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It’s that time of year again. Somewhere between bleeding out our wallets and forcing small talk over painfully nonalcoholic eggnog, we’re expected to reflect on twelve months quickly closing behind us. Reflecting is difficult. It’s impossible to look back on the year without seeing our own narrative harshly painted against a collective defeat. 2014 was a year of tragedy and discouragement, when so many of us looked to music to rationalize a much larger struggle. Or just distract us from it.
Auditory memory is a strange thing. We all have songs to equate with a first love, the euphoria of an open road or familiarity of home. We all know the power of a few gritty guitar chords, and their ability to strike the tune of a past self far better than any photograph or journal entry. As music fans, we all know this. But that doesn’t explain what got us to listen in the first place.
The question may not be what got us to listen, but what kept us listening. What moves us to return to the same three minute melody until it promises the nostalgia as the songs we keep to memory? What impels us to endlessly loop an album until it becomes our own? The answer here is unclear, but this much is certain: we must not forget the reason we pressed play.
Our list of the year’s top albums were attained through complex mathematics, intense philosophical debate and two large pizzas. As a group of dedicated music fans, the process of choosing our favorite albums was our own way of picking through a year of triumphs and shortcomings, mutual tragedy and personal grief. This list allowed us to reflect the bright spots of 2014, to relive the moments we often cut short to rush towards something insignificantly new. As a group of music fans, we’d like to thank you for letting us share our favorites, and give you a reason to press play.
- Mo Kelly
Allston Pudding Staff
* = Local
25. Benji - Sun Kil Moon
2014 was a busy year for Mark Kozelek. Between telling hillbillies to “shut the fuck up” and telling The War On Drugs to “suck his cock”, you may have forgotten that his current project Sun Kil Moon released one of this year’s best albums. Unfortunately Mark’s “controversies” struck the wrong chord with some listeners who didn’t give Benji a fair chance. Leaving his shenanigans aside, Benji is filled with beautiful finger picked melodies and heartbreaking lyrics. Mark writes as literal as he possibly can be as he deals with heavy topics like death, nostalgia, and banality of life. Oh, and Panera Bread. Benji might secretly be a commercial for Panera Bread.
- Joe Sansone
24. After the End - Merchandise
I never really cared for The Smiths. Maybe I missed that window where they would've stuck, but that's where Merchandise comes in. After The End captures that lonesomeness in every brilliant and glittering song. As a band, they've always been consistently good, but this album just came off as a spark; as if everything they’d done before was a foundation for this masterpiece. After The End accompanied me on so many walks around the city. Recently, I experienced a close death for the first time, and did a lot of thinking along to this album. It broods and coos loneliness, but it offers a warm solace if you listen to every facet. Merchandise really outdid themselves with this one.
- Seth Garcia
23. Never Hungover Again - Joyce Manor
Seeing as this is about Joyce Manor, I’ll keep it as concise as possible: every time I listen to this 19-minute album I feel an undeniable urge to leap off of the nearest elevated structure onto a crowd of people, whether they know it’s coming or not. It’s not what Barry Johnson and Co. were going for, but it’s exactly what they gave us.
- Mark Zurlo
22. Salad Days - Mac Demarco
Mac DeMarco’s second album sticks to a digital age music career trajectory norm: musician gets a taste of fame, then musician gets tired, uninspired, and a bit ambivalent. But the most gripping part of what the 23-year-old achieved on his follow-up is how he lets it unfold in his songwriting. He showcases a generational maturity packaged as something comfortably grim (“Salad Days“), experienced (“Let Her Go”), and casually vulnerable (“Let My Baby Stay”). You even hear the “whatever, dude” slacker we once knew DeMarco as on his debut, give some advice on “Brother." ‘Salad Days’ is a hard album to wear out. And everyone loves an underdog.
- Joe Stahl
21. Atlas - Real Estate
Commercial Real Estate serves the benefit of beach bums and waterfront property addicts alike. If you love it, you crave it. If you hate it, you’re a nark. I mean human! I mean human with opinions differing from my own! I mean human with opinions differing from my own, which are completely validated through the universal principle of free will! Beach pop is not an obligation! It’s a choice! With that said, a third album-length helping of the same genre can only be pulled off by the cleanest of the clean, and 2014’s unveiling of Atlas from under its sandy plastic bucket proved Real Estate’s worthy fit into that mold. Almost like an extension of the group’s sophomore album Days, Atlas is guitar-centric and light in sound but also matured in topics addressed. Lyrics throughout all ten tracks shift the band’s setting of pool parties to morning-after cleanups. It’s not a pivot but an evolution for the Jersey boy beach-pop machine, complete with the sounds that made us love Real Estate in the first place.
