Top 25 Albums
1. Never Hungover Again - Joyce Manor
2. High Noon - Arkells
3. Naturally - Hightide Hotel
4. Sea When Absent - A Sunny Day In Glasgow
5. Keep Doing What You're Doing - You Blew It!
6. Here and Nowhere Else - Cloud Nothings
7. Say Yes To Love - Perfect Pussy
8. You're Gonna Miss It All - Modern Baseball
9. Forgettable - Sorority Noise
10. Bros Canoeing - Monument
11. Rooms of the House- La Dispute
12. You Can Do Better - Johnny Foreigner
13. Get Olde Second Wind - Crying
14. Home, Like NoPlace Is There - The Hotelier
15. Atlas - Real Estate
16. Niggas On The Moon - Death Grips
17. Busch Hymns - Posture & the Grizzly
18. You're Dead! - Flying Lotus
19. Youth Culture Forever - Paws
20. Sky of No Stars - John Galm
21. Reality Testing - Lone
22. Days of Abandon - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
23. LOSE - Cymbals Eat Guitars
24. Three Love Songs - Ricky Eat Acid
25. Mediumship - Dikembe
Top 25 Songs
1. Crime - Real Estate
2. Fair Trade - Tiny Moving Parts
3. Thanks - The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die
4. My Aquatic - I Can See Mountains
5. Break Free - Ariana Grande
6. Hello Cruel World - Hightide Hotel
7. Hard Enough - Brave Bird
8. Psykick Espionage - Joanna Gruesome
9. Victoria - Joyce Manor
10. Better To Best - You Blew It!
11. Pattern Walks - Cloud Nothings
12. Keef Ripper - Donovan Wolfington
13. I Wanna Get Better - Bleachers
14. Never Catch Me - Flying Lotus
15. 2 is 8 - Lone
16. Lanai - You Blew It!
17. A Note From The Author February 1st to the Author January 1st -The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die
18. Really Don't Care - Demi Lovato
19. Dream Ache - Lone
20. Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck) - Run The Jewels
21. Award of the Year Award - You Blew It!
22. Put Your Number In My Phone - Ariel Pink
23. Dream On - Rustie
24. Sun Glass - Fucked Up
25. Seeing Ghosts - John Galm
Top 10 EPs
1. Gone Beachy - I Can See Mountains
2. Between Bodies - The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die
3. T-Minus Grand Gesture - Brave Bird
4. Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken? - Beach Slang
5. Split - Joie De Vivre / Prawn
6. Split - Old Gray / Tiny Moving Parts
7. Ocean Death - Baths
8. You Blue It - You Blew It!
9. A Los Campesinos! Christmas - Los Campesinos!
10. Astonishing Adventures! 'The Captured Crusader' - Perfect Pussy / Joanna Gruesome
Top 10 Shows
1. Arkells
2. Girl Talk
3. The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die (headline set of Bad Scene Forever Fest, Cohoes NY)
4. Cloud Nothings
5. Cults
6. Hollerado
7. Cut Copy
8. Dikembe (as support)
9. Vampire Weekend (with Cults as support)
10. Modern Baseball
flagamuffin and ButterflyEffect, I'm particularly curious to hear your thoughts.
LC! is a very important band, especially since they're my favorite band of all time. I'm curious to know why "My Year In Lists" is dear to you, if you don't mind me asking.
MY YEAR IN LISTS When I was in college i developed a very dear friend/occasional lady-friend. Her name was XXX. XXX and I liked to get together, in our dorm room(s) in the tower complexes, in her car or a mutual friend's car (usually, a mutual friend's who didn't mind ferrying us around), at her parents' house or occasionally mine, and play music. We had a one-on, one-off rotation, which in retrospect is surprisingly equitable music-sharing for our times now. There was a cluster of songs and song-types which she would always play, and a cluster of songs or song-types which I would always play. EXAMPLES OF OTHER SONGS XXX would always play "Milk" by Kings of Leon, from the early days I would always play Cloud Cult, "The Story of the Grandson of Jesus" and Bright Eyes, usually "Arc of Time" but sometimes "Take it Easy, Love Nothing" "My Year in Lists" was a long XXX would always play, it was a brilliant song and evokes all those times of us in cars or apartments or places drinking vodka and smoking pot in a place of seclusion of people only of our time and space and age. Thanks for asking.
I like this.
