Music Bummys 2015: Best Albums of 2014

2014 was a low year for music. I love all the albums on this list, but a good chunk of them probably wouldn’t have appeared on more competitive years’ Top Ten lists. But that’s okay! Even if the big releases of 2014 were virtually nonexistent (except for a very notable October album, see #5 below), there was plenty of music to love under the radar. Three of my Top Ten are from artists I hadn’t heard of before 2014, which is probably the most since 2010. So, in the spirit of discovery, pick someone on this list (or the fifteen albums below the Top Ten) you haven’t heard of and give them a chance.

[Disclaimer: Links in the album titles are to the album on Spotify. Definitely some profanity in some of these. Links in the artist name are to times I wrote about their album already on the blog. Shouldn’t be much profanity in those.]

Top Ten

10. Propaganda: Crimson Cord

Prop’s brand of rap has always leaned more toward spoken word poetry than straight up hip-hop. Crimson Cord finds Propaganda engaging far more with the kind of bangers you might hear on the radio- that is, if radio party rap had a soul. And yet Prop’s kept his socially conscious vibe fully intact, lashing out rationally against things like the state of hip-hop and the educational system while crafting his best hooks yet.

9.Miranda Lambert: Platinum

2015 has been bad for Miranda, so let’s pretend like it hasn’t happened yet. 2014 saw Lambert release her best album of her career, a record so strong from beginning to end that it comes off as a greatest hits collection. We know Lambert’s personal life will be in turmoil for a while, so thankfully we have this perfect slice of country heaven to look back on.

8. First Aid Kit: Stay Gold

Americana’s time has passed- at least, that’s what you might think if you only paid attention to the radio, since Mumford & Sons have gone electric and The Lumineers are nowhere to be found. But First Aid Kit, a sister duo from Sweden, are indicative of how unkillable American roots music really is. If the two of them, ‘90s babies from a Stockholm suburb, can release an album with the simple honesty of Stay Gold, then we can count on Americana retaining its heart long after DJs stop working banjo samples into their sets.

7. Jackie Hill Perry: The Art of Joy

The best rap album of the year might have been the least heard. A poet from St. Louis, she’s signed to Humble Beast, the same record as Propaganda, and while, like him, her style veers toward the spoken-word, she demonstrates such aptitude with many different styles of rap that you forget this is her debut album. A lot of Perry’s ministry revolves around homosexuality, but Art of Joy is much less concerned with that, broadening her scope to forming a detailed definition of joy in God, regardless of your struggles.

6. Liz Vice: There’s a Light

We have certain expectations for what worship music should sound like, but There’s a Light makes a case that we should reevaluate those norms. The old-school R&B & gospel influences on Vice’s debut add new dimensions to praise music, imbuing her songs with a soul often missing from a usually more straightforward genre. With a whole worship album of soul music as a shining example, it might be time for our staid, white churches to embrace new styles of worship.

5. Taylor Swift: 1989

I didn’t really know it till last year, but I’ve grown up with Taylor. It’s not just that we were born in the same year, but that we’ve matured at about the same rate, and we started having paparazzi follow us at about the same age as well. Seriously though, going back to listen to her older records, there’s an obsession with romantic love that I could relate to at the time, even if I wouldn’t have admitted it to you or even to myself. There’s a lot of romantic love on 1989 too, but songs like “Style” and “Wildest Dreams” convey a world-weariness that wasn’t there on Fearless or Red. I’m not saying twenty-six years is enough for Taylor (or me, for that matter) to have a foolproof perspective on the world, but 1989 definitely presents a fully developed perspective, and that’s a start.

4. Strand of Oaks: HEAL

Rock music is dead, supposedly. But the people who say that seem to be speaking mainly about its popularity or its monetization. I get that rock & roll used to have excess as a defining characteristic, but, if you know where to look, you can find honest expressions of rock. Strand of Oaks’s HEAL was the best pure, old-school rock record of 2014, weaving big choruses into verses about the boundless possibilities of youth and disillusionment with access to said possibilities in today’s culture. If you’re looking for rock & roll, look no further.

3. The War on Drugs: Lost in the Dream

If HEAL is rock & roll, Lost in the Dream is more rocked & rolled. Adam Granduciel and his band don’t indulge in the excess of traditional rock. Instead they wade into Granduciel’s recent breakup with a stoner’s conviction, touching on themes and ideas, but rarely truly committing to getting to the bottom of them, preferring instead to play along the edges of every different kind of emotion, until Granduciel lets out one of his signature whoops- then the band truly plunges in. This is some of the cathartic music in years, continuing that tried and true tradition of the breakup album being an artist’s strongest.

