Year-End Critics' Polls 2014

Norman Records Top 50

1. Bracken - Exist/resist
2. Ian William Craig - A Turn of Breath
3. The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Revelation
4. Last Ex - Last Ex
5. Swans - To Be Kind
6. Virginia Wing - Measures of Joy
7. Morgan Delt - Morgan Delt
8. Kate Tempest - Everybody Down
9. Ought - More Than Any Other Day
10. Memory Drawings - There Is No Perfect Place
11. Neneh Cherry - Blank Project
12. Sleaford Mods - Divide and Exit
13. Scott Walker and Sunn O))) - Soused
14. Tape - Casino
15. Grouper - Ruins
16. Ty Segall - Manipulator
17. Mohammad - Lamnè Gastama
18. Aphex Twin - Syro
19. Timber Timbre - Hot Dreams
20. Goat - Commune
21. Fennesz - Bécs
22. Perfect Pussy - Say Yes To Love
23. EIAFUAWN - Birds In The Ground
24. Shellac - Dude Incredible
25. A New Line (Related) - S/T

https://www.normanrecords.com/features/top-fifty-2014.php

Nice to see shoutouts for Tape, Ex-Easter Island Head, Soundcarriers, Jon Mueller's Death Blues on the full Norman Records list.

The absence of Owen Pallett's In Conflict in these lists (#64 on Rough Trade, thats it) is baffling. It was my #1 any time I was asked to vote and I thought I was going to be in good company but no.

Yeah, no OP, no Sunny Day in Glasgow, no YG (though it's not that kind of lists yet). I am out of touch with consensus, more than I think I am. But I realize that every year.

i keep waiting for the uk music press to have a country epiphany. when it comes 3 years late i'll probably be extremely annoyed

no doubt.

10. Memory Drawings - There Is No Perfect Place

Woah I went to a Timberwolves game with a guy in this band w a mutual friend

That's the band with someone from Hood in them right?

yes I guess: "Memory Drawings is the project of Minneapolis hammered dulcimer player Joel Hanson, Hood co-founder Richard Adams and former Lanterns on the Lake violinist Sarah Kemp"

Unsurprising but love seeing Norman Recs sticking with the Hood shout outs. Both the Bracken and Memory Drawings albums are great.

The absence of Owen Pallett's In Conflict in these lists (#64 on Rough Trade, thats it) is baffling.

― Re-Make/Re-Model, donderdag 27 november 2014 14:43 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ Can only co-sign this. Truly baffling.

To be fair Lex, Uncut writes about a lot of country. Just not the country that you're interested in.

Kacey Musgraves was in a few lists last year but not as many as I'd hoped. Most country artists you like, Lex, don't play very big venues and even then the crowd is mostly expats. I think most Brits can't get past the sound of modern country so I really don't think there's going to be, say, a Miranda Lambert epiphany but maybe Kacey's next record could do it.

Great to see Kogumaza sneak into the Norman list. I'd actually forgotten that album came out this year, it will now be in mine.

Oh wow I didn't know the Hood guy was in that! It was just my friend Joel plays in a band

Well, modern country (not alt!) is what I meant. Brits can get past trad country sounds when it's old established stars but not the relatively less heavy country signifiers of Angaleena Presley or Miranda Lambert? Or Lee Ann Womack if we're talking established names even. When Dolly played Glastonbury there was so much love for her which was great but zero interest in who her current equivalents might be

Well if you knew the sales numbers on that OP record you'd know that basically nobody bought and/or listened to it *wipes away single tear* *accepts another film score gig*

Whaaaaa, really? Boo everybody.

Damn, I just can't understand that! Reviews were good, too right? People suck :(

ya rly.

It's high in my top ten eyol, will campaign more.

Rock was first declared dead on May 26, 1957, by a trio of 'experts' who mainly were just trying to wish it away. Someone's always trying to kill rock, but it's probably more accurate to say it's undead, hanging out in your basement, smoking bowls, eating your food and watching Italian horror movies (Truckfighters, Spiders, Electric Wizard, Witch Mountain, Slough Feg, Pallbearer, Blues Pills, Castle, The Oath, Wo Fat, The Skull, Earth, Serpent Venom, Brimstone Coven, Satyress, Mansion, Purson, Goat, etc.)

Lots of interesting things to check out on Norman list. Guardian list was good last year, will have to see in next couple days.

Random thought, tUnE-yArDs totally dominated lists in 2011, while her second album was ignored. Personally I think both aren't bad, but gradually become more irritating. I guess the total absence of Nikki Nack this year shows, what? Does it confirm they were all fickle bandwagon-jumping lemming MFers?

I actually think that front-to-back Nikki Nack is probably a better album than the last one, but the standout tracks on Whokill elevated it into the mainstream/critical consciousness.

i tried listening to nicki nack and it was grating. i think i forgave her first album as 'grating but clever' and so is this one, but there's only so much grating i can take. a bit like fiery furnaces when they were popular - okay for one or two albums, kind of tiresome when the initial interest wanes.

People are stupid, fgti. It's not too late to start a newsworthy beef with The War on Drugs though.

xp to Lex. Dolly's a special case and I don't think most of the people who adored her at Glastonbury had bought her latest record.

Whokill was actually the second album, but I'm a pedant.

