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TOP 25 MIXTAPES OF 2014

by John O'Brien, Malcolm Baum, and Elijah Fosl 01/01/2015

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Zuse - Bullet

This tape could be classified as dancehall trap, has ATL influences, and features Young Thug and Trae Tha Truth. Need I say more?

-Malcolm

Doughboyz Cashout - We Run the City Vol. 4

Though they remain a bit more lowkey than other, more successful Detroit rappers, DBCO are putting out music of the same quality. We Run the City 4 feels removed from its era; the Pen and Pixel-style artwork paired with the 90s underground sounding beats give the tape an old-school feeling, but something about the rappers’ charismas feels more modern than anything. Clocking in at around 75 minutes, the mixtape might be a bit more than most casual listeners are willing to chew on, but for any patient fan of Detroit rap, this is a real treat.

-John

Ethereal - Blackli$t

2014 was a big year for Awful Records, and if Father is the leader, then Ethereal is second in command. Blackli$t is smooth, understated mixtape with a heavy jazz rap influence. If you miss Guru (rip) and want to hear something similar, download this.

-Malcolm

Migos - No Label II

No Label II was, at the time, the most complete Migos mixtape. Offset’s absence on YRN held that tape back from being their defining work, and their previous tapes lacked the triplet delivery now known as the “Migos flow.” This mixtape boasts two of Migos’ biggest hits to date: Handsome and Wealthy and Fight Night. Both of those songs are guaranteed to tear up any club, with the rest of the tape following close behind. Migos have a ridiculous amount of potential, and any fan of rap music should be beating themselves up for every Migos tape they’ve slept on.

-John

Junglepussy - Satisfaction Guaranteed

Looking for some modern NY hiphop with dominant flows that doesn't suck? Look no further, Junglepussy is your girl. Is NY hiphop making a comeback anytime soon? No. Is this shit hot? Yep.

-Malcolm

Elephant Eats the Profits - Meme Cemetery

With Meme Cemetery, Elephant Eats the Profits ascends from Joke Rapper (albeit one of the better ones out) to Mostly Serious Rap Artist. While still maintaining a good sense of humor that will probably never leave, EETP tackles his own depression on most songs here, and their effect is surprisingly more potent given that the lines are frequently juxtaposed against punchlines. The punchlines themselves rank among some of the best I’ve heard, but Meme Cemetery ain’t no joke (despite the title).

-John

THE LIST:

25.) RahnRahn Splash & Chubb Splash - Flexxin.com

Hailing from Las Vegas, RahnRahn Splash and Chubb Splash deliver one of the most underappreciated mixtapes of the year, mostly due to its absolute obscurity. Their circumstances are odd, seeing as they’re two dudes from Vegas making what is essentially a bop mixtape. Bop, a style of very sugary and melodic trap, is very much a regional trend contained within Chicago (though some claim Soulja Boy helped start the style with the track Zan With That Lean). Regardless of their locational circumstances RahnRahn and Chubb mostly succeed, delivering catchy track after catchy track. Odes to Polo, emojis (pronounced as “e-MO-jes”), and general consumerism clutter the tape, with the last few tracks coming through with some extremely fucked mixing and a beat ripped straight from Youtube, reminding us that RahnRhan and Chubb Splash are still young and haven’t truly come into their own yet. Who can blame them? They’re just flexing.

-John

24.) Lil Durk - Signed to the Streets 2

Lil Durk has been through rough times leading up to this release and it shows in the music he makes. While the original Signed To The Streets is a celebration this feels more like a wake. Even in its most chipper moments Durk still sounds disconnected from the moment, not to say that this tape tries to be upbeat most of the time because it doesn't. This is the most politically and socially aware Durk has been throughout an entire tape by a longshot. He's bitter, paranoid, and flat out angry. This tape is not for the light hearted because Durk is heavy hearted over the loss of his cousin and fellow rapper OTF Nunu, something he rarely addresses on the tape, but is the somber undertone of it. RIP OTF Nunu.

-Malcolm

23.) Montana of 300 - Cursed With a Blessing

While not as vicious as some of his previous singles would have you believe, Cursed With A Blessing is a potent and powerful mixtape. Montana of 300 is one of the most promising rappers out of Chicago right now, whose claim to fame was previously his Chiraq Remix (which holds some of the most powerful bars of the decade, I might add), and Cursed With A Blessing showcases a surprising amount of versatility, with just as many club bangers as hard-as-hell tracks. Ice Cream Truck, one of the bigger singles off of this tape, does a fair job representing both sides, with some murderous lyrics but a catchy hook and a hard ass beat backing the whole operation. The track that rises above them all, however, is Holy Ghost. This song sets Montana’s standards at an all-time high, with some of the rawest lyrics spit by any rapper I’ve ever listened to. “Boy, Jesus couldn’t save himself and you think he gone save you?” is almost unspeakably vicious. Montana is absolutely bloodthirsty for this entire song, spitting straight bars for 6 minutes. Cursed With A Blessing is the beginning of a hopefully long and prosperous career for one of Chicago’s new talents.

-John

22.) Young L - MVP

Young L is best known in the rap world as a member of The Pack, a group where him & internet icon, Lil B, got their start in the late 2000s. Since then, Young L has built up his famous streetwear brand Pink Dolphin and lowkey releasing quality mixtapes. Having already made it in world of fashion he’s experimenting with his music, seeing what can come of it. On this tape, he shows that he’s first and foremost, a great producer. Some of his earlier beats had that blip style production that influenced current west coast all stars such as Dj Mustard and IAMSU. Don’t go in expecting this type of production, because its nothing like that at all. It’s more of a mix of 2011 AraabMuuzik and Clams Casino with some autotune vocal peppered in the cut. The vocals on this tape aren’t really the focus, there are 3 songs on this 33 minute tape that don’t have any vocals at all. The tracks don’t sound “samey” by any means, the tape goes for a certain sound and goes with it all the way, making it cohesive, which is a rare quality in mixtapes. This album is strange and doesn’t really fit in any niche in hip-hop. Peep this if you’re looking for something different.

-Malcolm

21.) Tink - Winter's Diary 2

With a promising future ahead of her Winters Diary 2 looks to be a footnote in Tink's career, but it's a fantastic one. 2015 seems to be Tink's for the taking, with her being Timbaland's prodigy (a la Aaliyah), and her ability to sing as well as she raps, all of these factors make her career look like a recipe for success. While Tink got recognized for drill rap, this tape takes a softer tone with compassionate r&b being the focus. Her lyrics are tender, compassionate, and occasionally filled with anguish. She seems to be singing from the perspective of a caring and supportive girlfriend who's man may or may not be loyal. This is brought out well in the song Talk About featuring Lil Herb where Tink and Herb go back and forth talking about their hypothetical failing relationship like their imessaging each other. Tink's versitality brings out her strengths rather than exposing weakness in ablilty. Future looks bright for her, so get up on this tape to see the rise of one of the most refreshing r&b acts out.

-Malcolm

20.) Yung Gleesh - Cleansides Finest 3

Everybody loves a good supervillian, Heath Ledger got widespread recognition for his role as the Joker in that Batman movie, but there's not a lot of love for shitbags. Yung Gleesh is shitbag, a self proclaimed shitbag nonetheless. Doesn't matter if he's serving your daughter PCP or taking girls out to shitty dinner dates at shady Japanese restaurants, he's got sinister intentions and he's gonna smile once he gets his way. That 'shitbag' charm is plastered all over the tape along with harder than life beats, and I gotta say it's a nice combo. Another trick Gleesh has up his sleeve is his unique voice and flow, it almost sounds like he's sticking his tounge out while raps. It almost sounds like he's sticking his tongue out at you throughout the tape anyways because he's doing bad shit and having fun while you're not. Gleesh is someone to look out for in upcoming years, his talent and goofiness is undeniable.

-Malcolm

19.) Bones - Garbage

Los Angeles rapper Bones is one of the more interesting up-and-coming rappers who has gotten big through the internet, for better or for worse. Coming off of his often cringeworthy TeenWitchmixtape, my hopes weren’t high for Garbage, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Bones has really come into his own as far as his aesthetic is concerned. Usually, his tapes come off as extremely hit-or-miss, but the first track, “ReturnOfThePimp,” shows that he’s really not fucking around this time. The tape is full of dark, atmospheric tracks, but what really sets this apart from his other tapes is that everything fits. Every time Bones chooses to sing (or even scream, as he does on “IfYouHadAZuneIHateYou” and “HeartagramAdios”), it feels warranted and contributes to the overall feel of the tape. Sure, there are duds as far as the rapping is concerned (the first verse of “Butterfly “comes to mind), but overall this is a surprisingly strong tape rom a rapper with a lot of potential. Hopefully he doesn’t waste it pandering to the internet’s emotionally unstable sadboy population.

-John (previously seen on Smash Cut)

18.) Elephant Eats the Profits - Profit Prophet

Charismatic and uncompromisingly goofy, Elephant Eats the Profits delivers one of the most fun tapes of the year. Contrasting with his often serious and contemplative (yet still comedic, in true EETP fashion) Meme Cemetery mixtape from earlier in the year, Profit Prophet is largely a fun and entertaining work. The whole tape evokes a summer feeling, a fitting mood seeing as the tracks Fashion Killer and Ur Boo were featured on the ToastyCo Summer ‘14 Mixtape. This mixtape proves Elephant Eats the Profits to hold an incredible amount of potential. Keep up with what he does next.

-John

17.) Gucci Mane - Brick Factory Vol. 1

Gucci released a shitton of music this year and most of it is thanks to his engineer who copied and pasted his verses onto hot trap beats. It wasn't the best formula to make great music but rather a method to stay relevant. This is the best out of the tapes he released this year thanks to features and catchy hooks. It even features an emotional posse cut entitled Homeboys. If you like Gucci bit don't where to start in terms of this year, download this.

-Malcolm

16.) Gangsta Boo & Beatking - Underground Cassette Tape Music

Gangsta Boo and Beatking have blessed us with a wonderfully raw and club-worthy mixtape. Underground Cassette Tape Music revels in its southern glory; "Club God" Beatking and Three Six Mafia member Gangsta Boo are two powerful forces of Houston and Memphis rap respectively. Beatking quotes the famous Kermit Sipping Tea meme in an interlude here, firing some low-key shots at anyone not from Houston using a chopped and screwed hook and anyone not from Memphis using the triplet flow. Loud, proud, and in control, Underground Cassette Tape Music is not to be passed up if you’re a fan of southern or just fucking grimy rap.

-John

15.) Various Artists - We Invented the Bop 2

Bop is just another example of Chicago continuing to be musically innovative with its pioneering of genres. What is Bop though, right? Well, it's high energy, autotune drenched rap you can dance to. It's a new scene that's just getting it's sea legs. There aren't many full length Bop projects yet, maybe about 10 or so, including this compilation of Chicago bop artists. Many drill artists, like Lil Durk, Chief Keef, and Ballout have done bop songs and a couple of rappers on this comp are drill rappers themeselves. This tape has a lot to offer stylistically, ranging from the likes of near PC Music or classic r&b. We Invented The Bop 2 is a celebration of a fairly new genre that's sincere and enjoyable. Listen to this if you enjoy dancing or having fun.

-Malcolm

14.) iLoveMakonnen - Drink More Water 4

iLoveMakonnen’s career has been one of the strangest in recent rap history. His comeup was very much a situation of a man being in the right place at the right time. Most early Makonnen was lo-fi and self-produced, but as many Atlanta producers were running out of big names they could produce for, Makonnen began getting beats from the likes of Sonny Digital and Metro Boomin. Drink More Water 4 marks the beginning of Makonnen’s rise into the mainstream, predating hits like Tuesday and I Don’t Sell Molly No More but maintaining a similar aesthetic. Tracks like Maneuvering and Man of the Party (both produced by Metro Boomin) have just as much hit potential as the aforementioned singles, but the Makonnen-produced I Mix My calls back to the rapper’s roots, with it’s lo-fi bedroom R&B sound. Drink More Water 4 is very much a transitional mixtape, but Makonnen maintains his personality and demonstrates himself to be wonderfully endearing and endlessly entertaining.

-John

13.) Lil B - Ultimate Bitch

For the most part, Ultimate Bitch is just Lil B being Lil B, but in a more refined sense than what most expected. Many rap fans tend to view Lil B as an artist who can churn out about one or two entertaining songs per tape, but if those people were paying attention, they’d realize that B has been putting out consistent tape after consistent tape. Ultimate Bitch displays everything you could ask for from Lil B, with the surprisingly lyrical introduction, the emotional and beautiful No Black Person Is Ugly (a contender for the best rap song of the year, by the way), the absolute banger Rent Due, and everything in between.

-John

12.) Future - Monster

A lot has happened between Honest and Monster, and of course these things have impacted Future’s music. The most obvious of these changes is Ciara leaving Future when they were engaged to be married, and this seems to be an underlying theme through the mixtape, because none of these songs sounds like they were made by a man in a long term relationship, unlike some of the standout tracks on Honest. Coming into the tape, I was wary because of a song released by Wiz Khalifa and Future called ‘Pussy Overrated’; it was a salty, uninspired, and boring song that two guys on the bad end of a break up put together, and I feared Monster would follow suit. It doesn’t, thankfully. It’s a pretty good, well rounded mixtape that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Metro Boomin (executive producer of the tape) and associates put in major work on the beats which all have a melodic feel to them, whether they be slappers or syrupy slow. Future is kind on his 2011-2012 style which some older fans missed on Honest. Yes, this tape does have a thin veil of saltyness, but Future can pull it off and he comes out looking like a champ.

-Malcolm

11.) Jaden Smith - Cool Tape Vol 2

Despite being young and the butt of many jokes, Jaden Smith shows an immense amount of potential with this tape. Within these 8 songs, Jaden expresses himself ambitiously and unapologetically. He vocalizes the fleeting and yet devastating nature of young love without a drop of irony and somehow manages to pull it off completely (sometimes for 10 minutes, no less). He goes over complete bangers, abstract and weird beats, and standard hip hop instrumentals with equal amounts of skill. Jaden Smith is the fucking man.

-John

10.) Father - Young Hot Ebony

The most redeeming quality of this tape and Father's music in general is that he's really fucking cool. He's the leader of this oddball undergroundish Atlanta scene and the founder of Awful Records which is the cornerstone of said scene. Young Hot Ebony is smart, sharp-tounged, lazy, and charming. It's packed with unique flows and production, both of which are provided by Father himself. It's short, sweet, and witty, which is everything you could look for in a mixtape. Father's skills as a producer is underrated; his beats sound original and avoid being too experimental and isolating. Big things are ahead for Father and Awful Records.

