For The Night” ends with a sweet guitar solo accompanied by Lewis’ crooning and sweeping synths.  What I like most about Twin Shadow is that, though he’s not the strongest vocalist, he absolutely devotes himself to his melodies and never falters from being a hopeless romantic in the process. We’re fortunate that he’s complex enough to avoid outright happiness and Confess, as an album showed notable growth that still stands three years on. [Susan]

Real Estate – Days

Real Estate formed as a Strokes cover band, but their music only scarcely hints at this influence. While all the other suburban kids were ripping off Is This It in their parents’ garages, Real Estate discovered reverb, delay, and vocal harmonies. They also stumbled upon a feeling not often present in their peers work: an underbelly of sadness, longing, and nostalgia. Days, their sophomore album, details suburban life via these emotions, recalling love at autumn’s onset on sprightly lead single “It’s Real,” home-bound yearning on woozy hypnotizer “Municipality,” and youthful bliss on sunlit opener “Easy.” The themes presented are bound to resonate among many listeners, but for those more familiar with the frantic city lifestyle, solace is found in the band’s heart-wrenching melodies. Days’ songs unfold at a cozy, intimate pace, granting songs such as “Green Aisles” and “Three Blocks” ample space and time to connect to anyone with an open ear. Forget your background; Days will charm anyone willing to emotionally engage. [Max]

Bon Iver – Bon Iver, Bon Iver

Justin Vernon is a capital “M” musician, and it shows no more clearly than on his 2011 record, Bon Iver, Bon Iver. In many ways, the record follows the well-worn path of lush, instrumental expansion that often accompanies success for solo singer/songwriters. By this point, four years has passed since his debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, and in the interim, he recorded a live album with his old high school jazz band, collaborated with supergroup Gayngs, formed Volcano Choir, and yes, lent a helping hand to Kayne West.

All of that stretching in various directions shows on this record, from the echoed piano layers of “Hinnom, TX” to the big cymbal crashes and digital guitars on “Perth” and the groove-laden spiral of “Minnesota, WI.”

None of the isolated man with a guitar, backwoods shut-in tone from Emma makes its way through here—the only connective tissue is that voice. Vernon’s voice is one of the most haunting and distinctive to come around in a long time, and he layers harmonies so deep that comparisons to Fleet Foxes or even the Beach Boys don’t seem to do it justice. His voice alone is worth a nod on this list. [Susan]

Disclosure – Settle

While the independent music world battled EDM culture in an increasingly tense fight between the former’s complex structures and the latter’s simplistic, bombastic nature, both sides agreed on the merit of two young brothers from Surrey, England. Disclosure blurred the line between aggressive, superficial dance music and subtle, sensual deep house, recalling the latter genre while appealing to the greater masses. Impossible to dislike, their debut Settle underpins an ensemble cast of guest vocalists with digital hooks and jackhammer grooves. It maintains an active, stimulating energy without compromising songwriting prowess and emotional impact. “You & Me” oozes sex while keeping four on the floor; “White Noise” both asserts power and opens the room to a dance circle. The party continues for an hour, but that’s only because no one wants it to end. [Max]

Grimes – Visions

An electronic musician who cites Enya and Mariah Carey among her primary influences and records dark pop music from her bedroom? Either a nightmare or a dream come true, depending who you ask. If you did take the initiative to ask, it’s likely that most people would describe this situation as a dream, seeing as Grimes has climbed to the forefront of modern electronic music in just over three years. The album responsible for this shift, 2012’s Visions, filters Top 40 pop music through an ominous, robotic lens, contrasting the angelic, whistle-register voice of mastermind Claire Boucher with eerie, nocturnal synthetic pulses. Bubblegum melodies and myriad hooks outline Visions, but the brooding, mechanical murk underlying them saves these songs from their potentially tacky outcome. Without a Terminator-like presence pervading the underside of this album, songs like “Circumambient” and “Symphonia IX (My Wait Is U)” might go to waste as childlike, innocent fairy tales. Instead, we have the apocalyptic banger “Be a Body” and the trailblazing “Oblivion,” thought by many to rank among the greatest electronic songs ever recorded. Fear not pop; embracing it results in albums as distinct and enjoyable as this one. [Max]

The War on Drugs – Lost in the Dream

Lost in the Dream may be the first War on Drugs album to feature this newest incarnation of the band (longtime collaborator, Kurt Vile, is nowhere to be found on this one), but it’s also the purest of the band’s three albums. Singer, guitarist, and leader Adam Granduciel has touched on themes of listlessness in his previous records, but here his lyrics and song structures hit upon something universal, making these tunes grab ahold of you, refusing to let go. Right from the piano and drum machine opening of “Under the Pressure,” every immaculately produced bar and guitar strum feels like a classic, as if that siren’s call to wander and ramble has pushed Granduciel to greater heights.