Hopefully when Owen lands in the ILM end of year top 10 that will help undo the wrong of him missing out in these critic's lists.

Another one that I'm shocked hasn't appeared in one single list yet is The Juan Maclean album. Knowing that will also do well in our list makes me really love this place.

DFA had quite a few disappointing years, so the fact they were absolutely killin' it in 2014 might have been overlooked by a lot of people.

Yeah the Juan album is terrific. More consistent than the Todd Terje one, which seems to have placed highly on the basis of the singles.

In a year where for the first time in eons I feel like one of the "everything sucked" crew, "In Conflict" is one of the few albums that does not leave me remotely conflicted. It's great, and inexplicable to be left off any list.

I feel like lists that stretch out to 100 or even 50 hedge so many bets they are useless. But hats off, I guess, to anyone who can find more than 25 albums each year they actively love. I'd love to get a follow-up list of how many listed albums writers still regularly listen to in 2015.

i don't get the love for the todd terje record at all. juan maclean was really solid.

I thought The Future Will Come did quite well in the critic's lists but could be remembering that wrong. It's a shame as This is Happening did so well a few years ago and as much as I like that album, In a Dream is such a better record.

Really interested to see how Todd Terje does in our end of year list. Think it could be like Daft Punk last year when the thread had quite a lot of people saying how disappointed they were with the album but it still manages to make the top three.

I don't think that still listening to an album the following year has any bearing on how good it is. eg Let England Shake was my favourite album of 2011 and probably in my Top 10 since 2000 but I haven't heard it in ages because I played it to death and there's so much new music to listen to.

Every year I have maybe five albums I'm obsessed with, another half a dozen I deeply love and then the rest of my Top 25 is stuff that's somehow flawed or incomplete.

josh otm with the bit about regular listening of albums ppl (critics or otherwise) put on their end of year lists - of the stuff that made mine last year I find myself coming back to a bunch of rap albums (yeezus, OLD, a$ap ferg) p often and not a whole lot else w much regularity aside from Beyoncé and, as a huge/odd contrast, deafheaven.

Terje album places are mostly willfulness off the back of Norse, and the convenience of it for 'representing' that kind of thing.

The last Juan Maclean was largely ignored too so no reason why this wouldn't be either in that respect. Not much interest out there in DFA disco unless Murphy (remembering Nancy saying how amazing that last Holy Ghost album was but still struggling to hear that here too tbh).

xpost I always think I do well if my top 25 is full of albums I'd rate as 8/10 or higher. Think I manage it but this year I seem to have heard a lot of things that are solid 7/10s. I'll probably go back to some of them close to voting and see if anything go up in my estimation. That happened with the Charli XCX album last year and it ended up in my top five.

at the same time I stand by all the things I put on said list, including having the latest arctic monkeys album & lorde's debut record in my top 10

ha! funny that you mention charli bc I didn't place true romance on my top 25 or whatever but I listened to it a ton both last year and throughout this year

It's a real shame Ian Crause's solo album is getting ignored. If you don't trust my judgement you can trust Ned's!

The last Juan Maclean was largely ignored too so no reason why this wouldn't be either in that respect. Not much interest out there in DFA disco unless Murphy (remembering Nancy saying how amazing that last Holy Ghost album was but still struggling to hear that here too tbh).

― nashwan, Thursday, November 27

It just seems so odd that magazines like the NME wouldn't be desperate for music like that considering how much they pushed The Rapture and Friendly Fires back in the day. The Young Galaxy album from last year is another one that seems like it was ignored despite being something that would be right up their street.

Most DFA stuff feels like the bands in question going through the motions somewhat and the last Juan Maclean and Holy Ghost records are particular examples of that. Neither are exactly bad but just not exciting either.

I mean most new DFA stuff, it just feels like the wrong time for music like that now.

less of a barrier for Metronomy and Caribou somehow

Noted Johnny Fever, I forgot about BiRd-BrAiNs, which is similar to the other two. It must be the strength of just a couple tracks that caught peoples' attention who thought, this is weird and different, to the top o' the list it goes!

The Juan Maclean, Shit Robot, Sinkane and Museum of Love albums are all hovering around my end-of-year list. That's the most DFA content that I've liked in a single year since...well, a long time ago.

The Dedication's "I Ain't Gonna Tell You" was the secret best DFA disco jam of 2014 imo

Caribou isn't really like the DFA bands at all. The continued love for Metronomy makes no sense to me though.

less of a barrier for Metronomy and Caribou somehow

― nashwan, Thursday, November 27

Surprised the NME left out Metronomy this year. Along with The Horrors it's most surprising omission on their list considering how much they loved their last two albums (Last one was number two on their 2011 list) It was a really crap album but when does that ever make a difference to the NME.

The Dedication's "I Ain't Gonna Tell You" was the secret best DFA disco jam of 2014 imo

Oooh, this is dope.

Horrors and Metronomy were both big duds after career highs. Just when they needed to nail it they didn't have the songs. The Wild Beasts record was great though - I thought it would make more of a splash.

Re: DFA, bear in mind the simple fact of changing staff at magazines. Maybe the NME just doesn't have a dance cheerleader in the office at the moment. Weak year for crossover electronic albums anyway - there wasn't a Glass Swords or Immunity this year so only Caribou, Terje and Aphex are getting on to these lists.

Rustie's new one just died didn't it?