-Malcolm

9.) Dej Loaf - $ell Sole

Dej Loaf is really out here making a name for female rappers AND Detroit rappers, two underrepresented groups in rap today. Women have always been excluded from most rap circles regardless of how successful certain female rappers have been, and Detroit has been extremely slept on as of late. Despite these limiting factors, Dej Loaf manages to pull together one of the strongest tapes of the year, proving that there’s more to the rapper than Try Me. A great ear for beats and an assortment of great hooks and verses land Sell Sole a well-deserved spot on the year end lists of anyone who knows their shit.

-John

8.) Lil Herb - Welcome to Fazoland

In 2012 when Drill burst onto the scene as a fresh new genre there was a search for a "lyrical" rapper in the drill scene by the internet, like somehow it would legitimize the genre. King Louie was force fed that role, but it honestly didn't suit him. Lil Herb has kind of stepped into that role with his collabs with Common and Chance The Rapper. He has gotten a lot of buzz because of this. Fazoland is more than just internet buzz and hyper masculinity, Herb's emotions run deep through this tape making it almost like a diary full of highs, lows, and concern for the future. He comes off as jaded even when he brags and maybe because that he feels he is a product of his environment. He takes a step back more than occasionally to reflect on this, "my city fucked up" is the undercurrent of this tape.

-Malcolm

7.) A$AP Ferg - Ferg Forever

Like many great releases this year, the newest mixtape from Harlem rapper A$AP Ferg came out of nowhere, and it didn’t do so silently. Compared to his 2013 album, “Trap Lord,” “Ferg Forever” is sickeningly heavy, stylistically expansive and aggressively bizarre. The tape has a cornucopia of collaborators, with Big K.R.I.T. providing some classically southern bass beats, Clams Casino making an appearance with a characteristical Björk sample, and relentlessly heavy guest verses from the likes of Twista, MIA, and YG. On the surface, the mixtape provides some of the wildest, heaviest rap singles of 2014 (which is certainly saying something). “Doe-Active” and “Dope Walk” are a subwoofer scooby snacks that display a side of Ferg more absurd and hyperactive than ever before. “Dope Walk” climaxes in a 10-second scream that deteriorates into a groan reminiscent of Old Dirty Bastard. But while while the highest-intensity moments of the record draw obvious comparison to the likes of ODB and Danny Brown, Ferg also follows in Brown’s footsteps by delving into some of his most personal lyricism to date. “Uncle,” sees Ferg dipping his fingers into his family history and beats to the same drum as something off of the Marshall Mathers LP, while “Talk It” is a courageously bleak statement on existing as a black man in white supremacist America. Its release as a mixtape and its sporadic ups and downs show that Ferg is still figuring some things out with his style, but “Ferg Forever” is an expansive work. Its vibrantly absurdist, visceral, and personal approach makes it one of the most interesting rap releases of the year, while still having enough sonic punch to blow out one of the speakers in my car.

-Elijah

6.) Migos - Rich Nigga Timeline

Migos’ newest tape begins with the track Cross the Country, which is essentially the group’s master’s thesis. With one verse per member, each member brings their absolute best to the table, showing that Migos are truly one of the best groups out right now. The rest of the tape does not disappoint, with each song packing as much of a punch as the last. Complete with that Zaytoven-produced fire, infectious lyrics, and the occasional emotional banger, RNT shows Migos shining from all angles and proves that they aren’t going anywhere any time soon. It's rare for three rappers to have as much chemistry as this, but here they are, and they should be celebrated.

-John

5.) Lil Boosie - Life After Deathrow

First thing you should know about this mixtape is that it requires a bit of obvious context. For those who don’t know, Lil Boosie was facing a life sentence back in 2010, but he gradually was admitted for drug charges and acquitted for the murder. Boosie’s music has always been about struggle and personal demons and some years in prison can give you a lot of time to think about shit. On Life After Deathrow, you can tell he has been mentally poised to kill it for a minute, as he’s at his most mature and honest with himself and others. His music comes from a place of pain, and if you’re going through things, Boosie’s got your back. To quote Badazz himself, “I’ll be that n*gga by your side when your well runs dry”. The beats are great too, they sound like modern versions of what Boosie would go over in 2005, so they sound original in that sense. People say Boosie going to jail was the best thing to happen to his career, and this may or may not be true, but this tape proves he deserves all the hype he gets.

-Malcolm

4.) Chief Keef - Back From The Dead 2

Chief Keef is one of the most undervalued forces in experimental and abstract rap today. A year or two ago, this statement would have been seen as laughable and ludicrous to many rap fans, even those who were fans of Chief Keef’s work, but given his recent output, there just aren’t any labels that fit Keef’s music better. The production Back From The Dead 2 gets constant comparisons to leftfield/experimental electronic artists like James Ferraro, Oneohtrix Point Never, and Dean Blunt, but it is safe to say that Chief Keef’s sound was not influenced by any of those artists; Chief Keef’s music is drawn from one source and one source only: himself. For these reasons, Back From The Dead 2 is one of the most original and pure mixtapes released in quite a long time.

-John

3.) Travi$ Scott - Days Before Rodeo

Jesus! Days Before Rodeo plays like a short film, beginning with a look into the artist’s state of mind: “Midnight awakin’, hyperventatin’, drunk laps runnin' 'round the globe wild goose chasin’.” After two verses of late night reflection, the track slows down drastically, and we are introduced into a story of debauchery and excess. Travi$ Scott leads us through stories of women, theft, and lots of drugs, peaking with Sloppy Toppy, a track loaded with features from Migos and PeeWee Longway. This song in particular emphasizes what I love about this tape; its beat is constantly morphing underneath the spastic rapping, accentuating every wacky and ridiculously explicit line spat by the five rappers on the track. After this track, the mixtape starts toning down, with Basement Freestyle being the last real turn up song the tape has to offer. Backyard and Grey end the mixtape perfectly, with the latter feeling like your last night in the city you grew up in before you leave for good. Finishing with the line “the sky is grey,” the track finishes up Days Before Rodeo on a somber note, contrasting with the excessive nature of the rest of the mixtape and solidifying the tape as one of the strongest and most well-made tapes of the year.

-John

2.) iLoveMakonnen - I Love Makonnen EP

“But if all I hear is me, then who should I be afraid of?” - Aubrey Graham, 2011

When you first listen to Makonnen you’re slightly confused (or maybe annoyed) because you haven’t heard anything like him before so you can’t compare him to anything. That’s just one of the things Makonnen brings to the table, the newness, and like anything in history ou can accept the newness or get left behind in the dust. The public’s reaction to the now grammy nominated Tuesday was “This dude sounds like ice JJ fish lmao” to “This is my shit!”. This was more or less my reaction to this tape. He’s the product of the unconventional trap beats made by ATL producers like Metro Boomin, DJ Spinz, Dun Deal, Sonny Digital, and Fki. Conveniently they’re all on this project laying down beats that allow Makonnen to do his thing. His “thing” ranges from ballad singing to straight wrist music. The best part about this tape is that it’s so genuine it’s infectious, passionate, and life-affirming at points.

-Malcolm

1.) Rich Gang - Rich Gang: The Tour Part 1

You can say what you want about Birdman’s rapping, gaudy tattoos, or behavior as a foster parent, but you can’t deny one thing: he’s got an incredible knack for recruiting talent. Young Thug and Rich Homie Quan are Birdman’s latest muses and everything about them making a mixtape together makes sense. These two are synchronizing on a whole different level on this tape and maybe birdman is the glue? They both kill it in many different ways, individually and together using flows ranging from ridiculous to tender. The unsung hero of this project is London On Da Trak who has worked with Thugger and Quan individually previous to this tape and has produced some summer jams that featuring Thugger such as About The Money and Hookah. His blending of melodic pianos and dramatic synths give this a tape a coherent and catchy sound. The scariest thing about this tape is that Thug and Quan are both under 25 and only getting better. Can’t wait to see what these two do next together or individually.

-Malcolm

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fortyfourblog-blog · 9 years

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FORTY FOUR ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: 25-1

25.) Do It Again- Röyksopp & Robyn

24.) Plowing into the Field of Love- iceage

Remember the Pogues? Remember the Gun Club? These bands, inexplicably to me, never made it out of the 80’s with the immortality that we continually heap upon certain Smiths and Joy Divisions. All my love to Moz but I’ve always been more down with Rum, Sodomy & the Lash than The Queen is Dead. Perhaps post-rock has been much more timeless throughout the last 30 years than the rollickingly drunk-punk of Ireland and the American Southwest.

Blisteringly intense Danish post-punks Iceage definitely grew up with Marr and Curtis, as evident with their first two albums, New Brigade and You’re Nothing. Only recently it would seem that the still young Danes discovered Shane Macgowan and Jeffrey Lee Pierce. On this year’s Plowing Into the Field of Love, iceage still couldn’t give less of a shit. Before this year, singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt would have just walked in and sucker punched you in the teeth. Now he sounds more like the guy that throws his arm around you, sings a Clash line, buys you a shot of Jameson and then steals your wallet while you come in on the chorus of “Death or Glory”.

Plowing Into the Field of Love is still intense, no doubt, but their new influences have iceage loosening their grip. No more is this evident than in lead single and one of 2014’s “The Lord’s Favorite”. The burning seriousness of “Coalition” has morphed into a sexual, booze-addled swagger. So when he slurs “After all, I think it’s evident that I’m God’s favorite one”, well sure it’s blasphemous. But its 4 AM and you’re still drunk and turned on, so go ahead. Kiss the girl. Throw the pint glass. iceage doesn’t care what, they just want you to go for it. -Nick Kivi

23.) Black Metal- Dean Blunt

Dean Blunt is an expert at conveying emotions that feel so simplistic, but feel so complex at the same time. There's a beauty in things left unsaid and this album conveys that idea. Sonically it ranges from janglely to experimental to lush, and sometimes somber. It feels like writing out a paragraph long text and then deleting it and responding in four words or less. There's not a genre that fits this description and that's what Blunt has done throughout his solo and collaborative work, describe the indescribable. Blunt himself described Black Metal as an anti appropriation piece of art. He would rather not be compared to old white musicians, but be in a league of his own. Most importantly, this album is beautiful even in it's sonically harsh moments. It finds beauty in the ordinary, unusual, and extraordinary. It's art that pushes boundaries while remaining comforting, all of these things combine hit that sweet spot of really fucking good music, which we all could use more of. -Malcolm Baum

22.) Honest- Future

Though most people look more towards Young Thug, Rich Homie Quan, and Migos for their dosage of Atlanta rap, Future’s Honest still stands as the most successful album of the New Atlanta movement. Future’s style is a balance of hard-hitting bangers and introspective, emotional songs, with the two complimenting each other more than one might initially think. This formula would make Honest an album that has something for everyone if it weren’t for Future’s alienating vocal delivery, an acquired taste on par with that of Young Thug. Being extremely slurred out and autotuned, his voice has been known to piss off the popular audience, but fuck ‘em anyway; Future is on top of the world on Honest. This is best represented by the iconic line “Godzilla ain’t got shit on me” spit on the first track, setting the stage for the rest of the album. Future’s exuberance is infectious, though contextually this represents the last of his positive era. Long live Future, and long live Atlanta. -John O'Brien

21.) Our Love- Caribou

Dan Snaith (also known as Caribou, Manitoba and Daphni) has been a huge force in music for over a decade and has consistently released cutting-edge music that has blended countless genres and influences with his latest release, Our Love, being no exception. The album opens up with an absolutely relentless song titled “Can’t Do Without You” that sets the tone for the album. Our Love features many repeated lyrics and melodies throughout songs, yet manages to avoid sounding too repetitive. This is undoubtedly Caribou’s most hip-hop/R&B influenced album and should be accessible to most listeners if they can get over the fact that his vocals sound similar to Herbert from Family Guy. That being said, I don’t know if there were any albums this year with better production than Our Love and I think this is one of those albums that will have great lasting value and gain even more appreciation over time. -Mitchell Smith

20.) "What Is This Heart?"- How to Dress Well

A little over a year ago, I saw How to Dress Well’s set at the Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit. Accompanied by a keyboardist and a cellist, the man behind the project, Tom Krell, peppered his set with a handful of new songs from a release he said would come out the next spring. Those songs were sparse, moody, and swamped with reverb, suggesting an expansion of the ethereal R&B of 2012’s Total Loss. As it turns out, the release he was referring to was “What is This Heart?”, but I’m not sure how many of those songs actually made it on the record, because they sound completely different here: as it turns out, “What is This Heart?” is Krell’s most clear-eyed, most instrumentally complex, and sonically richest work to date. Krell’s attention to detail – 80s pop guitar riffs, free-floating piano, haunting vocal manipulation – is what makes “What is This Heart?” a great album, but its absolute highs, like a moment on “Repeat Pleasure” where everything but Krell’s voice drops out or the explosive transition into “House Inside (Future is Older than the Past)”’s chorus, transform it into a remarkable achievement, something near transcendent. -Jack Evans

19.) Three Love Songs- Ricky Eat Acid

The fifth song on Three Love Songs, the most high-profile release to date from the young and prolific Maryland-based musician Sam Ray (also of Teen Suicide and Julia Brown) as Ricky Eat Acid, is named “In rural Virginia; watching glowing lights crawl from the dark corners of the room.” That lengthy title is something of a mission statement for the album it appears on. On many of the twelve tracks here, Ray deals equally in slow-moving glimmers that offer gradually enveloping warmth and in unsettling undercurrents. And when Ray imbues his ambience with pop sensibility as he does on the album’s second half, with danceable beats and a Drake sample, he creates a sense of light-infused motion. Many of the songs on Three Love Songs have titles that reference specific places; the music goes one step farther, sonically building a world full of darkened suburban homes, magical-realist rural vistas, and nighttime cityscapes radiating youth. There’s a delicate touch to Ray’s musical architecture that could be fascinating to dissect – but it’s probably best just to let his disembodied light particles wash over you. -Jack Evans

18.) Burn Your Fire For No Witness- Angel Olsen

Following Olsen’s timid output, 2014’s Burn Your Fire for No Witness came through plowing the dirt right over whatever campfire she had been strumming to in the past. With wonderful full-band contributions like “Forgiven/Forgotten”, “Stars”, and “Windows,” Burn exemplifies a diversity and modest progression. It blazes trails set by her past work, but it also feels introspective and personal enough that it can comfortably look back, tip its hat, and smile. -Collin Dall