- Becca Degregorio
20. Our Love - Caribou
My enjoyment of Caribou goes back to when Dan Snaith operated under the “Manitoba” moniker. Whereas in those days it was a beautiful erratic ambience, he has lately nestled into the genre of looping samples of half-words over drum machines and bassy synths. Our Love comes off like a slightly more abrasive Washed Out or a toned down Les Sins. The first two tracks are a one-two of 1) what you expect and want from indie electro-pop in 2014 and then 2) slow, druggy, genius. The rest of this relatively short album is splitting the difference. While unbridled creativity isn't painting this album the way one might say about Snaith's earlier work, and it doesn't have the funk aspect of last album Swim, in simplicity there is greatness. This album seems less an attempt to keep up with modern pop than it does just a framework to create inside. Caribou is using popular dance and top 40 R&B sounds as a launchpad of “sure, I can do that, but let's make it interesting."
- Nick Canton
19. Vacation Vinny - Grass is Green*
Around late December last year, people were already discussing and listing what albums they were looking forward to in the upcoming year. Vacation Vinny is the first album that came out this year that truly lived up to its hype. Grass is Green masterfully disguises some pretty technical compositions as seemingly sloppy jams. Songs like Big Dog Tee Shirt Birthday Weekend and B-Kind deliver angst through dissonant chords and head-bobbing grooves. But Vacation Vinny truly shines with its heavier, energetic tracks like Disjoint and Tambo. On a serious note though, this album may make you puke rainbows.
- Joe Sansone
18. St. Vincent - St. Vincent
While much of the mainstream is filled with recycled song-craft and promotional packaging that seems to tacitly approve of outdated gender roles within music, St. Vincent doesn't so much take chances as much as she just seems to completely toss popular convention. Her self-titled, fourth album is no exception. St. Vincent finds Annie Clark at the height of her talents. An intelligent blend of undeniable hooks and other-worldly riffs and textures, this is an album that manages both subtle introspection and sweeping social commentary. Tracks like "Birth in Reverse" and "Digital Witness", while eminently sing-able, are also bold cultural indictments. And that’s not only artistically valuable – It’s important.
- Nick Twohig
17. Boston, MA - Free Pizza*
Free Pizza’s “Boston, MA” epitomizes 2014 like no other album. Its plucky, goofy party moments are quickly followed by honest choruses about homesickness and confusion, creating a record that touches upon the duality we all experience in daily life. It’s an about dancing to your friend’s upbeat songs while your heart is breaking and loving the people and places you see every day but feeling that something is missing. Free Pizza has been a staple of the Boston music community more so this year than ever, and its with a heavy heart that we see them move away, but their time and influence here will always be immortalized by their classic title track and our memories of time spent with them. Free Pizza taught me the value in laughing when you feel like crying. They will be missed.
- Sami Martasian
16. Tesseract - Warehouse
I instantly liked Elaine Edenfield when I saw her at Great Scott last July. This was long before she got on stage, when I’d spotted her watching Free Pizza near the venue’s historically orange water cooler. She seemed relaxed and friendly. And she was wearing a great pair of pants.
I continued to like Elaine Edenfield when she got on stage with Warehouse, a five-piece group of Atlanta rockers whose sound is equal parts punk as it is Pretenders and the toe-tapping twitchiness of new wave. I grew to love this album over the course of a few days. Elaine’s voice is womanly and weird, even weirder when mixed with irregular chord changes, precarious signatures and one constantly elusive bassline. Tesseract makes for something eccentrically sinister, the kind of music that makes you feel like a punk in Molly Ringwald’s clothing.
- Mo Kelly
15. Dark Arc - Saintseneca
Saintseneca knows how to distinguish themselves beyond Zac Little's praise-worthy mustache -- which in itself should get them a 'stache shaped medal. This record sucks you into that semi-dark place of not quite sadness but also pounds like a rabbit in heat at just the right moments. It also just might be the most expertly layered record I've heard since James Blake's Overgrown, but when you see them live, you realize that all of those layers are real and ready to resonate. This is the record that Mumford and Sons think they're making.
- Marc Finn
14. Hoodwink'd - LVL UP
This record is like a terrible fungal infection–it keeps growing on me and I can’t get rid of it.
Unlike that infection though, I haven’t tried very hard to get rid of Hoodwink’d, At first it lures you in with a few very catchy, compact pop songs (“Annie’s A Witch” and “Hex”, to be specific). It’s those songs that bring you back for a second, third, forth, and fifth listen. And then after that fifth listen, the album’s more subtly catchy and undeniably witty tracks start to break through – and once that happens, there’s no medicine or topical cream that will get this record out your head.