Each song on Lost in the Dream feels like its own saga—a story just aching to be told, lived, and retold again with a new perspective. Granduciel has not only made the best album of his career, but he’s surpassed Vile in songwriting and skill. It’s a piece of work that will not only stick with you through the week, but into the summer and fall as well. [Susan]

Crystal Castles – III

Crystal Castles may well be this decade’s most prominent example of a non-metal act fully embracing fear. Their songs sound like industrial techno soundtracks to the most visceral of horror films, and III, their final album recorded with vocalist and co-writer Alice Glass, is their bleakest and most abrasive. Its first song is titled “Plague” and stabs the senses with newly sharpened knives, and the rest of the album falls in even deeper suit. Song titles include “Kerosene,” “Violent Youth,” and “Mercenary,” not to mention “Wrath of God.” Musically, III more consistently sounds fanged and slashing than any previous Crystal Castles release; where past albums explored more inviting sonics, this one is all repulsion. Sure, there’s a faint glimmer of hope in the soft vocal lines of “Transgender” and the peripheral flashes of “Sad Eyes,” but the quilt of doom burying this album weighs down with insurmountable force. Even the vaguely optimistic intro of “Wrath of God” gives way to a barrage of angry, intimidating synths and harsh vocals. It makes sense that Alice Glass would leave the band after this album; III narrates the journey down a dead-end road with no way out. [Max]

Destroyer – Kaputt

The story goes like this: a guy who’s been compared to David Bowie, T. Rex, and other glam rock acts for his entire career changes direction completely, recording an album that draws its primary inspiration from smooth jazz and soft rock. This new album is often described, surprisingly, as his most accessible yet. The LP in question here is Dan Bejar’s ninth album as Destroyer, Kaputt, a gorgeous album that constantly borders on cheesy without ever reaching it. In theory, nothing here should work—smooth jazz and soft rock as done by a glam rock worshipper—yet its further influences from new wave, dream pop, and even disco embellish it with an innately affecting shine. Bejar’s voice matches his newly silky sonics; here, he abandons the yelping, unpredictable, extreme vocals of past records for an eternally calm, relaxed demeanor. Rumor has it he recorded some of Kaputt’s vocal takes while lying down on a couch, and the (lack of) effort shows. Bejar is well aware of how disarmingly tranquil this album is; a vinyl-only suite entitled “The Laziest River” describes this album’s aura in just three words. When Bejar sings “I sent a message/in a bottle/to the press” on album highlight “Blue Eyes,” you wonder how it reached them so successfully when there’s no current in this water. [Max]

See the rest of our Best Albums Of The Decade lists!

View Other Lists of this Feature:
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#50 – #41)
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#30 – #21)
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#20 – #11)
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#10 – #1)

We’ve now reached the peak of this tall mountain. The final 10 songs on our 50 Best Songs of the Decade So Far list is upon us. These songs are all modern classics, and have defined the decade’s music thus far. Years from now, music lovers will think of many songs when they look back upon this era, but these ten are especially likely to come to mind. It’ll be interesting to see if, at the end of the decade, they are still held in such high regard, but for now, these songs have impressed us, as well as hundreds of thousands of other listeners, more than the rest of the music we’ve heard so far this decade.

In addition to our Top 10, we’ve included a section at the bottom we call Passionate Orphans. Songs that are personal favorites and worthy of respect, but that we couldn’t fit and couldn’t leave unmentioned.

Enjoy the list and our accompanying Spotify playlist, including one conveniently containing all 50 songs. Be on the look out for our Best Albums of the Decade So Far list in the coming weeks!