17.) Never Hungover Again- Joyce Manor

About half a minute into “Falling in Love Again,” the punk-goes-Smiths love letter that sits near the beginning of Never Hungover Again, Barry Johnson bares his soul in the most innocuous of ways: “I think you’re funny, I like your friends, I like the way they treat you.” That’s the kind of album Never Hungover Again is: totally frank, a little grown up, unflinchingly humorous, and relentlessly relatable for the post-adolescent contingent. Joyce Manor don’t just wear their hearts on their sleeves, they actually have a song here about getting them tattooed. So it’s no surprise how easy it is to find poignancy here, even when it comes in lines like “It sounds better when you have marijuana” or “You could be your own dad.” Above all, though, Never Hungover Again is great fun: no song is longer than two and a half minutes, and each is an end-to-end earworm of perfect pop punk with guitar fireworks and shout-along vocals aplenty. It might seem kind of a shame that Never Hungover Again is less than 20 minutes long, but in the end, that’s irrelevant, because it’s the kind of album that demands to be played over and over again – be it in on your computer, through your car stereo, or in your head. -Jack Evans

16.) Ocean Death- Baths

When I first heard Ocean Death‘s self-titled single cut I was a little unsure. I’d always preferred Cerulean to Obsidian, but none of Baths’ previous releases been consistent enough for me to love. But after listening to the EP in full, it’s certainly my favourite of Will Wiesenfeld’s releases. Ocean Death is brooding and morbid, but not excessively so; Wiesenfeld’s sharp, deconstructing humour in his lyrics offsets its often-grisly themes. Lines like “we can talk all you want, but you don’t speak to me” still punch through and hold their clever meaning, but seem more like endearing cynicism than whiny complaints in Wiesenfeld’s unusually soft tones. Ocean Death simply seems more cohesive and consistent as a whole compared to Baths’ earlier work, each track fitting the EP’s theme and general foreboding feel, not once letting attention stray. A gorgeous oozing graze of an EP, one of the best short form release of 2014. -Ed Tullett

15.) Salad Days- Mac Demarco

14.) The Moon Rang Like A Bell- Hundred Waters

With a record a close second to Adult Jazz on my personal album of the year list, Hundred Waters this year delivered wonderfully on such a clear promise of talent. The Moon Rang Like a Bell is a shimmering, glorious wave of light and dark, constantly, consciously shifting between glistening euphoria (“Murmurs”) and shadowy chaos (“[Animal]”). After their magical, if at times un-assured first record, TMRLAB paints singer Nicole Miglis and co. at their most awake; wide-eyed and inspired, Hundred Waters are an outfit capable of absolute ethereal beauty. “Cavity” builds and releases its cascading tension with elegant poise, and “Xtalk” is the record’s deserved celebratory victory dance. TMRLAB is a near-perfect lucid dream of a record, and certainly one of the year’s best, if not the best in its genre. -Ed Tullett

13.) Run The Jewels 2- Run the Jewels

“I’M FINNA BANG THIS BITCH THE FUCK OUT,” as yelled by Michael Render, better known as Killer Mike, is the only appropriate way to introduce the follow up last year’s Run The Jewels. Rapper Mike and rapper/producer Jamie “El-P” Meline’s second effort is 40 minutes of hard-hitting bars that are so finely crafted that it’s hard to not completely fill this space with quotes. El-P’s beats, constructed with the assistance of Beyoncé producer BOOTS and longtime collaborator Little Shalimar, are instrumental (see what I did there?) in driving the record forward, matching the lyrics blow for blow with pounding kicks and eerie melodies reminiscent of the zombie hands album cover. Most of the record’s lyrics consist of swagger and braggadocio but the best moments of the album are in the interactions of the duo, best expressed on “Early,” one of the record’s more grounded cuts. The track opens with a verse from Mike on an experience with police brutality, all too relevant in the wake of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner tragedies, and then El-P’s verse mentions the incident from an observer’s point of view, a level of lyrical interplay that most rappers wouldn’t dream of. They also trade lines without missing a beat on “Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck),” going back and forth about cookbooks and crook books, and even take each other’s metaphors a line further in “Blockbuster Night, Part 1.” Even the features from Rage Against The Machine songwriter Zack De La Rocha and Gangsta Boo are on point, not out of place on an album that often feels like an intimate collaboration between Mike and Jamie. There’s never a dull moment on RTJ2, and I can only hope that the Meow The Jewels remix album featuring cat noises lives up to the Run The Jewels standard (I’m not kidding – this is happening). -Dan Graham

12.) Piñata- Freddie Gibbs & Madlib

At the beginning of Martin Scorsese's film GoodFellas, a mob movie touchstone that without a doubt had some kind of influence on the collaboration between Indiana rapper Freddie Gibbs and legendary Stones Throw producer Madlib, the first words we hear from Henry Hill are that for as long as he could remember, he always wanted to be a gangster. My story's a little bit different; for as long as I could remember, I've always been a collector. From pencils to Legos to VHS tapes, I've spent my whole life amassing some kind of junk. A few years ago those efforts turned to vinyl, and for a brief period within that period I fixated on scooping up blaxploitation soundtracks. I spent so much time in search of hot buttered soul laid down on cold black wax that a local record store even created an entire section for these movie music gems. This all leads me to the point I'm trying to get to: upon the announcement of Freddie Gibbs and Madlib's collaboration, which began a few years ago with a handful of one-off tracks and EPs, Gibbs stated that their record was "a gangster blaxploitation movie on wax." Based on my experiences with the genre, there's one thing I know for sure: If Sweet Sweetback ever lost his baaaadassssss song, Freddie Gibbs and Madlib's Piñata could help him get it back. Gibbs has worked with everyone from Krayzie Bone to SpaceGhostPurrp (and that's just on the same song, mind you), but his comic book-worthy Team-Up with Madlib might have been his best move yet. The album's cover, which wears animal prints better than almost anyone but Young Thug, brashly announces that it features "every motherfucker in the rap game worth fucking with." While I'd be the first to contest that statement, the cast of characters Gibbs and 'lib bring on board only seek to compliment their sound. Madlib's samples range far and wide, from soulful strings to poppin-off movie previews. Gibbs' voice suits the instrumentals better than almost any producer/rapper combination I've ever heard, and while his lyrics aren't particularly profound, they only add another layer of cool to that 40-ounce-sipping sound. John Shaft might have been hotter than Bond and cooler than Bullit, but Piñata plays harder than all three. -Nathan Smith

11.) Lost In The Dream- The War On Drugs

In the winter of 1996 I achieved clairvoyance.

For a brief glimmer of time, my path appeared out in front of me colorful and brilliant like runway lights. I slid down my grandparents’ basement stairs one at a time and waddled around, peering at the mass of blue wood and metal sitting in the corner. I struggled to chew real food back then, yet somehow I scaled up onto my grandfather’s drum throne and started curiously whacking everything I could reach. Little cerebral gears were set in motion that day.

Hours were spent in that frosty, unheated basement on the banks of the Shiawassee, trying to comprehend rhythm as the circulation in my extremities slowly retreated. My grandfather, a tough-like-iron lumberjack’s son, used to play classic rock cassette tapes for me and watch me slowly work out the cyclical relationship between hi-hat, kick and snare. There’s nothing but beautiful, fond memories from that cinderblock bunker. My memories look like grainy home movies played out now, windows frosted and translucent from the sub-zero Decembers. The pungent smell of linoleum floors always thrust me back to that basement in Michigan, leaving my now-grown body stuck husk-like in the present. I only have the vaguest notion of what songs I played to. I remember the searing guitar leads, the driving bass with vocals pristine and analog. Now when I think upon it, I can only picture that innocent blonde-haired toddler listening to Lost In The Dream.

Lots of things have changed in the almost two decades since. The clairvoyance has long since gone, leaving doubt and uncertainty often in its place. My hair has turned dark and curly, almost pubic in southern humidity. Next week, I’m going back to that basement for the first time in many years. I’m going to go smile at my own ghost. I’ll show that starry-eyed kid the music of the future that so perfectly encapsulated the days he spent behind those drums. It’ll be the arbiter that bridges the gap between us. It’ll be the War on Drugs. -Nick Kivi

10.) Here And Nowhere Else- Cloud Nothings

A record that, for me, only really came together after seeing the band live. THe venue was tiny the opening band was loud and unintelligible, and our expectations were heavenward. Opener “Now Hear In” and its driving, pounding spirits drove the crowd into insanity almost instantly. It was a night full of crowd surfing a little too close to the ceiling, screaming every word we knew, and even an unfortunate, but optimistically resolved, case of vomit. Much like following Japandroids’ 2012 Celebration Rock, Here and Nowhere Else blossoms and bricks the gas pedal in its youth and persistent, portable anthems. If you saw this band live in 2014, you know exactly what I’m talking about. -Collin Dall

9.) To Be Kind- Swans

If Donnie Darko and Requiem for a Dream were fused together into one solid film, To Be Kind would be the best soundtrack to accurately detail the lunacy and wretchedness of each character as they struggle with deteriorating mental state. Swans is known for its intense live shows, playing at volumes so loud that audience members become ill and police officers have to intervene and stop the show early. Band leader Michael Gira seems to have an obsession with making his fans’ heads spin whether at one of his shows or sitting peacefully at home, because To Be Kind sneaks its way inside, takes hold of you, and shakes you up until paranoia sets in and you’re looking over your shoulder to be sure that no one is watching you on what feels like an amphetamine overdose. It’s terrifying and overwhelming and addictive and once you’ve listened once you’re going to listen again. -Lindsay Temple

8.) BEYONCÉ- Beyoncé

No album was more of a declaration of identity this year than Beyoncé’s self-titled album. Coming off 2011’s 4 and the recent Mrs. Carter Show World Tour, Queen Bey’s surprise release left listeners with no doubts about who the woman behind the music really is; she is Ms. Third Ward, she is Yoncé, she is Peaches. From the dirty third coast to Paris and Houston’s Third Ward, the album dips into the bedroom and breaks out again into the kitchen, the foyer, the backseat of a limo, wholly unapologetic and intensely honest. Beyoncé feels deeply personal in a new way from the outset- “Pretty Hurts” breaks you down before “Flawless” builds you back up again, with hits like “Blow” and “Drunk in Love” leaving you breathless and well, horny, in between. The other artists featured on the album, Jay-Z, Drake, and Frank Ocean plus feminist author Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie and Blue Ivy, the singer’s daughter, only add fuel to the fire that is the album. Ocean’s feature was thin, but effective in “Superpower,” a slow-jam that testifies to the power of a relationship that adjusts with life’s ebbs and flows, changes which we get a glimpse of in “Mine.” The fourteen track album and its seventeen accompanying short films are meant to submerge the listener in a comprehensive, audio/visual experience. With the help of powerhouse producers and filmmakers, it succeeds; the album stands as one of the best albums of the year and an important, career-defining one for Yoncé. Make no mistake though- this album belongs to no one but her. Bow down, bitches. -Martha Daniel

7.) A Toothpaste Suburb- milo

I’ve been listening to milo, real name Rory Ferreria, so intensely and for so long that it’s strange to remember that his latest release, a toothpaste suburb, is actually his first official “album.” Since the release of his first mixtape, 2011’ s I wish my brother Rob was here, milo has developed a formidable body of work, one that a toothpaste suburb reflects back on. The album encounters many of the same themes as his earlier releases with a similar level of doubt and poignancy, but a toothpaste suburb feels like change. His reference points are numerous and varied, from Office Space to David Foster Wallace’s Signifying Rappers, and Ferreira has always been one to embrace humor and lightness, but there’s a also a great deal of uncertainty to his music, an uncertainty shared by his namesake, the protagonist of the novel The Phantom Tollbooth. a toothpaste suburb, however, seems like an exorcism, as if music, a confused business in itself, has finally allowed milo to move past some of the problems that have consumed him. He’s rejected confinement and embraced art, claiming his place in the lineage of rap music and confronting racial issues more so than ever before. milo may not have achieved peace, and he probably never will, but there’s a sense of solace in this album, something that feels invincible and makes me want to yell “HELLFYRE CLUB” through seventeen muzzles. I can’t pretend to know much about philosophy, but over his career, I’ve seen Ferreira become interested in the ideas of Emmanuel Kant, of the journey having more worth than the outcome, and this album reflects that sentiment. Ferreira echoes it when he and WC Tank recite a line from Don DeLillo’s White Noise, the book which contains the line that supplied the name for this album: “May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan.” Aimlessness has become inaction. Uncertainty has become strength. I’m okay, you’re okay. It will be alright. -Nathan Smith

6.) Too Bright- Perfume Genius

So maybe I do think Too Bright, while not blatantly discussing bow ties and the “gay agenda”, is an essential album in regards to self acceptance for people in the LGBTQ community, but am I wrong? In his song “Qualifiers” from his latest album Dark Comedy, Open Mike Eagle proclaims “Fuck you if you’re a white man that assumes I speak for black folks”, and by no means do I believe that Mike Hadreas, otherwise known as Perfume Genius, is required to discuss his homosexuality to straight people with his music, but there are definite elements of glamour and opulence that can only be associated with a newfound comfort and pride in who he is. Hadreas’ personal growth is audible in his third album, making bolder statements with songs like “Longpig” and “I'm A Mother” than on previous releases. It’s often said by ignorant straight men that homosexuality is acceptable as long as it’s not obvious (whatever that means), and Too Bright demolishes that idea, holding up a middle finger to the thought that queerness is only alright if it makes straight people comfortable 100 per cent of the time. In photoshoots for magazines leading up to the release of the record, Mike Hadreas can be seen sporting bright red lipstick, painted nails and high heels, all of which are taken up a notch in the video for the single “Queen” where he struts up and down the table in a conference room, taunting and teasing the seated men who can’t look away. Too Bright is hypnotic and touching and sensitive and confrontational and does not follow the rules. It actually looks for original ways to break them. -Lindsay Temple

5.) Dark Comedy- Open Mike Eagle

So often in rap music, artists can’t be taken seriously if they want to pepper their work with jokes. But as proved by Dark Comedy, the latest album from rapper Open Mike Eagle, darkness and humor aren’t mutually exclusive, and the two can often enhance each other. Eagle has long been one of the deftest wits in the rap world, and few other rappers seem to understand the similarities between rap and comedy as well as he does. The album’s two guest spots, from comedian Hannibal Buress and KOOL A.D. (another forceful yet funny rapper), and Mike’s involvement and interest in sketch comedy, stand-up, and podcasting only prove these connections further. His album is filled with poignancy and emotional strength, but it’s not afraid to delve into absurdity, and the album’s most ridiculous scenarios are often the ones that deliver the most resonance. For too long, listeners, critics, and musicians have been quick to draw lines in hip-hop and divide themselves into categories, but Dark Comedy doesn’t have time for such folly. It has more personal (and important) things to say. -Nathan Smith