2. Sharon Van Etten: Are We There

Speaking of breakup albums, Are We There is Van Etten’s continued exploration of what seems like the same relationship since 2012’s Tramp. She’s like the opposite of pre-1989 Taylor Swift: every song is about the same person. Or at least that’s how it can feel when listening to Van Etten sing about her inability to remove herself from the same emotional abuse, the same lack of commitment, the same cowardice. For all I know, these songs could all be hypothetical or about different romantic partners altogether. The one constant is that Van Etten is never anything less than self-aware; she’ll have material to mine for years as long as she remains this brutally open and honest about her inner thoughts, and if Are We There is any indication, she’s mining gold.

1. John Mark McMillan: Borderland

With Liz Vice’s There’s a Light, John Mark McMillan’s Borderland is redrawing the lines around what worship music can be. David Crowder Band plotted the boundaries and Gungor tilled the land, so it can seem like McMillan is just bearing their standard. In some ways he is; he still subscribes to a lot of the old formulas: repetitive choruses, building instrumentals, simple verses. But more than others in the worship business, McMillan is rewriting the lyrical rules. He does some interesting things with the instruments (saxophone in worship music?), but the real story here is the imagery in his words. He compares irresistible grace to a conquering Napoleon, our exile status in this world to living in a borderland with danger at every turn, and the temptations of this life to monsters in his room. Simplicity is important in worship music, but Borderland is a prime example of the idea that simplicity shouldn’t hamper creativity.

Another Fifteen

Ariana Grande: My Everything
Charli XCX: Sucker
Crowder: Neon Steeple
D’Angelo and the Vanguard: Black Messiah
Diamond District: March on Washington
FKA twigs: LP1
Hiss Golden Messenger: Lateness of Dancers
Joan Shelley: Electric Ursa
Kelis: Food
Lecrae: Anomaly
Parquet Courts: Sunbathing Animal
Sturgill Simpson: Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
Sun Kil Moon: Benji
Trip Lee: Rise
Twin Peaks: Wild Onion

Past Top Tens

2013

Jason Isbell: Southeastern
Beyoncé: Beyoncé
Laura Marling: Once I Was an Eagle
Patty Griffin: American Kid
Sandra McCracken: Desire Like Dynamite
Justin Timberlake: The 20/20 Experience
Beautiful Eulogy: Instruments of Mercy
Kanye West: Yeezus
KaiL Baxley: Heatstroke / The Wind and the War

2012

Andrew Peterson: Light for the Lost Boy
Lecrae: Gravity
Frank Ocean: channel ORANGE
Japandroids: Celebration Rock
David Crowder*Band: Give Us Rest or (A Requiem Mass in C [The Happiest of All Keys])
Bruce Springsteen: Wrecking Ball
Fiona Apple: The Idler Wheel Is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More than Ropes Will Ever Do
The Olive Tree: Our Desert Ways
Benjamin Dunn & the Animal Orchestra: Fable
Kendrick Lamar: good kid, m.A.A.d. city

2011

Gungor: Ghosts upon the Earth
Adele: 21
Over the Rhine: The Long Surrender
Bon Iver: Bon Iver
The War on Drugs: Slave Ambient
Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues
Drake: Take Care
Raphael Saadiq: Stone Rollin’
Beyoncé: 4
Matt Papa: This Changes Everything

2010

Titus Andronicus: The Monitor
Arcade Fire: The Suburbs
Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
The Black Keys: Brothers
Andrew Peterson: Counting Stars
Gungor: Beautiful Things
Surfer Blood: Astro Coast
Jamey Johnson: The Guitar Song
The National: High Violet
The Tallest Man on Earth: The Wild Hunt

If I Ran the Grammys 2015

Last year, I ran the first of what will hopefully be an annual feature about what the Grammy Awards would look like if I ran them. All systems are broken, but this year it’s more evident than ever that the Grammy system is a knot with no chance of being untangled anytime soon. We know this, because there’s only one worthy Album of the Year candidate (last year saw at least three- okay, at most three), and because there’s a legitimate chance Sam Smith might sweep the four major awards. This would be awful. I’m holding out hope that the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has come to their senses, so you’ll see below that I’ve bet against him in every category. Seriously, Academy- for the sake of all our brains overloaded with thinkpieces about race, do not give Sam Smith all the awards. Please.

A few ground rules:

1) I’ll give the real nominees with my prediction for the winner in bold. Then I’ll give you who I would have nominated with my choice for the best in the group in bold.

2) We all know the October 1st, 2013-September 30th, 2014 qualifying dates are stupid, but we’re going to keep them in the interest of chaos. So no 1989, but Reflektor (from 2013, but released after October 1st, 2013) is fair game.

