Quote:
Originally Posted by Reaper16
NewChief, pass the bourbon to me & chime in here.
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I've been looking forward to your list all year, because I found it, personally, to be a strange year in music. Like you said, not lots of pop stuff that I loved. More metal that I liked than usual. There was nothing that really stayed in constant rotation for me, but I had a few that I listened to a lot that you didn't include and some areas where we coincide.
I tried to post last night, but I was on my phone and suffering technical issues, so this will be with a cup of coffee instead of bourbon.
So here are my random thoughts:
First of all, I'm glad to see that Swans made your best of the year list. That was mine as well. I think it suffered a lot, in critic eyes, from from the success of the Seer as well as dropping early in the year. Still, I'm not sure that there was another album that had the impact on me as this one (and that's saying something with my love for RTJ2).
I didn't put RTJ2 up top, either. I loved the album. I really did. However, the hype leading up to it was absolutely incredible for me. The videos. The Meow the Jewels kickstarter. The huge essays detailing the friendship of Mike and Jaime. I was more in love with these guys before the album dropped than I've ever been with any other artists. As such, it was nigh impossible for the album to not slightly disappoint. It's probably around 2 or 3 on my best of list, so it didn't disappoint much.
I was also happy to see Panopticon on your list. I loved Kentucky, but didn't even realize that they'd (technically he?) had released another album until it started showing up on all the end of lists. Anyway, I liked this one quite a bit as well.
The TVOTR album is the first one of theirs that my wife has said, "Who is this?" when grabbed her phone and quickly added it to her Spotify playlist. That has to be significant in some way because I've tried to hook her on them with every album they've released to no avail. This one stuck, though.
I STILL haven't gotten to listen to the D'Angelo album with headphones, but I've listened to it like 6 times on our portable bluetooth speaker. It's funny that you say it needs headphones, though, because that's exactly what I said to someone else online when discussing the album. There's just a lot of fuzzed out stuff and layers in the production that I think will sound better on headphones.
Now for the omissions:
Water Liars
Water Liars: Probably my favorite band in the world right now. Justin is from my area. They've been playing in small venues here a long time. They're literate as hell, and they make music that really just appeals to my southern upbringing.
Hiss Golden Messenger
Lateness of Dancers: one of my friends is probably the biggest Sturgill Simpson fan boy I know. Like, he's obsessed with him and wants to start doing DMT at 40 basically because Sturgill does. For me, Hiss Golden Messenger does everything that Sturgill Simpson doesn't. They're not really analagous bands, but if I've got to put a "country" type band for 2014 on my list, then I'm going with these guys.
YOB:
Clearing the Path to Ascension. This was the year of Doom for me. Pallbearer. YOB. SunnO))). Earth. Damn it was a good year in Doom. Despite my Arkansas love for Pallbearer. YOB's album was the best of the bunch, imo.
Giant Squid.
Minoans. I probably shouldn't be able to include this, because I didn't even discover it until Stereogum released their best of metal list. But damn. I like this album a lot. You know I like my "metal" mixed with some other genres. And this album keeps me interested from start to finish.
Atlas.
Real Estate. Yes. It's a throwback. It's probably not even their best album. Damn if I didn't listen to it a lot on road trips, though.
Pharaohe Monch: PTSD. I listened to this concept album quite a bit after it first dropped. There are some clunkers on here, but I found the whole album to be his most accessible and enjoyable offering from his catalog.
YG: My Crazy Life. I probably listened to this rap album more than any other. That's in large part because my rap listening often happens at the gym, and this album suits my needs for "gym music" more than any other. Still, I loved this.
Finally: Y no War on Drugs? (just kidding. Outside of the first couple of tracks, I didn't love it as much as everyone else seemed to, either.)