OK, so brianc pointed out last Friday that we never completed our annual four-part discussion on the best popular entertainment delivery methods of 2014. Apparently, all the restaurant openings and pithy annexation discussion prevented us from ever getting around to best albums of the year.
In case you need some help jogging your memory, since it’s now nearly February, here’s Paste Magazine’s list of the 50 best albums of 2014.
But unlike Paste, your list of albums isn’t confined to those that “hit the shelves” in 2014. If you just discovered Bob Dylan, the Stones or the Beatles, we want to hear about it!
Asked a slightly different way: What were the best albums that you discovered 2014?
Paste’s top album cover courtesy of Wikipedia
I was pleasantly surprised with Alison Moyet’s comeback record, The Minutes. Easily in my top ten of 2014. Here’s her official video for the song “When I Was Your Girl” featuring Alison and her daughter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wtJyh2Co4
Thank you for posting this. Love Alison Moyet and this one slipped by me.
The album above is a pretty dang good one. Mac Demarco’s Salad Days is a pretty great album as well.
yeah, that’s one war on drugs i can get behind. i’ll have to check out salad days.
I need to give “Lost in The Dream” another listen. Didn’t grab me the first time around.
Attica! by Wussy. The best band in the land (well, until Sleater-Kinney just came out of retirement). Also, Suck My Shirt by locals The Coathangers (their best album so far I think.)
Thanks for the tip. Looked up the Coathangers on your recommendation and that record sounds tuff.
Favorite albums of the year:
St. Vincent- (self-titled)
Angel Olsen- Burn Your Fire For No Witness
Sharon Van Etten- We Are Here
Favorite Songs: St. Vincent- Prince Johnny
Jenny Lewis- Slippery Slopes
Ear worm of the Year: Taylor Swift: Shake it Off (she finally got me–see the “Swiftamine” sketch SNL did earlier this season.)
[Yes the ladies definitely owned it this year]
Favorite Old Album New to Me: Charles Mingus- Ah Um
Oops. The Sharon Van Etten album is titled Are We There (and to my list of favorite 2014 songs I’d add “Every Time the Sun Comes Up” from it).
The Paste cover photo is right on — Lost in the Dream by the War on Drugs was pretty fantastic. Their previous album Slave Ambient was also new to me and became a favorite.
Favorite new old albums would also have to include the official release of Dylan and the Band’s basement tapes.
Parquet Courts — Sunbathing Animal
Swans — Screen Shot
Run the Jewels — Run the Jewels II
Benjamin Booker — Benjamin Booker
Growlers — Chinese Fountain
Alvvays — Alvvays
La Roux — Trouble in Paradise
Zola Jesus — Dangerous Days
Ex Hex — Beast
Cayetana — Nervous Like Me
Jessie Winchester’s “A Reasonable Amount of Trouble”. He died in April of 2014 and this was recorded while he was taking chemo knowing it would be his last album. Great stuff!
New in 2014: Afghan Whigs- Do to the Beast
New to me in 2014: Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit- Here We Rest (2011)
Anything by The Sword.
warp rider ftw.
+1
Best hard rock band out there right now. Listening to “Age of Winters” as I type this.
Listened to a lot of Jason Isbell, Lorde, M.I.A., Shonna Tucker, Jenny Lewis and Tune-Yards last year…
Martha Wainwright, album “Come Home to Mama,” released 2012.
Sturgill Simpson: Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
Hurray for the Riff Raff; Small Town Heroes
Jimmer: The Would Be Plans
Lee Bains lll and the Glory Fires: Dereconstructed
Marshall Ruffin: At the Grocery
Larkin Poe
Marti Jones: You’re Not the Bossa Me
Real Estate: Atlas
Lake Street Dive: Bad Self Portraits.
And damn, that War on Drugs record is incredibly fine.
My sweetie would add Jenny Lewis’s album. She loves it to death.
Lykke Li’s I Never Learn was very solid. She hasn’t struck out yet.
Casualties Of Cool’s self-titled album is amazing. Take that Plant/Krauss album, but mix in a bit of Dire Straits and airy Pink Floyd. One of the only albums I’ve heard this year that is strong from start to finish. Plenty of YouTube clips for this band.
pink floyd’s endless river is pretty good too.
D’Angelo – Black Messiah
Sturgill Simpson – MMSICM
Curtis Harding – Soul Power
WARA from the NBHD – Kidnapped
Trombone Shorty
in order
1) Soul
2)outlaw country
3) Soul
4) Hip Hop
5) New Orleans jazz/funk/soul
I have a big favor to ask. I’m familiar with some of these bands, but not all. It would help me immensely if people could give an idea of the genre (or comparisons to other bands) when making your lists.
I always enjoy these threads, but my time is limited and indicating the type of music will help me focus on bands that might interest me.
Thanks, from a fellow music lover.
All of mine (except for the Taylor Swift song and the classic jazz album) are “indie rock”, though only the St. Vincent album is guitar driven. Her (Annie Clark, she performs as St. Vincent) sound and sensibility reminds me a bit of Talking Heads, though she really doesn’t sound much like anyone else.
The Angel Olsen record was a random pickup from the library cd section, and I loved it immediately. Singer-songwriter with a punk edge and a bit of a twang.
Sharon Van Etten has a voice a bit like Brandi Carlisle but with a more sophisticated, “artsy” style and atmospheric production. I’ve been a fan since I heard one of her songs in the Rectify pilot episode.
Hospitality – Trouble
Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire for No Witness
Ex Hex – Rips
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings – Give the People What They Want
I agree with BrianC. Women have been making more interesting music over the last few years than men.
Courtney Barnett – A Sea of Split Peas
alt-J This Is All Yours
First Aid Kit – Stay Gold
Jack White – Lazaretto
Sharon Van Etten – Are We There
Ray LaMontagne – Supernova
I got Prince’s “Art Official Age” as a stocking stuffer for Christmas, have been funkin’ & jammin’ ever since. Also have been getting back in touch with Sade via her “Ultimate Collection”…loving it!
one can’t ever have too much sade in one’s life.
Testify, brother.
As a middle-aged gentleman, I’ve realized, like my father before me, that most modern music can’t hold a candle to the wonderful music upon which I cut my own teeth (gabba gabba hey!). Among the notable exceptions last year was Shattered by Reigning Sound, a terrific three-chords-and-a-puff-of-smoke rock and roll record. Greg Cartwright ought to be a national treasure — soberer than Paul Westerberg and with a better sense of humor than Bob Mould, and less inclined to gaze at his navel like so many of his bearded, twee, under-caffeinated contemporaries.
And St. Paul and the Broken Bones’ Half the City is a terrific soul record, with horns and sweat and hormones and real, genuine singing. I love love love these guys.
If you like the Westerberg vibe, check out the new album by Matthew Ryan, Boxers. The song Suffer No More sounds like a lost tune by the ‘Mats.