WSPC'S FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2014

WSPC'S FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2014

The music year of 2014 is just about to draw to a close and I was deeply impressed with how musically rich of a year it was, and despite what actually found its way onto commercial radio stations.

For me it was a year that saw strong new albums from Real Estate, Jenny Lewis, The Smashing Pumpkins, Broken Bells, Lenny Kravitz, The Belle Brigade, Sean Lennon's The Ghost of A Saber Tooth Tiger, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Johnny Marr, Tweedy, Temples, Foo Fighters and an especially terrific return from Ryan Adams and yes, even U2's completely undervalued and frankly, underheard latest release, the warm and intimate "Songs Of Innocence."

But of course, there were albums I especially loved this year, the ones that, to my ears, represented the best of the best the year had to offer (and based upon everything that I actually heard this year). At this time, I would like to present my favorite albums of 2014, in no particular order other than the top two. 

"HIGH HOPES" BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

The first new album I heard in 2014 has remained one of the year's favorites. I purchased it on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and it felt to be so appropriate that this collection of Springsteen's unreleased material, newly recorded selections and cover songs congealed brilliantly into what was essentially his "State Of The Union Address." Stirring, heartbreaking, enraging and even hopeful.
(Originally featured January 2014)

"MORNING PHASE"  BECK

Beck's return after a six year hiatus was a flat out gorgeous one. Rich with heartfelt melancholy and augmented by the stunning string sections and the depth of maturity in Beck's voice, songcraft and lyricism, Beck's latest was an album of meditative, contemplative solitude.
(Originally featured March 2014)

"EVERYDAY ROBOTS" DAMON ALBARN

The debut solo album from musical journeyman Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz, and The Good, The Bad and the Queen plus even more) gave us a collection of songs about displacement within the 21st century and for me, it was the year's most haunting album.
(Originally featured May 2014)

"...and then you shoot your cousin" THE ROOTS

To combat and challenge any perceptions that we are living within a "post-racial" society, as well as providing a a powerful counter-point to the vacuousness of so much of hip-hop these days, The Roots' latest opus is a sobering work of art that is dark, claustrophobic, cinematic and compellingly audacious from beginning to end.
(Originally featured June 2014)

"COMET, COME TO ME"  MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO

The shadows of love and intimacy surface brilliantly upon Ndegeocello's latest album in which all of the luxuriously textured songs which run the musical gamut from jazz, dub reggae, rock, hip-hop, soul, folk and funk, flow like the clearest of water. If you are unfamiliar with this artist and you have enjoyed works by the likes of Peter Gabriel, Kaki King or even late period Joni Mitchell, this release should fly right up your alley.
(Originally featured June 2014)

"INDIE CINDY" PIXIES

From a band I had pretty much written off as being rock and roll sell-outs due to their endless nostalgia touring, the Pixies knocked me off of my feet with their first official album of new material in 20 years and what was easily the best rock album of the year. This album is the sound of renewal and is fully designed to be blasted from the best speakers as loudly as possible.
(Originally featured May 2014)

"EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT IN THE END" WEEZER

Nipping at the Pixies' heels is the latest and monstrous release from Weezer which finds the band returning to familiar sonic, alternative, hard rock, power pop territory while also crafting out some new gloriously "shred-tastic" vistas. The band sounds completely renewed, refocused, revitalized and re-charged and every track on the album is a top flight winner.
(Originally featured October 2014)

"TURN BLUE" THE BLACK KEYS

Note to Jack White: despite how good your latest release actually was, no amount of "Lawdy! Lawdy! Lawdy!" will make your interpretation of the blues any more authentic than the real thing. In fact, and in comparison to The Black Keys' latest album, which is steeped in real pain and trauma, your album comes off as decidedly plastic. Sorry, The Black Keys beat you at your own game this time.
(Originally featured May 2014)

"THE ENDLESS RIVER" PINK FLOYD

From the band that I never thought would ever craft a new album has returned with an elegant and elegiac release that serves as a stirring and seamless tribute to their deceased keyboardist Richard Wright. Running nearly 60 minutes in duration and almost entirely instrumental and divided into essentially four movements, Pink Floyd has created a series of soundscapes not designed for the stadiums but for more solitary immersion.
(Originally featured November 2014)

"ART OFFICIAL AGE"/"PLECTRUM ELECTRUM" PRINCE

 

His Royal Badness has returned with not one but two stellar albums that finds him sounding more rejuvenated and fully committed than he has in many years. Working either solo or with his new all female band 3rdEyeGirl, Prince has crafted two sets of instantly accessible yet fully challenging material that will bring old fans back to the fold, create new fans and provide all listeners with the very type of supremely idiosyncratic material that made us fall in love with him in the first place. And also, Prince's guitar heroics still scorch the sky unlike anyone else on the planet.
(Originally featured October 2014)

HONORABLE MENTION:

"SONIC HIGHWAYS" THE HBO SERIES 

As good as the companion album is, Dave Grohl's masterwork was his devastatingly beautiful eight part series that served as a behind the scenes making of the latest Foo Fighters album and most importantly as a cross country travelogue through eight cities that inspired the albums' songs. Grohl, who directed every episode, made for a passionate host, interviewer and chronicler of the American music landscape, providing an exquisitely rich tapestry of music history that educates and inspired triumphantly. I cannot wait to get this series on DVD!!!

ALBUM OF THE YEAR-RUNNER UP

"COMMONWEALTH" SLOAN

It was the album that I never saw coming from a band of which I really had only heard of the name. Sloan's "Commonwealth" is a power pop masterpiece as the band's four members, all of whom are world class songwriters, singers and multi-instrumentalists, essentially created four solo albums inside of this one beautifully sequenced, produced, arranged, composed and performed double album that continuously rewards every single re-listening handsomely.

I have played this album endlessly throughout the Autumn and beginning of Winter and additionally, this album compelled me to travel backwards through the entirety of their incredible discography of which there is not one bad or even mediocre album in the entire bunch. I do not know how this band has slipped through my grasp for so long now but now that I have them, I am holding them extremely close for now on. For most of the latter half of 2014, this album was firmly placed as my #1 pick for "Album Of The Year"...until...
(Originally featured October 2014)

"BLACK MESSIAH" D'ANGELO AND THE VANGUARD

The album that I, and so many others, thought would NEVER see the light of day finally arrived and despite all of the massive expectations, ti was the album that exceeded everything that I had hoped and wished for. It has been playing continuously in my car since I purchased it and I am just amazed with the sheer amount of songcraft, production, performance and overall delivery this experience has unleashed. 

But I guess one of the most important things that I can say about the album is that it has been the one release this year that has forced people to actually talk about and listen to the actual music again. No videos or imagery exist to compliment the material and D'Angelo himself has remained surprisingly silent since the release. This is an instance where the music is doing all of the talking and absolutely brilliantly as well. 

D'Angelo and the Vanguard had conceived a moody, dense, distorted and endlessly fascinating and voluminously funked up treatise of love, sex, sin and salvation, an odyssey of social political unrest and spiritual deliverance, 

"Black Messiah" is this DJ's ALBUM OF THE YEAR by a clear mile. 

(Originally featured December 2014)