THE BEST 100 SONGS OF 2014: PART V (#1--20)

Here at last is the final section--closing out the year in style:





1.Marshall Law (Kate Tempest): beams you right to the bar of an insufferably fashionable east London club, where a velour-clad video director holds court and “everyone here has a hyphenated second name/Blowing more breeze like the wind at a weathervane”. There, a girl called Becky falls into conversation with Harry, a reluctant drug dealer who’s overindulged at the free bar and splurges everything about his miserable life. The music shifts and mutates in line with Tempest’s unfolding narrative; as strobe lights flash, the synths warp and flicker. Harry falls for Becky, but Becky leaves with her mates, and they laugh about it in the cab: “I know he was one of those save-me types/And I couldn’t be dealing with that, not tonight”. And so, a story creaks into life. Tempest writes complex and believable characters, each one carrying their problems like a lead weight hung inside their heart. (NME)








2. I (Kendrick Lamar): the idea that this was jumping a shark or aimed toward a specific demographic feels dismissive. The charm of I isn’t in its message; it’s in its weirdness — from the video to the obvious Isley Brothers sample. Within that weirdness lies potential. This could be the start of a transformation for hip-hop’s young prince who’s been saying he’s on a mission — a serious one. But within that cloud of mystery lies a now-ness — that screaming a pledge to yourself is the only means to wish away the throes of the world. (Consequence Of Sound)








3. Los Awesome (Schoolboy Q): Hankering for a new Neptunes-produced Clipse track? Los Awesome, produced by Pharrell, is probably the closest one can get for a while, with the virtuosic violence and elastic beat." "Liable to drive-by on a summer day/July 4th will be in June," sneers ScHoolboy on the bridge, a line that's eerily similar to the scope of Pusha T and Malice's Chinese New Year. (Billboard)







4. Drunk In Love (Beyonce feat. Jay Z): though it has put surfboard forever in our minds, Drunk In Love remains firstly an ode to heterosexual love and commitment. Then after you gloss over that fact, check the lyrics for the smutty yet delicious truth—this is love in urban America 21st century style.








5. Infernal Fantasy (Owen Pallett): a bombastic acid-jungle meltdown with these gorgeous little string-bends peeping out at the intro. As the track builds, these tiny gestures become incorporated with the bassline, which in turn takes the motif in numerous different directions. (The Quietus)








6. Little Fang (Avery Tare’s Slasher Flicks): The jangly, sauntering cut still retains some of Portner's trademarks from his work in Animal Collective and by his lonesome—a distinct sense of murkiness, stray sound effects that sound as if they were ripped from a funhouse ride—but the melody is pleasingly straightforward, a glammy earworm reminiscent of fellow Los Angeles denizen and cosmic brethren Ariel Pink. (Pitchfork)








7. Forerunner Foray (Shabazz Palaces): creates a miniature galaxy over the space of four short minutes. You can practically hear the twinkling of the stars echoing in the vacuum of space — and that’s before Palaceer Lazaro jumps in with some oblique lyrics that place racial struggles on a cosmic scale. (Treble)








8. White’s Not My Color This Evening (Cherry Glazerr): very much influenced by grunge, punk and riot grrrl, with plenty of guitars that fizz and hiss their way through, and vocals that sometimes sing beautifully tunefully and then turn coarser and more psychotic. The spooky laugh is a particular highlight. This description may have you thinking of The Cramps, and perhaps that influence is part of the make up of this song as well. It's definitely carrying the torch for the dark and depraved alt-rock bands out there into a new generation. (The Sound Of Confusion)








9. Continental Shelf (Viet Cong): Reborn from the remnants of Women, Viet Cong announced their self-titled debut album with a brutal slab of nihilistic post-punk. "When all is said and done, you'll be around until you're gone," declares Matt Flegel as the song kicks into life, and things don’t get much more cheery from then onwards. Just press play and let those drums crash along your ears canals like tectonic plates ratcheting through the Richter scale. (Treble)








10. Not Enough Violence (Ariel Pink): ever the mysterious eccentric, Pink shifted to all out commentary this year. While it has caused controversy—picking on Grimes to call her “silly”, his music has cut even harder to the bone. Not Enough Violence buries its intent in 80s synths but when he yells, “penetration time tonight”, you know the girl that has been denying him sex will have to put out today or face his lurid wickedness.