Best 50 Songs Of The Decade So Far
(#10 – #1)

Kanye West – “New Slaves”

Kanye West has been the king of rap for quite some time—almost single handedly reshaping the face of the genre, with both his productions and collaborations. When Yeezus was released upon the world in 2013 it wasn’t tracks like “I Am a God” that surprised the most, it was “Black Skinhead” and “New Slaves,” a pair of superheated songs with aggression so evocative and raw it was a new high, even for Kanye. The stand out, though, is obviously “New Slaves,” a bouncy and lyrically-acrobatic shoulder to the chest that fits perfectly into West’s continual progression at the frontlines of hip hop. Kanye has never been afraid to tone things down, but here the composition is utterly stark, with only a distant thunder of bass, leaving the highly confrontational and politically assertive lyrics to take center stage. The only problem? If West keeps hitting homers like this, he might just deserve that ego. [Gary]

Tame Impala – “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”

If psychedelic pop perfection were captured in a three-minute bubble, it might sound like this. John Lennon would smile widely if he were around to hear “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards,” or maybe, on the other hand, he would sue for copyright infringement; no one since The Beatles has sounded this much like them. But Kevin Parker isn’t merely copying drug-era Beatles here; rather, he’s taking its best qualities (so, almost all its qualities) and condensing them into a crystalline, gorgeous, infectious pop anthem. “Every part of me says go ahead,” Parker’s falsetto states as it glides over sheets of swirling synths, bubbling psychedelia, and a bass line that never quits. Going ahead is exactly what “Feels” excels in: as this song progresses, it becomes more and more infectious, each subsequent chorus increasing substantially in emotional impact. The key is that the first chorus is already wildly hooky; that the song manages to deliver this statement with more success time and time again is absolutely dizzying. [Max]

M.I.A – “Bad Girls”

No one else has quite brought world music influences to pop prominence like musical wunderkind M.I.A. The multi- talented artist Maya “M.I.A.” Arulpragasam has been a boundary breaking badass for quite some time, skyrocketing to prominence with 2008’s decade-encapsulating track “Paper Planes”—a song everyone knows and hardly anyone knows the lyrics to.

So while she never really went away, M.I.A. came back swinging in 2012 with another genre crushing song. “Bad Girls” is a natural fit in the progressive catalog for the international artist; a song designed perfectly for the time and filling a void that the world hadn’t even known was empty. Not only that, but beneath the glossy, bass packed surface, “Bad Girls” is shockingly empowering, its lyrics loud and clear here, “Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well.” It’s only a matter of time before “Bad Girls” becomes the genre-defining track that it deserves to be. [Gary]

LCD Soundsystem – “Dance Yrself Clean”

How in the world do you compose something so intimate and epic into a 8+ minute track that could never, ever, wear out its welcome? I’ve got no idea, but the recently disbanded LCD Soundsystem sure as hell did. James Murphy and his bandmates kicked off their ultimate album, This Is Happening, with this 8-minute dance-punk cacophonous hybrid that almost sounds like it attempts to exorcise every dancing demon out of the listener’s body. Of course, while Murphy’s vocals and humorous lyrics (“Talking like a jerk/Except you are an actual jerk/And living proof/That sometimes friends are mean”) align perfectly with the production’s primal drum patting, it’s really that moment at 1:40, when the little electronic melody crashes the party in the most beguiling of ways, when “Dance Yrself Clean” triumphantly shimmies its way into the decade’s top-shelf songs. And it goes up (and loud) from there. By the 3 minute mark, the song is unleashed into a dance delirium, and if you’ve done the mistake of increasing the volume on your headphones before, LCD Soundsystem makes you pay for it. In the best way possible. [Nik]

Crystal Castles – “Not in Love (feat. Robert Smith)”

How do you make your song better? Throw Robert Smith on it, of course. Crystal Castles originally covered this Platinum Blondes song on their second self-titled album, with the vocals distorted and warbled to the point of being barely discernible. When they released it as a single, someone had the brilliant idea of letting Robert Smith sing on the track, and the results speak for themselves. Putting Smith on the song is an inspired choice, considering how influential his work has been on bands like Crystal Castles. So naturally his voice fits like a glove, with his mournful vocals elevating the song into another dimension. “Not in Love” goes to show that great songs can sometimes be improved upon in the most surprising of ways. [C.J.]

