2013 was the year of the album. No-one will forget the hype when Kanye projected giant-sized videos on the side of buildings while resurrecting Patrick Bateman for Yeezus, or when Daft Punk teased Random Access Memories with enigmatic adverts and billboards. Arcade Fire did the same, previewing their own return to the stage in one non-stop promo video on YouTube, while Jay Z somehow plugged his Magna Carta LP through both apps and cathedrals (!) But if we take away all the sideshow displays, which albums have really stood out over the last twelve months? Find the ten best below, along with a set of the top tracks of 2013 on Soundcloud.

No World by LA duo inc. wasn’t just the best urban album of 2013, but best album period. Its intimate and blue-eyed nature brought back memories of similarly acclaimed debut Last Exit by Junior Boys, but with the electro replaced by post-Massive Attack blues. Standout: 5 Days.

While you can find precedents for the inc. sound, it’s much harder to find anything else like the Cut 4 Me mixtape by Kelela, another LA based artist.

If you remember Various Production aka Various, you’ll know Hater, an icy track that was the first to merge female vocals with dubstep all the way back in 2005. Back then, Various sounded like the future — until they released an album full of bland trip hop, that is. A lot of potential wasted, and not picked up again until 2013, when Kelela hooked up with the UK & US’s most forward looking dance producers to create 12 tracks that manage to mix hard cold beats with defiantly human vocals. This is xenomorph RnB that never lets up, created to be invincible and futureproof even when everyone else will start copying Kelela around the year 2020, mark my words. Standout: Enemy.

The most exciting moment on AlunaGeorge’s debut album Body Music is the breakdown on Bad Idea, when all the programming stops to have Aluna sing unplugged over real actual drums. It’s the only spontaneous moment on a very well-maintained and controlled album which is perhaps a little too slick and polished to get your body movin’. If they add a little more life to the mix, then AlunaGeorge will soar on their sophomore.

Why is Kanye West so angry? There was no need for him to make an ugly monster like Yeezus, but he cooked up one nonetheless from the blood of a 1000 slasher flicks. Standout: Black Skinhead.

If Daft Punk took Touch and Contact off the tracklisting, then Random Access Memories would be flawless. I get Touch, I respect it, but I never want to sit down and actually listen to all 7 minutes of it. Contact meanwhile isn’t the closer which the best dance album of 2013 deserves. That honor goes to Doin’ It Right, as featuring Panda Bear.

If Daft Punk hadn’t abandoned the electronics to go all organic, and if Justice hadn’t gone all prog rocky, then I think Youth! by duo Glen Check would have been the perfect album for both bands to continue the legacy of French dance with. Like Cut Copy, Glen Check make songs which are half dance, half pop. It’s DFA style without the boring cowbell grooves, and if you like the theme tune to Misfits, then you’ll like the rockier stuff on the album. Standout: Summer Hearts.

The self-titled album by Jamie Lidell is actually his 5th to date, and also his best seeing as he’s realised how to make an album of freaky bangers instead of just hiding a few among a bunch of slow-funk workouts. There was nothing slow on this high frenzy tribute to Prince and 80s pop whatsoever, making the sexiest retro album since Beck’s Midnite Vultures way back in the time of the Millennium Bug. Standout: You Naked.

Ok, it’s not an album, but the new Burial EP Rival Dealer is more than half an hour long, and most of its tracks are cut up into movements and segments, so it plays more like a collection of different pieces united by motifs and moods. Closing track Come Down to Us is 13 minutes long, and you’ll be crying by the 7 minute mark. Any hardcore Burial fans upset that he’s tried something different on this record can go fuck themselves, for this is staggeringly beautiful music of its own genre, a kind of grainy and androgynous synth-laced dub for all the lost souls out there, whether they be human or just mere ghosts in their shells.

Gold Panda is for fans of Four Tet’s gentle, gamelan style of minimal. Half of Where You Live was miles better than the album Four Tet released this year. Standout: An English House.

Guys, stop collaborating with R Kelly. It’s taking away from the fantastic indie synth you made on Bankrupt. His remix of Trying to be Cool isn’t too bad though.