- Mark Zurlo
13. Gist Is - Adult Jazz
Adult Jazz's debut came at a time when I thought freak-folk was on the decline. But Gist Is is more than just another album in that hard-to-define genre. In just nine songs, Adult Jazz expresses an endless spectrum of emotions while turning each on its own head. They managed to weave magic into every last nook. Their ever-changing melody lines are subtly catchy, and once they had found a way into my brain, I couldn't let them out. I've been bopping my head to these alien sounds since the album was released.
My favorite albums are ones I can listen to again and again, and still find something surprising. Gist Is is one of those albums.
- Seth Garcia
12. Burn Your Fire for No Witness - Angel Olsen
If you managed to snake your way through 2014 without this album, you have my condolences. Burn Your Fire for No Witness is Olsen's latest release and a charmingly cold collection of tracks reflecting on and embracing loneliness. Olsen confronts loss with an matter-of-fact attitude that asks, "Are you lonely too?" and retorts with a hi-five. After plodding through memories of transient characters from the heartbroken to the breaker. Her ability to detach and rise above concludes with the salty-eyed closer, "Windows" (only made stronger by her latest music video directed by Rick Alverson), where it all changes. "It's like reaching a wall with something," Olsen explains, "and the step before you're just about to give up is…'c'mon, man! Stop being so negative and open a window!' Life is hard, but every day, we have to make even a little bit of sunlight matter.
- Jeeyoon Kim
11. Mr. Twin Sister - Mr. Twin Sister
Twin Sister has fled from the bedroom to the discotheque, and they’ve adopted a new name in the process. While the lineup is still the same, they’ve since rebranded to Mr Twin Sister, and Mr Twin Sister is like the cooler sibling that was born seven minutes earlier and prefers nights out. While the twilit themes on the album point to a sense of escapism of both space and time, Andrea Estella remains grounded against a backdrop of lush sounds (including a wonderfully delicate Kool & The Gang sample on “Rude Boy”). It’s a triumphant product for a band on their second debut. Make no mistake, Mr Twin Sister’s eponymous effort signaled something new, wiser, and more full. We’ve come a long way since “chillwave.”
- Andrew Stanko
10. A Portrait of Dissonance as a Young Man - Rye Pines*
The listener doesn't get much of a breather in Rye Pines' A Portrait of Dissonance as a Young Man. Every quiet moment on the record is just prelude to a blistering chorus. The lyrics are no less blistering, yet singer Edward Maguire's wounds are self-inflected. Take the opening line of "Good Health": "Yea, It's hard work knowing your worth / Well I got mine, it's the price of the dirt."
The rueful nature and the vocal inclinations remind at times of Modest Mouse and meWithoutYou, but the Boston duo carved out a unique space for themselves. They are at times heavier, and more full of rage than those two bands.
The full length debut is a sign of great things to come -- and fortunately we won't have to wait for long, as an EP is due out early next year.
- Jeremy Stanley
9. Rips - Ex Hex
It’s a shame this album didn’t birth itself before I ditched my hairbrush for a 13-year-old boy haircut because Rips is the true embodiment of bedroom daydreamed “’Rockstar’ is my ‘Plan B,’” behavior. Hopefully the number of rambling words in that sentence just serves as further indication.
All twelve tracks present chord progressions so infectious the idea of a “favorite track” can go out the window upon first listen. But don’t worry. That lawn-curated pile of your ex-boyfriend’s stuff will cushion the fall.
Rips. It’s powerhouse, estrogen-y, fun, and well worth that Oxford Comma six words back.
- Becca Degregorio
8. LP1 - FKA Twigs
R&B curio FKA twigs, aka Tahliah Barnett, was one of the most pleasant success stories of this year, bringing an unexpected and incredibly intelligent sound into the mainstream consciousness. Her debut album, LP1, sees the singer’s ethereal voice paired with a host of stoned-out post-dubstep beats to marvelous effect. Barnett’s vocals offer a charming and intriguing mix of assuredness and vulnerability that meshes well with the stripped down, introspective sonics, recalling the early work of both The Weeknd and James Blake. The album feels constantly fresh, though, taking listeners on a wonky, often unsettling trip through an illustratively off-kilter headspace. With this album, Barnett has carved out a definitive space in the synth-R&B movement that’s so popular at the moment- there’s simply no one quite like her.
- George Greenstreet
7. Bury Me at Makeout Creek - Mitski
Like its title acting as an homage to a Simpsons quotation, Mitksi's Bury Me At Makeout Creek is imbued with nostalgia. Take "Townie," for example, which recalls a high school party and the conjured image of a "love that falls as fast as a body from a balcony."
