It's nearly the end of December, which means my inbox is starting to explode with lots of "so what were your favorite albums of the year?" messages from friends and colleagues. So far I've ignored all of these messages (sorry, pals!) because my mind completely goes blank when I'm asked that question. Why? Because my music ADD is at an all-time high, and I actually rarely listen to full albums.
This is mostly due to the fact that I've been the sole curator of Band of the Day app for the past couple of years, which requires listening to an obscene amount of music in order to effectively choose the best bands to feature. To put it into perspective, that's over 1000 bands I've had to choose, which is drilled down from at least 5-10 times that amount of music listening! But hey, if "I have to listen to TOO much new music" is the worst part of the job, it's not a bad one to be in ;)
Right, back to the matter at hand - my personal list of stand-out tracks released in 2014. I'm too indecisive to rank them, so I've taken the lazy way out by posting them in alphabetical order. Hope you discover some gems from this list, and I'd love to hear feedback on what your favorites were (the YouTube playlist up there has every track).
1. Benjamin Booker, "Violent Shiver" - This is a song that had me going, "Whoa. Who IS this guy?" the first time I heard it. Bluesy, gritty, with just a hint of punk.
2. Dillon Francis feat. DJ Snake, "Get Low" - Oh hey, you didn't realize I also like mainstream music? It's dirty, ridiculous, and any song that causes such a mass dance floor frenzy every single time is a-OK in my book.
3. Fink, "Looking Too Closely" - Gorgeous vocals, heartbreaking melody, utterly captivating.
4. Hamilton Leithauser, "Alexandra" - Dude from The Walkmen. He's still got it!
5. Johnny Stimson, "So.Good." - For a panty-dropping good time, call Johnny Stimson.
6. Kishi Bashi, "Philosphize It! Chemicalize With It!" - I wish I wasn't scared of trying 'shrooms. Because otherwise I'd eat a whole bunch, listen to this song, and run around a psychedelic forest wonderland.
7. Michael Jackson, "Love Never Felt So Good" - there's a 1 in 7 chance that if your song title has the words 'so' and 'good' in it, it'll make my playlist (see: number 5).
8. Milky Chance, "Stolen Dance" - I can't read their band name without thinking of the scene in This Is England when Milky gets beaten up ("Wake up, Milky! Milky, wake up!" cries the little kid). But I digress. Again. Anyway, it's a song that's gotten a ton of airplay this year, but one that I'm always happy to hear and never skip over.
9. ODESZA, "Say My Name (feat. Zyra)" - ODESZA is the perfect intersection between glitchy electronic pop and indie pop, and Zyra's vocals are hypnotic as she sings, "I wanna dance, I wanna dance, I wanna dance with you/So take a chance, take a chance"
10. Porter Robinson, "Sad Machine" - I still get chills from the opening melody of this song. Stunning!
11. Rich Aucoin, "Are You Experiencing?" - Hands down, one of my favorite live acts EVER (please watch the video to see what I mean!). And this song is pretty much the epitome of sonic serotonin: uplifting, makes you feel alive. <3 <3 <3
12. Terror Pigeon, "Girl!" - Another one of those 'makes you feel so alive' tracks. Starts out a little slow, but then builds up into an explosion of awesomeness. I can only imagine how much fun they must be in concert, and I'm hoping to catch them in 2015!
13. White Arrows, "We Can't Ever Die" - One time a dude hit on me by asking, "do you #YOLO?" I wanted to say, "No sir, because that's not grammatically correct!" But I didn't. And now I'm guessing by the title of this song that White Arrows also don't YOLO. #TeamImmortality #FTW
14. Yellerkin, "Solar Laws" - Love at first listen. Seriously, how could you not fall in love with those melodies and vocals?