11. Red Eyes (The War On Drugs): from the get-go, Red Eyes sounds like a song that echoed from your dad’s radio as he drove you to school as a kid. It’s the song you cranked up to drown out your parents arguing in the next room, the one playing when you first felt a tongue touch yours. The chorus isn’t words; it’s the riffs and the sound your mouth makes as it tries to vocalize them. It’s instantly recognizable, an entry point, an open door into an album that ambles and rollicks, the arena-ready single among so many slow burns and cerebral digressions. (Consequence Of Sound)






12. Driver (Perfect Pussy): Meredith Graves’ voice bunches and strains against the pound of the drums, the whine of electronics, that rough, steely guitar. One second she’s murmuring quick syllables under her breath, and the next she’s exclaiming stuff like “death comes last to the party!” She never lets the rhythms around her box her in. She lands words like uppercuts: “I eat stress, and I shit blood/ Buddy, I’ll tell you, it never gets better.” She has been lied to her whole life and on “Driver”, she finally gets to strike back. (Consequence Of Sound)






13. Deep Sea Diver (Angel Haze): though its massive pop hook gets heads moving, the song itself is a sad tale of a love that has passed—and that’s what so great about Haze; her ability to sculpt hard and soft into one malleable product.






14. Child Support (Blu): a slice of hook-heavy pie, African-American style. Blu chronicles a failed romance and the resulting source of resentment. It’s not just a reason why the love failed to hold him and his woman together, but the daily grind mess behind the scenes.






15. Deadly (Five Steez): The production is done by DJ Crooks, and from the instant you hit play, you will be nodding your head like there's no tomorrow. The beat is insane and it features a Caribbean/Reggae sound. Five's flow is funky, and raw—an up-tempo and energetic instant hit is sure to make everyone's day. (TheUCalbum)






16. Welcome (Five Steez): just a breezy intro to his world but as usual, the production is impeccable and the lyrics bite hard about the system that grinds everything in Kingston...a sorta ode to the capital we call home and all its glory/shenanigans.






17. Tin Foiled (Andrew Bird): that Andrew Bird is a musical prodigy is not in doubt, but who knew he could pick up that guitar and craft something so folksy yet totally human.






18. Heavy Metal And Reflective (Azealia Banks): up to the time of its release, we were starting to get weary of Azealia’s incoming album. It’s as if she sensed it and dropped this gem—a traveler’s passport stamped with various name and pop culture checks but that filthy pop groove and her weird “I’m in every city/ they say hello/ to the head bitch” real talk keeps the love burning.






19. Superpower (Beyonce feat. Frank Ocean): Pharrell and Frank Ocean helped to co-craft Superpower, a pensive, slow-strutting contemplation about, the (super)power of love set against soft strings and a gentle doo-wop melody in the background. It’s all about the experience of understanding your true potential in a relationship. “The laws of the world never stopped us once,” Bey sings, “’cause together we got plenty of superpower.” Given that she’s part of one of the world’s most famous power couples, it’s hard to disagree. (Muumuse)






20. Never Catch Me (Flying Lotus feat. Kendrick Lamar): a super charged sprint to the subway, a fight to the top and a launch to the stars above. It is relentless and it never lets up; It’s hard to legitimately keep up with a song name like that. The instrumentals imply a live jazz setting and we are wowed all the same. Then there’s Kendrick Lamar’s umpteenth piece of evidence that he is one of the best rappers of our time, as he tackles both speed and wordplay as if it was as effortless as brushing his teeth. (Live In Limbo)

THE BEST 30 ALBUMS OF 2014: PART II (#11--20)...

the penultimate section...





