It's hard to believe, but we're already in November, which means that in about five weeks, I'll be straining to put together my Best of 2013 list. Well, there's a little more than a month left for potentially amazing albums to come out, but I already have an odd feeling that I'll be having quite a bit of difficulty narrowing my list down to just 10 albums. To put it simply, 2013 has been a really great year for music.

I first started thinking about this on Friday, when I went out to by some new CDs - yeah, I still buy CDs, big whoop wanna fight about it. Anyway, I had planned on buying Lorde's debut album Pure Heroine after reading multiple excellent reviews, but to my dismay, it was sold out (on the plus side, there's enough people still buying CDs that it's possible for a store to be sold out!). I wound up leaving with two other excellent debut records this year - those of Chvrches and Haim, and made a note to pick up Lorde's debut another time.

But of course, I then realized there were a bunch of other new releases I also really needed to pick up. Arcade Fire's latest has garnered somewhat-mixed-but-mostly-positive reviews, and at any rate, it certainly seems worth checking out. Then, there's Paul McCartney, who caught me way off guard buy making one of his best albums in years. And I still haven't even gotten around to buying the latest masterpieces from Drake and Kanye. the number of "Albums I Absolutely Need To Own"  is staggering right now. I can't remember the least time the music industry was on such a winning streak.

And keep in mind, I've already went on and bought plenty of albums this year. From Vampire Weekend's stunning Modern Vampires Of The City to both editions of Justin Timberlake's polarizing 20/20 Experience to the fantastic comeback records by Queens Of The Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails. My collection is quickly piling up with new records - nearly all of which have come out this year.

It's easy to get cynical about new music, but 2013 has been a ridiculously good year. I mean, you can find music to celebrate in any year, but this time around, the hits have just kept on coming. We got Bowie's first album in a decade, and it absolutely lived up to the hype. We saw Jim James go solo and make a quietly brilliant record that would beat out any of the last few releases from My Morning Jacket, and we saw Yo La Tengo continue one of music's longest winning streaks with the excellent Fade.

The number of brilliant records this year has been simply staggering. Let's put our cynicism aside and acknowledge the truth - 2013 has been a fucking glorious year for music.

The 12th incarnation of Camp Bisco is already boasting an impressive lineup, featuring performances from Passion Pit, STS9, Squarepusher, Animal Collective, Flux Pavilion, Lotus, Bassnectar, Umphrey's McGee, and much, much more (full lineup here). The ever evolving festival has just released it's second round of artist announcements. Joining the current lineup will be Destroid Live (a live band version of Excision), KJ Sawka & Downlink, Digital Tape Machine (an Umphrey's Mcgee side project), Madeon, Danny Brown, Seven Lions, Bondax, Moon Boots, Perseus, Strip Steve, Autobody, Alpha Data, and Rochester's own Manhattan Project. Manhattan Project are fresh off a hugely successful release party for their Atomic Bomb Party EP, so be sure to drop by their set to show some local support. As is tradition since Camp 10, curated tents will be showcasing talent from various labels, including OWSLA, Skrillex's label, along with BoyzNoise Records. Other curated tents will be hosted by deep house label French Express, as well as a lineup hand selected by electronic music blog This Song is Sick.

The curated tents have been a great way to let concertgoers focus on the acts they are interested in, without alienating other festival attendees. Catering to the fickle tastes of electronic music fans is like navigating a mine field while holding a rattlesnake, so it's nice to see Camp once again staying ahead of the pack as far as making it easy to see what you want. As always, the Disco Biscuits will play six sets throughout the weekend, and seeing as Biscuits shows are becoming fewer and far between, these sets are becoming more and more unmissable.

Tickets are currently available at $185, so get on that shit before the price goes up.

Last week, I contemplated doing a proper 2013 wishlist for my weekly column but punted on the idea, something I regretted almost immediately on Friday when Gusto's critics aired their 2013 wishlists in the paper, beating me thoroughly to the punch and killing that notion. So, no 2013 wishlist. But I do have one overriding wish, and I've got to get off my chest, so here it is: my wish for Buffalo in 2013 is that this is the year we the public go all in on the things that are really cooking in Buffalo right now: the arts and culturals, the food scene, and of course our live music scene... and blow them wide open. There's no rule saying that sports loving working class Rust Belt cities can't fully embrace their arts and cultural institutions, enjoy good food and drink, or become active hotbeds for indie music. The options and possibilities for Buffalo are endless right now, they're connected anyways, and the potential is there, but we just need to get on with it. 

Louis Grachos is right. We as a city can and should define ourselves as something more than a faded working class Rust Belt city. Not something different, because again they're not mutually exclusive, something more. An open city that eats and drinks locally, takes full advantage of it's arts scene and supports it, goes to Shakespeare in Delaware Park to catch a play outdoors and booze it up with everybody else, and gets into it's thriving and diverse music scene.  

That's what I want for 2013... that and for somebody to buy the Mohawk. I don't know about that second one, but I think that other thing is doable.