4.) Benji- Sun Kil Moon

Mark Kozelek is a hillbilly, and he should shut the fuck up. After being in the business for almost twenty-three years and being alive for more than forty-seven, somebody should tell this Ohio-raised, beer-gutted white guy to shut the fuck up. As any human being might, we grow much more sour and disdainful with age. Some of us may hide it better, but mostly everyone else just blathers their mouth endlessly about how “life was better then.” Yes, Kozelek’s output had been churning out something rotten. Maybe that’s because his early work with Red House Painters was so stellar, or maybe it’s because he released a seventeen track record in 2012, showing his age pointless song after pointless song. We were concerned for him, to say the least. With 2014’s Benji, Mark Kozelek miraculously transformed into the neighborhood dad or the sunburnt, tired-eyed uncle down at the bonfire. Each track on the record is still essentially pointless, but drawn in driveway-moment fascination and dear-diary emotion and expression. Kozelek holds no bounds and at this point in the game, we don’t want him to. I have never bawled to a single line in a song like I have during Benji, and I feel I owe this strange, guitar-ridden uncle-of-an-album a lot for that one. -Collin Dall

3.) St. Vincent- St. Vincent

2.) You're Dead!- Flying Lotus

Don’t get it twisted: Steven Ellison, the artist who records as Flying Lotus, has always been a jazz musician. You’re Dead! is just his jazziest project yet. We like to think of jazz music as big bands, swing dancing, and standards, and although I disagree with the notion that certain genres have “real” forms, on You’re Dead!, Flying Lotus restores the actual meaning of the word jazz: experimental, otherworldly, and awe-inspiring. Opening up his universe to newcomers like Kendrick Lamar and Herbie Hancock, Fly Lo’s record draws very clear lines between jazz, electronic music, and hip-hop. What’s perhaps most fascinating about the record is the supporting cast; it’s clearly Ellison’s vision, but one he couldn’t achieve without the help of folks like Thundercat, Mars Volta drummer Deantoni Parks, producer Daddy Kev, and former Dirty Projectors member Angel Deradoorian. And, for the first time, Ellison brings together Flying Lotus and his rapping alter-ego Captain Murphy, giving us a glimpse inside both halves of his brain. Although it’s firmly rooted in the physical, pulse-pounding experience of music, You’re Dead! is also deeply personal, embracing the new age themes Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label has become synonymous with, all without alienating listeners who prefer to exist outside the spiritual plane. -Nathan Smith

1.) LP1- FKA twigs

“Through eroticism, love, friendship, and their alternatives, deception, hate, rivalry, the relation is a struggle between conscious beings each of whom wishes to be essential, it is the mutual recognition of free beings who confirm one another’s freedom, it is the vague transition from aversion to participation. To pose Woman is to pose the absolute Other, without reciprocity, denying against all experience that she is a subject, a fellow human being.”

-Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

In 2001, Björk’s fifth album Vespertine reinvented the way the public viewed the female pop star. Its instrumentation, its stark sexual lyricism and its critical response drawing out the reality of what it means to be a woman in the music industry all gave a new sense of the artistry and majesty behind the feminine pop icon. Now in 2014, we have seen this happen again with the debut album from FKA twigs, the stage name of English songwriter and dancer Tahliah Barnett. LP1 is left nameless for a reason. The work is inseparable from the artist. LP1 is not only like Vespertine in its subtlety and lyricism, it is the synthesis of sexuality and identity, the dialectic between Barnett and her audience, and a statement on culture so relevant in 2014.

Musically, the album is art pop’s redefinition and trip-hop at its most bizarre. Always at the forefront is the album’s most important feature: Barnett’s voice. Oh, what a voice. Falsetto to rival Prince, the erratic eccentricity of Kate Bush, and the dire stress to the breaking point of even a performer like Jamie Stewart. It is a voice that rings true of many styles and yet is, undeniably, 100 percent unique. This elasticity gives Barnett the room to dip her fingers into all sorts of pop styles. Tracks such as “Closer” and choruses throughout see the echoing choral quality of chamber pop, while epic, swaying singles like “Two Weeks” or “Pendulum” ring out almost like new age Enya tracks.

Always at contrast to the melodic quality of the vocals are the surprisingly dark, abrasive electronic styles that pop up time and time again, many donated by the eclectic range of producers Barnett has enlisted. Sounds taken from subgenres such as witch house, trap, and even experimental techno polka-dot the record with cameos either in the background or during instrumental interludes. Seeing them performed live, one can see that these moments exist to reflect episodes of bodily motion, of the distinctive, idiosyncratic style of dance for which Barnett originally became famous.

The first track after the preface, “Lights On” represents much of the album as a whole. Immediately demonstrating the fingerprints of co-producer Arca in its abrasive synths and samples, the song builds and builds into walls of sounds, all while exercising the sensual qualities of stand-up basslines and saxophones. “When I trust you we can do it with the lights on,” Barnett sings in the refrain. But these lights are just as much the lights of the stage as they are of the bedroom as Barnett tests us and teases us, experimenting with showing us her different sides as she struggles with her own shyness. Here, and on tracks like “Video Girl” and the epic closer “Kicks,” Barnett demonstrates a mastery of double entendre. This is undoubtedly a sensual, sexy album, but more than that, Barnett’s sexuality is a lens through which she projects her identity as a performer, her initiation into a place of spotlight, and her connection to the audience. How can one keep their identity and share it with the world all at once? “What do I do when you’re not here?” she asks on the album’s last song. If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?

LP1 is not only one of the most musically interesting albums of the year, it is a manifesto in its own right. Barnett was familiarized with the stage as a background dancer, but now she has come to the foreground, into the lights. The synthesis of her personal hesitance with her identity as a performer, the statement of self and artistry in an industry historically designed to tear autonomy from women and people of color both, the presentation of sexuality as a definition of stardom, these are the things that emerge from LP1. In 2014, sex and identity are in a brutal tug-of-war between the personal and the public realms. Although she often sings in almost a whisper, FKA twigs screams from the frontlines of this battleground. The album could not have a more perfect cover art, for the questions must be asked: Is that really her? Or is it just a representation? And what does it really mean? LP1 seems to answer in the words of its predecessor: It’s not up to you. It never really was. -Eli Fosl

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FORTY FOUR ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: 50-26

50.) Lese Majesty- Shabazz Palaces

Unlike their monumental 2011 release, Black Up, Shabazz Palaces’ most recent album is not at all interested in sympathy. It does not care for the catchy, for the accessible, for the coherent. Like has become standard for Shabazz Palaces’ music, the album cycles around themes of blackness and royalty, hence the title. But more than ever, Ishmael Butler and Baba Maraire sound tired, tired of trying to get you to understand what you don’t need to. “I’m not messing with your mind / I don’t have that kind of time” Butler extrapolates. Whereas Black Up oozed and breathed, Lese Majesty can’t breathe at all. It is too busy fighting the chokehold of relentless labels for what music should be. It is a walk through the valley of the shadow of hip-hop, and it has been laid out brick and mortar for you to discover on your own. Inside this sonic palace there are tales of love, tales of the lam, and tales of animalistic responses to animalization, all told in a cutting lyricism and wordplay sharper than anything previously in Butler’s arsenal. There is a clear boundary drawn between the first half of this album and the second in terms of conventional enjoyability, but the power of Lese Majesty is that it leaves you asking what that conventional enjoyability really means. A phantom left lurking behind your shoulder, asking you who told you to call anything enjoyable in the first place. -Eli Fosl

49.) Transgender Dysphoria Blues- Against Me!

Florida punk rockers Against Me!’s long awaited sixth studio album is a tour de force showcase of the punk spirit combined with the justified anger and anxieties over not feeling right in your own skin. With singer/guitarist Laura Jane Grace’s first album after coming out as transgendered in 2012, she uses this record not only as an addition to her band’s largely phenomenal discography, but also an ethnographic look into the titular struggle many go through with gender identity.

Grace and Co. power across 10 of the band’s best songs written since 2005’s Searching For a Former Clarity, employing raw, rolling instrumentation and cutting language that drips with external and internal angst, spewing lamentations toward a society and, in Grace’s eyes, a self so rooted in hatred and disgust. (“You want them to notice, the ragged ends of your summer dress. You want them to see you like they see every other girl. They just see a faggot. They'll hold their breath not to catch the sick” on the gut wrenching but empowering title track).

Many have wondered if a record with this title and concept would fully eclipse Against Me! as a band due to Grace’s emerging role as an ambassador in the fight for mainstream transgender acceptance. Almost a year later, the legacy is simply a return to form for the musical side of AM! blended with a sense of discovery and purpose from the long suffering Grace, a continued iconoclast of the modern punk scene and now a burgeoning one for an even larger cause. -Sam Votaw

48.) Heavy Hearted in Doldrums- Antwon

The genre of 'cloud rap' reached its peak during the second half of 2011 with the release of mixtapes like 808s & Dark Grapes and Long.Live.A$AP. These tapes didn't focus on heavy lyricism, but rather on dream-like beats and relaxxed flowa. While Antwon was nevver exclusively a "cloud rapper", he was lumpled into that sccene because he had a couple Clams Casino beats on his Fantasy Beds mixtape, whicch was released in late 2011. It's now 2014 and Antwon has survived the fads and has released two solid projects up to this date. His most popular work has featured funky basslines with infectious hooks that get him plenty of Biggie comparisons. Heavy Hearted in Doldrums uses some classic Antwon song formulas and features some dope new ones as well. HHID starts out with 'Rain Song (ft. Lil Ugly Mane)', which sounds exactly like a track that be placed on an album called Heavy Hearted in Doldrums. Lil Ugly Mane does a great job portraying a broke, depressed loser with his verse. The rest of the album doesn't sound as morose as this track does, but there is no doubt that Antwon continues delivering some "heavy hearted" lyrics. 'Baby Hair' is a great display of his explicit passion for sex, a constant theme throughout the album. The track is backed by a clunky cloud rap beat, which is an instant success. About 2/3rds of the beats are undoubtedly guilty of 90s worship, which isn't a bad thing because it suits Antwon's flow. 'Don't Care (ft. Sad Andy)' and 'Metro Nome (ft. Wiki)' are songs that stray away from the BBQ music aesthetic you get with Heavy Hearted. They both featurenew school rappers who both have higher pitched voices that create a nice juxtaposition with Antwon's deep, gruff vocals.

Heavy Hearted in Doldrums is Antwons best project to date. It captures what was good about his previous tapes and what he can create going forward. This album also displays the most aim and focus on any tape Antwon has released to this date. It's not lyrically dense or the most professional album, but the flaws aren't major. It's a great project that's meant to be listened to while coolin' in the sun. -Malcolm Baum

Word O.K.- Kool A.D.

With a distinct vocal delivery of both social consciousness and apathetic drone, Kool A.D. returns on Word O.K. stronger than he’s ever been. His position in Das Racist was both a blessing and a curse for his solo career; while Das Racist’s success gave Kool A.D. the audience he has today, all of his works released after that project have sparked sentiments along the lines of “I wish Das Racist was back together” for many fans. It’s a shame, since Vic is better on Word O.K. than he ever was in Das Racist. He’s dropping straight bars for multiple songs on here, justifying the line “no hook, I just cook” on Special Forces. That track in particular emphasizes everything I love about Kool A.D: ridiculous punchlines, clever rhyme schemes, and strong political awareness concealed underneath all of it. Vic will fuck around and spit the most lackadaisical-sounding political bars ever and you won’t even realize it until a few listens in, and that’s the genius of Kool A.D. Word O.K. isn’t some grandiose rap album, and it doesn’t try to be; it operates on its own terms and is essentially the most fully realized Kool A.D. has ever been as a rapper, inside or outside of Das Racist. -John O'Brien

Pleasant Living- Tiny Moving Parts

In a genre reveling in the reflections of proverbial young lyricists such as emo, Tiny Moving Part’s Pleasant Living churns up an uncharacteristic but pleasantly welcome display of maturity. Singer Dylan Mattheisen reflects on events and relationships that likely happened a few weeks to a year ago with the wisdom and closure of a man more than twice his age (“There's no rewind and I should have kept that in mind. But on the bright side I’d say I prefer sadness over spineless anyway,” he laments on “I Hope Things Go The Way I Hope”) all while putting on a youthful fire show on the guitar through his intricate tappings and harmonics. Backing him are his cousins bassist/backing vocalist Matthew and drummer Billy Chevalier as a thriving rhythm section that ground each song but still cut loose alongside Mattheisen’s virtuosic passages reminiscent of freeform jazz while convening back together for powerful chorus and bridges of emphasis on inadequacy and the constant desire for fulfillment.

The Minnesotan trio’s sophomore release signals not only a changing point for the emo outfit with more concise songwriting than their already stellar 2013 debut This Couch Is Long and Full of Friendships, but also the scene as a whole as the blend of passionate math rock complexities with confessional lyrics have never been executed so masterfully as demonstrated by this young band. Pleasant Living offers familiar but phenomenally performed tropes of the so-called “Emo Revival” along with enough surprises to earn the respects from seasoned listeners of other genres. -Sam Votaw

45.) My Favourite Faded Fantasy- Damien Rice

2014 saw the return of hiatus artists Jamie T, D'Angelo, Vashti Bunyan and Pink Floyd to name a few. But Damien Rice's 8 year absence brought forward one of the most fragile and delicately beautiful albums of the year, My Beautiful Faded Fantasy. Unafraid to shake of his trademark raggedy-troubadour sound, whilst taking in a Scandinavian sound with lengthier and deeply layered numbers. Here's hoping he doesn't need near enough another decade to bring out a record as equally spellbinding as this. -Joshua Price

44.) By Any Means- Kevin Gates

Kevin Gates is Drake if Drake was slangin' crack as a teen instead of starring in a Canadian teen drama. -Lindsay Temple

43.) Pallbearer- Foundations of Burden

Like countless metal bands before them, the imagery of the Arkansas doom quartet Pallbearer is rooted in the duality of the earthly and the mystical. Across the six (mostly lengthy) tracks on the band’s second album, Foundations of Burden, Brett Campbell sings of alternate worlds and fading specters, but the fascination here is rooted in physical fallibility – ashes, tombs, crumbling mountains, and “citadels of sorrow” all make appearances here, and though Campbell’s references to the physical sphere are rather general, when he does allude to it in a societal sense, the results are bleak, to say the least (like the “sick corruption in the fountain of life” in “Foundations”). So, though Pallbearer doesn’t quite romanticize death here, they do seem to revere the dual options of an afterlife and a void, especially in response to mortal decay. Accordingly, the music of Foundations of Burden feels spiritual, both funereal and celebratory, as slow, mammoth low-end motifs trade off with soaring guitar solos and hymn-like vocal harmonies. At their best, Pallbearer evoke both the dismantling of worlds and transcendence through states of being. They make it easy to see why they find comfort in the unknown. -Jack Evans

42.) Gist Is- Adult Jazz

Gist Is is a record completely tailored to my own tastes. But that doesn’t make me biased in saying it’s my own album of the year. For a British band to release such a strange, but almost effortlessly confident debut record at a time in which almost all celebrated music coming from Britain has been near completely electronic is ambitious. It’s full of left-field timbres and melodies, but its reliance of a backbone of guitar/riffs is heartwarming. Having grown up with a love for Big Scary Monsters artists, Gist Is seems a natural progression from those wonderful, innocent, but ultimately limited Math/Indie-Pop bands; as if Colour calmed down, went to Oxbridge to study Classics, found a new soulful, falsetto-reliant singer, and wrote a record influenced by the likes of Grizzly Bear and Dirty Projectors, whilst retaining that childlike spirit and intricate guitar work. When I saw Adult Jazz live this year they were note-perfect, putting on a genuinely intriguing and impressive live show, but no matter how alternative they get, I don’t think they’ll ever shake fans like the guy behind me who couldn’t help (badly) singing along not just with every word, but every guitar riff too. And that’s why I love them. They’re basically what would happen if Tangled Hair moved to Brooklyn and made Art-Rock. Oh, and they wrote a fantastic record too. -Ed Tullett

41.) Shriek- Wye Oak

I can see into the future. I’m 29, ten years older than I am now. I live in Chicago. I decided not to move to New York City, that’s too cliche. My apartment has exposed brick walls and enormous windows; the light bill is usually low since my roommates and I never turn our lamps from Ikea until after the sun sets. Plus, we live such fun exciting lives that we’re rarely home to begin with. In fact, just last night I was at a Wye Oak show. One of my roommates’ best friend had tickets, but she had to fly out to London with Kelela on short notice. She’s her personal assistant. Cool, right? I listened to Wye Oak when I was younger but I’d almost completely forgotten about their existence, especially their 2014 release Shriek.