11. Owen Pallett In Conflict: On In Conflict, Pallett mostly steps free of his own labyrinth. The album is mournful and restrained in tone, featuring his most pleading and open vocal performances. The lyrics, meanwhile, veer often into excruciatingly personal territory. He's less concerned with dazzling us this time around, and as a result he moves us more. His looped violin is still the DNA of the music, but the giddiness has been carefully siphoned from it: The arrangements are far simpler and cleaner, highlighting his beautiful, long-breathed melody writing. (Pitchfork)






12. Angel Haze Dirty Gold: For all its musical commerciality – the glossy production, the huge, irresistible hooklines of Deep Sea Diver and Sing About Me – Dirty Gold has its dark side. It says something about the emotional tenor of Dirty Gold that a track about a relationship breakup comes as light relief, not least because Haze has a way of telling people she fancies them that could send a potential suitor scarpering for the nearest exit while screaming in terror: "You send messages to the pits of my womb."(Pitchfork)






13. Against Me! Transgender Dysphoria Blues: Transgender Dysphoria Blues is wholly focused on pushing aside so much of what Against Me! has built through the years; even in their shortcomings, they remain who they are. But it's fitting that there are facets of the album that refuse to cohere, that don't quite fit right, that flail about in its too-eager execution. These welts are ultimately part of Grace's journey to the depths of self-discovery, and the journey to Against Me!'s true sound, all while playing to the theme of transformation. Punk has always been about disruption of order, and this new revolution that Laura Jane Grace leads doesn't surrender her identity, it reclaims it. This revolution is no lie at all. (Pitchfork)






14. Azealia Banks Broke With Expensive Taste: Broke With Expensive Taste is a reminder that the corner of Harlem that she claims is walking distance from both Washington Heights and the Bronx, where you’re as likely to hear hip-hop booming out of apartments and passing cars as freestyle, reggaeton, house, or bachata. Broke With Expensive Taste glides through all of these, just like the faithful 1 train sampled on Desperado. Both album and the artist revel in the freedom of a New York City where divisions between these sounds and scenes have ever so slowly ceased to exist. (The Guardian)






15. Five Steez These Kingston Times: Five Steez is about as authentic as you can get in today’s rapidly expanding music industry where nothing is completely original. Indie rappers are a dime a dozen-indie anything seems to be the current trend-but Five Steez manages to stand out without the gimmicks or flamboyance that many come to expect from modern musicians. His success rides solely on his talent - something he has in abundance. Some might argue that talent isn’t enough anymore, and the all too ambiguous and often elusive “x-factor” element may or may not be in his possession; his talent however, is undeniable. (Jamaicans Music)






16. Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks Enter The Slasher House: As Portner admitted in a recent Pitchfork interview, the Slasher Flicks concept was born of a desire to mess around with the sort of 60s garage-rock and horror-movie tropes that yielded novelty hits like Monster Mash. On Enter the Slasher House, that influence proves to be mostly implicit. You won’t find any ditties here about ghouls and ghosts hosting graveyard soirees, but the songs craftily split the difference between cheeky and creepy, pitting innocent nursery-rhyme-like melodies against mutating, hallucinogenic backdrops. (Pitchfork)






17. Gem Jones Admiral French Kiss: Recorded in Dexter, Iowa to four-track porta studio. Admiral French kiss is a Midwest bonanza of sweaty post-Prince stylistics. Gem Jones plays full-band jammers, piano key laments, dub-inflected anthems, and damaged rock discharges, buoyed by a nimble funk finesse that belies his bedroom. Gem Jones belts out lyrics like he really means them. His demented guitar solos are like teenboys flailing around basements with raw testoid delirium. Nonetheless, Gem’s delicate zigzag between postures carries a whiff a sly parody–a balladeer peeking out the corner of his eye, gauging the vibe, and shapeshifting accordingly. (Animalpsi)






18. Future Islands Singles: Singles is a great balance of pop and melodrama. It’s built around the sturdy new wave beat, almost always four on the floor, giving Herring a comfortable frame in which to sing. Its themes are also symmetrical, as Herring plays with antithesis like an eager English student: day and night, sun and moon, summer and winter, man and woman. His words are the sort of thing that would tumble out of your mouth if you were told to write a love poem right now in eight seconds. (Pitchfork)






19. FKA Twigs LP 1: Barnett's music is the latest chapter in the ongoing transatlantic vogue for barely-there R&B, and this album joins her two previously released EPs in providing the subgenre with new heights. At its most textbook, R&B is urban body music, but this stuff is filtered through a prism of otherworldliness, not strictly made for the dancefloor, although the option of horizontal dancing is strongly suggested throughout. (The Guardian)






20. White Lung Deep Fantasy: Just about every aspect of White Lung’s music is aggressive and sounds angry and invective, though “I Believe You” stresses the resonance and empathy; while Way’s philosophical and theoretical leanings might not be considered “mainstream,” it’s a compliment to Deep Fantasy to say that none of its calls for dignity, for humanity, for understanding sounds remotely radical—rather, they’re pretty fucking rational. Deep Fantasy is a product of its environment, as well as one hell of a survival guide to live through this. (Pitchfork)

THE BEST 30 ALBUMS OF 2014: PART I (#21--30)...