3) For the four major awards (Album, Record, Song, New Artist), I’m realistic. The War on Drugs made my favorite album in the qualifying year, but they would never be nominated for Album of the Year. Lana Del Rey’s album isn’t even my favorite pop album of the year, but it’s the likeliest of that group to be nominated for Album of the Year. You get the idea. But when it comes to the genre awards, anything goes- hence, bands like Slow Club, Twin Peaks, and Kye Kye getting nods over more popular bands in their respective categories..

4) Genre boundaries are fuzzy- Beyoncé could really fit into pop or R&B, Arcade Fire could fit into rock or alternative, Drive-By Truckers could be rock or Americana, etc. So I went with my gut. I don’t have your gut, so if you disagree with me on whether or not Lecrae belongs in the rap or Christian category, sorry.

Album of the Year

Real nominees: Morning Phase, Beck
Beyoncé, Beyoncé
X, Ed Sheeran
In the Lonely Hour, Sam Smith
Girl, Pharrell Williams

My nominees: Reflektor, Arcade Fire
Beyoncé, Beyoncé
Turn Blue, The Black Keys
Ultraviolence, Lana Del Rey
Platinum, Miranda Lambert

If anyone but Beyoncé wins, the Grammys will have returned to their stupid ways. Daft Punk last year was fine; even if you liked Kendrick Lamar’s album better, it was hard to argue against Random Access Memories as a quality choice. But there is nothing else in this category that even comes close to being a worthy Album of the Year. And that’s not for lack of quality albums either! Why not Arcade Fire’s bold Reflektor, or The Black Keys’ solid Turn Blue, or Lana Del Rey’s legitimately and surprisingly great Ultraviolence? Are we really convince that Beck’s Morning Phase was anything but a rehash of Sea Change? And the other three nominees seem like votes for mediocrity and the status quo rather than quality. It’s a shame Miranda Lambert, who is a bona fide star, couldn’t get some love over Ed Sheeran, of all people. There’s only one right choice here, and the Academy better make it, or the Internet’s shit is gonna hit the fan.

Record of the Year

Real nominees: “Fancy (feat. Charli XCX)”, Iggy Azalea
“All About That Bass”, Meghan Trainor
“Stay with Me (Darkchild Version)”, Sam Smith
“Chandelier”, Sia
“Shake It Off”, Taylor Swift

My nominees: “Problem (feat. Iggy Azalea)”, Ariana Grande
“Drunk in Love (feat. Jay Z)”, Beyoncé
“Boom Clap”, Charli XCX
“Chandelier”, Sia
“Shake It Off”, Taylor Swift

“Fancy” is nice and all that, but everything Iggy in that song gets on my nerves. Regardless of how I feel, though, it was the biggest song of the year, and the Grammys will likely reward it for its success (though I prefer Charli XCX’s “Boom Clap”). For everything I said about Sam Smith, “Stay with Me” is actually a really great song. Still, if I had to choose, I’d choose the remaining three. And where is “Problem”? There was a point over last summer where we didn’t know whether “Fancy” or “Problem” was the song of the summer, and just because “Fancy” won doesn’t make it the better song. I would’ve liked to have seen some love for “Drunk in Love” too, but “Problem” was the coolest record of the year.

Song of the Year

Real nominees: “Take Me to Church”, Hozier
“All About That Bass”, Meghan Trainor
“Stay with Me (Darkchild Version)”, Sam Smith
“Chandelier”, Sia
“Shake It Off”, Taylor Swift

My nominees: “Afterlife”, Arcade Fire
“Drunk in Love (feat. Jay Z)”, Beyoncé
“West Coast”, Lana Del Rey
“Chandelier”, Sia
“Shake It Off”, Taylor Swift

Song of the Year is a songwriting award, and there wasn’t a better-written song this year than “Chandelier”. I’m not a fan of “Take Me to Church” at all, so I’ll gladly replace it with Arcade Fire’s best song of Reflektor. As much as I love “All About That Bass”, “Drunk in Love” beats it out by a mile. And “Stay with Me” isn’t a well-written song at all (especially considering the Tom Petty controversy); its charm is in its performance. I’d rather include one of the most interesting songs of the year, Lana Del Rey’s “West Coast”.