Beach House – “Myth”

If you were to ask me who the standout musicians of the decade are, so far, my answer would come without so much as a blink of an eye: Beach House. Baltimore duo Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally have been around since the mid aughts, but with Teen Dream in 2010, followed by Bloom in 2012, Beach House redefined the boundaries of dream pop, and reinvigorated my love for the genre. Their first single from Bloom, “Myth,” is as good example as any of the kind of deep, oceanic, emotions the duo successfully reach, in tremendously moving fashion. There’s no other band out there, with the range of Legrand’s voice, and the knack for Scally’s unquenchable melodies, that could make verses like “Found yourself in a new direction/Arrows falling from the sun/Canyon calling would come to greet you/Let you know you’re not the only one” sound like they’re speaking directly to we the listeners. When Legrand sings it, the feeling of loneliness dissipates, because we feel it right down to our marrow. And isn’t that what it’s all about? [Nik]

Grimes – “Oblivion”

Did you know that indie electronic’s club anthem of the decade so far is actually a song about recovering from the trauma of sexual assault? With a groove this thick and steady, “Oblivion” at first masks its important, poignant message. Initial listens of this song entrap willing ears with demonically robotic synths, mechanical percussion, a horrifyingly eerie ambience, and uneasy, fairy-like vocals courtesy of Claire Boucher, the woman behind Grimes. Later listens allow Boucher’s words to crystallize: “Coming up behind you/always coming and you’d never have a clue”, sung hauntingly in the first verse, indicates that “I see you on a dark night”, during the chorus, is directed at a shadowy figure following her home; “When you’re running by yourself/it’s hard to find someone to hold your hand” is likewise completely unromantic, instead detailing the hell of keeping oneself safe from such a figure. The tense situation Boucher describes explodes into catharsis with one minute and forty-five seconds left in the song, when the synths begin to sound like they too are speaking words. If even the instrumentation is trying to say something, there’s no doubting that the message is important. That it’s delivered with arguably the most incessantly replayable synthscape of the decade is just a perk. [Max]

Vampire Weekend – “Hannah Hunt”

The most chilling track on Vampire Weekend’s 2013 album “Modern Vampires of the City,” “Hannah Hunt” is a hushed (until the end) breakup song that stretches from the freezing beaches of the East coast to the shores of Santa Barbara. Ezra Koenig all but whispers the lyrics throughout the sleepy, sparse first two minutes of the track, as if he’s singing with eyes half-closed. Then, the percussion swells and his voice leaps up an octave, shrieking, “if I can’t trust you then damn it, Hannah / there’s no future there’s no answer.” This is Vampire Weekend at their most confident and polished, embracing minimalist presentation and asymmetrical structure while honoring their African music inspirations and keeping up that geographical predilection they just can’t let go of. [Bernard]

Azealia Banks – “212”

Hip-hop has been maligned time after time for containing excessive profanity, so when even the world’s foremost rap critics and listeners were taken aback with the amount of explicit material in “212,” Azealia Banks’ debut single, everyone paid attention. Banks absolutely owns the word “cunt” on this song, whether reclaiming it as a neutral term (“I guess that cunt getting eaten”) or stabbing her opponents with it (“Imma ruin you, cunt”). “Cunt” isn’t the only thing she takes control of, though; she also commands the entirety of Lazy Jay’s “Float My Boat,” a house track created with absolutely no intention for Banks to use it without permission. Hell, Lazy Jay probably had no idea who Banks was when he first heard that a self-described “rude bitch” from Harlem ripped his song, but it all worked out in the end: yep, “212” sounds so great that he got on board, and is now credited on the song. Maybe that’s because Banks not only sings, raps, and screams on “212,” but she does each at the exact moment in the song where it fits best. “This shit been mine!” Banks proclaims during the chorus, but she doesn’t have to say it: this song proves it beyond all doubt. [Max]

FKA twigs – “Two Weeks”

“Two Weeks” was Way Too Indie’s favorite song of 2014, and it remains at the top when we look at the decade in music so far. Really, though, how could it not? This song is nothing short of majestic, an accumulation of everything that trip-hop, R&B, and electronic music have all striven towards this decade. The crystalline synth oscillations and pulsating, deep percussion outline trip-hop’s noblest goals; FKA twigs’ celestial vocal vibratos outdo those of most of her many peers; the song’s overwhelming digital sheen demarcates one of electronic music’s foremost objectives. Then there are the lyrics; in addition to the great sonic template, here we have maybe the strongest example of a woman owning her sexuality and not letting society’s double standard silence her desires. “I can fuck you so much better,” twigs seethes towards an object of desire; “give me two weeks, you won’t recognize her” is an even more sensual threat, one for which twigs reaches towards some of the higher parts of her register. But she saves the highest section for the line “my thighs are apart for when you’re ready to breathe in,” putting everyone on alert, just as a good song should do. We already knew that sex sells, but “Two Weeks” teaches us that owning it is different than buying it. [Max]

Listen to These Songs on Spotify

CJ’s Passionate Orphans (Twins!)

