Year-End Critics' Polls 2014

i get where you're coming from. I guess if there's less hip hop in the indie/pop world's end tally i might suggest that 2014 was a year where those worlds started to diverge more radically than in the past.

like pitbull, pharrell, iggy, juicy j and em were all absolutely at peak popularity and represented half of the year's #1 pop singles but, with the arguable exception of iggy, none of them really represent contemporary hip hop

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib, Shabazz Palaces, Ratking and Young Fathers all in the Guardian top 40 so far with surely Run The Jewels to come, so that's not too bad for a newspaper list (whether you think those are the right records or not).

if you went by lists then it might suggest that its a weak year for lots of genres whether it be indie centric lists or the guardian or ilx eoy polls. They have never covered everything. You cant base the state of any music on these lists. They are snapshots of a small amount of voters.

the current top 25 R&B/hip hop list features a plethora of young breakthrough artists that i think a casual listener of rap (which i'm gonna strawman the average indie/pop type being) just won't be familiar with: bobby shmurda, i love makonnen, rae sremmurd, young thug, rich homie quan, dej loaf

i dunno, i think if the average indie/pop type being is on the internet, shmurda, thugger and rhq are pretty inescapable

i was gonna ask what "credible" rap album the big big outlets were gonna put in their top 10s this year, a la Kanye whenever he releases something or Kendrick in 2012 because I just don't see it being YG or Gibbs (or this particular Shabazz album, tbh) and then I remembered Run the Jewels. that solves everything.

I feel like one or both of the vince staples releases could make some lists (coldchain 2 and hell can wait)

In my top 30 there's maybe 3-5 rap albums that were solid or close to it, but none of them are consensus picks, and that MIGHT be the issue in 2014 - few consensus picks, even though critics have their favorites.

I'm thinking Kanye will either drop on Dec 25 or wait until next year. Nicki may wait too.

I think I wi spontaneously explode if ye drops on xmas day

*will

For real though anyone voting for that not-bad-not-great Jack White album isn't going to great lengths to disguise their fundamental disconnection from current music.

most popular rap sucks, most crit rap isnt that popular

Feel like Run The Jewels is a decent chance for a top 10 placing on the more indie oriented sites lists. If not top 5.

most popular rap sucks, most crit rap isnt that popular

Just like most genres then. They all seem to thrive without crossover success too

who the hell knows what we'll think about anything in 20 years!

I do think this is kind of an interesting exercise. If you look back at, say, Xgau's top 10 in, say, 1982 - or top 20, even - you can quibble at the rankings, but I don't think any of the records are bad, per se, and a couple of them have long been justifiably branded for the ages masterpieces. Then again, we've had several decades to get used to them or canonize them. I do wonder what, from this year, say, that future music nerds will deem worth digging up in several years. Will kids in 2034 be writing essays about U2's overlooked distributed for free masterpiece that no one ranked at the end of the year? Will they talk about Taylor Swift's "1989" the same way we talk about "Tusk?" Remind me to set my alarm for 20 years so that I don't sleep through the poll roll-outs.

they will almost certainly be talking about Taylor, idk if they'll be comparing 1989 to tusk or any other fleetwood album tho. I highly doubt of all the U2 albums that could last 20 or even 30+ more years, songs of innocence is gonna be the one

Those were just random examples. U2 will be talked about, at least in passing. Taylor, dunno. But again, just random examples.

Recently there was a discussion of SPIN's 1991 poll. They may have posted it on their site. There was a conspicuous absence of Slint - Spiderland, MBV - Loveless and Talk Talk - Laughing Stalk. The stature of the first two have grown for sure, with Slint having a couple of successful sold out reunion tours and box set reissue, and My Bloody Valentine can be considered a classic, but not necessarily in the mainstream. 23 years later I still have no idea if more people know about late period Talk Talk, probably more in the UK. Genre classics like The Obsessed - Lunar Womb (Trouble's Manic Frustration still seems ignored), Melvins - Bullhead, The Jesus Lizard - Goat (not so much Halo of Flies), Monster Magnet - Spine of God and Coroner - Mental Vortex are well regarded within those circles, but I don't know that you could say that "people are talking about them." So it doesn't really matter to me whether anyone will be talking about Taylor Swift or not.

nor should it, necessarily. I remain continuously flummoxed, mostly in a good way, by what has stood the test of time and what hasn't.