An improvement over last year but still felt very much like a hands-off 2014, here are the gems of the year---some known, some long-forgotten...






21. Liam Finn The Nihilist: Written and recorded over 12 months or so from a Green Point, Brooklyn studio, you can hear the nocturnal state Finn pushed himself into; getting manic and mad as he gazed across the metropolis in the wee hours, wondering about all the different stories unfolding down there. You see, The Nihilist is not the album of hopelessness and negativity the title might suggest, but rather an exploration of the idea that there might be more to it all than what we see and believe. (New Zealand Herald)






22. Lake Street Dive Bad Self Portraits: Lake Street Dive, a Brooklyn-based four-piece emerging from the jazzy enclaves of New England College of Music, was originally conceived as a pop side-project. With an unusual lineup including vocalist Rachael Price, upright bassist Bridget Kearney, trumpet/guitar player Mike Olson and drummer Mike Calabrese, the band was named after a street of dive bars in Minneapolis. All four members contribute to the songwriting process, which helps create a unified sound, but Price’s powerhouse singing unites this record. She switches from throaty growls to perfectly-wavering soprano warbles, effortlessly channeling matriarchs like Etta James and even Big Mama Thornton. (Pitchfork)






23. Wovenhand Refractory Obdurate: Throughout his career, David Eugene Edwards has mixed gospel and bluegrass, rocking both punk and gothic on a forever-sliding scale. Refractory Obdurate is Edwards’ “heavy record”, with tumescent electric guitars and unforgiving drums, howled lines and massive codas. The album finally makes good on the post-punk and metal influences that have forever lingered at the edges of Wovenhand’s output. (Pitchfork)






24. Temples Sun Structures: Bagshaw’s tendency to spout arcane guff about the Odyssey, desert rituals, buried crystals and dancing on the stones is pure hippy mimicry. Sonically, though, this is a fresh and energised ’60s homage. Aside from distorting their guitars until they sound like walruses mating in tribute to new psych commanders Tame Impala, they add Arabian grooves to Sand Dance, pastoral Byrdsian tones to Move With The Season and glam tinges to Keep In The Dark, right down to the tiger-footed stomp, glittery handclaps and honking horns. (NME)






25. Mr. Little Jeans Pocketknife: The Norwegian songstress who grew up in the forested seaside town of Grimstad, has come a long way from singing in church choirs, retirement homes, malls and bars. From studying drama in London and waitressing to make ends meet, to being featured on TV and film soundtracks, it’s readily apparent that Mr Little Jeans’ star is in the ascendant. These 12 intoxicating tracks herald the arrival of an artist whose immense talent contains both an indie credibility and an undeniable mainstream potential. (Popmatters)






26. Ed Harcourt Time Of Dust: This six-track mini-album is touched by darkness – it’s distorted, unsettling, untrustworthy almost, like a creepy character lurking in the shadows. But its nooks and crannies reveal weird and wonderful delights at every turn. There’s an air of Richard Hawley in opener Come Into My Dreamland, with its echoing piano, haunting choral and theremin – a siren luring you into something a little sinister, but oh so lovely. You’d willingly go. The title track is just as menacing, with its unsettling Mexican circus interlude, distant snare and Eels-like bridge. Even Ed’s vocals have a demonic quality to them beneath his beautiful breathiness. (Clash Music)






