Best Albums of 2014

[JirinPanthosa]

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

 

[bigdaddy]

Mine would be, in no order...

Vance Joy - Dream Your Life Away
Milky Chance - Sadnecessary
Hozier - Hozier

 

[Bob Morton]

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

 

[Shurik]

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

 

[Owain Taggart]

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.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

Taylor Swift- 1989

 

[Taylirious]

^ Yes!

Taylor Swift - 1989

 

[intrinsical]

I'll third Taylor Swift's 1989.

 

[1001001]

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.

 

[Pingfah]

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

 

[ITL]

^ I've not heard the Bob Mould one, yet. Many guitars, or more of his less-guitary stuff?

 

[Pingfah]

Lots and lots of guitars. Probably his most "rock" album since Last Dog & Pony Show.

 

[ITL]

Nice!