Heed the words of Sammy Hagar: time will tell whether we pass the test of time.

For real though anyone voting for that not-bad-not-great Jack White album isn't going to great lengths to disguise their fundamental disconnection from current music.

― Matt DC, Sunday, November 30, 2014 5:46 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

23 years later I still have no idea if more people know about late period Talk Talk, probably more in the UK.

― Fastnbulbous, Sunday, November 30, 2014 11:33 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"probably"

Well, history is written by the winners, right? One of the better points made in Amanda Ps excellent book (if you haven't read it) Do Not Sell at any Price is that the only reason Robert Johnson became the template for so much British blues-rock is because his stuff was the best reissued and circulated. But Johnson was by no means the most popular or originally best distributed blues act.

From the metal poll thread though its not really a question about metal per se, just one of the examples along with hip hop. I'm sure there's other genres that it applies to.

I'm somewhat surprised the Mastodon album hasn't featured in non-metal EOY lists like the last one. It's good enough and got good reviews inmost places.
Maybe metal isn't as in fashion as it was the past 5 years? Noticed a lack of metal and hip-hop this year in lists.

Has critical coverage started getting narrower?

― Cosmic Slop,

mastodon's two late-aughts albums both ended up on multiple general albums lists with high rankings in several instances. skye was #3 in bloody time magazine!! and those are definitely full-stop metal albums.

flash forward to 2012 - the latest converge album was #1 on most metal/hard rock only lists and got me, before that point not a huge metal/hardcore guy aside from occasional mastodon dalliances - deep in love with that band and exploring a lot of really hard shit I wouldn't have previously explored. but it got little to no love from many general albums lists. and then the next year deafheaven is adored by tons of people who aren't traditionally into metal. it's impossible to predict

― hanley ramirez ordering a pizza (slothroprhymes),

so has critical coverage started getting narrower?

XFM: http://www.xfm.co.uk/new-music/best-2014/50-best-albums-2014

^ a tedious click-fest filled with dull albums and dismal blurb

Jimi Goodwin - Odludek

The Doves man goes solo with an appealing set of gentle songs.

thanks guys, sounds awesome

Lonely The Brave - The Day's War

Proof - if needed - that rock isn't dead.

that list is like 80% 'I didn't realise they were still going'

