What are your favorite albums released in 2014? Mine: 1. Fennesz - Becs Christian Fennesz is a minimalist electronica artist who captures the right moods to put you in a trance. 2. First Aid Kit - Stay Gold A folk-rock album with some of the most catchy songs of the year. 3. Somi - The Lagos Music Salon Mesmerizing R&B/Afropop fusion. 4. The Afghan Whigs - Do To The Beast I haven't heard their earlier work but this is the best indie rock of the year, in my opinion. 5. Perfume Genius - Too Bright This is a band that wears its influences on its sleeve. One song sounds like Arcade Fire, the next sounds like The Knife, and it's all got a charisma that binds it all together beautifully. 6. Flying Lotus - You're Dead 7. Sun Kil Moon - Benji A folk album with incredibly personal and beautiful lyrics about his childhood, including his early sexual experiences, his feelings about damaged people he knew growing up, his parents, and his reactions to school shootings. 8. Ambrose Akinmusuire - The Imagined Savior Is Far Easier To Paint Best album title of the year, and probably my favorite current jazz artist. 9. St. Vincent - St. Vincent This album came out early enough in the year for it to really sink in by now. I'm a huge fan of St Vincent, her last three albums were all in my top ten for theirs years. She's the heir to the oddball 70's acts like the Talking Heads. 10. Steph Cameron - Sad Eyed Lonesome Lady She reminds me of all the people my brother got into when he was at Berklee School of Music. Just a really talented singer throwback singer songwriter. 11. Squarepusher x Z-Machines - Music For Robots 12. Quilt - Held In Splendor 13. Neneh Cherry - The Blank Project 14. Todd Terje - It's Album Time 15. Black Prairie - Fortune 16. Iceage - Plowing Into The Field Of Love 17. Pere Ubu - Carnival Of Souls 18. Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2 19. Dan Bern - Songs Of Fall 20. Swans - To Be Kind
Mine would be, in no order... Vance Joy - Dream Your Life Away Milky Chance - Sadnecessary Hozier - Hozier
I do not recognize a single artist listed in the previous two posts. That's not surprising, though, as I have the worst possible taste in music. So I've been told: Desecravity - Orphic Signs Acrania - Totalitarian Dystopia Origin - Omnipresent Those 3 discs are easily my favorite of the year. Each contains the brutally regimented hyper-speed technicality, super-clean processed production, and aggressively creative negative attitude that I look for in my ear candy. The following seven I enjoyed immensely for those, and other reasons, though none reach the dizzying heights of impulsive recklessness that the top three offer. Hour of Penance - Regicide Beyond Creation - Earthborn Evolution Decimation - Reign of Ungodly Creation Cannibal Corpse - A Skeletal Domain Abysmal Dawn - Obsolescense Conquering Dystopia - S/T Abysmal Torment - Cultivate the Apostate
I like metal, so: 1. Skálmöld- Með Vættum. 2. Cruachan - Blood for the Blood God. 3. Primordial - Where Greater Men Have Fallen. 4. Behemoth - The Satanist. 5. Grand Magus - Triumph and Power. האבי מטאל מסורתי, גם מהתגליות הטובות ביותר של השנה. 6. Slough Feg - Digital Resistance. 7. Agalloch - The Serpent and the Sphere. 8. Winterfylleth - The Divination of Antiquity. 9. Cannibal Corpse - Skeletal Domain. 10. Alestorm - Sunset on the Golden Age
I didn't get many albums this year, but out of the ones that I was really looking forward to and had even preordered was Nickel Creek's A Dotted Line, which is an awesome album. Felt like they never had a 7 year hiatus.
Man, am I getting old. It's so depressing. I only bought two new albums this year: Songs of Innocence - U2 (I guess everyone "bought" that one...) Hypnotic Eye - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Both are pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.
It was a bit of a slow year for me musically, but my top picks are: Afghan Whigs - Do To The Beast Smashing Pumpkins - Monuments to an Elegy Bob Mould - Beauty & Ruin Mark Lanegan Band - Phantom Radio Roger Taylor - Fun on Earth Live - The Turn Manic Street Preachers - Futurology