ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2014

yes to this

So far...

77 BABYMETAL Babymetal [236 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote]
76 CHER LLOYD Sorry I'm Late [239 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
75 MICA LEVI Under the Skin: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [242 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
74 NOURA MINT SEYMALI Tzenni [243 points, 8 votes]
73 REAL ESTATE Atlas [254 points, 9 votes]
72 CALL SUPER Suzi Ecto [255 points, 11 votes]
71 STURGILL SIMPSON Metamodern Sounds in Country Music [256 points, 10 votes]
70 NINOS DU BRASIL Novos Mistérios [258 points, 9 votes]
69 OUGHT More Than Any Other Day [262 points, 7 votes]
68 WARPAINT Warpaint [262 points, 9 votes, 1 first place vote]
67 FUTURE Honest [262 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
66 KHUN NARIN Khun Narin's Electric Phin Band [263 points, 10 votes]
65 THEO PARRISH American Intelligence [267 points, 10 votes]
64 THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS Brill Bruisers [269 points, 10 votes, 2 first place votes]
63 LEON VYNEHALL Music for the Uninvited [271 points, 13 votes]
62 DEAN BLUNT Black Metal [272 points, 9 votes]
61 FREDDIE GIBBS & MADLIB Piñata [275 points, 9 votes]

60 TUNE-YARDS Nikki Nack [278 points, 11 votes]
59 KELIS Food [281 points, 13 votes]
58 KASSEM MOSSE Workshop 19 [282 points, 13 votes]
57 BOTANIST VI: Flora [285 points, 10 votes]
56 STEVE GUNN Way Out Weather [286 points, 9 votes, 1 first place vote]
55 RONIKA Selectadisc [288 points, 10 votes]
54 MOODYMANN Moodymann [291 points, 12 votes]
53 SUN KIL MOON Benji [292 points, 9 votes]
52 FENNESZ Bécs [306 points, 12 votes]
51 A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN Atomos [309 points, 11 votes, 1 first place vote]
50 ALVVAYS Alvvays [314 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
49 GIGI MASIN Talk to the Sea [323 points, 9 votes, 2 first place votes]
48 WILD BEASTS Present Tense [326 points, 12 votes, 1 first place vote]
47 KATY B Little Red [342 points, 16 votes]
46 YOUNG MARCO Biology [355 points, 15 votes]
45 LEWIS L'Amour [367 points, 11 votes]
44 ONE DIRECTION Four [372 points, 12 votes, 1 first place vote]
43 DJ Q Ineffable [374 points, 17 votes]
42 LEE ANN WOMACK The Way I'm Livin' [380 points, 11 votes, 1 first place vote]
41 EX HEX Rips [380 points, 15 votes]

Did I vote for Ex Hex? don't remember, it was in the mix but might have been bumped. Anyway this is the first album to place that I've heard in full.

i kept trying to like that Ex Hex album and it just wasn't coalescing.

totally missed A Winged Victory placing! love it.

I don't know that it's the best thing Timony's done, but in the right mood...

ex hex album is lots of fun, but i don't know you how you write a song like "beast" and not just start singing "radio on" at the end or something

ok i got bored of ex hex, dj q next, don't know why i skipped over this before, it's excellent. reminds me there's a todd edwards album due this year i think.

the ex hex album is just really well constructed pop rock, in some ways it's more like a Cars record than Helium

It's 1979 in 2014.

"how you got that girl" is certainly more cars than anything timony's done before

every song sounds like a blurry snapshot of something else tho

xxp
Do you reckon Chris Forsyth will gatecrash the top 40 UMS?

he better

boring results today imo. Yesterday was way better.

Ninos and Noura still my faves

ex hex album is good though, don't mean to take anything away from it. reminds me of the fastbacks more than anything else.

xxp
Do you reckon Chris Forsyth will gatecrash the top 40 UMS?

― xelab, Tuesday, January 27, 2015 4:05 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it really should in terms of guitar rock in 2014
feeling bad i didn't vote in this poll cuz it might have made more of a difference

yeah you and tyler at least should have voted

I'll remind u both next year :)

Today's votes:

Kelis - initial reaction to this was "oh god yet another dull thing from Ninja Tune", but seeing her in July completely reframed the album for me and it's been in constant rotation ever since
Alvvays - was reticent with this b/c of double vs instead of double ewe but their charming melodies were irresistible
Katy B - probably only "Aaliyah" and "Emotions" are on a par with album 1 but this was maddeningly consistent and I think would've been a lot more popular with a different singles configuration
Young Marco - don't have anything profound to say about this - my fave techno of the year tho, insanely groovy

one direction - i appreciate their existence as a cultural phenomenon but the music isn't my style of pop at all. not that i've heard anything off this album - have their voices improved, are they less clumsy/rambunctious? i can't work out exactly what it is that made everyone who'd ignored their first three albums suddenly get into their music. they've all lost their looks imo

dj q - great album albeit one i felt like i should have gone back to a lot more than i did? like, i enjoyed it in a low-key way but it never turned into an addiction. "notice me" and the epic "through the night" are highlights

lee ann womack - another of my votes, this album floored me the first time i heard it. title track is incredible and "chances are" (some live performance is all that's on youtube) is so bleak

Yeah, you should have voted.

