LISTS
Here are my 14 favorite songs of 2014. I hope some of y'all with knowledge of things like movies will post y'alls lists too.
1. The Men - Pearly Gates
A rollicking good time for all parties involved. Reminds me of the atmospherics of When the Levee Breaks, feeling like you're in a storm. This one feels like one last triumphant joyride of a super fucking depraved set of maniacs. The barroom piano is an underrated feature of the tune, part of the just generally great second side of Tomorrow's Hits.
2. Sun Kil Moon - Carissa
The Great Lakes region of the US are home to some outstanding musicians: Cloud Nothings, Frontier Ruckus, . Though Sun Kil Moon is based in California now, they're an Ohio band in songwriting sensibility and execution; Mark Kozelek is from Massilon, OH. That's flyover country. Offensive linemen at Ohio State territory. The "third coast" of the Great Lakes is a mix of blue collar depression, manic creativity spurred on by desolate towns, and just terrible weather. But the people of the Midwest are generally some of the nicest, hardest working people you'll meet. This song is about a woman who burned to death in a freak house fire. The storytelling is as bleak and bare as the subject matter. Kozelek pulled no punches in 2014. He's a degenerate alcoholic asshole who writes some fucking outstanding music.
3. First Aid Kit - My Silver Lining
Such a catchy tune. I love the effect created with the strings and arpeggiated guitar in the intro, and these two have just angelic pop voices. If you've followed the band from their debut, they're getting better at writing songs, and the subject matter is changing from coming to America to making it in America. The first album was about paying tribute to some of their American folk forebears, and this album is about adding their own flair. This was the lead single, and fuck if I didn't listen to it twenty times in a row the first day it came out. The harmonizing in the refrain is so effortless and understated but powerful at the same time.
4. Run The Jewels - Lie, Cheat Steal
Best rap album of the year hands down. A rap duo with the kind of chemistry we haven't seen since The Clipse, and damn if it wasn't Outkast before them. This particular tune goes so hard. Machine gun flow. Just about grinding through life.
5. Pusha T - Lunch Money
Kanye produced this, and the production is fucking gnarly and weird and great. Pusha just sounds hungry. He almost never talks, not the way everyone talks about how good they are, but this is King Push's version of brag rap: “this is crime by design/if the crown ain’t mine, tell me who am I behind.” If we continue to view every rap album of 2014 as a response to Kendrick's verse on Control, and I'm not opposed to doing that, we should be putting Pusha right up near the top today. Worthy single followup to My Name is My Name.
6. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - ATOMOS IX
NPR called this the most beautiful song of the year. This album is a lot of piano, an orchestral, ambient album from one of the staple bands in the genre today. I think the classic comment is that songs that sound like this are film soundtrack songs. This album has the aesthetic of Vanilla Sky without all the stuff that made that movie mediocre. I just kind of picture a peaceful, newly fallen snow covered field without any footprints or disturbances. After listening to the full album a couple dozen times through, I came to about the same conclusion as NPR. Not only is this the best song on the album, it's one of the best songs of the year, and it's gorgeous.
7. War on Drugs - Red Eyes
Woo! The screams are great. The aforementioned Mark Kozelek called this album "beer commercial guitar" music. It definitely lends itself well to drinking cheap beer and dancing, and the guitar is pretty great. This was my favorite album of the year. See em live, too, they're outstanding. I need to see them indoors. I saw them this spring before this album came out, and it's the best thing they've done since the Kurt days.
8. Flying Lotus f. Kendrick Lamar - Never Catch Me
I wonder if people are gonna continue to appreciate the places Kendrick is gonna go next. With "i" and "Never Catch Me" the two biggest things he did in 2014, the reception was a little mixed from his massive, loyal following. It seems like he's heading the way of stepping up with who he's teaming with in production. No one doubts he's got the skill, so it'll be about watching who he gets to make his beats and where his influences will come from going forward. The acid jazz funk Flying Lotus track is part Shabazz Palaces, part Sun Ra, and all Kendrick. Kendrick wanted this track on his album and FlyLo wisely kept it for himself; it fits really well in the middle of You're Dead.
9. Schoolboy Q - Studio
Great beat, some really great bars, and a silly good hook. Awesome when Schoolboy gets his boy to croon a little. He's conflicted because his girl is super sexy and she's at home waiting for him, but he's sitting in the studio and making the song just sexy enough to be fuck music. See it's like a catch-22. He'd rather be fucking, but he's gotta make the fuck track good enough.
10. tune-yards - Water Fountain
Keep doing you, tune-yards. There are some weird, fucked up songs on this album. Water Fountain is certainly one of them. I danced to it super hard though, when I got the chance to see them this year. There's something odd and satisfying about singing along to "make me shit nice" and dancing your ass off to afrobeat funk stylings. This is like disco on meth.
11. Sharon Van Etten - Your Love is Killing Me
I think I made the comment earlier this year that the brooding Sharon Van Etten had finally gotten to be too much for me. To an extent, it's certainly true. It doesn't change the fact that she makes great music. Great, sad music. Life is hard, love is hard, and this is grown up music for people with grown up problems and grown up feelings. Once again, fuck Taylor Swift. There are some melodramatic moments on this song and this record, but not a single note seems phony. It's authentic pain, like every time she picks up a guitar and writes new songs, she's breaking the callouses on her fingers and tearing into her emotions raw and new again. It's pretty powerful stuff.
12. Parquet Courts - Dear Ramona
Their Pavement phase has been fun. I've seen Parquet Courts twice now. The first time I saw them was at a free show here in Philly, and it was kind of straightforward punk music, I didn't really know their stuff, but I dug it. It got rowdy, the band members were throwing bottles at each other, I had fun. The next time I saw them was at Austin City Limits, and they played about 15 minutes of feedback and art rock stuff and I liked them in a totally different way. This is a band with a constantly changing identity, like how they've played with their own band name (Parkay Quartz, etc.), and their albums have all had different sounds. I really loved this song and Black and White.
13. Strand of Oaks - Goshen '97
The tune JM got me interested in the band, a tribute to one of my favorite musicians to ever live, Jason Molina. The title track of the album, Heal, hooked me into the full length, but it's Goshen 97 that keeps me coming back. It's kind of just a song about life, told through a few very short vignettes. It's about falling in love with music and not needing any human relationships because music is so all encompassingly powerful a force. It's self-aware about how dangerous that sentiment is, but the song just dares you to disagree. "Before I was fat drunk and mean/ Everything still lied ahead/ I was lonely, I was having fun/ I was lonely, but I was having fun/ I don’t want to start over again…"
14. Alvvays - Archie, Marry Me
Sneaky great guitar, enchanting vocals, an insanely catchy hook, this is the pop song of the year. Fuck Taylor Swift, this is a pop song. It's sentimental and sweet without being cloying, it's funny and feel-good. Alvvays didn't make my album list this year even though it's a really good debut album. Mostly I came back to two or three songs, and not the whole thing, but I think it's one of those cases where they wrote three songs that were otherworldly good, and it makes an otherwise just plain good album suffer because of it. Anyway, I defy anyone to listen to this song and dislike it, or especially to see it played live and not want to marry Molly Rankin.