The Quietus Albums Of The Year 2014

ONE: Gazelle Twin - UNFLESH (Anti Ghost Moon Ray)
TWO: Scott Walker & Sunn O))) - Soused (4AD)
THREE: Swans - To Be Kind (Mute)
FOUR: East India Youth - TOTAL STRIFE FOREVER (Stolen)
FIVE: The Bug - Angels & Devils (Big Dada)
SIX: Grumbling Fur - Preternaturals (TQPC)
SEVEN: Katie Gately - Pipes (Blue Tapes)
EIGHT: Manic Street Preachers - Futurology (Sony)
NINE: Perc - The Power And The Glory (Perc Trax)
TEN: Jenny Hval & Susanna - Meshes Of Voice (SusannaSonata)
ELEVEN: FKA twigs - LP1 (Young Turks)
TWELVE: Zamilska - Untune (self-released)
THIRTEEN: Inner City Ensemble - Black/White (Instant Classic)
FOURTEEN: Cooly G - Wait ‘Til Night (Hyperdub)
FIFTEEN: Blacknecks - 006 (self-released)
SIXTEEN: English Heretic - The Underworld Service (self-released)
SEVENTEEN: Freddie Gibbs and Madlib - Piñata (Madlib Invasion)
EIGHTEEN: OAKE - Auferstehung (Downwards)
NINETEEN: Grouper - Ruins (Kranky)
TWENTY: Kemper Norton - Loor (Front And Follow)
TWENTY ONE: Maurice Louca - Benhayyi Al-Baghbaghan (Nawa)
TWENTY TWO: Andy Stott - Faith In Strangers (Modern Love)
TWENTY THREE: EEK ft. Islam Chipsy - Live At The Cairo High Cinema Institute (Nashazphone)
TWENTY FOUR: Jane Weaver - Silver Globe (Bird)
TWENTY FIVE: Daniel Patrick Quinn - Acting The Rubber Pig (self-released)
TWENTY SIX: The Body - I Shall Die Here (RVNG Intl.)
TWENTY SEVEN: Chrononautz - Public Domain Fuckover Series #1-6 (self-released)
TWENTY EIGHT: Pharmakon - Bestial Burden (Sacred Bones)
TWENTY NINE: Tweedy - Sukierae (dBpm Records)
THIRTY: Objekt - Flatland (PAN)
THIRTY ONE: Jar Moff - Financial Glam (PAN)
THIRTY TWO: Willie The Kid & Bronze Nazareth - The Living Daylights (Embassy)
THIRTY THREE: Lorenzo Senni - Superimpositions (Boomkat)
THIRTY FOUR: Electric Wizard - Time To Die (Spinefarm)
THIRTY FIVE: Klara Lewis - ETT (Editions Mego)
THIRTY SIX: Kassem Mosse - Workshop 19 (Workshop)
THIRTY SEVEN: Extreme Precautions - Precaution One (In Paradisum)
THIRTY EIGHT: Kasai Allstars - Beware The Fetish (Crammed Discs)
THRITY NINE: Arabrot - I Modi (Fysisk Format)
FORTY: Einsturzende Neubauten - Lament (BMG)
FORTY ONE: The Inward Circles - Nimrod (self-released)
FORTY TWO: Bohren & Der Club Of Gore - Piano Nights (Ipecac)
FORTY THREE: Future Islands - Singles (4AD)
FORTY FOUR: Consumer Electronics - Estuary English (Dirter)
FORTY FIVE: BONG - Stoner Rock (Ritual)
FORTY SIX: Nisennenmondai - N (BLAST First (petite))
FORTY SEVEN: Wild Beasts - Present Tense (Domino)
FORTY EIGHT: Olga Bell - Krai (One Little Indian)
FORTY NINE: Cut Hands - Festival Of The Dead (Blackest Ever Black)
FIFTY: Xiu Xiu - Angel Guts, Red Classroom (Bella Union)
FIFTY ONE: Actress - Ghettoville (Werkdiscs)
FIFTY TWO: YOB - Clearing The Path To Ascend (Neurot)
FIFTY THREE: Owen Pallett - In Conflict (Domino)
FIFTY FOUR: Puce Mary - Persona (Posh Isolation)
FIFTY FIVE: DonChristian - Renzo Piano (Camp & Street)
FIFTY SIX: Ibibio Sound Machine - Ibibio Sound Machine (Soundway)
FIFTY SEVEN: Lee Gamble - KOCH (PAN)
FIFTY EIGHT: Leyland Kirby Presents V/Vm - The Death Of Rave (A Partial Flashback) (History Always Favours The Winners)
FIFTY NINE: Laibach - Spectre (Mute)
SIXTY: Shellac - Dude Incredible (Touch And Go)
SIXTY ONE: Heterotic - Weird Drift (Planet Mu)
SIXTY TWO: Liars - Mess (Mute)
SIXTY THREE: Stein Urheim - Stein Urheim (Hubro)
SIXTY FOUR: Ekoplekz - Unfidelity (Planet Mu)
SIXTY FIVE: St. Vincent - St. Vincent (Loma Vista)
SIXTY SIX: Sunn O))) & Ulver - Terrestrials (Southern Lord)
SIXTY SEVEN: Russell Haswell - 37 Minute Workout (DIAGONAL)
SIXTY EIGHT: Noura Mint Seymali - Tzenni (Glitterbeat)
SIXTY NINE: Stephen O'Malley, Oren Ambarchi & Randall Dunn - Shade Themes From Kairos (Drag City)
SEVENTY: Apollo Brown - Blasphemy (Mello Music Group)
SEVENTY ONE: The Budos Band - Burnt Offering (Daptone)
SEVENTY TWO: Anat Ben David - MeleCh (self-released)
SEVENTY THREE: Yvette - Process (Godmode)
SEVENTY FOUR: milo - a toothpaste suburb (Hellfyre Club)
SEVENTY FIVE: Merkabah - Moloch (Instant Classic)
SEVENTY SIX: Wrangler - LA Spark (Memetune)
SEVENTY SEVEN: Ronika - Selectadisc (Record Shop)
SEVENTY EIGHT: Bing & Ruth - Tomorrow Was The Golden Age (Happy Talk)
SEVENTY NINE: Azealia Banks - Broke With Expensive Taste (Prospect)
EIGHTY: DJ Q - Ineffable (Local Action)
EIGHTY ONE: The Soft Pink Truth - Why Do The Heathen Rage? (Thrill Jockey)
EIGHTY TWO: Vince Staples - Hell Can Wait (Def Jam Recordings)
EIGHTY THREE: Tinariwen - Emmar (ANTI-)
EIGHTY FOUR: The Juan Maclean - In A Dream (DFA)
EIGHTY FIVE: Aphex Twin - Syro (WARP)
EIGHTY SIX: Toumani & Sidiki Diabate - Toumani & Sidiki Diabate (World Circuit)
EIGHTY SEVEN: Selim Lemouchi & His Enemies - Earth Air Spirit Fire Water (Van)
EIGHTY EIGHT: Behemoth - The Satanist (Nuclear Blast)
EIGHTY NINE: Wrekmeister Harmonies - Then It Came Down (Thrill Jockey)
NINETY: Fumaca Preta - Fumaca Preta (Soundway)
NINETY ONE: Scott Miller, Lee Camfield & Merzbow - No Closure (Cold Spring)
NINETY TWO: Black Rain - Dark Pool (Blackest Ever Black)
NINETY THREE: Anthroprophh - Outside The Circle (Rocket)
NINETY FOUR: Adult Jazz - Gist Is (Spare Thought)
NINETY FIVE: Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire (Avalanche)
NINETY SIX: Obake - Mutations (Rare Noise)
NINETY SEVEN: Clark - Clark (WARP)
NINETY EIGHT: Joseph Curwen - Shunned House (City)
NINETY NINE: Echoes Of Yul - Tether (Zoharum)
ONE HUNDRED: Good Throb - Fuck Off (self-released)