It was as fun as I remembered, maybe even more so. Jenn Wasner’s voice sounded even warmer live, somehow. Afterwards, I scooted my way backstage so I could arrange an interview with Andy Stack (he’s soon releasing his second album from his shoegaze solo project) for my music publication. I couldn’t talk for long though, since a friend a couple blocks down needed my help photographing models for her lookbook. I grabbed a few snacks from the convenience store and speed walked to the studio, bag of candy in one hand, busted up iPhone in the other. I accidentally ran into a few people trying to download Shriek on my phone as I jogged.

My journey had been a difficult one but I was surprisingly at ease. I was late though, and my friend was a wreck. I put my things down, shoveled a couple handfuls of M&M’s into my mouth, plugged my phone into the stereo in the hopes that Wye Oak’s “Glory” would put my stressed friend at ease, and got to work. Within what seemed like seconds, her spirits lifted, the models were cooperating, and the photos seemed to take themselves. We floated around the room; humming, reflecting, smiling. By the end of the night, my friend was glowing, and we walked home hand in hand discussing the small party I was having for my 30th birthday in a few weeks. “Hey, do you think I can put a little playlist together for that?” she said sleepily. “I was thinking I would put Shriek on it, what a perfect record.” -Lindsay Temple

40.) Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light on Everything- Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra

Say what you want about subtlety and restraint, but there is something really striking about stark and naked emotionalism when it’s done well. That’s mostly what’s going on with Fuck Off Get Free. The strings and wailing guitars draw instant memory to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, a band with which Mt. Zion shares many members as well as a label and stylistic influences. It is these long, drawn-out chords of strings that sound to be played on 50-year-old instruments that bring the first emotional punch, but even they can hardly hold a candle to the vocals. Note after note sang out in a heart-wrenchingly off-key wail come close to a cry numerous times over the 50 minutes of the record. This effect coupled with the bluntly heartbroken lyrics can send audiences easily back into the aftermath of their first high school breakup. “What we loved was not enough!” frontman Efrim Menuck sobs over and over again. While early Godspeed records used the layers of instrumentation and marchband percussion to connect to a certain ambiance, Fuck Off Get Free connects much more to noise, to chaos and cacophony. Post-rock is a genre that seems sometimes to have run its course in terms of emotional brashness, but here is an album that turns that notion on its head. It’s unclear whether Mt. Zion have made their style more or less accessible, but either way they have definitely made it more vulnerable, and through that more sympathetic, more human. -Eli Fosl

39.) Arca- Xen

It couldn’t be more perfect that, in the wake of music videos such as “Anaconda” or “Booty,” Arca released his video for “Thievery.” The video, in a style similar to that of Show Studio, shows nothing other than two minutes and 44 seconds of a grotesque, feminine humanoid rendered in CGI dancing naked, displaying its, well, huge ass. This is Arca’s character. Taking the basic elements of club mentality and music and distorting it to the point of repulsion. The Venezuelan producer, Alejandro Ghersi, has been creating bizarre, astringent electronic music under the moniker Arca for years now. In this time, he has worked with Kanye West, FKA twigs, and created a catalogue of nearly unclassifiably unique work. His studio debut, Xen, takes the sonic language he has become so known for --truncated samples and aggressively distorted layers of synths over bruising bass-- and tongued them into an album so personal it is almost indecipherable. The album takes its name from the name of Ghersi’s androgynous alter ego, and estranged sexuality seems to be a core value in each of Xen’s 15 tracks. In his 2014 cover story with The Fader, Ghersi said that in order to redefine yourself, you have to be able to break yourself into pieces, pick up the parts that you like, and move on. There is no statement that could better contextualize Xen. It is a sprawling, immense piece of soundwork with at times no particular direction, yet all orbiting and orbiting the sexuality and emotion that Ghersi uses to find himself. Every song title sounds like a reference, an inside joke between Ghersi and himself. Some of these tracks, like the single “Thievery,” seem to run through a landscape of noise and patterns, while others like “Wound” or “Lonely Thugg” return to the sample-heavy emotional brevity from his most recent mixtape, &&&&&. There are the addition of strings, the enhancement of basslines, and sounds with perhaps even more echo than any of Arca’s previous work, but it all seems to come back again and again to Ghersi’s goals: self-destruction, self-reconstruction, and progress. It just so happens that these themes are carried out in a sexualized language in which no audience member could ever truly be fluent. But with music this outlandish and this immense, who’s to say that’s a bad thing? -Eli Fosl

38.) Singles- Future Islands

For reasons unknown to me, some bands float under the radar of public consciousness for embarrassingly long periods of time. Then comes the moment of emergence where the entire music community as one joins face with palm and grumbles, “how the fuck did we miss this one?”

But really, how did we all sleep on Future Islands for so long? Looking back on 2014, if Samuel Herring hadn’t goose-stepped his way out of David Letterman’s stage and into pop culture mythology, this year wouldn’t have felt quite right. Additionally, not too many of us would have heard how beautiful Singles was. Singles popped out of the ether like a synth-soaked apparition carrying a sometimes somber, always resilient collection of pop gems. In a tremendous year for pop, it’s still hanging in the conversation for best pop album of 2014 against multi-million dollar heavyweights. But that’s Future Islands’ thesis, I suppose. Hustle and grind through thick and thin and the rest will fall into place. Herring sings in “Seasons (Waiting On You)” that “some people change, and some people never do”. Singles proved to everyone that Future Islands are the latter. -Nick Kivi

37.) Syro- Aphex Twin

We were all lucky enough for Aphex Twin to release Syro, his first studio album since 2001 and it was by no means a disappointment for loyal Aphex Twin fans who have been waiting thirteen years. This album carries Aphex’s distinct glitchy sound that he made so famous during the 90s. However, Aphex Twin certainly isn’t for everyone and despite being such an influential force in electronic music, you won’t be hearing any songs of Syro in nightclubs any time soon. This is an unpredictable album filled with very unique sounds that form together to make the listener want to dance up until the final song on the album, “aisatsana [102]”, which is arguably the most soothing song of the year. Syro is a very listenable album that deserves to be included in all discussion of the best albums of 2014. -Mitchell Smith

36.) Broke With Expensive Taste- Azealia Banks

I never would’ve guessed that I would be writing about Azaelia Banks three years after the release of her first single “212”. Actually, I completely stopped concerning myself with her after continuously hearing that the release of her debut album would be delayed yet again. So, determined to ignore her and just call her trash (#HotTake), I avoided Broke With Expensive Taste upon its release.... for a total of four hours.

Banks may be a firecracker who still hasn’t quite learned when to be quiet, but perhaps her music wouldn’t be quite as phenomenal if she were any different. Bold, strange and erratic, BWET captures everything we thought we didn’t like about Azaelia Banks an presents it to us in a way that’s nearly irresistible. The Harlem rapper eases back and forth between singing and rapping, her rhymes always clever, always cutting edge, all over electronic and deep house production. It’s hard to decide if you want to be on Azaelia Banks’ side or not: she’s truly a hot mess of a person, but musically, creatively, she’s a force to be reckoned with. She’s already proven herself to be one of the most innovative hip hop artists out despite her bad reputation as a loudmouth, and whether you’re a fan or otherwise, you can’t look away. -Lindsay Temple

35.) My Krazy Life- YG

Former LA jerk rapper YG dropped My Krazy Life earlier this year, an album about LA jerks and their lifestyle, specfically his. While there might be crossover hits on here, make no mistake this is a gangsta rap at its purest form. It's gritty and it tells a story of an not so average gangsta in LA who goes through problems with the law, his girl, and himself. The presence of DJ Mustard, who was the executive producer of this album, makes it accessible sonically. Being cohesive is not only an underrated quality in hip hop, but in music in general, and My Krazy Life does exactly that while remaing interesting and honest. -Malcolm Baum

34.) Say Yes to Love- Perfect Pussy

I’m certain Meredith Graves could beat me to a pulp. And actually, I’d probably let her. The frontwoman from Perfect Pussy is so captivating in every avenue: in her written work, in the campaign for What’s Underneath?, on her band’s recorded work as well as on the stage, and her energy is infectious on the band’s first full length record. Say Yes to Love makes me want to shout and fight, to be passionate and angry and aggressive about what I want, about what I believe. It embraces clumsiness and vulnerability, it’s loud and aggressive and almost too much at times, but the discomfort mixed with the potency of the lyrics, sometimes in line with the band’s name- which relates to the constant demands and beauty standards placed on women to be perfect porcelain dolls- is the very essence of punk. -Lindsay Temple

33.) Tha Tour Part 1- Rich Gang

You can say what you want about Birdman's rapping, gaudy tattoos, or beehavior as a foster parent, but you can't deny one thing: he's got an incredible knack for recruiting talent. Young Thug and Rich Homie Quan are Birdman's latest muses and everything about them making a mixtape together makes sense. These two are synchronizing on a while different level on this tape and maybe Birdman is the glue? They both kill it in a variety of ways, individually and together using flows ranging from ridiculous to tender. The unsung hero of this project is London on Da Trak, who has worked with Thugger and Quan individually, previous to this tape and has produced summer jams such as "About the Money" and "Hookah". His blending of melodic pianos and dramatic synths give this tape a coherent and catchy sound. The scariest thing about this tape is that Thug and Quan are both under 25 and are only getting better. -Malcolm Baum

32.) The Unnatural World- Have a Nice Life

Most of you probably were captivated by the album cover for Have A Nice Life’s famous debut Deathconsciousness before you had heard any actual music from it. Through a strangely cropped lens of the famous French La Mort de Marat piece and a murky, warm color scheme, we already know that this is a record that you are not going to pass by. You expect a masterful, gargantuan, epic composition of the most grand scope. While it is met with those ideas, it quickly turns a cold shoulder on its gods and masters alike. It felt the reject icon of the French Revolution the album cover labels it as, with percussion being handled by chill, distant programmables and reverb sounding like the band is occupying the bottom of a well with the sun shining above. The eyes of HANL’s next record, The Unnatural World, yet roll back in the head with the frighteningly dreary tone that occupied its prior installment, and even retaining its barren production values. Being a shorter record, the listening experience does not feel as much of an experience, but we still feel at home with the message they convey: being as sad as possible and shouting at the sky about it. -Collin Dall

31.) III- BADBADNOTGOOD

BADBADNOTGOOD has come a full circle since the Toronto trio first rose to popularity by posting jazz covers of Odd Future songs in 2011. Instead of injecting jazz stylings into hip hop tracks, their debut album III consists mostly of jazz songs that have heavy hip-hop influences. Openers “Triangle” and “Confessions” take a straightforward approach to the blend of styles, mixing smooth basslines and killer drum breaks with an extended saxophone solo on “Confessions” carrying the song. Sandwiched between them is the expressive “Can’t Leave The Night,” which builds from a spare beat and a Harry Potter-esque Rhodes piano melody into a high-energy piece with tons of low end, creating something that is definitely not jazz or hip hop but lives somewhere in between. Songs like these are where the group shines; “Differently, Still” is an excellent example of a more traditional sound with its smooth transitions and piano improvisations, but next to the rest of the album it feels lacking in creativity. On the other end of the spectrum, “Since You Asked Kindly” sounds more like drum and bass with some jazz instruments than anything else, incorporating airy synths and a four-to-the-floor beat into the BADBADNOTGOOD sound. It’s definitely a quality track and worth a few listens, but doesn’t quite fit with the album’s jazz-focused sound. Other highlights are bouncy bass-driven “Kaleidescope” and Frank Ocean-style smooth jam “Eyes Closed”, but there’s really not a song on III that isn’t a highlight, making for a solid debut album that promises more experimentation and excellent music in the future. -Dan Graham

30.) Ruins- Grouper

Beep!

The microwave sound that goes off about halfway through the latest album from Liz Harris might actually be the loudest sound in her entire discography. That in itself should tell you two things about Ruins. One, that it is wrenchingly quiet. Two, that it gives way to the curtains, breaks the boundary of the studio that so usually removes any musician from the reality of their surroundings and from their audience. Ruins echoes with the sentiment of Marina Abramovic. There is nothing about the album that isn’t present, isn’t right in your face, drawing tears and drawing stillness at every angle. At any moment, the album could deteriorate into noise, but doesn’t. There is a strength in its solitude, in its ever marching on. It is a brutal, stark strength, but it is undeniably there. Harris could have recorded these songs in a studio, could have produced them as normal, and the songwriting still would have made them all exasperatingly beautiful. There is no selection of lyrics from Ruins that could capture their depth, their despair throughout. It is a soundtrack, perhaps, but to what no one could ever guess. to find out one would have to unravel the complexity of a labyrinth that makes up a person, makes up the woman behind the piano. There has always been something so mysterious and ethereal about Harris’s music. But here, in this small room, in this peripheral space, she is at her most crushingly human. -Eli Fosl

29.) pom pom- Ariel Pink

pom pom is the Ariel Pink record we all wanted to hear. After Before Today’s shiny, almost perfected and dimly-lit, prom dance pop ballads, and Mature Theme’s trolling track list, his latest record satisfies in every way we could ever want. Ruling over us for almost twenty tracks, pom pom instantly hypnotizes us back into Ariel’s deranged and occasionally creepy, equally hilarious children’s songbook. Every track groovy, every track weird, and every track just a flat out good time. Ariel Pink is a character, and on pom pom, we look through his peephole and gawk at everything he has to show, regardless of the consequences. -Collin Dall

28.) nikki nack- tUnE-yArDs

Next time you wake up in the middle of the night to a loud distant noise, don’t fret, it’s probably just Merrill Garbus hitting a high note from three states over. With almost enraging levels of musical talent spilling out like water in a wheelbarrow, Garbus and longtime Nate Brenner locked themselves away in an Oakland studio to follow up 2011’s w h o k i l l. That album could never be described as amicable, but in comparison to this year’s nikki nack, it sounds like Bing Crosby. tUnE-yArDs smashed their ukuleles and found a new intensity, and it’s all the better for it.