There is beauty in the album's nuances: the swelling chorus on "Carry Me Out," for instance, and the close of the searing "Drunk Walk Home," which features a crash of noise that reveals itself to be, among a haze of distortion, Mitski yelling upon repeat listens.
The heart of the album is Mitski's songwriting, though, which is deeply personal and genuine. When you strip the production and the instrumentation away, as Mitski did when she played a house show in Oak Square recently, the songs stand on their own just as well. And that's the hallmark of a truly great album.
- Jeremy Stanley
6. N.A.P. - Juan Wauters
When Juan Wauters broke apart from garage-folk act The Beets, it was unclear where his solo route would lead him. Fortunately, his debut album, N.A.P. North American Poetry, showed him walking forward with a full heart and doe-eyed wonder. His acoustic numbers are strongest when bare, as if Wauters is sitting on his back porch, mumbling words from memory that slip through the floor's cracks to let passerbys join him in contemplation. There's an innocence at the album's core that will draw you in the moment you lower your walls. How could you not when Wauters is there, ready to give you a hug?
- Nina Corcoran
5. Alvvays - Alvvays
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure to have a conversation with Nils Edenloff, frontman of The Rural Alberta Advantage, a band that I've followed and respected for years. During this conversation, he mentioned Alvvays' new album as something's he's loved coming out of his home base of Toronto. And after listening to it myself, I have to agree with him.
On the surface, Alvvays feels like a basic amalgamation of feel-good, summer romance, twee, indie pop bands like Best Coast and Tennis. While there is nothing wrong with that, it makes it a little easier to dismiss for people unwilling to give it anything more than one listen. But, when you delve a little deeper, on the second or third listen, you start to pick up the heartbreaking details the band quietly but effectively puts down on this record.
-Reggie Woo
4. Torch Song - Radiator Hospital
You probably remember the first moment you fell in love with someone who didn’t love you back. You kept at it, letting your heart string down to their level, but they never took it. This is exactly what Torch Song feels like, but bludgeoned to death into a bloody pulp. Your bloody heart can’t beat anymore, because it worked too hard to keep this pointless relationship afloat. Sam Cook-Parrott captures the deepest of these emotions: heart break, falling in love, fucking everything up entirely, but with Torch Song, he makes you want to scream all these thoughts loudly and honestly. With more punch than Radiator Hospital’s debut Something Wild, this is an album for heartbroken punks looking to move on.
- Christine Varriale
3. RTJ2 - Run the Jewels
Sometimes the right artist makes the right album at the right time. This year, it was hip-hop journeymen Killer Mike and El-P who led the charge, and neither of them have time for your shit. This album, the second from the pulverizing team-up that is Run the Jewels, is brash and bombastic; songs are thrown at you like a flurry of punches that leave you little time to regain your balance before the next one. Speaking of punches, neither member is pulling them. Politicians, private prisons, and police all bear the brunt of a brutal cross-examination where we all play the part of the courtroom crowd. Their brand of subversive rap is one that each of them has independently charted out for years, but when their voices coalesced this fall, their timing was poignant – all this time making music and nothing had changed. While their mix of verbal flexing and humor would have resonated on its own, Run the Jewels have turned into a banner-bearing force, and we’re better for it.
- Andrew Stanko
2. Zentropy - Frankie Cosmos
You probably wouldn’t label Greta Kline a powerhouse, but you should.
From EPs as Ingrid Superstar, to work as simply Ingrid, to her evolution into Frankie Cosmos in this remarkable collaboration with Porches’ Aaron Maine, Zentropy is the pinnacle of Kline’s work as a songwriter. That is, for now at least.
In just a few years Kline has cranked out more tunes than some musicians do in a lifetime. These songs in particular stem from a very special place, one enchanted by young love, clever observation, and the slightest trace of melancholy. It’s hinted sadness that makes this album as touching as it is infectious, from the wide-eyed wonder of “Art School” to the pet-inspired grievances of “Sad 2.”
The self-consciousness of Greta’s work is adorable and significant, and can’t help but perfectly contrast the gangling directness of someone certain of their passion and maybe little else in the world. As a self-proclaimed child-adult to generation "eh," this is truly music to my ears.
- Mo Kelly
1. More Than Any Other Day - Ought
Listening to Ought’s More Than and Other Day for the first time feels like a live improvised musical experiment. Equal parts chaotic and blissful, punk and progressive rock, the up-tempo and syncopated beats toy with your imagination and leave you speechless in your efforts to pinpoint all the eclectic influences that must have shaped the musical DNA of the quintet from Vancouver. Most importantly though, its lead singer/guitarists Tim Beeler’s stream-of-consciousness spoken word lyricism that dramatizes and elevates the band’s debut record into something not only worth listening to, but one 2014’s best LP’s.
- Andy Sears