I submit my Top 25 tracks and Honorable mention Top 10 of 2014 (no order): Top 25 Tracks Timeline - Hiding in Your Love (Deep Detroit Dub Mix) Space Afrika - A2 - Above the Concrete Below the Concrete EP Space Afrika - A3 - Above the Concrete Below the Concrete Tale of Us - Concur Secluded - Forces of Nature Floorplan - Phobia (Re-Plant) (Reissue technically but IDC) Hercules & Love Affair - I Try to Talk to You (Seth Troxler Extended NYC Mix) Gary Beck - Video Siren Ben Sims - Orbit Ida Engburg - Silhouette Of A Ghost Ida Engburg - Devil Dance (Mr. G's NY Dub) Harvey McKay - Silk Road MadMotorMiquel - Something Special (Vinyl Edit) &Me - Blitz (Rampa & Re.You AKA RAR Remix) Robyteck Vs Shield - The Infamous (Robytek Vs Shield Re-Edit) Culoe De Song - Y.O.U.D Ripperton - Unfold DJ Tennis - Floating Boy (Self Portrait) Monoloc - Things (Monoloc Edit) Randomer - Stupid Things I Do (New School Mix) Alan Fitzpatrick - Truant La Fleur - Arms Around (C2 Affected Remix) Adriatique - Space Knights Damian Lazarus - Lovers' Eyes (Mohe Pi Ki Najariya) Karenn - Pace Yourself Honorable Mentions: Ryan Crosson - Club Chimes Floating Points - Sparkling Controversy Macromism - Dont Say Back Girogia Angiuli - Desires Nils Penner - Master Petz Itmar Sagi - Invisible Key Itmar Sagi - Dub Superstitions Stephen Hinz - Hungry Martin Eyerer - Reckless Tiga - Bugatti
Very intriguing. I have to admit I've only heard of one of those artists. I'll have to check out some of them!
its all "Underground" House, Techno, & Tech House.
You and I have a lot in common (mine is going to posted sometime today), I wasn't big on the Death Grips or Cymbals Eat Guitar albums though. +1 for Sorority Noise in particular, those guys are great and fly way under the radar. It's interesting that TWIABP made your top songs and shows list, but not albums. Again, wasn't a big fan of Between Bodies. Spoken word is great in parts of a song, or for a whole song, bu they way overdid it with that album. That Old Gray / Tiny Moving Parts split is amazing. We also saw a decent amount of the same bands. Great list!
Thank you! I put Between Bodies under EPs, since the band refers to it as such. I thought the whole affair was a bit hit or miss, but I do enjoy the spacier parts of TWIABP's catalog so I liked it overall. Obviously I thought "Thanks" was a fantastic song, and I really liked the lyrics on "Space Exploration to Solve Earthly Crises" and "Shoppers Beef". I actually saw TWIABP twice this year, once in April and then again in September, which was the show I refer to on my list. Interestingly, they played Between Bodies material at the April show but not the September show. They didn't have Chris Z in September which didn't help, but they certainly could have played "Thanks" or "$100 Tip", which doesn't have him on them. As for the Old Gray / TMP Split, I used to be a big fan of Old Gray but I'm just not into them anymore. I liked their half of the split but again, I just couldn't get into it. I liked TMP's half of course. What did you think of TMP's album? I liked a few songs off it but for whatever reason it just didn't stick with me. Maybe it was the cleaned up production?
Ah, I'm still an Old Gray fan but I think that Sorority Noise is the better of Cameron's bands. As for TMP, I think that was a part of my issue with it. All of the songs also sounded same-y to me, from the themes to the tempo they were played it to the song structure. It wasn't as varied as the previous releases and getting through the middle of the album was a bit of a struggle.
Okay. I had probably already heard about ten of these. But your list reminded me to check out the newest Pains of Being album, plus the Arkells thing is amazing, and I didn't realize The World Is a Beautiful Place had a new EP this year. And I'm really jealous of your shows, I didn't see hardly anyone this year. Yeah I mean the Hold Steady alone make it a banner year, but you have quality and quantity both. Plus the crowd was not fucking having it with Craig Finn. No Alvvays?
Whats this about the Hold Steady? I saw them live (for free) a few years ago and wasn't overly impressed. Craig Finn was belligerently hammered and every song sounded the same. However, I've since come to like "Boys & Girls in America" a lot. I've heard of Alvvays but hadn't checked them out. I'm listening to them now and I'm liking it, I think I'll download the album. Thanks!
One of my favorite bands ever. I can pile superlatives on top of each other but what's the point? Lyrics like "I went back to start a band of course" and "When one townie falls in the forest, does anyone notice?" They weren't great live, but it was a terrible venue and crowd. I think seeing them in about 2008 in a dive would have been one of the great shows of my time. THS paints a picture of a bleak bunch of teenagers growing up too fast and doing a lot of drugs and not liking it. That's either what my childhood was, or what I wanted it to be; never decided. Alvvays did an album which I would put in my top five if I actually made a list, which I'm not.
As far as I'm concerned Alvvays had the song of the year in Archie, Marry Me.
I don't think I've listened to any other album released in 2014 (I'm mostly stuck at older stuff), but Aphex Twin's "Syro" is a great one. Surprised nobody here has mentioned it.
Personally, I respect Aphex Twin but I've never been able to get into his music. However, David Rees released a mashup of Taylor Swift and Aphex this year that I enjoyed a lot. I also enjoy Girl Talk's use of Aphex's music in his mixes.
I've also had a hard time getting into big part of Aphex Twin's music. I guess it often isn't the most catchy one ("Selected Ambient Works Volume II" is the best example - one of my favourite releases of his, also one that I had the hardest time to get to like). But his art as a whole (covers of his records, videos, ideas, his overall creepiness and vastness of genres/moods his music spans) had always kept my interest in the music big enough to get through the hard shell. And the more I listen to his releases (and he released tons of music under at least 6 different aliases), the more I dig and appreciate it.