Dan Condon: Sick Tunes, The 5 Sickest Songs Of 2013

This year has been horrendous for so many reasons for so many people and, while I've personally been alright, I'm so keen to see it over. Yep, 2013 can go and take a long walk off a short pier as far as I'm concerned.

But, there has been some freaking great music released this year, and here are my five favourite songs of the year.

Daft Punk – Get Lucky (ft. Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers)

The fact that so few people are sick of Get Lucky indicates just how incredible this song is. Bursting out from the most ridiculous hype I've ever seen surround a record was this truly great disco-pop song that could have been released any time over the past 40 years. Daft Punk wanted to make a great pop record, so they went to the source, Chic's Nile Rodgers, a man who has written and produced just about more number one hits than you can imagine. As for Pharrell; he has just had an astonishingly good year and his performance here is maybe the best thing he has ever done.

There aren't all that many people who hate this song; sure people are annoyed at hearing so goddamn much about Daft Punk, but it's just insanely cool and catchy and sexy and fun and… fuck!

Courtney Barnett – Avant Gardener

The best show I saw from an Australian artist this year was Courtney Barnett at the Southside Tea Room on a lazy Sunday afternoon just a couple of weeks after she released this song. When I first heard it, it made me pretty sad. No matter how hard I tried, I would never write or create anything as good as this. It's a stupid thing to think about, but it honestly just felt like this perfect, effortless tale appeared from nowhere and it made me want to give Barnett a hug (and that's saying something – I don't like touching people).

I haven't heard any hate for this song, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were plenty of people who really detested Barnett's tale of gardening and ending up in hospital. Lyrically it's so matter-of-fact, but that's what makes it so great. I think a lyric like “Reminds me of the time when I was really sick and I had too much pseudoephedrine and I couldn't sleep at night” is genius and if you disagree then you need to chill out a bit.  

Violent Soho – Covered In Chrome

The first time I heard this song was at a Record Store Day show they played at Tym Guitars and it immediately became my favourite Violent Soho song. I heard some demos of it before they went into the studio and figured it was going to sound alright on record, but I had no idea it'd be such a monstrous, muscular cut when it was fully fleshed out.

The song is brilliant, but I maintain that engineer Bryce Moorhead is untouchable when it comes to making heavy rock recordings; there's a grit that he manages to put on the records he makes – which are mainly for small Brisbane bands – that makes them sound enormous but not pompous. It's a celebratory, vitriolic, stupid, fun rock song that makes me wish I was a teenager again and one of the best songs of the year.

Haim – Falling

I was expecting the Haim backlash, but I wasn't expecting it to piss me off so much. I think I was lured into a false sense of security when people started giving them props around the time of their Splendour visit mid-year, then the haters came out firing when the Days Are Gone record dropped and actually sold very healthily. I understand there's a lot to hate about them; it's contrived and slick and derivative and vacuous and mostly lacking any substance whatsoever – but it's fucking pop music, people. Sometimes that is just what we need in a song.

Anyway, Falling is just too catchy, too shiny and it makes me feel too good. I know there was a lot more acclaim given to The Wire (I actually prefer Forever, but it was released in 2012), but I think maybe it was a little too Fleetwood Mac for my liking. It's one of my least favourite tracks on the record, actually.

Jeremy Neale – In Stranger Times (ft. Go Violets)

He's got such a ridiculous knack for penning brilliant pop songs and he's such a damn likable character, but it was his decision to team up with his fellow Brisbane buddies Go Violets that made Jeremy Neale have his finest hour of 2013. Just try getting the chorus of this song out of your head, it's certainly no easy task.

It just so happens to come accompanied by what I would have to say is the most ridiculous film clip of all time and that is saying something after a couple of his previous efforts. Amazing. I asked him about it after I first saw it and he said something along the lines of “the secret is to not film enough footage”, which is obviously genius.

Here's to a better 2014.