Best New Artist

Real nominees: Bastille
Brandy Clark
Haim
Iggy Azalea
Sam Smith

My nominees: 5 Seconds of Summer
Charli XCX
Meghan Trainor
Sky Ferreira
Sturgill Simpson

If I’m honest with myself, Sam Smith is probably going to win this award. In an ideal world, either Brandy Clark or especially Haim would get it. But if any award is Sam Smith’s to lose, it’s this one. Even if the Academy realizes in the other categories that Smith isn’t the most deserving, it would be hard for them to ignore him in this one. But I’m kind of leaning toward a full-on Sam Smith fatigue having set in for the industry, so I’ll bet on Azalea’s monster year to push her into the lead. As far as my Grammys go, where are 5 Seconds of Summer, Charli XCX, and Meghan Trainor? Any of them would be better than Bastille, for goodness’ sake. I’d pick Charli XCX over Iggy Azalea even, since “Fancy” is largely successful because of its hook and not because of Iggy’s verses. And, just to make myself happy, I included two stars in the underground, the pop savant Sky Ferreira and the country up-and-comer Sturgill Simpson.

Best Pop Album

Real nominees (Pop Vocal Album): My Everything, Ariana Grande
Ghost Stories, Coldplay
X, Ed Sheeran
Prism, Katy Perry
Bangerz, Miley Cyrus

My nominees: 5 Seconds of Summer, 5 Seconds of Summer
My Everything, Ariana Grande
Ultraviolence, Lana Del Rey
Midnight Memories, One Direction
Night Time, My Time, Sky Ferreira

I promise I don’t have anything against Ed Sheeran or Sam Smith. I just find them bland. That said, Sheeran has the inside track on this category, since he obviously had enough support to secure an Album of the Year nominee. The best album actually nominated, though, is My Everything. The best pop album not nominated was Sky Ferreira’s brilliant Night Time, My Time. Ultraviolence got my vote for one of the more realistic Albums of the Year, so she’s obviously in here as well, taking Coldplay’s more alternative pop slot. And I’d replace Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus with a couple of other hit generators who were more on target: One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer.

Best Rock Album

Real nominees: Morning Phase, Beck
Turn Blue, The Black Keys
Ryan Adams, Ryan Adams
Hypnotic Eye, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Songs of Innocence, U2

My nominees: Transgender Dysphoria Blues, Against Me!
Reflektor, Arcade Fire
Turn Blue, The Black Keys
English Oceans, Drive-By Truckers
Wild Onion, Twin Peaks

Why do people think Beck is good? He hasn’t made an authentic album since Sea Change. Every album since then has been an effort to appease rather than challenge. That wouldn’t be a problem if the attempts were interesting, but he’s always boring. I’d choose any other album on that list over his. But on my personal list, I’d shoehorn Arcade Fire in on this ballot rather than the alternative genre, and give some love to some of the more underrated artists of the year: Against Me!’s brash punk, Drive-By Truckers rootsy epic, and Twin Peak’s blast of indie rock.

Best Alternative Album

Real nominees (Alternative Music Album): This Is All Yours, alt-J
Reflektor, Arcade Fire
Melophobia, Cage the Elephant
Lazaretto, Jack White
St. Vincent, St. Vincent

My nominees: Electric Ursa, Joan Shelley
Fantasize, Kye Kye
Sunbathing Animal, Parquet Courts
Are We There, Sharon Van Etten
Lost in the Dream, The War on Drugs

St. Vincent has the edge, since she was the critical darling of the last year on this list. I love Reflektor, but it belongs in the rock category, as does Lazaretto. In what world is Jack White not considered rock? I don’t care about alt-J or Cage the Elephant- they belong in the bland category with Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith. I’m surprised The War on Drugs didn’t make it onto the Grammy’s list, since they received just as much if not more critical attention than St. Vincent. The same goes for Parquet Courts, thought they surely couldn’t care less. I enjoyed the albums by Sharon Van Etten, Joan Shelley, and Kye Kye far more than I liked St. Vincent’s. But that’s just my personal taste.

Best R&B Album

Real nominees: Lift Your Spirit, Aloe Blacc
Islander, Bernhoft
Black Radio 2, Robert Glasper Experiment
Give the People What They Want, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
Love, Marriage & Divorce, Toni Braxton & Babyface

My nominees: Beyoncé, Beyoncé
Cupid Deluxe, Blood Orange
Food, Kelis
There’s a Light, Liz Vice
Complete Surrender, Slow Club

Aloe Blacc is probably the only one the Academy has actually heard of on their own list. For my list, this is the category Beyoncé belongs in. She would fit just as well into pop music, but Beyoncé is way more D’Angelo than Katy Perry. Kelis also deserves some love for her sexy album, Food, but it went by this summer without anyone really noticing. Blood Orange and Slow Club received a little more attention in the indie world. And Liz Vice is the outlier of the group, a little-known Christian artist who has nailed how to pull worship R&B off.