Low – “Nothing But Heart”
Nadia Oh – “Taking Over the Dancefloor”
I couldn’t even begin to count how many songs I tried to fit on this list, so reducing things down to a few passionate picks is even tougher for me. But one song I knew would crush me if it didn’t make it on the list was Low’s “Nothing But Heart.” It’s an eight-minute epic that only has three lines before Alan Sparhawk repeats the line “I’m nothing but heart” a couple dozen times. Sure, it sounds boring, but it’s an achingly beautiful song that builds and builds until it soars. By the end, you’ll want to join in and yell “I’m nothing but heart” along with the band.

Saying that, let me awkwardly segue into my next pick: Nadia Oh’s “Taking Over the Dancefloor.” I don’t have a lot of words left, so let me be blunt: Nadia Oh deserves to be a massive pop star. Her music is like a weird version of pop from an alternate universe, a completely bonkers bastardization of current pop trends that turns into something wholly singular. Just trust me on this one.

Max’s Passionate Orphan

Cloud Nothings – “Wasted Days”
​It’s one thing to recast your lo-fi bedroom pop act as a doom-bearing noise punk project; it’s another to place a nine-minute anthem of angst, dissonance, and dejection as the second of eight tracks on the album marking this unexpected transition. “Wasted Days” actually wastes no time at all; each and every one of this song’s sprawling 494 seconds makes listeners fully inhabit songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist Dylan Baldi’s terror. The cutting chords and slow drum build of its brief intro give way to a lacerating, whipping verse lined with Baldi’s nasal, howling vocals and defeated, exhausted lyrics. “I thought/I would/be more/than this,” goes this song’s straightforwardly anthemic chorus, which Baldi whines its first two times.

This already visceral approach becomes even more gut-wrenching and undeniable during the five-minute noise breakdown separating the second chorus from the third. Just before this final chorus arrives, there’s a bit of a crescendo, over which Baldi transitions from muttering his chorus to absolutely screaming it. In this ultimate moment, Baldi achieves a catharsis unlike any previously heard in noise rock, as will any and all listeners brave and strong enough to endure this incredible song’s hurricane-like nine minutes.

Nik’s Passionate Orphans (Twins!)

Sharon Van Etten – “Your Love Is Killing Me”
Father John Misty – “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings”
Sharon Van Etten has been around smokey underground bars since her album debut in 2009. Slowly but surely, through wondrously introspective and heart-aching songs like “Love More” (from 2010) and “I’m Wrong” (from 2012’s Tramp), she rose through indie folk ranks, and captured hearts with her whispery, sonorous, voice. “Your Love Is Killing Me” from her latest, Are We There, solidifies her status as one of the greatest women armed with a guitar. Naturally it helps that she’s reached a point where she has major studio access because this single is as big room in its absurdly effective chorus, as it is intimate in its quavering, soul-searching, verses. The way she lingers on the repeated “you” in the second verse, before “Stabs my eyes so I can see” ascends to a magnificent melody perfectly tuned to Van Etten’s matchless voice, makes “Your Love Is Killing Me” one of her greatest accomplishments. Here’s a song about painful love that has no substitutes.

Joining Van Etten in my orphanage is Father John Misty’s “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings.” In 2012 J. Tillman released the album Fear Fun under his self-appointed alter ego Father John Misty, after a shroom-stocked road trip. While the whole album is recommended, there’s no song as hypnotic, instantly memorable, and gratifying right down to the core as the psychoactively titled “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings.” The lyrics invite you into an enticing world of psychedelic indie rock, and with lines like “‘Cause the marble made my cheeks look pink/But I’m unsure of so many things” we see the effects Tillman’s mushroom trip had on his creativity. From its beginning, he sings “Jesus Christ” like no one else I’ve ever heard, to its end, when he implores someone “to help me dig,” the song is a gloriously abstract journey I love to repeat over and over. Bonus points for casting Aubrey Plaza in the song’s official video; perhaps the greatest music video casting of all time. Yeah, I said it.

