“Another year, another carrot.” – B. Bunny
So we have arrived together at one more late December, and if I push the envelope on when a year-end list can usefully appear, so be it. I like my year-end lists at the end of the year, what can I say?
Newcomers note that this is not a “best of” list, but merely a list of my favorites from the fading year 2013. Note too that these favorites are all songs that have appeared during the year as free and legal MP3s, because that’s how things work here.
Even as I have cut back on the number of songs featured in a year, there were still a lot to choose from, and in any case, because the whole intention of Fingertips is to narrow things down and present only high-quality songs in the first place, to go further and attempt to create a list of favorite songs from songs that have already been established as favorites of mine, well, it’s always a rather tortuous process. Almost as tortuous as that last sentence, in fact.
And because I always each year complain about putting favorites in order, I will refrain from that particular bellyache this time. Kind of.
As in the past, songs that have spent time in the ongoing Top 10 list present something of a guide to what will be in the year-end list, but not entirely. For whatever reason, songs sometimes get shuffled around, and things that were lower on the Top 10 list show up higher on the year-end Favorites list, and vice versa. Sometimes songs that weren’t on the Top 10 list at all end up on the year-end favorites list. Don’t ask.
Every year, for reasons which are now unclear, I end up presenting my favorite free and legal MP3s in two lists of 10, so the end result is a top 20. Those who want to get right to it, go ahead and hit the top 10 list; if you have a bit more time, the 11-20 list is obviously worth a listen also.
All MP3s are embedded anew here, so you can listen or download from this page if you’d like. If you are interested in reading or re-reading the original reviews, click on the date next to each band name, which is the date of the original Fingertips post.
TOP 10 FAVORITE FREE & LEGAL MP3s, 2013
1. “She Came” – Fé (October 16)
2. “Sonsick” – San Fermin (January 10)
3. “Youth” – The Lawlands (January 25)
4. “Primitive Style” – Johnny Delaware (August 27)
5. “Pendulum” – Pure Bathing Culture (June 21)
6. “Through the Deep Dark Wood” – The Veils (March 14)
7. “Swift Arrows” – Shelby Earl (August 9)
8. “No Excalibur” – Tele Novella (May 31)
9. “Wild Eyed Friend” – Muralismo (August 16)
10. “All the Love” – AM & Shawn Lee (June 7)
10 MORE FAVORITE FREE & LEGAL MP3s, 2013
11. “Don’t Come to Me” – Nick Jaina (April 5)
12. “I Think I Knew” – Cate Le Bon (September 9)
13. “Coast to Coast” – The Blank Tapes (February 22)
14. “All For Love” – Night Panther (May 1)
15. “Boy Crazy” – Lydia Loveless (November 14)
16. “ETC” – Francis and the Lights (May 31)
17. “My Heart Belongs to You” – Johnathan Rice (August 16)
18. “Stranger I Know” – Liam Singer (March 14)
19. “Enemy” – Kacey Johansing (March 6)
20. “Southern Sky” – John Murry (May 13)
Fingertips 