Joe Stahl
“Pendulum” – FKA Twigs
Nick Twohig
“Digital Witness” – St. Vincent.
Intelligent, biting social commentary in an age of NSA scandals and reality television presented in a form so catchy that this song was probably stuck in your head before you even heard it.
Anna Marketti
“Make You Better” – The Decemberists
Becca DeGregorio
“Plain Speech” – Ava Luna
The perfect representation Ava Luna’s indecisive genre, “Plain Speech” throws a ton of musical elements out in the open, and, in my opinion all of them stick. Cowbell, growl singing, legato harmonies, breakdowns and recoveries from them make for a listen that’s satisfying in a confusing way. TIP: reccommend this to your weird music theory friends as test for humility. The time signature is, as my weird neighbor Tanner would say, “done goofed.”
Jack Wall
“High” – Freddie Gibbs and Danny Brown
Very personal reasons. On a whole, I feel that Pinata is some of Madlib’s cleverest production in recent memory, and the flow Gibbs and Brown drop burrowed into my brain like an ineradicable ear worm. But, more personally, a conversation about the track is how I met my current girlfriend. We met at a party, and the conversation quickly turned to hip hop. Before I knew it, we were debating Danny Brown’s merits as backpack rapper (how could you even make that claim at this point in his career?!). Then one thing led to another and we’ve been going steady for awhile. So, thanks Freddie. I owe you for that one.
Sydney Moyer
“Chandelier” – Sia
“Chandelier” was in no way my favorite track of the year, nor was Sia my favorite artist for the year. That said, I feel like the mantle that comes with the “Track of the Year” title is supposed to be indicative of something larger happening in pop culture at that particular moment in time- and if that’s my yardstick, “Chandelier” is my pick for sure. Too often, we see top 40 songs that are written and marketed with a veneer of perfection that in no way represents the reality of what’s going on in the world- we hear songs about perfect love and perfect opulence, sung from the mouths of perfect personas engineered to be likeable and escapist enough to actually make money in a trying economic time. Even mainstream songs about sadness are carefully constructed with an effervescent vaugeness- Sam Smith wants you to stay with him, Christina Aguilera wants you to say something before she gives up on you, Tyalor Swift is cynical about romance (and Starbucks?)- they’re songs about real problems, but not too real; sad, but not too sad. This is why “Chandelier,” a heartbreaking and personal narrative about alcoholism and mental health (from a faceless pop star, no less) was so important in 2014, a year where our cup of cultural problems and imperfections runneth over. “Chandelier” wasn’t faking it for the crowd, and that’s what made it great.