But I don't get the Chris Forsyth thing.

xposts

do you mean "inconsistent"?

my hopes for francis harris, mirel wagner, meshell ndegéocello, angaleena presley receding swiftly; my hopes for gangsta boo/la chat and fatima have receded :(

Love the Young Marco a lot but partly with Lex in that the album ultimately didn't hit me as hard as prior one-shots like "Darwin in Bahia" or "Later Than U Think".

I think in my head I had imagined he was on this kind of trajectory towards Power Spot meets Achso percussive delirium, which daydream the album even had the graciousness to partly fulfill, but not to the level of excess I had fantasised about.

Throw Spanners in there as another fantasised-about reference point.

xxxxps to Chris Forsyth peeps
I was wondering around some lonesome Victorian gardens in my local park on xmas day and quite drunk after quadruple brandies and constantly playing Yellow Square on repeat, it was the most transcendent experience I had listening to guitar in a long time.

I have heard much worse nu-country than LAW. Much worse. Timid approval & ongoing play

that sounds nice

Yeah, you should have voted.

But I don't get the Chris Forsyth thing.

xposts

― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, January 27, 2015 4:14 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

have you ever listened to Chris Forsyth.....on weeeed?

LAW more like "deliberate retro country" but "without a trace of boring roots rock"

voted for these. all great.

Steve Gunn - Way Out Weather
Katy B - Little Red
Lee Ann Womack - The Way I'm Livin'
Alvvays - Alvvays
Young Marco - Biology

Lex I think I voted for the Gangsta Boo / Beat King. I keep forgetting there is another Gangsta Boo album from 2014 I haven't listened to yet! Is it even better?!

Sounds like the trick to getting Chris Forsyth is to listen to it lit as fuck. Well, since I don't ever get that out of it I won't be getting Chris Forsyth.

I have heard much worse nu-country than LAW. Much worse. Timid approval & ongoing play

― Ban Kil Moon (imago), Tuesday, January 27, 2015 10:18 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

uhhhhh she is not in any sense NU country o_0

it's funny seeing album covers i've never seen before in these countdowns despite owning and loving the album, i hadn't seen the lee ann womack one!

maybe he means "country albums recorded in 2014," at least I hope so.

Sounds like the trick to getting Chris Forsyth is to listen to it lit as fuck. Well, since I don't ever get that out of it I won't be getting Chris Forsyth.

― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, January 27, 2015 4:21 PM (46 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i actually don't even smoke
it's one of those records though i feel like you either are 100 percent on board or it just feels meandering and probably boring, but i guess jammy stuff i always like that, feel like you either click w/certain textures of how they play or not, whether its the dead or forsyth or like earthless or w/e

Lex I think I voted for the Gangsta Boo / Beat King. I keep forgetting there is another Gangsta Boo album from 2014 I haven't listened to yet! Is it even better?!

― Tim F, Tuesday, January 27, 2015 10:20 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes! she did an excellent mixtape with beatking but a proper album with la chat called witch, which basically reimagines the two of them as first the witches out of macbeth then mean girls then thelma & louise via a lot of partying, and folds all those tropes into their implacable characters. plus, gangsta boo shouting "YEAH HO" really is so deeply satisfying

WITCH BREW

I voted for the Gangsta Boo / Beat King mixtape because I thought it was marginally stronger than the other one.

i'll be mad if fatima doesn't make it. glorious album

also u&k off witch are "sum 2 do" and "can't sit with us"

the forsyth is a beast of an album. i feel like gunn was definitely getting more of the hipster kisses though, for whatever reason.

it's one of those records though i feel like you either are 100 percent on board or it just feels meandering and probably boring, but i guess jammy stuff i always like that, feel like you either click w/certain textures of how they play or not, whether its the dead or forsyth or like earthless or w/e

This is a really good call. I've seen live clips where I think I'd get Forsyth in that context, but the album is somehow jammy and sedate in a way I can't connect with.

i'm a little bummed cuz i saw them and they killed but they had this 2nd guitarist who i loved his playing and i guess he's not in the band anymore

i feel like his playing has such strong melodies in the leads it carries it for me (also v melodic basslines)

oh yeah and i finished listening to the gigi masin over dinner. it's brilliant stuff.

and that Gangsta Boo / Beat King mixtape has Dollar Signs on it, which is fucking awesome.

I dug the basslines for sure, but it isn't enough.

yes! she did an excellent mixtape with beatking but a proper album with la chat called witch, which basically reimagines the two of them as first the witches out of macbeth then mean girls then thelma & louise via a lot of partying, and folds all those tropes into their implacable characters. plus, gangsta boo shouting "YEAH HO" really is so deeply satisfying

WITCH BREW

― lex pretend, Tuesday, January 27, 2015 2:23 PM Bookmark

I think my favorite moment out of everything that happened in 2014 is when me and my GF were listening to Witch when suddenly she kissed me hard, then broke it off and yelled "YEAHHH HO!" in my face.

I voted for both Gangsta Boo projects and Fatima so hopefully they will place.

LAW more like "deliberate retro country" but "without a trace of boring roots rock"

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, January 27, 2015 2:19 PM

YES YES YES thank you for mailing this

gah "nailing" what is it with me and this thread

Alfred mailed me a copy too