After a record 27 weeks at the top, Walk The Moon’s “Shut Up And Dance” falls to #2 as Carly Rae Jepsen takes over with “Run Away With Me,” her first #1 hit. Alessia Cara and Matt Nathanson also move upward within the top ten, and Lianne La Havas posts two big jumps for Blood album cuts “Midnight” (61-12), “Ghost” (93-35), and “Tokyo” (92-44). Just below, Robin Thicke scores the week’s highest debut with “Back Together,” his new single featuring Nicki Minaj. Also making appearances are the remaining two tracks from La Havas’s album, Calvin Harris and Disciples, James Bay, a pair of tracks from Tame Impala, newcomer Hailee Steinfeld’s debut single “Love Myself,” a re-entry from Ashley Monroe, Gavin James, another Jepsen cut, and Young Brother.

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Carly Rae Jepsen moves into the top three with “I Really Like You,” but Walk The Moon holds for a nineteenth week at #1 with “Shut Up And Dance.” Lianne La Havas adds a new top-ten hit to her record, as “Unstoppable” moves 12-9. The week’s two biggest movers land next to one another: Alessia Cara’s “Here” makes a jump of 32 spots up to #31, just behind Young Brother’s 30-position increase for “Kamikaze.” Jepsen also has the honor of the week’s highest debut, as the title track from E·MO·TION enters at #41. Following her are three new songs from Kacey Musgraves’s Pageant Material, along with debuts from R5, MKTO, I Know Leopard, firekid, Ashley Monroe, and John Newman, all of whom have previously charted.

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These are one hundred songs that stayed in my heavy rotation throughout 2013. In a year that saw personal advancements including eight weeks studying abroad in France and graduation from college, these songs soundtracked my year, each song appealing to me through instrumentation, lyrics, or just its overall mood. Read on for descriptions of each track, access the whole playlist on SoundCloud to listen, and judge away.
Continue reading “Kurt’s 100 Favorite Songs of 2013”