Tracks like “Wait for a Minute” and “Rocking Chair” deal with self-loathing with brutal, stark honesty. However lest we forget, this is Merrill Garbus, the perpetual prize fighter with a heart bigger than Connecticut. In standout track “Real Thing”, Garbus beings by singing “I’m the real thing”. The first time you hear it, it sounds doubtful. The song is a whirlwind of undeniable righteous self-love, so three minutes later when she sings it again and every ounce of doubt has melted away like microwaved butter. Merrill Garbus is the real thing, and if you listen to nikki nack, you’ll realize you are too. -Nick Kivi

27.) My Everything- Ariana Grande

What a leap it was to go from being a Nickelodeon star to being featured on a song with Jessie J and Nicki Minaj? Not to mention pairing up with The Weeknd who is practically incapable of making a song that isn’t sexy? Honestly, the definition of “glo’d up”. Ariana Grande hardly looks old enough to be as successful as she’s been in the past two years, and I have not the slightest clue how her petite frame can house such enormous pipes, but with a record like My Everything, she’s already singing laps around stars who have been recording pop songs for years and years. Grande’s songs are infectious; sweet but with a street sensibility, making it challenging to deem her R&B or pop. It doesn’t matter anyway, because no matter what category she’s put in, she won. -Lindsay Temple

26.) Range of Light- S.Carey

Range of Light is S.Carey's masterful second full length album and easily a piece that rivals his longtime collaborator Justin Vernon's outputs. Intricate, intelligent and uplifting, Range of Light is a set of songs that truly captures an artist in the peak of his songwriting ability. -Joshua Price

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SPOTIFY: IS TAYLOR SWIFT RIGHT?

by Poppy Turner 02/12/2014

For Taylor Swift to complain that she’s not earning enough money from her music grates a little, as in 2014 alone she earned over $64 million. She owns five houses, a private jet and an airport hangar in Nashville International Airport. And it’s not like she isn’t being paid for her music being streamed on Spotify; the money comes from advertising so those of us with a meagre one house and a tight budget can listen to her music for free whilst she rakes in the royalties.

You’d have thought that instead of quibbling over monetary details, artists who are financially secure would be happy that more people are able to access their music. Because I don’t agree with Taylor that music shouldn’t be free. Music is something which should be made for its own sake to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, rather than for the sake of making money. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in a recent blog post that ‘the new business model in music is a mix between ad-supported music, downloads, subscriptions, merchandising and ticketing’ – and I’m inclined to agree.

Taylor Swift has followed artists like Thom Yorke in removing her music from Spotify.

As a Spotify subscriber myself, I’d heard a lot of good things about Swift’s 1989, but not being able to listen to it on Spotify put me off. If I like an album and listen to it a lot I’ll go and buy it (it usually ends up being absorbed into my parents’ CD collection and I carry on listening on Spotify but that’s beside the point). If an artist is being paid for those streams of their album then all the better. People have always listened to music for free – borrowing records from friends, making mixtapes for each other, burning copies of CDs and of course downloading it illegally. Having the freedom to listen to an album before you buy it means that you’re at leisure to buy your hard copy from independent record shops and labels – vinyl sales are at a record high since 1996.

And it might seem basic but by increasing the number of people with access to their music, artists will increase the number of people going to see their shows. Touring is where musicians made their living in a past where music wasn’t readily available in your own home, let alone your pocket. Ek’s ‘new business model’ seems to be heralding something of a return to that. One amazon review of Future Islands’ album Singles, by a Mr G Hinks, captures perfectly the music industry mindset when he says ‘Its [sic] taken Future Islands eleven years to become an overnight success’. The band spent years making a living from touring, and building up a solid fan base, and they are keen to admit themselves that they saw this as success even before their infamous performance on Letterman. It’s just a case of what you see as more important – the music, or the money and fame.

So whilst we’ve established that Taylor Swift doesn’t need the money, what about the smaller artists? As I said before, Spotify isn’t replacing the purchasing of music; instead it’s replacing illegal downloads and file sharing. People have access to a wider range of music through online streaming, and Spotify is particularly good at introducing its users to new music. A lot of the smaller up and coming artists I’ve ‘discovered’ have been suggested to me by Spotify, and through playlists shared by friends (just some of the 1.5 billion playlists which have been created so far on Spotify). Artists have the choice as to whether or not their music goes on Spotify (and how much of it), and online streaming services like Spotify give musicians more opportunities to take control and to share their music independently via the internet without needing to be backed by a big label.

Spotify's user base has spread rapidly across multiple devices.

Singer/songwriter Jake Morley, signed to independent label Red Grape records, said in his latest email update to fans ‘I’ve given a lot of thought to Spotify recently and have decided to get right behind it. When enough people get monthly subscriptions like they do with TV and Netflix we could get to a place where musicians can afford to really work at their music, take risks if they want to, be creative’. And here are a couple more stats for you – just in case you’re still not convinced. The average Spotify subscriber spends $120/£80 per year, which is three times more than the average music consumer spent annually in the past. There are currently over 12.5 million paying subscribers - 80% of whom started out as free users, and so far Spotify have paid out a total of $2 billion to rights holders (70% of their total revenue).

Spotify’s harshest critics, like Taylor Swift, are those who are the most industry-minded. Spotify functions as a service like a library or public radio, which brings music to people for free whilst also paying the artists what they’re due. The company made a loss in 2012, and it’s fair to say that Spotify is more about music itself than the business side of things – and perhaps hails an exciting turning point in the way we experience music. As for Taylor Swift’s concerns about ‘whether this is actual progress, or whether this is taking the word music out of the music industry’, I’d say that it is real progress which thankfully does take music out of the confines of industry.

#article #articles #Poppy Turner #Poppy #Turner #Spotify #Taylor Swift #December #2014 #Royalties

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MIXTAPE ROUNDUP: FUTURE, REMY MA, CHIEF KEEF AND MORE

by Malcolm Baum 29/11/2014

Future - Monster

Chief Keef - Back From The Dead 2

With so many fresh faces coming out of Atlanta with a new and original sounds, people seemed to forget about Chief Keef, who is making unique music himself. Bang Pt. 2 and Almighty So from 2013 seemed to alienate a big portion of Finally Rich with its heavy use of autotune and melodies, opposed to the gritty style of his prior work. Things weren’t looking the best then, and when it was heard in 2014 that Keef was dropped from his label and that he would be producing the majority of BFTD2, he was practically left for dead. How does Sosa respond to the negativity? By sampling 0pn? He doesn’t actually sample 0pn on this tape but it sure does sound like it. This tape is Keef’s weirdest shit yet and he’s no stranger to experiments. The lack of autotune on this release allows him to come through as clear and angry as ever. He almost sounds like an angry, drunk, cartoon character, and I mean this in the greatest way possible. To recap, BFTD2 sounds like an angry Keef rapping over R plus 7. Yeah, it’s great. Standout: I’m really liking his new “TOOKAH!” adlib, and the beat on ‘Whole Crowd’ is beautiful.

Lil Boosie - Life After Deathrow

First thing you should know about this mixtape is that it requires a bit of obvious context. For those who don’t know, Lil Boosie was facing a life sentence back in 2010, but he gradually was admitted for drug charges and acquitted for the murder. Boosie’s music has always been about struggle and personal demons and some years in prison can give you a lot of time to think about shit. On Life After Deathrow, you can tell he has been mentally poised to kill it for a minute, as he’s at his most mature and honest with himself and others. His music comes from a place of pain, and if you’re going through things, Boosie’s got your back. To quote Badazz himself, "I'll be that n*gga by your side when your well runs dry". The beats are great too, they sound like modern versions of what Boosie would go over in 2005, so they sound original in that sense. People say Boosie going to jail was the best thing to happen to his career, and this may or may not be true, but this tape proves he deserves all the hype he gets. Standout: Boosie talking about how he positions his phone camera towards his neck on facetime so people can see his ice is the definition of “100” emoji.

Da Mafia 6ix - Hear Sum Evil

What DJ Paul says four times over this 40 minute tape can really sum up the whole listening experience: “Wait for the album February 2015 the real bump gonna be on there”. This is not to suggest that the tape is bad by any means, it’s pretty good, but it doesn’t have the same presence that 6ix Commandments had. There’s only nine new tracks on here minus the skits, so anything that is subpar doesn’t stick around too long. Hear Sum Evil contains a handful of great tracks but it doesn’t feel like a stand alone project. But, overall, it does what it sets out to do, which is give you a little sample of what the album will sound like. In that sense, it’s very successful. Standout: The excessive 808 cowbell on Lock’m N Da Trunk is music to my ears.

Remy Ma - I’m Around

Remy Ma, aka the original Sheesus Krhyst before Lily Allen, was released from jail this August after six long years. That’s a long ass time, and it shows up on this tape. Remy still has her spitting abilities, there’s no denying that, but if you told me this tape was released in 2008 I would believe you. There aren’t many catchy hooks or standout beats on I’m Around, just straight bars. It feels thrown together, and that’s understandable: she just got out of jail three months ago. This tape is truthfully a little bland, and Remy is anything but, so that was a disappointment. She says she has big plans coming up though, so I’ll wait for that and hope for the best. Standout: The song where she trades bars with Papoose is pretty heartwarming I gotta admit.

#revew #reviews #Malcolm Baum #Malcolm #Baum #November #2014 #November 2014 #Future #Monster #Chief Keef #Back From The Dead 2 #Lil Boosie #Life After Deathrow #Da Mafia 6ix #Hear Sum Evil #Remy Ma #I'm Around

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ELITISM AND AUTHENTICITY: THE MYTH OF "REAL MUSIC"

by Lindsay Temple 25/11/2014

I went largely undefeated in my countless debates about nothing and was quite impressed with myself, but there was always one girl who I could never seem to mentally destroy. Symone was in the marching band too; a dual enrolled student who was the drum major and mellophone player for the two years that I knew her, respectively. Being that she was older, I already had a great deal of respect for her (or was it that she intimidated me?) and I wanted to agree with everything she said, except for when we discussed anything about music. Quick to bring up how Waka Flocka Flame and other modern rappers were not “real music”, Symone always calmly, but persistently, disagreed, insisting that all music is valid and important regardless of personal preference.

For years, her words bothered me, as I was sure she was incorrect, but the older I became and the more I tried to prove her wrong, the more I believed that that was the most insightful thing anyone had ever said to me about music.

Now, at the tender age of 19, I understand that the argument of whether an artist or genre is legitimate or not is an enormous waste of time and energy, because not only are you going to stress yourself out attempting to make everyone agree with you, but honestly, it doesn’t even matter. It’s cool to believe that you have top secret information on something most other consumers don’t have access to, but in the end, everyone uploading 15-minute videos to Youtube explaining why radio music is trash know considerably less about the state of music than they think they do. That’s the only plausible explanation for it, as a deeper look at music often reveals how every artist in every genre is directly connected to the next. Nothing exists in a vacuum, especially not art, and the assumption that a certain type of music is more valid than another just shows a shallow understanding of it.

Run The Jewels performing live. Photograph by Sam Branson.

For the past three years, pop radio has mostly consisted of dance tracks and hip hop, sometimes both together (ie. Ariana Grande’s “Problem” that features a guest verse from Iggy Azalea) and of course, you would think a riot was going to break out by the number of angry blog posts emerging entitled “Why I Believe Pop Music Today SUCKS!!!!!!” Everyone suddenly seems to be so upset about the state of pop music, which people don’t even address unless it’s to whine about it, but truth be told, pop radio is the best way to know what’s going on in music on a larger scale. 2013 and 2014 have been phenomenal years in regards to electronic music, what with the resurgence of rave and nightlife culture, as well as yet another sort of British invasion in the form of UK electronic musicians such as James Blake, FKA twigs, Kindness and SBTRKT becoming artists to watch. On the hip hop front, trap artists like Migos and Young Thug are the ones in the spotlight, and their fame simply echoes the incredible rise in popularity of underground rappers such as Ratking, Clipping and California-based hip hop label Hellfyre Club’s Milo and Open Mike Eagle. All of these artists are making enormous waves in their respective genres and beyond, and not once have they separated themselves from their mainstream counterparts.

The problem isn’t that consumers aren’t loving everything that’s offered to them. The issue is disrespecting someone else’s art, something they use to express something that they may not be able to do in any other way. Preferring one genre or artist over another is a normal thing, something that naturally occurs as one’s taste develop. But a sign of maturity as a consumer is accepting the fact that every form of art is valid whether it’s in your library or not.

It’s equally troubling to hear music fans try to separate the work of popular artists from that of their beloved favorites, usually hailing them as the artists who are going to “revolutionize the genre”. This especially happens in hip hop, what with rap acts like Run the Jewels and Black Milk incorporating elements of electronica and harsh noise in their sound. Often called experimental, diehard fans of these artists tend to believe that the music they are producing is what the whole of hip hop should be doing, throwing around, once again, the idea that Future and Nicki Minaj are not making “real music”. Attempting to divide a genre into those who are building it up and those who are destroying it is incredibly counterproductive, and it’s this attitude that causes people to say that hip hop is dead. It’s not dead, actually. In 2014, hip hop may be healthier than it’s ever been, and the only reason you’d need to revolutionize something is if there was a problem with its original state.

Run The Jewels performing live. Photograph by Sam Branson.

There is a place for all music, whether you like that sort of music or not. It all serves a cultural importance. What am I going to dance to if we got rid of pop and electronica? Bob Dylan? The Black Keys? I’m not sure that would work out too well. Is anyone really trying to turn up to Frank Sinatra? I doubt it. Instead of making a list of standards all music must meet in order for it to be valid, perhaps one should try to brush off the idea that your favorite music is the crème de la crème and anything else is an utter waste of time. Music is nowhere near as difficult to create or understand as those with an elitist attitude would like to believe. An artists’ work is legitimate and authentic because they say so.