Best Rap Album

Real nominees: Because the Internet, Childish Gambino
Nobody’s Smiling, Common
The Marshall Mathers LP2, Eminem
The New Classic, Iggy Azalea
Oxymoron, Schoolboy Q

My nominees: Instruments of Mercy, Beautiful Eulogy
Old, Danny Brown
Anomaly, Lecrae
Crimson Cord, Propaganda
Sinema, Swoope

I don’t like Iggy’s style at all, but there’s no doubting she has all the momentum here, especially in such a down year for mainstream rap. I wish Danny Brown would get some love, but he’s the lone winner in a year full of rap losers. That wasn’t the case in the Christian rap scene though, with Beautiful Eulogy, Lecrae, and Swoope all releasing stellar versions of the genre. None was better than Prop though; he’d never win it in real life, but since I’m running things, Prop’s Crimson Cord would get the love it deserves.

Best Christian Album

Real nominees (Contemporary Christian Music): Run Wild. Live Free. Love Strong., for KING & COUNTRY
If We’re Honest, Francesca Battistelli
Welcome to the New, MercyMe
Hurricane, Natalie Grant
Royal Tailor, Royal Tailor

My nominees: Devotion, Anberlin
Neon Steeple, Crowder
As Sure as the Sun, Ellie Holcomb
Borderland, John Mark McMillan
Rivers in the Wasteland, NEEDTOBREATHE

“Christian” is hardly a genre, but it’s a useful denomination for music that doesn’t really belong anywhere else. You could make the argument that Anberlin, Crowder, and NEEDTOBREATHE all make rock music, but they’re undeniably pigeonholed into the Christian category. Nothing on the Grammy list belongs in the conversation, though Francesca Battistelli probably has the most industry pull. I’d rather listen to Ellie Holcomb’s full-length debut any day. And the most overlooked of all will always be John Mark McMillan, always on the outskirts of even the Christian mainstream, forever going to be ignored by the Academy. He gets my vote though.

Best Americana Album

Real nominees: Terms of My Surrender, John Hiatt
Bluesamericana, Keb’ Mo’
A Dotted Line, Nickel Creek
The River & the Thread, Roseanne Cash
Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, Sturgill Simpson

My nominees: Stay Gold, First Aid Kit
Lateness of Dancers, Hiss Golden Messenger
Small Town Heroes, Hurray for the Riff Raff
Platinum, Miranda Lambert
Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, Sturgill Simpson

Sturgill Simpson’s album was a wonderful breath of fresh air in the country genre. There are plenty of artists like him out there, injecting a stale genre with modern ideas, but he’s received the most attention for it, and deservedly so. But Roseanne Cash is the daughter of Johnny Cash, so she’s going to win. One of those other artists like Simpson is Hurray for the Riff Raff, and her Small Town Heroes was maybe the second most acclaimed album of its kind behind Metamodern Sounds. Hiss Golden Messenger and First Aid Kit both released my favorite folk albums of the past year, but the award should really go to Miranda Lambert. She’s nominated in the Best Country genre, and she’s the best example of mainstream country in years. Literally years. She may lose her real Grammy to Eric Church (another for the bland pile), but she would win my Grammy.

—

I’m aware I didn’t include all the nominees for these categories. I blame the layout of the Grammys’ website.

Tentative Top Tens for 2014

If you’re a regular reader of Coulda Been a Contender (and that’s a big if), you know I don’t really complete my Top Ten lists until around September of the next year. I like some remove from the end-of-year list boom and awards season fever, and it gives me a lot more time to catch up on everything I missed. But it seems wrong not to release some sort of list, so I’m going to tentatively present my Top Ten movies and albums. I don’t keep up with reading or TV as much as I like, but I’ll go ahead and throw in a book and show at the end. Neither of them are from this year, but whatever.

I’ll write plenty about most of these when I do the actual Bummys, or I’ve already written about them. If I have, the link to what I wrote will be in the title.

Movies

10. Ernest & Celestine
9. How to Train Your Dragon 2
8. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
7. Interstellar
6. The Lego Movie
5. The Grand Budapest Hotel
4. Blue Ruin
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
2. Snowpiercer
1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Albums

10. Crimson Cord, Propaganda
9. There’s a Light, Liz Vice
8. 1989, Taylor Swift
7. Platinum, Miranda Lambert
6. The Art of Joy, Jackie Hill Perry
5. Stay Gold, First Aid Kit
4. Borderland, John Mark McMillan
3. Rise, Trip Lee
2. Are We There, Sharon Van Etten
1. Lost in the Dream, The War on Drugs

Best Book I Read This Year

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Best TV Show I Watched This Year

The Wire