See the rest of our Best Songs Of The Decade lists!

View Other Lists of this Feature:
Best 50 Songs of the Decade So Far (#50 – #41)
Best 50 Songs of the Decade So Far (#40 – #31)
Best 50 Songs of the Decade So Far (#30 – #21)
Best 50 Songs of the Decade So Far (#20 – #11)

Last night saw the release of the lineup of this year’s edition of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Headliners are The Stone Roses and Blur for Friday night, Phoenix hold their own on Saturday night and the Red Hot Chili Peppers close out the festival on Sunday night. Some of the notable undercard includes: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lou Reed, Modest Mouse, newly reformed Jurassic 5, Grinderman on Friday night. Saturday night’s subheadliners are the XX, The Postal Service, Sigur Ros, New Order, Hot Chip and Grizzly Bear. Helping the Chili Peppers close out the fest are Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Vampire Weekend, Social Distortion and The Wu Tang Clan.

I’ll be sincere, when I first saw the lineup I thought I was being punk’d. First of all, I can deal with The Stone Roses and Blur, but as headliners? I’m not entirely sold. Phoenix is another band that I’m really not that into. I watched part of their set the last time they played Coachella (2010) and it was fine, but again. Headliners? But to be honest, it’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers that bothered me the most. This to me feels like a contingency plan. If the Rolling Stones rumor (that Golden Voice, Coachella promoters, were courting them and failed) is true, then they must’ve called up Kiedis and the boys to fill in. I don’t hate the Chili Peppers, but this is their third time headlining now and let’s face, they’ve become kind of boring.

But this was all last night. All the sadness and anger I had for this lineup needed to be slept on. Ironically, I had a dream that the Chili Peppers were doing sound checks at my house. I woke up this morning and looked at the lineup. I’m becoming more open to this lineup as the time wears on.

Enough crying from this writer, what bands am I excited to see? Being a big Trent Reznor fan, I could never contain my school girl giddiness for the debut performance of his newest group How to Destroy Angels. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bassnectar, Dog Blood, Beach House, New Order, Knife Party, Moby, Benny Benassi, Simian Mobile Disco, Yeasayer, Spiritualized, Ritchie Hawtin, Major Lazer, Dropkick Murphy’s, Bat for Lashes, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Pretty Lights, Tame Impala, The Faint, Paul Oakenfold are the artists I’m looking forward to the most.

Over the course of the next couple of months I’ll be dividing my time between Spotify and Youtube, checking out which artists I may want to entertain as well. One of the best parts of Coachella is checking out some random artist in some tent that you’ve never heard of before and they turn out to be one of your favorite sets.

The festival this year runs over the course of two separate weekends in a row. April 12th-14th is the first weekend and April 19th-21st is the second weekend. I’ll be in attendance during weekend two. Expect another article about my “planned” itinerary for the festival a few days before weekend two. I’ll do my best to report from the festival on a daily basis, but odds are leaning towards a full festival wrap up when I get back. If you want immediate updates during the festival, you can always follow me on Twitter @WayTooIndie.

See the full 2013 Coachella lineup poster of bands below.

Well it looks like the rumors we reported were true, Coachella has announced a cruise ship festival named S.S. Coachella. Much like their landlocked festival in Indio, California this cruise festival will take place on two separate dates. Each trip departs from Fort Lauderdale, Flordia with the first festival at sea will heading to the Bahamas on December 16-19 and the second to Jamaica December 19-23rd.

The headliners for these cruises are; Pulp, Hot Chip, Yeasayer and Girl Talk. Some of the other bands that will perform are James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem (who will host a wine tasting), Z-Trip, Sleigh Bells, Grimes, Cloud Nothings, Simian Mobile Disco, !!! and more.

The cheapest ticket will be $500 per person (providing you have 4 guests) for an inside Stateroom which including the cabin, food and of course, the entertainment. Let the countdown begin, the first S.S. Coachella takes off 152 days from now.

The Official Lineup Poster for S.S. Coachella: