Too True hits and runs. Over its
relatively short 30-minute run time, these ten songs grab your attention and
worm into your brain, before melting into the next track.
19. Taylor Swift – 1989
Max Martin
produced (for the most part), but still undoubtedly Taylor Swift, 1989 was the guilty pleasure of serious
music critics this year. Not that you should feel guilty about liking pop
music.
18. Chromeo – White Women
Listening to
White Women from start to finish is
like eating candy for dinner. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Chromeo
released the best nostalgia-for-the-‘70s-and-‘80s album since
Random Access Memories, and they had as
much fun as possible doing it. Bonus points for containing
my toddler’s favorite song of his three
years on this planet.
17. Spoon – They Want My Soul
Spoon just
puts out album after album of catchy indie rock. The week that They Want My Soul came out, I listened
to it so much that I’d wake up in the middle of the night humming “do-do-do
they want my soul.” Witty, sharp lyrics complete the full package here.
16. Lykke Li – I Never Learn
The power
ballad hasn’t sounded so good in decades. Taking a real-life break-up as
inspiration, the Swedish singer goes for it with this collection of
heart-on-her-sleeve anthems.
15. Real Estate – Atlas
Something
about Real Estate’s music seems so easy, as though we’ve all been here before.
Guitars chug along at a medium pace, strumming out melodies in swirls of sound.
The happy-go-lucky pop music and the submerged vocals sometimes hide the
seriousness of this record. Perhaps not as immediate as their previous
releases, Atlas nonetheless had
staying power, staying in steady rotation throughout the year.
14. Phish – Fuego
Phish has
fashioned a 30-plus-year career on the strength of its incredible live shows,
not it’s studio work. But Fuego is an
album that encapsulates all that is Phish. “The Line” and “Sing Monica” show
off the band’s pop sensibilities. “Wombat” begins as a barely listenable
exercise in absurd Phishy-ness, only to develop an infectious funk groove that
ends just as it’s hitting full stride. The title track, an extended prog number
that churns through numerous sections, has already turned into a highlight of
the band’s live shows.
OK, Fuego isn’t breaking new ground, but few
bands can please devoted fans and convert new obsessives quite like Phish can. Fuego
is the sound of a band that’s still engaged with its sound, still finding new
pockets in which to groove, even after three decades.
13. Woods – With Light and With Love
In truth, With Light and With Love could’ve been
released in any year from about 1968 to the present. Earthy rock n’ roll,
jangly guitar, and loose jamming dominate the album. Much of this is
well-trodden ground, but Woods has a knack for a pop melody. “Shining,” “Moving to the Left,” and “Leaves
Like Glass,” are so catchy you could be forgiven for singing along with the
singer and the guitar line.
On the title
track, Woods really goes for it. What starts as another groovy pop song evolves
into a full-stretched guitar workout with echoes of early Pink Floyd. Instead
of just mimicry, Woods has injected new life into these familiar, jam-rock
sounds.
12. Lydia Loveless – Somewhere Else
Somewhere Else is mostly a country
album. I say mostly because there’s a good deal of gutsy rock n’ roll, and a
smattering of punk attitude. Whether that makes her a country-punk singer, or
an alt-country artist, or what, I’m not sure I could say. What I can tell you
is, this is an outstanding album.
Loveless
marries her smart, engaging storytelling with a powerful delivery. Listen to
standout track “Chris Isaak,” where her voice rises, falls, and breaks over the
sliding guitar sounds. Or “Head,” which
is about exactly what you think it’s about, where her voice wavers between
pleading and demanding. It’s a trick that would see lesser singers fall flat on
their faces, but Loveless pulls it off fearlessly.
11. Grouper – Ruins
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| Grouper's Ruins |
Ruins comes alive in the moments of
echo. The reverberations of the piano strings hover in space, waiting for the
next line of notes to break though. As Liz Harris sings, her voice hides among
the sparse sounds, blending in with the fading echoes.
Nothing
about this music is urgent. Everything is given time to breathe, to
contemplate, to meditate. It feels lightweight, unbearably so at times. The
songs threaten to break away from whatever is holding on time them and get
swept off in the slightest of breezes. Occasionally, an ambient sound—falling
rain, a croaking frog, a bleeping microwave—intrudes, only to fade again into
the background. Ruins is sparse,
minimalist, and intoxicating.
10. Mac Demarco – Salad Days
Words like
“slacker” and “stoner” come to mind with Mac Demarco’s Salad Days. The music is relaxed, and Demarco’s vocal delivery is
laconic and unhurried, as though he tossed these songs off on a summer
afternoon when he was playing hooky from his real job. On album highlight
“Brother,” Demarco repeatedly implores us to “take it slow now, brother.” “Let
Her Go” is an ode to the passive realization that a relationship is over.
But that’s
just the spell that Salad Days weaves.
Demarco may be playing the slacker role, but the album is stuffed full of
carefully crafted guitar pop. Nothing is out of place. Every vocal hook and
chord progression and drum fill is just right. Yes, it’s great music to take
along when you’ve skipped work and are heading out to the beach, but it’s also
great music.
9. Todd Terje – It’s Album Time
What to make
of the debut album from Norwegian producer Todd Terje? At the time of its
release, almost half of this album had already been available via singles and
EPs. Was this just a way to re-release music we’d already heard, along with
some connective tissue?
Thankfully,
Terje had more in mind with It’s Album
Time. It’s that rare thing in 2014: an album that’s better than the sum of
its parts. The album ebbs and flows effortlessly, touching on one style of
dance music before morphing into the next. And within that context, the
standout tracks become ever better. “Strandbar,” “Delorean Dynamite,” and,
especially, “Inspector Norse,” showcase Terje’s talent for steadily building
tension into a euphoric release.
8. Sharon Van Etten – Are We There
Sharon Van
Etten’s Are We There is a disarmingly
honest album from the singer-songwriter. It’s a break-up album (or perhaps it’s
a “I’m in a bad relationship” album). Songs like the devastating “Your Love is
Killing Me” are urgent and unflinching in their view of love.
The music is
often as raw as the lyrics; you can almost hear the fingertips pounding on the
keys on a ballad like “I Love You But I’m Lost.” Although there are plenty of
orchestral strings and drum-machine sounds, Are
We There still manages of the trick of maintaining the intensity and
intimacy of a live performance.
7. Flying Lotus – You’re Dead!
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| You're Dead! |
You’re Dead! is the latest exercise in
experimentation from producer Steven Ellison’s Flying Lotus project. Combining
jazz, electronic music, and hip-hop into something totally unique,
You’re Dead! demands close attention and
repeated listens. This hyperkinetic album spits out ideas faster than they can
be digested, before moving quickly on to the next thing.
“Never Catch
Me” is the album highlight. Featuring an irresistible appearance from rapper
Kendrick Lamar, it distills the Flying Lotus formula into something approaching
a pop song, before it devolves into a transcendent groove. All that’s left is
to wonder where Flying Lotus may go next.
6. Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2
Run the Jewels 2 is the sound of a smack
in the face, in the best possible way. Killer Mike and El-P bring us aggressive
and in-your-face hip-hop. Everything coheres on this album, from the production
to the beats to the flow. The energy threatens to explode over the edges at any
moment. It’s a high-wire act that twists and turns and dares to topple over,
but somehow keeps its balance at all times.
Each track
bleeds into the next, making the entire album one long highlight. Although, I
would be remiss if I didn’t call out the gloriously titled, “Close Your Eyes
(And Count to Fuck),” featuring Rage’s Zack De La Rocha, whose sliced-and-diced
vocals form the hook of one of this year’s best songs.
5. The War on Drugs – Lost in the Dream
Lost in the Dream is a classic headphones
album. The latest from The War on Drugs pulls you under its waves of sound,
dragging you down to get lost in its own particular world. Turn up the volume,
close your eyes and submit to every splash of noise.
The War on
Drugs takes standard rock n’ roll ideas and pushes them to the edge of
ambience. Listen to the way album opener “Under the Pressure” morphs from a
propulsive rock number to a spaced-out wash of feedback. And then there’s
catchy, energetic “Red Eyes,” one of the great songs from any band this year.
Is there a better moment than the build to that emphatic “Woo!” that keeps
coming back around?
4. St. Vincent - St. Vincent
The influence of St. Vincent’s 2012 collaboration with David Byrne,
called
Love This Giant, is all over her
follow-up, this year’s self-titled release. While Lady Gaga spent much of last
year going on about art and pop (and then kinda fell on her face when it came
to both), St. Vincent has put out a fantastic album of artistic pop music. She
takes intelligence of her earlier work and feeds it into a channel of
electricity that would recall the Talking Heads even if it weren’t for the
obvious connection.
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| St. Vincent |
On fiery cuts like “Rattelsnake” and “Birth in Reverse” St. Vincent
appears to open up and give us a look inside her head, while at the same time remaining
more distant and unknowable than ever. “Huey Newton” and “Digital Witness” are
sly nods the oversaturation of technology. “I Prefer Your Love” and “Severed
Crossed Fingers” are ballads that are just a bit off, cast with a shade of
edginess.
What really ties it all together, though, is the searing guitar that
Annie Clark plays. Deceptively fierce guitar lines cut through the album, never
allowing us to let down our guards for even a moment, forcing us to again and
again ask, “How did she get her guitar to sound like that?”
3. Beck – Morning Phase
From the
standpoint of pure sonic quality, no album this year sounds better than Beck’s Morning Phase. Seriously, find your
friend with the absolute best soundsystem and play this album at an
uncomfortably loud volume. Every note rings clear as crystal, every tone is
sharp as a blade edge. Sure, anyone can make music on a laptop in their
parents’ basement, but could it ever sound like this?
Morning Phase isn’t just about the sound
quality, of course. Thankfully, the music is deserving of such treatment. The
songs are masterful, almost symphonic, pop songs. Backed by orchestral
arrangements (contributed by Beck’s father), Morning Phase is contemplative, reflective music.
This far
into his career, a new Beck album is a new opportunity to reassess his entire
output. Much of the chatter around Morning
Phase has been that the album is a sister to his 2002 classic, Sea Change. While that’s a good
touchpoint, Morning Phase is more
than just a successor. It’s a mature, intricate work that stands as one of the
best of Beck’s long career.
2. Aphex Twin – Syro
While Richard
James has continued to release music under different names, Syro is his first album under the Aphex
Twin moniker since 2001. For such a profoundly influential artist (and we’ll
see this again with the #1 album on this list), a return from such a lengthy
layoff brings a mix of expectation and trepidation. Will the music be as good
as those classic albums I’ve listened to so many times over the years? Will the
sound be the same, or will it have changed in all the wrong ways? Electronic
music, in particular, has evolved quickly in the last dozen or so years. Had
Aphex Twin been left behind?
When Syro finally reached our ears, all that
concern was tossed out the window in one assured motion. This album is
undoubtedly Aphex Twin. Neither a reinvention nor a simple rehash, Syro pushed new ideas within a familiar
form.
Syro is a surprisingly easy listen. Yes,
there are lots of different sounds on the album, and plenty of moments of
dissonance and challenge. But it’s also a relentlessly melodic album that spins
out hooks at a dizzying pace. It’s been said before that Aphex Twin is dance
music that you don’t dance to, and that holds true here. Tracks like “produk
29[101`]” and “180db_[130]” bring up right up to the edge of the floor, but
ultimately, this is music for headphones.
And then,
after eleven tracks after beats, we are brought back to Earth with the
stunningly beautiful, “aisatsana[102],” a gorgeous ambient piano number that
provides the perfect bookend to one of the great albums of the year.
1. D’Angelo and the Vanguard – Black Messiah
First, there
was Brown Sugar in 1995. Then, the
landmark Voodoo in 2000. What
followed was fourteen years without new music (aside from some leaked and live
material). Then, with almost no forewarning, D’Angelo released Black Messiah on December 15th.
Much like
Aphex Twin’s Syro, Black Messiah is the sound of a much
loved artist returning from a long hiatus with a bang. In the late ‘90s,
D’Angelo was supposed to be the Great Hope of Soul Music. Would he lose his
fastball after 14 years on the sidelines? Not only does D’Angelo still have it,
but Black Messiah may be his best
release. D’Angleo has expanded his sound by adding a heavy dose of rock guitar verve
to his blend of RnB, blues, soul and funk.
On opener
“Ain’t That Easy,” he sings, “You can’t leave me, it ain’t that easy, walk
away, when you want me to stay.” Is that about a lover, or is he addressing
himself and his years in the wilderness? His signature groove is noticeably
fuzzed over with electric guitar. “1000 Deaths” is the edgiest song in his
catalogue, with a thumping bass anchoring waves of angry distortion. There’s
plenty of sex-funk, too. “Sugah Daddy” and “Back to the Future (Part I)” throb
with dense funk grooves.
Clearly,
this album has been labored over in the studio, but it somehow manages to not feel
worked to death. D’Angelo has credited
this album to “D’Angelo and the Vanguard,” and the message is clear: this is
the work of a band. Despite its polish, Black
Messiah also maintains a late night jam session feel.
The
temptation is to leave this lower on the list, as it’s only been in our hands
for a few weeks. But the music here demands attention, and all the hype aside,
it’s without a doubt the best thing I’ve heard all year.
All the albums listed can be found on the Liner Notes: Best of 2014 Spotify playlist (excepting the one artist who isn't available on that service).