#Lindsay Temple #Lindsay #Temple #Elitism #Authenticity #Real Music #Article #Articles #November #2014 #Lindsey Temple #Lindsey

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MURA MASA - SOUNDTRACK TO A DEATH REVIEW

Jakarta Records 17/11/2014 Dan Graham 19/11/2014

The “Intro” track starts with the crackling white noise of a record playing and birds in the background and slowly transitions into a simple melody with a short vocal sample. After a minute and a half, the song begins a transition into the first full-length cut, “Know Me Better,” featuring Bonzai. Mura Masa takes the minimalist elements and short vocal sample of “Intro” and expands it into a beautiful soundscape complete with airy synths, pitched-up versions of the vocals, and pounding kicks, an excellent start for the young producer’s debut.

One of my favorite songs on the album is “Æ (money),” which is actually a complete reworking of Tinashe’s “2 On.” While maintaining enough of the DJ Mustard original’s bassline and drums to be recognizable, Mura throws his signature production on top and chops up and pitch shifts Tinashe’s vocals into an entirely original jam. The track slows down near the end to move into “Suicide Blades,” which is the album’s first deep exploration of the producer’s Japanese influence – he layers a traditional melody backed by heavy drums and snare hits and sprinkles Japanese vocal samples throughout. It was on my third or fourth listen that I figured out that Soundtrack to a Death is less of a cohesive album than a collection of his recent production arranged in an order that allows for smooth transitions between them. It’s not a debut album in the vein of Kanye’s College Dropout but more of a showcase of his talent. The following songs reflect this, combining various elements from the first few tracks into pieces that, on their own, are excellent, but in context of the album, get somewhat stale.

“An Interlude” comes as a welcome change-up, returning to the slow pace and some of the simplicity of “Intro” in its opening moments while still maintaining the general Japanese vibe. However, it starts to shift into a higher tempo halfway through, signaling a transition in the album’s tone. As with “Intro,” many of the elements from “Interlude” are carried over to “Shibuya” and the track after, “Lotus Eater.” These are two standout tracks that complement each other very well – “Shibuya” is smooth and mid-tempo, while “Lotus Eater” is choppier and upbeat, almost impossible to not move to. After this point, the connections between the songs are fewer, often only reusing a single element and no longer connecting in style or tone, which makes for a somewhat more entertaining listen but can be distracting.

“Cloud Claps” is a good example of this trend, mashing various elements not found elsewhere on the album and even including some classic hip-hop drum patterns reminiscent of Vic Mensa’s “Orange Soda” and an odd bed-creaking sample. It’s somewhat confusing to listen to, with drastic tempo and tone changes around 30 seconds in and again 1:30 and 3:00, but the mashup of styles works because of everything else Mura throws at the listener in the last few tracks. “Bae” makes heavy use of the bed noise as well as no less than three different arpeggiated synths playing the same notes, creating an almost hyperactive feeling in the song.

Mura Masa shows an entirely different style from the rest of the album on closers “U” and “I’ve Never Felt So Good”, going for a slow jam R&B feel. “U” could be a track from one of the OVO singers plus or minus a few beats per minute and a catchy hook. I can almost hear PARTYNEXTDOOR crooning when I listen to it. “I’ve Never Felt This Good” is a remix of either Alicia Keys’ or Brian McKnight’s “Never Felt This Way” (I really can’t tell with all the pitch shifting) with a similar production style. Because it’s his debut album, the collage of different production techniques is acceptable, although in the future I hope that he is able to release a whole album of one of the styles he’s displayed here. He seems to be playing on the Japanese influence most heavily, with Japanese stylings in more than half of his songs, his art style, and even his stage name, a reference to a Japanese swordsmith. That’s the direction I hope to see more of, mainly because I’ve never heard anything in that area before and what I hear from Mura is excellent. However he may proceed, he’s only 18 so he’ll have plenty of time to experiment.

#review #Dan Graham #Dan #Graham #Mura Masa #Mura #Masa #Soundtrack to a Death #album review #reviews #November #2014

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FEST 13: DAY 3

by Sam Votaw 13/11/2014

Photograph by Elle Fischer

Subhead: This is the final entry of a three part series where I recount my musical, cultural, and culinary experiences at Fest 13 in Gainesville, FL as best I can remember. Part 1 Part 2

Arriving around lunchtime, some friends and I aimed to grab lunch at Boca Fiesta. Even on a generally lackadaisical Sunday afternoon, we were greeted to an hour wait. This means two things to any future Festers out there: It’s really fucking good, speaking from last year’s experiences; and get there as early as you can.

Not to be deterred from kicking our day off with Mexican food, we walked a couple blocks north to the all too familiar Flaco’s Tacos. This time I ordered two soft tacos with tempeh and pink sriracha sauce. Notably, the “Top” and “Bottom” tip jars were still there from Friday instead of a newer, more amusing pondering.

Satisfied, we headed back over to Boca and entered the Palomino for Texas two-piece Two Knights. Having seen the group play a packed house show the previous year, the set marked the emo outfit’s first official showing at The Fest. Surprisingly packed for an early afternoon set, the group satisfied those in attendance with their high fringed, math rock influenced sound. As cliché being a two-piece might be in today’s scene, this band is a dynamic and excellent force at crafting melodic and emotional songs. It was my first time truly listening to this band, with one post-rock-y bridge bringing me tears.

Traveling to 8 Seconds afterwards, I was pleasantly surprised by managing to catch a few minutes of Gainesville native Dikembe’s set. After seeing this band 3 times in relatively small venues, it was empowering to see so many people there to support a scene favorite not to mention local heroes, especially after singer/guitarist Steven Gray declared he had an “anxiety attack over having a 40-minute set.” Songs from the group’s newest release Mediumship were killer, with the closing cover of The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” solidifying the set as a weekend highlight.

Keeping my spot inside, I caught another Floridian act in Fake Problems. An all-time favorite of mine, the four-piece led by the charismatic singer/guitarist and originator of #FESY Chis Farren played a set choc full of fan favorites from the group’s three albums. From opener “Dream Team” to “Born and Raised,” everyone was off their feet and clapping along. The real highlight, however, came when the group took slowed it down and invited dear friend and punk celebrity Laura Stevenson to the stage to cheerily interpretative dance to the melancholy “Songs For Teenager,” a moment that was not only humorous but also another brilliant example on how the Fest is more friendly and personable than any other festival out there.

Laura Stevenson joins Fake Problems onstage for an interpreative dance routine. Photograph by Sam Votaw

8 Seconds played host to another home state group with You Blew It! If there was a long line for their Weezer cover set the day before, I wondered just how far the congregation stretched around the corner of University Ave and 2nd Street; hurray for staying inside! Instantly beginning their set after sound check, the band that many cited as having the best set during last year’s Fest gave another top notch performance that arguably took the title of best set of the weekend again. The appeal of this Orlando five-piece is evident; five goofy people (they teased the opening drum fill of “Smooth” yet again) seriously playing upbeat yet personable emo with their shows, seeming more like a giant sing-along with close friends than a traditional concert, reflecting such a dynamic. One moment engrained into my mind was the when two crowd surfers scrambled to reach the front of the stage, subsequently getting tossed into an awkward scissoring position atop the crowd. What looked uncomfortable at first disappears as the two brimmed, high fived, and kept pressing forward limbs still entangled. Hardly anything is awkward at Fest, just fucking fun.

Finally leaving 8 Seconds, I braved the seasonably chilly weather to catch straight edge punk legends 7 Seconds play the outdoor Bo Diddley Plaza. For a venue that could easily contain all of the estimated 6,000 attendees, I was shocked to see the smallest crowd I had seen all weekend barely huddled near the barricade. Despite the nominal numbers at the start, frontman Kevin Seconds wasn’t deterred as and he and this band cut through classics like “Young ‘Til I Die” and the female punk celebration “Not Just Boys’ Fun.” Eventually a few more people shuffled in, even getting an old school mosh pit going, but it was a shame seeing such an inspirational band for the scene perform in a venue that felt like the soul was sucked out of it. Had they been scheduled in a smaller venue like The Wooly or High Dive, I’m sure it would have been one the craziest sets of the festival.

I left early and moseyed to The High Dive to catch Gnarwolves from the UK. Sure to blow up in the pop-punk world after wrapping dates on the road with The Wonder Years and The Story So Far, the band spoke of their experiences touring in the U.S., especially highlighting the subtle nuances between American fast food and their homeland’s, all while performing solid songs in a more bottom-ended style of pop-punk that managed to sound right at home at Fest.

After grabbing yet another slice of Five Star Pizza on my way back over to Bo Diddley for headliner and one of the most awaited acts of the weekend, Lifetime. After having to drop off of Fest 10, “Jersey’s Best Dancers” finally made it up after 3 long years. This combined with the bevy of technical issues before the scheduled start only made the opening “Turnpike Gates” that much more emotional, subsequently setting off a rousing set of old favorites that had everyone, from the pit to the hills singing along and two-stepping. Singer Ari Katz spoke of his connections with some fellow Fest bands, shouting out 7 Seconds and recalling how his friend got him grounded from seeing Descendants in ’87. It was a spectacular set from scene veterans, and while it was a humorous sight to see middle-aged Dan Yemin “posi-jump,” the band sounded as precise live as newer bands do.

Speaking of newer bands, by parking myself inside 8 Seconds in order to secure a spot for The World Is, I wound up catching the last couple songs of Modern Baseball. Spearheading the newest class of pop-punk/emo, this young band was mostly background noise to me while a friend told me a story for the millionth time on how he and his pals beat the crap out of some dude. It’s nothing against the obviously musical incredibly talented band, but with lyrics littered with soon-to-be archaic social media references that I can’t imagine remaining relevant for long, I’d much rather listen to a macho power trip tale that gets more and more zany upon each telling.

Fans invade the stage during The World Is a Beautiful Place's set. Photograph by Sam Votaw

When The World Is A Beautiful Place… took the stage around 8:30 to perform their original material, my attention was fixated on the new face of spoken word artist Chris Zizzamia. After his contributions to the collaboration project “Between Bodies” received mixed criticisms, I wondered how effective translating the record to the stage would be. Opening with an extraordinary Gatling gun style monologue over Whenever, If Ever track “blank #9,” it was apparent that Zizzamia’s presence could positively expand the already sonically massive catalogue of TWIABP. While Zizzamia’s rant against online anonymous hate after making a powerful point on the inclusion of LGBT, PoC, and mentally ill people in the scene fell flat, his presence was not as much of a distraction that I felt it would be; being an ultimate team player in the football team sized band, Zizzamia phased in and out with his whimsical craft throughout the set, marking a dynamic change for the better.

Despite the buzz over one man, the night was all about the bond between band and audience, as dozens stormed the stage during the culminating outro of “Getting Sodas” for a commanding display of scene camaraderie. Venue security lost their shit in maintaining order, resulting in an older member throwing down his camo hat, decrying the stage invaders as “hippies.” It was the last thought on everyone’s minds what others thought of their passion, it was their stage too. That’s the spirit that drives Fest.

As wonderful of an ending seeing several friends invading the stage in euphoria could have been for the weekend, there was still two more bands I aspired to see. Perhaps not as influential in the punk scene as other headliners, Washington state’s The Melvins have inspired musicians from an assortment of genres such as hardcore punk, sludge metal, and, perhaps most notably, grunge. With the crowd they pulled, it’s clear that, even after 31 years together, musicians and fans today still look toward their blueprint for extreme music. After waiting an hour and a half outside The Wooly in a line that barely trudged along with the venue at capacity, I made it in 20 minutes after the celebrated three-piece were scheduled to begin. I was lucky enough to endure only 10 more minutes of sound check before ‘Godfather of Grunge’ Buzz Osbourne and company took the stage, trudging out an elongated drony intro before launching into the heaviest display of sludge tinged groove I have ever, and will ever see. Seduced with a strange mix between of thick, malevolent guitars and hypnotic furrow, the Melvins proved why artists like Nirvana, Eyehategod, and Tool looked to them in shaping their respective sounds.

After much deliberation throughout the weekend, my group decided that the last band we’d see before heading home would be Gainesville’s own Frameworks at The Atlantic. Yes, I actually got in this time! Yes, it was very bittersweet. Arriving in town late into the morning after a countrywide tour with The Saddest Landscape, both the band, and half the audience, was tired beyond belief. While the gripping cinematic masterpiece that is Trolls 2 played on the big screen of the bar area, all eyes were locked on the atmospheric post-hardcore 5-piece performed a chilling set comprised of songs off the brilliant Loom to a weary but enthused group of dedicated fans.

Trolls 2 inside The Atlantic. Photograph by Derek Bennett

And just like that, Fest was over officially over for me. The last remaining bands played into the morning for the diehard supporters, but my party sauntered back to the parking garage, hugging friends and saying our goodbyes. While it’s main focus is a celebration of punk rock’s past, present, and future- there’s more to The Fest than this. It’s the friendships made and the unity that extends beyond the moshpits and shouting along to meaningful songs. It doesn’t stop there; it continues to last throughout the year as you and others eagerly await rolling onto University Ave and waiting in an even longer line than the year before. It’s all worth it, the best weekend of your entire life. Until next year Fest.

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FEST 13: DAY 2

by Sam Votaw 12/11/2014

Subhead: This is the second of a three part series where I recount my musical, cultural, and culinary experiences at Fest 13 in Gainesville, FL as best I can remember. Part 1 Part 3

After leaving a few minutes early, I caught a set from Chicago’s Kittyhawk at the Palomino, a large space connected to Mexicans food mecca of Gainesville, Boca Fiesta. At 1:30 in the afternoon, it was clear that everyone, including the band, was a bit tired from the night before. After sound check was complete with 5 minutes until their set, rhythm guitarist Erik Czaja joked, “We’re getting a few Bloody Mary’s.” Once the set began, vocalist/keyboardist Kate Grube charmed those filing in late with her soothing voice and lush command of the keys. The four-piece has a unique sound, especially with the lack of bass player, but the group was able to captivate a small crowd for their first Fest showing, and is sure to play a bigger venue in the coming years.

As I left early again to catch my next desired set, I was shocked to see a large line looping around The Atlantic. The set every one was hoping to reach? Fest favorites You Blew It! performing a Weezer cover set. While waiting in line for 30 minutes, I had to chuckle at the oddity of the situation: Hundreds of people hoping to get in to see a band performing another band’s songs. After hearing the opening three songs of “Tired of Sex,” “Pork and Beans,” and “Hash Pipe” from outside the venue, I was able to narrowly get inside before it reached capacity.