27. Alvvays Alvvays: Rankin possesses the sort of radiant but deceptively deadpan voice that lets her to infuse these lovelorn laments with sly, sometimes sinister wit: when she sings, “I left my love in the river” on the drowned-boyfriend requiem Next of Kin, there’s the simmering implication that she could’ve done a little more to save him. (The chorus to the dreamy slow-motorik ballad Ones Who Love You meanwhile, is home to the most beautifully nonchalant f-bomb.) This sense of irreverence bleeds into the album’s production, whose scabrous guitar lines, synth-blurred vistas, and drum-machine experiments reveal the band are hardly the purists their pedigree might indicate. (Pitchfork)






28. Gerard Way Hesitant Alien: to hear Way gleefully rip through such sunshiny genres as glam rock and Britpop is to realize that he might have been wrongfully cast as emo’s poster boy in the first place. Even as far back as Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, there was always something manically joyful in his voice, as if a part of him simply refused to take all that macabre shit too seriously. Once he settles into his new digs and starts to experiment with his Anglocentric influences more, he might stumble upon something that forces people to pay attention. For now, he’ll have to convince adult-minded lovers of pop that a former emo superstar has more in his toolbox than hair dye and eyeliner. And in that regard, Hesitant Alien is a worthy case in point. (Pitchfork)






29. Shabazz Palaces Lese Majesty: Lese Majesty is an Armageddon-esque suicide mission to crash into rap's consciousness in hopes of tipping it away from a dangerous path. These aren’t condescending “Real Hip-Hop” platitudes: this is a call to arms for hip-hop’s creative fringe to snatch the reins from a power structure more interested in self-preservation than the advancement of the culture. The soul of Shabazz Palaces is pairing next-gen sounds with classic brass-tacks show-and-prove emceeing, and Lese Majesty tugs those extremes as far as they've ever been pulled; that it never shows signs of wear speaks to the strength of the bond. (Pitchfork)






30. Blu Good To Be Home: On those moments where Bombay keeps the beat sparse, Blu's lyrics springs out in his voice, the past tense of his memories' waypoints rattled off with the snarl of someone yet to come down from the adrenaline high and the ensuing rush. Maybe that's the point: Good to Be Home's recollections are only meant to be alluded to, a summer-jam album riddled with familiar nods to shared experiences but still walled off from observers who think they really know Blu. (Pitchfork)

THE BEST 100 SONGS OF 2014: PART IV (#21--40)...

The penultimate batch of songs...






21. Ben’s My Friend (Sun Kill Moon): one of the funniest, warmest, and most revealing songs ever written about male friendship, especially the complications that arise in relationships where one guy's more successful. Kozelek admits his "meltdown" was mostly due to his competitiveness getting the better of him, and that "Ben's my friend, and I know he gets it." (Pitchfork)






22. Mine (Beyonce feat. Drake): Drake’s best cameo over the year comes in this arms call by Beyonce, who drops the authoritative growls with the requisite panache.






23. 0 To 100 (Drake): Drake's hallmark sentimentality takes a back seat on this single – a powerful bragfest that he opens by proclaiming, "Fuck being on some chill shit!" A gentle, James Blake-sampling outro softens the bravado, but only a little. (Rolling Stone)







24. Pretty Much (Since Last November) (Champs): There’s a fluffy religious sound in Pretty Much (Since Last November), as though Jack White is quietly leading The Ronettes in a gospel march towards the rapture. (The Line Of Best Fit)






25. Close Your Eyes (Run The Jewels feat. Zack La Rocha): It’s easy to get lost in de la Rocha’s brutal vocal hook while each MC delivers a verse or two that challenges the system. Killer Mike calls out the “liars and politicians, profiteers of the prison” while El-P poignantly spits, “We out of order, your honor you’re out of order/ This whole court is unimportant, you fuckers are walking corpses.” Subtlety is thrown to the side as de la Rocha goes for the kill by outright comparing politicians to KKK Grand Dragons. For those who have been outraged by how they’ve seen the system operate in 2014, Run the Jewels have provided a platform to vent their energy. (Consequence Of Sound)






26. Video Girl (FKA Twigs): pleasingly, FKA Twigs makes sex sound as awkward and nerve-racking as it’s always been here in post-Victorian England where we might get Prince but we never really get Prince. Twigs’ music is undeniably sexy, but in a somewhat distracted, apprehensive and paranoid way that flirts with being more frightening/frightened than sensual.. Perhaps Barnett is a phantom. Or an alien, like Prince. Or an imaginary mutant R&B superstar who’s escaped from the radiator inside one of David Lynch’s transcendental nightmares. (Drowned In Sound)






27. The Clean Hand (Blu): no underground rapper can break down a simple jam like Blu—he dissects them then reorganizes their motifs and expands the possibilities into epiphanies of brilliance.






