Yeezus (incorrectly) named Album Of The Year by SPIN

Is anyone surprised? Kanye West's general public-derided, critically adored album Yeezus came out on top of SPIN's 50 Greatest Albums of 2013. The dense, challenging work is the exact sort of thing that gets the average critic all hot n' bothered, so many expected Yeezy's aggro-industrial statement of production and sentiment over lyricism and hooks to come out on top, and SPIN was happy to oblige.

Via the article explaining why Yeezy came out on top:

Hip-hop outside of Kanye West (a leader, not a follower, and you know the rest) explored the void in a different way, embracing the caverns and craters and pockmarks of early Def Jam. Rick Rubin became sort of a new cult hero in rap circles - West recruited him to reduceYeezus, Eminem went "Berzerk" over his Billy Squier breaks, and Jay Z fooled everyone into thinking the Rickster worked on Magna Carta Holy Grail, as if to catch some of the swag tangled in his beard. Eminem rapped in front of LL Cool J's big boombox in a music video,Juvenile just rewrote his personal 1985 on the bell-rockin' "LL Cool," and Cool James himself tried to walk that way on "Whaddup." But others explored minimalism in their own ways - the post-hyphy ringtone bloops of DJ Mustard, the witchwave drones of A$AP Fergand Earl Sweatshirt, and the barely-there pachinko funk of Pusha T's "Numbers on the Boards." Danny Brown's Old shows us what the first post-Yeezus rap is gonna sound like on the distorted arcade fire "Way Up Here," while Sub Pop-signed art-weirdos Clipping just rapped over sine waves and assorted Merz-shenanigans.

While Yeezus does serve as a handy shorthand for the dark, minimal sounds of 2013 (and fits into a convenient musical narrative, which gets critics wetter than bridge-dwellers at Splash Mountain) it is by no means the greatest album of the year. Hell, it's not even the greatest hip-hop album of the year. 

That honor belongs solely to one Pusha T and his excellent My Name Is My Name. Like West, he took a long, hard look into the abyss and used his album to share what he'd learned, unleashing the sonic equivalent of a thousand yard stare on tracks like "Numbers On The Board" and "Nosetalgia."

Where he bested West was turning that darkness -which, like West, he coupled with a fetishization and examination of his own black-ness- into songs that people actually enjoy listening to. "Numbers" bizarre beat and bare-bones chorus will reverberate inside your skull long after Ye's "I Am A God" screams have died down.

A final point to all the people who will claim I don't understand Kanye's art or his album's overall messages regarding being rich and black in America: You are right that I will never know how it feels to be a rich African-American and see creative outlets and opportunities that I thought would be granted to me suddenly close up. I will never understand reaching what I thought was the top, only to find more floors I may never have access to. 

Still, I can't shake the feeling that Kanye has adressed these issues before in better songs with richer lyrics. The underlying ideas of "Black Skinhead" and "New Slaves" were better expressed via the "single black female addicted to retail" at the center of "All Falls Down." And the message that Yeezy sent out was heard, ingested and forever internalized because the song was enjoyable. If Kanye wanted to reach people via his music, he should have started by making the music something that people will actually listen to more than once.

How do you feel about Yeezus being named album of the year by SPIN? What is your pick for album of the year? Sound off in the comments.