The Quietus Albums Of The Year 2014

Read this as:

EIGHT: Manic Street Preachers - Futurology (Sorry)

beautiful choice of number one! also love katie gately and jenny hval & susanna in the top 10 (thought the gately was 2013 though?)

Yeah, Gately was 2013. There was a massive bit of dissonance for us here as we were some of the only people to write about Pipes when it first came out but then didn't include it in the chart probably because it was a tape and only had two tracks.

But it deserves people to hear about it - you have to bear in mind it only sold something like 1-200 copies in 2013 and it has been reissued this year and still remains one of the most unique and praiseworthy pieces of music out there.

Basically I felt guilty for not including it in my ballot the year before!

Some really good choices here. Great to see Objekt, Owen P, Katie Gately, Swans and ooh, didn't realise there was an Arabrot release this year? Haven't listened to Unflesh enough to work out if it deserves AOTY but from what I've heard, it's def a good album, like a deconstructed (as in eviscerated) Cocteau Twins or something.

if anything deserves a bit of rule bending it's definitely pipes. approved! *stamps card*

Dutch mag Oor (bit like Mojo/Q):

1. The War On Drugs - Lost In The Dream
2. Typhoon - Lobi Da Basi
3. Spoon - They Want My Soul
4. Swans - To Be Kind
5. Damien Rice - My Favorite Faded Fantasy
6. Temples - Sun Structures
7. Moodymann - Moodymann
8. Beck - Morning Phase
9. Avi Buffalo - At Best Cuckold
10. Alt-J - This Is All Yours
11. Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots
12. Real Estate - Atlas
13. Flying Lotus - You're Dead!
14. FKA Twigs - LP1
15. St. Vincent - St. Vincent
16. Jack White - Lazaretto
17. The Acid - Liminal
18. Reigning Sound - Shattered
19. Moss – We Both Know The Rest Is Noise
20. Sun Kil Moon - Benji
21. Perfume Genius - Too Bright
22. Future Islands - Singles
23. Cloud Nothings - Here And Nowhere Else
24. The Black Keys - Turn Blue
25. Royal Blood - Royal Blood

Well, history is written by the winners, right? One of the better points made in Amanda Ps excellent book (if you haven't read it) Do Not Sell at any Price is that the only reason Robert Johnson became the template for so much British blues-rock is because his stuff was the best reissued and circulated. But Johnson was by no means the most popular or originally best distributed blues act.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, November 30, 2014 12:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hmm i haven't read her book but this is the primary thesis of elijah wald's book 'escaping the delta', which was written before hers:

The neo-ethnic movement was nourished by a spate of LP reissues that for the first time made it possible to find hillbilly and country blues recordings in white, middle-class, urban stores. The bible was Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music...Smith was specifically interested in the oldest and most-rural sounding styles, and set a pattern for any future folk-blues reissue projects by intentionally avoiding any artist who seemed consciously modern or commercial...