28. Seasons (Waiting On You) (Future Islands): sees a universal experience portrayed with respect for the human condition, and Samuel Herring showcases an even-handed distribution of youthful longing and frustration with mature wisdom and perspective. Herring’s deep, husky and often untamable delivery peppers this spread with personality, sounding like an only son of Dracula raised in an ‘80s disco. (Paste)






29. Cold Day (Black Milk): after a baffling last LP, Black Milk returns to form with a smooth interpolation of current and retro sounds and it’s a stunning big bang winner.






30. Rock N Roll Dementia (Gem Jones); lurches forward with a barely conscious tempo. Gem Jones tries to work through his anxiety and succeeds spectacularly. With an incredibly loose structure it employs a ramshackle funk that works and is at times oddly touching, (Beachsloth)






31. Magic Number (Damien Jurado): a song that introduces a few of his key lyrical themes. He and returning producer Richard Swift continue to find new ways to shift what are essentially folk songs into productions that defy simple categorization. That sort of sonic uncertainty is of a piece with the lyrics’ attention to physical and mental dislocation. (Popmatters)






32. Make It Look Good (Mariah Carey): yes, that’s Stevie Wonder on harmonica but that’s only part of what make this track so fabulous: Mariah wisely doesn’t overcook the vocals, tilting it at just the right levels.






33. We All Went Down With The Ship (Ed Harcourt): a rousing condemnation of bloodshed which stretches from "horrors of the British in the Boer war" to "Kamakazi pilots and virgin assassins, told they would reach paradise" in such vivid fashion you can almost hear the cannons. Terrific stuff. (The Guardian)






34. Digital Witness (St. Vincent): Clarke visits her usual funky formula on this cut: the vocal gymnastics to cleanly jump octaves between syllables, and a densely packed arrangement suggest that St. Vincent’s critique of voyeuristic mass-media culture could pass for the best Tori Amos track in close to 20 years. (Treble)





35. Blue Suede (Vince Staples): the lyrics are even more disturbing, as Staples recounts the turbulent culture of his youth. Staples is quick to polish his own sexist ego (“Half these hoes chauffeurs, half these hoes useless/ Fucked the face toothless, easy, so ruthless”) and is candid about the brutality his peers endured for that type of status, documenting the many scenarios that lead to those bouquets of red roses that adorn young men’s fresh grave stones. (Consequence Of Sound)






36. Black Lantern (Gem Jones): Flying Lotus isn’t the only one who knows himself around with horns, here the band runs blissfully wild with scattershot sounds and vague lyrics.






37. Two Coffins (Against Me): a song perhaps meant for Grace’s daughter, which still focuses on the corporeal but only to drive home deeper connections, between not bodies but people, souls. (Popmatters)





38. In Love With Useless (The Timeless Geometry In The Tradition Of Passing) (A Sunny Day in Glasgow): Instead of relying on positive thoughts, the song decides to become a schizophrenic battle of ideas that all feel so pleasant but are a bit unsettling when examined with more care. With interruptions of forced laughs (ha) and even scat-provised passages, it’s as if the song isn’t even finished. Musically, it is all over the place as well. Segments start and stop without warning, and yet it all flows together. (Live In Limbo)






39. West Coast (Lana del Rey): she navigates the woozy Dan Auerbach production by effortlessly switching between a half-mumbled baritone and a layered choral harmony. There’s an ease to her vocal delivery on the track that feels stilted on just about every other cut; on West Coast she’s at home among the descending blues riffs and spaghetti neo-noir motif. (A.V. Club)






40. Untying The Knot (Panda Bear): chugs stamping percussion alongside distant, far away samples. It’s a scattered patchwork, undoubtedly a wild selection of many, many strange strands to Panda Bear’s work, but it hints that his upcoming work might be Lennox’s most expansive, ambitious album to date. (DIY)