Year-End Critics' Polls 2014

Juno Plus Re-issues. Some over with the Fact chart.
http://www.junodownload.com/plus/2014/12/03/best-of-2014-reissues-and-archival-releases/

1. Gigi Masin – Talk to the Sea (Music From Memory)
2. Vangelis Katsoulis – The Sleeping Beauties: A Collection of Early and Unreleased Works (Into The Light)
3. Lewis – L’amour/Romantic Times (Light In The Attic)
4. Roland Young – Hearsay I-Land (Palto Flats)
5. Donato Dozzy and Nuel – The Aquaplano Sessions (Spectrum Spools)
6. Psyche - Re-Membering Dwayne (Dark Entries)
7. Z AKA Bernard Szajner – Visions of Dune (InFiné)
8. K. Leimer – A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975 – 1983) (RVNG Intl)
9. Tom Ellard – ’80s Cheesecake (Dark Entries)
10. Dat Oven – Icy Lake (Fade To Mind/Night Slugs)

Some *overlap with the Fact chart.

Gorilla vs Bear
http://www.gorillavsbear.net/2014/12/02/gorilla-vs-bears-albums-of-2014/

1. Shabazz Palaces - Lese Majesty
2. Grouper - Ruins
3. Ariel Pink - Pom Pom
4. Tops - Picture You Staring
5. Burial - Rival Dealer
6. Doss - Doss + remixes
7. Lewis - L'Amour/Romantic Times
8. Freddie Gibbs and Madlib - Pinata
9. Fear of Men - Loom
10. Lana Del Rey - Ultraviolence
11. Andy Stott - Faith in Strangers
12. Flying Lotus - You're Dead!
13. Mark Barrott - Sketches from an Island
14. Yumi Zouma - Yumi Zouma
15. Leon Vynehall - Music for the Uninvited
16. Sharon Van Etten - Are We There
17. Ana Caprix - For Seven Nights This Island Is Ours
18. Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness
19. DJ Dodger Stadium - Friend of Mine
20. Panda Bear - Mr Noah
21. Recycle Culture - Drown Me Up
22. Jessie Ware - Tough Love
23. Johnny Jewel - Rarities & Unreleased
24. Tinashe - Aquarius
25. Beverly - Careers
26. Mica Levi - Under the Skin
27. Alvvays - Alvvays
28. Sales - Sales
29. Viet Cong - Cassette
30. The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream
31. Vesuvio Solo - Favors
32. Schoolboy Q - Oxymoron
33. Mr Twin Sister - Mr Twin Sister
34. Korallreven - Second Comin'
35. You'll Never Get to Heaven - Adorn

xps It was just a timing issue. We've all been picking apart all these lists, and then one comes along that resembles something we'd actually make (at least in part) and there was cause for celebration. Then Mordy, then slothroprhymes' tongue-in-cheek reaction to Mordy, then lex...then I don't know. It's tough now to remember what I was thinking last night when this unfolded.

GvsB still reliably digs a little deeper than all the other big indie bloggers. Big props for capping it off with You'll Never Get to Heaven's Adorn, which is a wonderful little EP.

I'm actually quite surprised the Kelis album hasn't figured in more lists, even lurking around the 30s somewhere.

The Guardian continues the slow roll: http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/nov/26/-sp-the-best-albums-of-2014

8 Beck - Morning Phase
9 Flying Lotus - You're Dead
10 Sleaford Mods - Divide And Exit

Nothing too exciting though the FlyLo is growing on me. I was a fan of earlier ones, just hadn't been in the mood for a while. Beck and Sleaford Mods can suckit though.

I just remembered that it was the NPR list, not the Guardian's, that I thought was pretty good last year.

did Rival Dealer really come out this year...? Damn.

Anyway, Ariel Pink notwithstanding the GvsB isn't too bad.

there are evidently more profound consonances between ilm ideology and cosmo ideology, nevermind the apparent gender polarity

rival dealer was late last year but mighta missed some 2013 lists

wasn't it on the ilx list or am i imagining it?

maybe on both lists

deff on one at least

ah yes so it seems (74th for the title track and 30th on the album chart)

If they were sensible and did these charts at the end of the year, they wouldn't need to pick up these late 2013 releases in the first place.

p much any given publication has a lot more to lose from waiting until the end of the year to do all this crap than they do from possibly missing out on one or two releases

uh oh:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/50-best-songs-of-2014-20141203

No Depression - Top 10 albums:
http://nodepression.com/top-10-albums-list/2014-0

1. Sunny Sweeney - Provoked
2. Carolina Story - Chapter Two
3. Marcia Ball - The Tattooed Lady and the Alligator Man
4. Cowboy Jack Clement - For Once and For All
5. The Levon Helm Band - The Midnight Ramble Session 3
6. The Hayden Triplets - The Hayden Triplets
7. The Levon Helm Band - The Midnight Ramble Session 3
8. Paul Thorn - Too Blessed to Be Stressed
9. Justin Townes Earle - Single Mothers
10. Lee Ann Womack - The Way I'm Livin'