Far from balancing this taste, the other record collectors tended to be even more conservative. Much as they loved the music, they were driven by the same mania for rarity that drives collectors of old stamps or coins, and many turned up their noses at Jefferson or the Carters, since those records were common. To such men, the perfect blues artist was someone like Son House or Skip James, an unrecognized genius whose 78s had sold so badly that at most one or two copies survived. Since the collectors were the only people with access to the original records or any broad knowledge of the field, they functioned to a great extent as gatekeepers of the past and had a profound influence on what the broader audience heard. By emphasizing obscurity as a virtue unto itself, they essentially turned the hierarchy of blues-stardom upside-down: The more records an artist had sold in 1928, the less he or she was valued in 1958.

x-post re Quietus list-

TWENTY THREE: EEK ft. Islam Chipsy - Live At The Cairo High Cinema Institute (Nashazphone)

Not on Spotify or available from Amazon, so where do I find/get it

Line Of Best Fit - Albums
http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/articles/top-fifty-albums-2014

Lost in the Dream is without a doubt, one of the most impressive records this decade and we're proud to name it as our album of the year

http://www.steelforbrains.com/post/103989943657/rb-best-of-2014

Bleep - Top Albums of 2014
https://bleep.com/end-of-year-roundup-2014

Aphex Twin – Syro
Caribou – Our Love
Clap! Clap! – Tayi Bebba
Objekt – Flatland
Lone – Reality Testing
Slackk – Palm Tree Fire
Hieroglyphic Being And The Configurative Or Modular Me Trio – The Seer Of Cosmic Visions
Dean Blunt – Black Metal
Fatima Al Qadiri – Asiatisch
Arca – Xen

xp

i assumed that was r&b

Is War on Drugs just a snowball effect at this point? Later lists being influenced by earlier ones?

that arca album is weird, like an album of intro tracks or something.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-best-music-of-2014-young-thug-aphex-twin-charli-xcx-and-more/2014/11/25/521944f6-71d4-11e4-8808-afaa1e3a33ef_story.html

Not strictly albums, plus multiple items for some slots

1. Young Thug-singles and mixtapes
2. Sam Hunt-Montevallo
3. Just About Everything Produced by DJ Mustard
4. Miranda Lambert-Platinum/Eric Church-The Outsiders/Sturgill Simpson-Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
5. Aphex Twin-Syro
6. Dej Loaf-"Try Me" song
7. Popcaan-Where We Come From
8. Hiss Golden Messenger-Lateness of Dancers
9. Rae Sremmurd, Bobby Shmurda- rap hits
10. Math rock-Naomi Punk-Television Man and Horse Lords-Hidden Cities

Forgot 11 & 12 of Chris Richards' Washington Post list

11. Lori McKenna-Numbered Doors

12. Charlie XCX- Sucker

I made a Spotify playlist with everything available in the US from that Quietus list:

http://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/2pjput49RnkvbaGyBxJA8C

Paste's is up...

http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2014/12/the-50-best-albums-of-2014.html

Thanks! Quietus usually does a good job being balanced and not TOO pretentious. But Manic Street Preachers? That's a surprise. I had no idea there was a new Einsturzende Neubauten. Apparently a sober meditation on WWI, surprised it wasn't ranked high by more publications. People love that serious shit. Gazelle Twin, hrm. It didn't do much for me last time I listened, am revisiting. I'm trying to imagine Soused on heavy rotation on anyone's playlist and I can't. They chose Electric Wizard and YOB over Pallbearer, and that makes sense with their aesthetic. A few other heavy things, The Body, Arabrot, which I thought was just a minor EP release, will have to check out. A few things I don't recognize, am hoping there's a pleasant surprise in there somewhere.

Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/50-best-albums-of-2014-20141201

Awesome #1.