Photo: WENN.com
As it should be, we leave 2013 in a better place than we started. We have learned a lot of things over the past 12 months about pop music. Below are the 100 most important of those facts. Everything you see below is concrete truth.
Check out 100 things we learned about music in 2013. Here's to 2014.
1. Beyonce knows how to surprise people
2. Arctic Monkeys keep getting better with every album release
3. Foals are ready to headline festivals
4. Kanye West is weird
5. Daft Punk's Random Access Memories was a much better album after the hype had died down
6. Miley Cyrus is not the shy and retiring type
7. Lorde showed us that not all teenage girls are squawking and awful
8. The 1975 are pretty much the hardest working band in the UK
9. David Bowie is a master of surprise (he beat Beyonce to it by 11 months)
10. Flume and Chet Faker's bromance is delivering some spectacular results
11. Icona Pop seem doomed to become a one-hit wonder
12. However, Charli XCX must have a healthy bank balance right now
13. Someone fucked up the Muyta Keisha Siobhan comeback royally
14. Lady Gaga's ARTPOP album was not art
15. Beady Eye are still not very good
16. Azealia Banks should never have been allowed back on Twitter
17. One Direction fans are weird
18. Muse and The Killers have the most dedicated fans on the planet
19. The Oasis reunion is still a long way off
20. Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro spends more time with his shirt off than on
21. Phoenix remain one of the greatest live bands on the planet
22. Arcade Fire fans will wear anything they ask them to
23. Even when he's behind the scenes, James Murphy still makes music a much more exciting place
24. Say Lou Lou are basically the future of everything pop
25. Morrissey is still an angry, angry man
26. Teasing us with one single is enough of a reminder of how brilliant Pulp are/were
27. FKA twigs proved that minimalist can be mainstream
28. It was not 'the year of the guitar band'
29. James Blake, London Grammar, Jon Hopkins, Boards Of Canada, Bonobo proved that less is more
30. James Arthur needs to think before he speaks / records an offensive rap track
31. Robin Thicke claims to have an enormous penis. Coincidentally, he is massive dick
31. If Latitude festival keep things up, it will be the next big event on the UK scene
31. Jagwar Ma showed us exactly what we wanted from another Stone Roses album
32. Jessie Ware is a very funny lady indeed. Her between-song chat is as good as the music
33. Paris Hilton will never, ever, ever be a pop star
34. Justin Bieber is getting worse with age
35. Iceland still makes lovely music. Or more specifically, Asgeir does
36. AlunaGeorge didn't really work as well as we thought they would
37. Sigur Ros need to play hits at the end of their live shows, not 12 minutes album tracks
38. Juveniles deserved a lot more attention than they got
39. Crystal Fighters are one of the best festival bands on the planet
40. Tom Odell wasn't welcomed into the music world with open arms
41. The good people of the UK continued to buy Emeli Sande albums in their thousands
42. Phospherescent can make grown men weep with just one song. In this case, it was 'Song For Zula'
43. Jay Z prefers making money to making good albums
44. Justin Timberlake does not like short songs
43. Disclosure make us feel like we wasted our teenage years with all the drinking and partying, when we could have been making epic electronic pop music instead
44. Solange is cool
43. But Dev Hynes is even cooler
44. Kendal Calling is going to be a major player on the festival scene in the future
45. Something went wrong for Iggy Azalea (and we don't just mean that awful 'Bounce' single)
46. Arthur Beatrice are wonderful
47. Chvrches proved that pop music could be as agressive and indie as guitar music
48. Nobody wanted a second Empire Of The Sun album. Even if it was amazing
49. Politics and pop music still don't mix. Just ask Drenge about Tom Watson...
50. Guards are one of the most overlooked bands of 2013. Have you heard their album? It's amazing
51. R.Kelly makes us want to never have sex ever again
52. Glastonbury still has no real competition on the UK festival scene
53. Sky Ferreira actually makes a pretty convincing pop star
54. Sia proved with one single, 'Elastic Heart', that she is still one of the best musicians on the planet
55. The Weeknd is, after some mixtapes and one album, ready to headline at London's O2
56. X Factor gets worse every year
57. Drake designs horrible shows
58. James Vincent McMorrow is literally incredible. Expect lots of praise and awards for new album, Post Tropical
59. Dappy owns a horse
60. Jake Bugg remains hugely popular. Who'd have thought?
61. Depeche Mode never ever ever stop touring
62. Janelle Monae still isn't as popular as she should be
63. Nile Rodgers is a bit of a legend
64. The Angel Haze album will be better than the Azealia Banks album
65. Britney Spears needs a nice long break - not a Las Vegas residency
66. Pharrell Williams is 40 years old. 40. Four-oh
67. Mikky Ekko is yet to step out of Rihanna's shadow
68. Alex Turner has the best quiff in music
69. Everyone wants to go to festivals in Croatia
70. Peace were as amazing as everyone predicted
71. Vampire Weekend are better at exciting albums than they are exciting live shows
72. The second Anna Calvi album didn't do as well as we might have expected
73. Birdy is evolving into a potential future star
74. No one knows how to do a live show like Muse
75. The Voice is still awful. Awful awful awful
76. Royksopp and Robyn teaming up for a tour and new music could make 2014 very exciting indeed for pop music
77. Geri Halliwell would be a brave woman to ever release more solo music
78. Kings Of Leon's Mechanical Bull was an underrated album
79. The Haim album was very good, but not great
80. Grimes is one of the best musicians on Twitter
81. Gary Barlow's solo music is worse now than ever
82. Everything Giorgio Moroder touches turns to gold
83. Despite being years in the making, the Kavinsky album sounded like it needed a few more months work
84. Albert Hammond JR is probably better off without The Strokes
85. Franz Ferdinand have not changed their sound in a decade. Nor should they
86. Chase + Status' Brand New Machine album was an incredible record
87. Prince has a weird obsession with pyjamas
88. There are WAY too many award shows in music
89. The Freddie Mercury movie is already looking like it will be an absolute shambles
90. Kraftwerk shows aren't quite as spectacular if you lose your 3D glasses
91. Hot Chip are still better live than they are on album
92. It doesn't matter how hard you try and how detailed your plans, you will always still miss half the bands you want to see at every festival
93. If there is a guitar band revival in 2014, the likes of Skaters and Radkey are leading the charge
94. Lily Allen is, sadly, probably better off recording cover versions for Christmas than biting and brilliant pop tunes
95. Avicii fooled the world into raving to country and western songs
96. Ellie Goulding still hasn't made up her mind whether she is an edgy electronic artist or a drippy ballad singer
97. Eminem still thinks it is OK to use homophobic lyrics
98. James Blunt is still capable of scoring Top Ten singles
99. Calvin Harris isn't short of a few quid
100. Queens Of The Stone Age proved that there was a still a place for rock music in the mainstream