I like #7, #5 is shit

bout the same for me,

so far only one (1) point in the RS songs list favor - it includes 0 to 100

oh shit, that's just some dumb forum post xps

i thought it looked a bit low-key

xxxp to myself ok its actually not too terrible overall, certainly runs circles around the albums list

I'm tight with the Juno Plus list of best reissues. Also agreeing with their comment re Gigi Masin's Talk To The Sea

wasn’t just the best reissue project of the year – it was better than most albums of new music released in 2014

i posted this in the sleater kinney thread by mistake but:

Trapt - The Acoustic Collection is a real doozy from that AV Club least essential list

I'm tight with the Juno Plus list of best reissues. Also agreeing with their comment re Gigi Masin's Talk To The Sea

― doug watson

It's been sitting in my Bandcamp wishlist for a few months. Just ordered.

Listening to this now. Love it! Thanks for bringing it up.

I completely missed Masin's reissue this year! Awesome.

Complex - 30 best album covers of 2014
http://uk.complex.com/style/2014/12/the-best-album-covers-of-2014/

gtfo are they serious?

It's like "hmm, let's look through this pile of review copies...ok that one looks alright...this one too...do we have 30 yet?"

Even as I was disappointed by the Shabazz Palaces album I knew some people would consider it an "OMG future of hip hop" masterpiece. I hoped I'd be one of those people but it reminded me of Divine Styler's Spiral Walls… The best tracks were the ones closest to hip hop, the more supposedly far-out stuff just sounded blah.

AV Club's "Least Essential Albums of 2014" List
http://www.avclub.com/article/least-essential-albums-2014-212075
only one of these i listened to is the country tribute to motley crue and it is indeed utterly unnecessary

those covers! Every single one is so ugly, yet in so many different ways

Fabulous boomer earnestness in Rolling Stone's blurb for the Jackson Browne song: "Memories of youth in the Sixties, reflected through decades of lived truth."

Lived truth.

fucking wenner prob wrote that one himself, sobbing while he did so

those covers! Every single one is so ugly, yet in so many different ways

Some are alright, but it's clear they didn't really stress over finding things they didn't already know about.

lol @ the TRAPT album cover from the least essential list

Fabulous boomer earnestness in Rolling Stone's blurb for the Jackson Browne song: "Memories of youth in the Sixties, reflected through decades of lived truth."

Lived truth.

DON: Well, yeah.

yay i'm glad mark barrott's album has finally showed up on one of these even if it had to be gorilla vs fucking bear

rs songs list is not nearly as terrible as their albums list ("drunk in love" at #1 is cool) but i swear they have like 5 songs that were released as singles last year and had long since peaked

Shabazz Palaces album is awesome. not sure I've heard anything better than it this year

The Skinny (UK) have released their top 10. Runnerups 11-50 forthcoming.

1 - Warpaint: Warpaint
2 - The Twilight Sad: Nobody Wants To Be Here & Nobody Wants To Leave
3 - The War On Drugs: Lost in the Dream
4 - St. Vincent: St. Vincent
5 - Angel Olsen: Burn Your Fire for No Witness
6 - Mogwai: Rave Tapes
7 - FKA Twigs: LP1
8 - The Afghan Whigs: Do to the Beast
9 - The Phantom Band: Strange Friend
10 - Young Fathers: Dead

Angel Olson is great

I'm tight with the Juno Plus list of best reissues. Also agreeing with their comment re Gigi Masin's Talk To The Sea

wasn’t just the best reissue project of the year – it was better than most albums of new music released in 2014
― doug watson, Wednesday, December 3, 2014 11:17 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes. i posted on the balearic revival thread that it might be my favorite album of the year, at this point there's no doubt. i feel like it's gonna become an all-time favorite album for me.

From AV Club's Least Essential Albums list:

Least essential Christmas album, Internet-famous cat-egory:
Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever: Official Soundtrack

The idea of adult-contemporary singers and cutesy indie duos recording well-trodden Christmas standards is already an inessential addition to the world’s library of music. Doing that for the album accompaniment to a Lifetime movie that’s based on an Internet meme makes Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever: Official Soundtrack so ephemeral, physical copies may as well be shoved directly into the ground as a giant “fuck you” to the Earth.

I do kinda feel like once all of the music stores that exist mainly to sell CDs are gone, these will be among the only CDs that are mass produced, just to sell on the impulse rack at Wal Mart or whereever.

yeah there will always be a carousel for them at the drug store next to the one holding 30 $5 copies of Ecks vs. Sever and Sum of All Fears on dvd

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2014/12/03/best-of-2014-world-music/

world music top 10