Year-End Critics' Polls 2014

"Los Awesome" is a ton of fun, agreed

i liked oxymoron at first but i've really cooled off on it and am not feeling it much anymore. still like the isaiah rashad album tho.

xps to a million posts above, it is wholly predictable that an indie-leaning list would include the eric church album considering the main reason it appears to have caught those ppl's attn in the first place was its overbearing rock-rebel posturing

Isaiah Rashad is definitely great. Don't know yet where it will fall in my personal rankings, but it will be there.

holy shit at Nux Vomica on that Stereogum list! good on the 'gum for that one.

you know there was some discussion at HQ about that one vs. Woods of Desolation. "well, we put a post-rock-y metal album way up high last year, let's go crustier this year" ... no Deafheaven last year, I bet WoD is 9 and Nux Vomica is 25 or w/e

srsly, tho, I appreciate Stereogum's metal coverage in general.

what is textura

There's a Platinum Breakz 4?!

is anyone other than glenn gonna build spotify lists for this stuff or should i volunteer

xxxpost out of all the metal records i have caught up on today based on finding them in various EOY lists/on the metal polling thread, nux vomica is my favorite thus far i think

Magnet - Best Of 2014: Noise
http://www.magnetmagazine.com/category/best-of-2014/

MAGNET’s Raym0nd Cumm1ngs picks the best noise releases of the year

1 Yellow Tears Golden Showers May Bring Flowers (Septic World International)
2 Bloodeath Bloodeath (Totally Gross National Product)
3 Philip White Documents (Infrequent Seams)
4 Zaimph & Yek Koo L’intérieur de la Vue (Obsolete Units)
5 Pharmakustik + Tanner Garza Pleuraraum (Jehu & Chinaman)
6 Diaphragmatic Fear Biters (Alien Passengers)
7 Good Area Pronunciation (Hanson)
8 Bob Bellerue Cure The Antidote (Los Discos Enfantasmes)
9 White Suns Totem (The Flenser)
10 Barrier Of Broken Leaves Spite (Turmeric Magnitudes)

Paste Magazine - The 50 Best Songs of 2014
http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2014/12/the-50-best-songs-of-2014.html

glad "Collard Greens" made it.

singles lists that include fka twigs but not beyonce need to have some special kind of code that alerts readers prior to reading

which is not to say pendulum won't make my list but rating it without acknowledging the gifts of flawless or haunted seems myopic

I am now knowingly listening to Sylan Esso for the first time just to see what the deal is. I already hate this woman's voice.

Sylvan, even.

I'm kind of surprised that there was only one single off of the Phantogram album and that that single wasn't "Howling at the Moon"

I don't know, you guys, this sure doesn't sound like it's the best song of 2014, but I'm sure Paste writers are all congratulating themselves at this moment for throwing a curveball like that.

xxxxpost i think the lack of beyonce prob stems from people having no fucking clue whether to stick the beyonce album or its songs on 2014 lists for like, technicality reasons

what in the name of god is this ages and ages garbage

xp maybe? but in a rich year for daring r&B/indie hybrid singles, turning twigs into the defacto blanket token representative suggests a lack of listening

How exactly does it follow that liking FKA twigs means you must also like Beyonce? (I mean, I like both of them but that is because I'm a gothy dude who likes R&B; they're doing distinctly different things, IMO equally well, and liking one is only tangentially related to liking the other)

some special kind of code that alerts readers prior to reading

PASTE didn't tip you off on its own?

ahh the Magent list is a little messed up - went straight to the top 10 and #1 & 4 both came out last year and for #6 they picked pretty much the worst track on the New Pornographer's album!

i'm excited to check out the Textura list & Raymond's noise list

sylvan esso is like someone setting out to make a less-annoying tune-yards and ending up with something just as annoying as tune-yards

(also it's hilarious to frame your argument as "people listing FKA twigs have no imagination when it comes to R&B; where's the Beyonce?")

lol true

so funny that "habits" is on quite a few 2014 lists but everyone was like UM WUT when i tried to pass that song around all 2013!

i don't necessarily think the mark of a good or interesting list is agreeing with all the picks

the top three on the paste list are an abortion

Norway's biggest and 3rd biggest newspaper - Norwegian albums of the year:

Aftenposten:
1. Emilie Nicolas: Like I'm a warrior
2. Todd Terje: It's album time
3. Highasakite: Silent treatment
4. Motorpsycho: Behind the sun
5. Thea Hjelmeland: Solar plexus
6. Store P: Regnmannen
7. Torgeir Waldemar: Torgeir Waldemar
8. Sandra Kolstad: Zero gravity state of mind
9. Ida Jenshus: Let it go
10. The Dogs: The tears are voodoo

Dagbladet:
1. Highasakite, «Silent treatment»
2. Emilie Nicolas, «Like I’m a Warrior»
3. Ida Jenshus, «Let it go»
4. Kaja Gunnufsen, «Faen Kaja»
5. Röyksopp & Robyn, «Do it Again»
6. Store P, «Regnmannen»
7. In the Country & Frida Ånnevik, «Skogenes sang»
8. Silja Sol, «På Hjertet»
9. Jenny Hval & Susanna, «Meshes of Voice»
10. Todd Terje, «It’s Album Time»

Tove Lo still seems to have the same profile in 2014 as she did in 2013 imo, except there's an album to go along with the singles now.

Emilie Nicolas, «Like I’m a Warrior»

I just happened across this album over the tgiving holiday weekend. I'd had "Pstereo" in my Spotify best of the year list for a long time, but I didn't know there was a full LP. Unfortunately, except for one other song, it's pretty boring. :(

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TeqXUzaZ3c0/UzsavUd7YYI/AAAAAAAAAv8/SM01eQ_OkDI/s1600/901621_253611454810172_537879534_o.jpg

Det er sterke retro-vibber over garasjerocken til oslobandet The Dogs

xxxxxp nobody's saying you HAVE to like bey if you like twigs (though i'm hard pressed to think of anyone i've spoken to, gothy dude into R&B or otherwise, who is familiar with twigs and doesn't). FKATs points about the incipient racism of amalgamating all black singer/songwriters as R&B performers aside; her music and bey's album from this year are at least tangentially musically related
i'll cop that bey is maybe not the most apt choice of comparison (though recent repeat listening of haunted is illuminating the connections) but she's among the ten biggest performing artists in the world, you'd think they might have noticed her work or ANYONE else's working that currently zeitgeisty 'radiohead quiet storm' sound
more to the point, there's a host of other voices in the same/adjoining lanes that appear to be getting sidelined regardless (or more likely because of) popularity in favor of the more indie leaning choice
what i'm reacting to is musical tokenism and maybe a bit of the universal bey snubbing in the early ballots.

(also it's hilarious to frame your argument as "people listing FKA twigs have no imagination when it comes to R&B; where's the Beyonce?")

i like Ages and Ages, but am too lazy to go find, copy and paste the shrug guy emoticon

Indie leaning magazine/website favors indie leaning music from genres outside the main indie continuum. News at 11.

xpost (to me): that said, they've never released anything that comes anywhere close to "Archie, Marry Me"

xp hey if i don't tilt at a windmill or two i lose my grumpy old hipster credentials for 2015

wait, i just realized call all destroyer called "Archie, Marry Me" an abortion!

wow destroyer you weren't fuckin kidding

Emilie Nicolas, «Like I’m a Warrior»

I just happened across this album over the tgiving holiday weekend. I'd had "Pstereo" in my Spotify best of the year list for a long time, but I didn't know there was a full LP. Unfortunately, except for one other song, it's pretty boring. :(

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, December 2, 2014 10:06 PM (3 minutes ago)

Nobody Knows is great, Grow Up also sounds good to me, the repetition works really well as a check on the song becoming trite nostalgia. Haven't really sat down with the album otherwise.

alvvays is OK i guess but idk how it superseded a lot of stuff on that list (or off it!) this ages & ages song is kinda wack

really dreading sylvan esso given the zings upthread

That Sylvan Esso thing is atrocious.

I like Alvvays, though they have better songs than that one. Now I'm listening to Ages and Ages and I might actually hate it more than the Sylvan Esso one. Eesh.

what. the. fuck. is. this.

I refuse to visit paste again. Which horrid Ages and Ages song did they pick?

"Divisionary (Do the Right Thing)"

destroyer, so otm when describing esso as a more annoying tuneyards, a thing i didn't think was possible. does she have the cultural appropriation tourism issue garbus has or nah?