Once inside, it was apparent why it was a must see set and an example of why Fest is the best music festival around. You Blew It! were dedicated to nailing covers like “Why Bother” and the climax of “My Name Is Jonas,” but carried their charming brand of goofball humor throughout, complete with lead singer/guitarist Tanner Vickers sporting Rivers Cuomoesque glasses and the rest of the band teasing non-Weezer songs like “Break Stuff” by Limp Bizkit or the Rob Thomas/Santana collab “Smooth.”

You Blew It! singer Tanner Jones performing during the band's Weezer cover set. Photograph by Carlo Cavaluzzi

Stepping outside, I grabbed my first slice of Five Star pizza of the weekend and walked over to 8 Seconds to catch the recently reunited Spraynard. The Pennsylvanian three-piece were hotly awaited inside the packed venue, and despite pleas for a respectful audience from singer/guitarist Pat Graham, it was hard to contain the jubilation attendees unleashed upon striking their first note. With it being my first time seeing the band, I wasn’t all too familiar with their catalogue but quite impressed with their DIY style of pop-punk and enjoyed them advocating inclusion of women and people of color within the scene. Graham announced that a record was being written/recorded, so this isn’t the last we’ll hear from them.

Another hour and a half layover prompted a run in with my friends and the Australians again, and we all went on a journey for a parlor for several friends to get Naruto themed tattoos. We took a pit stop at organic café Karma Crème, a hidden gem for most Festers since it’s a ways from downtown, where I bought a hearty serving of key lime pie flavored ice cream that put me over the moon. Soon enough, I had to part ways with the group to make my next round of bands, so I said my farewells and walked back downtown.

Now one of the only problems with Fest is the occasional denial from a venue at capacity. What worked to my advantage with getting into the Weezer cover set battled against me for entry into The Atlantic, where I aspired to catch sets from Single Mothers, Dangers, and You’ll Live. I got in line 20 minutes before Single Mothers set, hoping that the line would move forward enough in the next 50 minutes to get in for Dangers, but was several feet outside the entrance when I was told the venue was packed to the brim. I understand the rules and regulations for venue safety, but with The Atlantic being notable year after year for lengthy lines and not enough room to accompany attendees, maybe Fest should look into primarily booking smaller bands in this venue or find another.

I wasn’t going to let the seemingly wasted hour and a half ruin my day, so I decided to head over to the art-gallery-turned-venue The Wooly earlier than anticipated, subsequently New Jersey three-piece Candy Hearts. My 4th time seeing the upbeat pop-punk group, mostly in support roles, I realized that the group wasn’t necessarily my style, although I did appreciate the large amount of people there singing along with frontwomen Mariel Loveland’s relatable, albeit somewhat cheesy, lyrics.

The Awful Waffle enters the ring for a Kaiju Big Battel match. Photograph by Sam Votaw

Next up was Captain, We’re Sinking, my second time seeing them and a highlight from last year’s Fest. Their sixth Fest performance heavily featured cuts from last year’s brilliant The Future is Cancelled, and a random goofball cover of Sublime’s “Pawn Shop” for good measure. The response was unreliable, and while I hugged the back wall due to small mannered fatigue, the rest of the venue lit up during anthems like “Brother” and the heartwarming “Montreal.” This band has the potential to join The Menzingers as the class of the modern punk field in the coming years with their strong and emotive songwriting.

Although punk band Dillinger Four sang “It feels like summer in October” in the 2008 Fest anthem “Gainesville,” this night felt more like October in October due to the high of 59 degrees Fahrenheit (sorry to the rest of the world, we Americans are still backwards and haven’t converted to the metric system) causing me to double layer for the next set at the outdoor Bo Diddley Plaza.

Seeing Less Than Jake play Gainesville was an experience unlike any time seeing them live before. Being their hometown, Bo Diddley was overflowing with longtime fans of the 22-year-old ska outfit. “There hasn’t been this many people taking pictures of me since the 90’s,” observed singer/guitarist Chris DeMakes before kicking off their set. It was proved that LTJ is not a relic from glory days, still putting on a kickass hour performance with new and old songs. While the crowd stood passive during cuts from the group’s most recent album See The Light (“Who here hates new songs but are still supportive?” joked singer/bassist Roger Manganelli a couple songs in) they tore it down with old favorites “Science of Selling Yourself Short,” “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads,” and “Plastic Cup Politics.”

Crisscrossing town again, I found myself inside The Wooly for the charming Laura Stevenson and the Cans. Another act seen at last year’s Fest, Stevenson and her phenomenal backing band provide an indie-folk soundtrack that manages to sound right at home in the swamps of Gainesville as well as New York ballrooms. Possessing easily the most beautiful and masterful voice I have ever heard, Stevenson chilled those watching with self-described “sad” songs that remarkably put a smile on everyone’s face. A clear Fest favorite for many, I look forward to marking the act’s name on my list year after year.

The Descendents play Fest 13. Photograph by Samantha Spoto

Every year, The Fest aims to bring a larger band into the mix, one whose influence on the punk rock scene is deep seeded and iconic. This year that band was The Descendants. Playing the massive Bo Diddley Plaza, I began to wonder if everyone with a Fest wristband was comfortably nestled together for warmth in witnessing a rare treat. It certainly felt that way once lead singer (and punk caricature) Milo Aukerman introduced the band that “haven’t played Gainesville in like 30 years” and launched into a classic riddled set including “Everything Sucks,” “Hope,” “I’m the One,” and “Nothing With You” that had a majority of the crowd off their feet. It was a striking moment to see so many people watching a band that has made a mark on the scene, likely inspiring a number of the bands playing the Fest to pick up music years ago.

As wonderful of a moment as it was, I left early to catch the tail end of another Fest specialty; another cover set, this time The World Is A Beautiful mouthful performing the songs of At The Drive In. I was able to get in without any interference due to the Descendants holding majority attention at the time, and while the performance was a bit sloppy compared to the ace of the Weezer cover set earlier in the day, it was unique that Fest allows fun moments such as this for bands to showcase their influences in a manner that is organic and not forced.

Stepping outside High Dive during Fest weekend leads you to an alley with an assortment of food trucks, the one closest to the venue specializing in a daintily sloppy chicken and waffle and slider. I ordered one and in a moment of ecstasy ordered another. I strongly urge you to have one (or two) should you find yourself there next year.

My night unfortunately ended the same way I missed Dangers by being stuck outside The Atlantic for Tiny Moving Parts, Old Gray, and Self Defense Family. While frustrating, I was flanked by a dozen friends who made waiting in a stagnant line enjoyable through conversation and the fact that we were all suffering together. Even when things don’t work out at Fest, you can’t be sad for long.

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FEST 13: DAY 1

by Sam Votaw 11/11/2014

Photograph by Kayla Surico

This is the first of a three part series recounting musical, cultural, and culinary experiences at Fest 13 in Gainesville, FL as best I can remember. Part 2 Part 3

The first order of business at Fest is heading to the Holiday Inn on University Avenue for Fest registration. The lines may seem to get longer and longer every year no matter what time you arrive, but there is something oddly gratifying about waiting in line 3+ hours to receive the mandatory wristband that kick starts the weekend’s adventures. With time to kill, you wind up making fast friends with everyone around you, not to mention receiving free goodies like zines and koozies as the line snakes through the parking lot.

Being that it was Halloween, there were numerous people sporting elaborate and clever costumes; my friend Derek wore a Naruto forehead protector, I saw several dressed as Tina from Bob’s Burgers, dudes outfitted like wrestling superstars, as well as the ever so simple cat ears and painted whiskers on both gals and guys. After waiting 4 hours and 20 minutes, (no joke, that’s actually how long I waited) received my bright, translucent orange wrist band and was ready to Fest.

While an attempt to catch the heavily anticipated Rage Against the Machine cover set atop the hotel roof pool deck fell flat, we all traveled a couple blocks east to grab some food from Flaco’s Tacos. One of the highlights of eating here are the rotating dual tip jars. After last year’s visit made me ponder the eternal question of “Tits” or “Ass,” I chuckled at the “Top” or “Bottom” options before ordering two hard shell chicken tacos with the delectable yet incendiary pink sriracha sauce.

A flea market at Fest 13. Photograph by Sam Votaw

After filling my stomach, I made my way over the High Dive, one of my favorite venues from my first year at Fest 11, yet wasn’t utilized at all during last year’s due to a contract dispute. After battling a long line, I finally stepped inside to catch the final couple songs from Sheffield, UK emo two-piece Nai Harvest, a cool sense of familiarity came over me as I saw fans diving and crowd surfing inside arguably the most intimate venue in Gainesville. This phenomenon was the first incident that sparked an underlying discourse racking everyone in the scene’s minds since the Joyce Manor incident a couple months back: How would fans and bands handle crowd participation? Just as a gleeful crowd surfer was about to be ushered down by venue security, singer/guitarist Ben Thompson smiled widely and declared “We fucking love crowd surfing!” before vaulting into the crowd himself. The first set I caught officially informed me that the weekend was a go, and seeing a band from across the pound received so warmly on U.S. soil was a great way to do so.

I stayed put inside the High Dive for the next act, Massachusetts’ The Hotelier. Despite only hearing select tracks off of this year’s Home, Like Noplace Is There, I was supremely impressed by this band’s live set. It was clear that bassist/singer Christian Holden’s knack for lyrical storytelling meant a great deal to those who packed in the venue, resonating with the crowd and compelling them to shout along while crowd surfing. In an humorous almost antithesis of Nai Harvest’s stance, Holden joked, “Drop him, drop him right on his head!” to one particular surfer hoisted above the audience longer than normal. There was no need as the crowd gently let them down and they continued singing along to one of the strongest acts of the weekend, and certainly a future Fest highlight for years to come.

Next I walked across the street to Loosey’s, a small bar with a low stage in the corner, to catch Young & Heartless from Pennsylvania. It was my second time seeing them but first since the release of the astounding The Pull of Gravity. While the crowd was small, it was clear that the group has great promise through their lingering sense of melody with an emotive gruff/hushed vocal delivery of harrowing lyrics.

Leaving the set early to walk over to country themed bar 8 Seconds, I huddled mid crowd for longtime Fest favorite Paint It Black from Philadelphia, PA. This was my second time seeing the group led by Dan Yemin at Fest, and with a far more clubby venue than the massive Florida Theater, this performance felt more like a no frill hardcore show than last year’s. The thick opening bassline of “Salem” struck a match in the room that propelled bodies on top of bodies as Yemin barked his politically fused lyrics outward like the fed up citizen he is. “It’s great to be back in a state with a real Stand Your Ground law,” he satirized between songs. Yemin not only spoke on political musings, but also addressed the concepts of show behavior and safety and others. While a brief monologue over the yin-and-yang of aggression at shows compared to flat out violence hit home, he later paraphrased this with a simple message everyone should be able to understand: “Be careful motherfuckers!”

Photograph by Derek Bennett

Following this I walked over the Fest’s newest venue, Bo Diddley Community Plaza. The recent closing of the Florida Theater led organizers to look for a large space to host bigger bands, and despite being outdoors compared to the norm of indoor venues- the collective pathos of Fest was undeterred. The sun had just set, and another Pennsylvania band was gearing to play to a massive audience clustered together in the cool, seasonal Florida air. The Menzingers, easily one of the best bands around today and my must see band going into the weekend, performed a hearty set choc full of cuts from the group’s phenomenal catalogue. It was my first time hearing the Rented World songs live, and boy have they already ascended to instant fan favorites. The opening “I Don’t Wanna Be an Asshole Anymore” commanded everyone in the grass field to shout along in working class camaraderie. Cuts from On the Impossible Past and a few from Chamberlain Waits pleased longtime fans before culminating with the empowering “In Remission” from RW. If they keep writing and performing wonderfully consistent records, there is no doubt the Menzingers will one day be held in the same regard as scene staples Hot Water Music and Against Me!

Afterwards I rushed back over to 8 Seconds to catch a band I had never seen before but heard great things about, A Wilhelm Scream. In their return to Fest, it appeared they hadn’t missed a beat. Their unique blend of skate punk with shred guitar pyrotechnics made for a diverse crowd full of old-school punks and younger post-hardcore fans, all of whom were champing at the bit to get mic time from the ecstatic frontman of Nuno Pereira who happily obliged them for a blistering 40 minutes.

With an hour and half layover until the next band I wanted to see, I got in touch with my friends and asked if we could make a car run to put away merch and grab my phone charger. From there we ran into more friends plus a group from Australia and ascended to the top of the parking garage, where we all sat in a circle, drinking beers, and introducing ourselves in the style of first-day-of-school icebreaker. This is the best example on why Fest rules; meeting people with different backgrounds but share similar interests and passion for music. One of the Australians named Josh challenged Derek to shotgun a 4Loko knockoff, which he did in an astonishing 6 seconds, the whole can bone dry afterwards. This sent all 18 of us into a frenzy of disbelief before we went our separate ways, agreeing to meet up later.

Tiny Moving Parts peform a Bruce Springsteen cover set. Photograph by Carlo Cavaluzzi

After several missed opportunities, I finally witnessed the insanity that is California post-hardcore act Touché Amoré live. I’ve long held some grumblings about frontman Jeremy Bolm that I won’t get into, but seeing him lead the 5-piece in an intense set on Halloween night changed my opinion on the band for the better. After a minute or so of chilling atmospheric noise and light fog, the group took the stage adorning large ghoulish white t-shirts and black eye shadow. “Boo!” Bolm exclaimed before launching into the commanding “~” from 2011’s Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me, to which everyone, and I kid you not, everyone there exploded; jumping off speakers and mesmerizing gang vocals were observed for a thrilling 40 minutes as “Boouché Amoré ” gave me a set I will never forget.

As gripping as the set was, I did leave a couple songs early to walk directly across the street to catch an event I was certain I wasn’t going to see again in my lifetime: Minnesota emo/math-rock band Tiny Moving Parts playing a Bruce Springsteen cover set at one of Fest’s only 21+ venues. The cards were stacked against my 20-year-old self, and after asking around all day to borrow someone’s ID to no avail, I had no choice but to make an attempt at the door. Despite making a case to the bouncer on how I grew up on Springsteen’s music, I was calmly denied but was not defeated, catching the set through the venue’s front window. I may have looked like a creeper peering through glass to stare at the three-piece’s backsides and the fervent audiences faces, but seeing a happily drunk room invade the stage to sing-along to Boss classics like “Thunder Road,” “Dancing in the Dark,” and “Born to Run” (which they played TWICE!) made my Fest experience complete despite having two more days ahead.

#Fest 13 #Fest #Sam Votaw #Sam #Votaw #November #October #2014 #Nai Harvest #The Hotelier #Young & Heartless #Paint It Black #The Menzingers #A Wilhelm Scream #Gainesville #Florida #FL #articles #article

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