It sure felt like it was an awful good year in music this year. It's been interesting compiling this list after paying so much closer attention to new releases on a week to week basis: some of the albums released in the first quarter of the year feel like they came out a decade ago. Still, these selections have managed to stay at the forefront of my mind, and I fully expect to be reaching for these albums often in the years to come.
13) Tribes - Baby
I listened the hell out of this album at the beginning of the year. Old-school 90's Britpop with plenty of singalong choruses.
We Were Children
12) Of Monsters and Men - My Head is an Animal
I ended up listening to a ridiculously large number of indie folk bands this year, and Of Monsters and Men were by far the best.
Little Talks
11) Jukebox the Ghost - Safe Travels
This band needs to be bigger. Their song "Somebody" may get my vote for most fun song of the year. Like fun. they have a Queen fetish, but they also toss in some Ben Folds and Fountains of Wayne into the mix. Charmingly fun pop music.
Somebody
10) Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
I thought for sure this would be my favorite hip hop album of the year, and it was for most of it. Aggressive driving beats by El-P mesh well with Killer Mike's intense flow, which calls to mind an alternate history where Ice Cube grew up in Atlanta as part of the Dungeon Family.
Big Beast
9) Low Cut Connie - Call Me Sylvia
Music for drunks by drunks, this badass bar band quickly became the one I most want to see live.
Boozophilia
8) Bruno Mars - Unorthodox Jukebox
I really struggled with placing this album, since it just came out. This one surprised me quite a bit, even after I fell pretty hard for lead single "Locked Out of Heaven." I want to give the album some time, but it reminds me an awful lot of Bad-era Michael Jackson. Pop music will be better if this thing is all over the radio in the coming months.
Locked Out of Heaven
7) Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
Snottiness and loud guitars always make a good combo. All these tracks recall the 90's and are great, and at just over 33 minutes long, the album doesn't overstay its welcome.
Stay Useless
6) Fang Island - Major
Another guitar heavy album, this one doesn't quite have the aggression of Cloud Nothings, instead opting for packing an insane amount of guitar hooks into each and every one of their songs.
Make Me
Fang Island – Make Me
Sisterly
Never Understand
5) Japandroids - Celebration Rock
The final (and best) entry in the guitar-heavy trilogy part of this list, Japandroids managed to distill everything that's anthemic, exhilarating, and exciting about rock and roll into these to-the-rafters style rockers.
The House That Heaven Built
4) Twin Shadow - Confess
From start to finish, this album is chock full of great pop songs. There's definitely an 80's veneer over a lot of these songs, but what's wrong with that? Just about every one of these songs has been stuck in my head this past year.
Five Seconds
Twin Shadow – You Call Me On
Beg for the Night
3) Menzingers - On the Impossible Past
I absolutely love this album, and I'm a little surprised to learn that's not a universal feeling. The Menzingers were one of the first bands I discovered doing this weekly Spotify thing, and this album still sounds as good to me now as it did then. The band manages to rock, but more than anything, they capture that wistful Springsteen-ian vibe that makes for such a good summer nights album. "Gates" might be my favorite song of the year; it certainly was my most played.
Gates
2) Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, m.A.A.d City
What a singular talent this guy is. With apologies to Killer Mike, this is easily the best hip hop album this year. The beats are great, the subject matter intriguing, but more than anything, Kendrick is able to separate himself with the versatility of his flow, which is seemingly endless. I struggle to think of when the last time a better newcomer came into hip hop.
Also, thematically, the album manages the neat trick of simultaneously criticizing and glorifying hip hop culture. Nowhere is that more evident than in the ubiquitous single "Swimming Pools," which lyrically manages to illustrate in great detail the emptiness of alcohol abuse, all while sonically being one of the most badass songs to party and get drunk to.
Swimming Pools
Money Trees
1) Alt-J - An Awesome Wave
This is a fairly idiosyncratic pick, and probably not for everybody, but fuck it: it's my list; I'll do what I want. Fact of the matter is that once I started listening to this album I couldn't stop. It also gets credit in my book for being so unique as to defy genre classification. Also, the sounds on this album just sound cool to me. That might not lend itself to much analysis - I am at a loss for what makes the bass-heavy dub-steppy surge that comes charging into "Fitzpleasure" so enjoyable - but for me at least, it's undoubtedly true.
Breezeblocks
Honorable Mentions
These albums didn't make the cut, but I enjoyed them a lot as well:
Bob Mould - Silver Age
Electric Guest - Mondo
Kimbra - Vows
Kelly Hogan - I Like to Keep Myself in Pain
Ben Folds Five - The Sound of the Life of the Mind
Divine Fits - A Thing Called Divine Fits
Big Boi - Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors (need to spend more time with this before really judging)
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