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much of the mainstream is filled with recycled song-craft and promotional packaging that seems to tacitly approve of outdated gender roles within music, St. Vincent doesn’t so much take chances as much as she just seems to completely toss popular convention.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