Urban75 Album of the Year 2014 revisited

[hitmouse]

Getting round to giving the 2014 XCX album a proper listen now and it makes me think oddly of Helen Love. Real dancepop Ramones vibes.

 

[hitmouse]

No album so you can't vote for it, but this was proper sound of 2014 stuff:

 

[hitmouse]

Parquet Courts were on very good form in 2014, sort of tempting to say that Sunbathing Animal is my favourite Pavement album:

 

[hitmouse]

An EP not an album so you can't vote for it, but I reckon there's a solid case Bodies and Control and Money and Power is the best thing Priests ever did, fantastic name for a fantastic record:



Most of the stuff on their proper albums just sounds like sensible grown-up new wave compared to the sheer frantic energy of that EP, at least imo.

 

[AverageJoe]

The Last Act of Defiance - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Awesome band - Sick Of It All

 

[Spandex]

After LCD Soundsystem split up in 2011 Nancy Whang was at a loose end, so she hooked up with labelmate John Maclean, who she'd done vocals for before (most notably on 2008s Happy House), and turned The Juan Maclean into a duo.

She really adds to his music. While he'd done some good songs, 2014s In a Dream was a huge improvement on his previous album.

 

[Spandex]

Mind Fair

Dean Meredith (from 90s ravers Bizarre Inc, 00s electro-disco types Chicken Lips and various other aliases) and Ben Shenton make an album of leftfield disco-rock and dub-funk proto-house.

 

[Indeliblelink]

There was a Lankum album in 2014, Cold Old Fire, released when they were calling themselves Lynched.

 

[stavros]

I'm struggling to find anything I thought was outstanding in 2014.

 

[Spandex]

I'm struggling to find anything I thought was outstanding in 2014.

And I'm having no struggle at all. I guess it depends if what you're into was having a good year or not.

2014 was a very good year for various flavours of synthpop, which is something I'm very into. I've already mentioned Void Vision, Tying Tiffany, Xeno & Oaklander, The Juan Maclean, shit even Taylor Swift went synthpop on 1989. To those I can add:

La Roux- Trouble in Paradise


Keluar - Keluar


Boy Harsher - Lesser Man


Röyksopp & Robyn - Do It Again


Hante - Her Fall and Rise


I can never get enough of this stuff.

 

[Silas Loom]

Jakob - Sines. I might even go to the effort of voting for this.

 

[belboid]

I'm struggling to find anything I thought was outstanding in 2014.

you struggled in 2014 too, nearly voted for a couple of things, but didnt...

 

[redsquirrel]

thats a pretty good list, the whole top 5 should. be included again, all crackers.

The Delines would still be my number 1.

Not as good as Born to Die, but better than everything she's done since. There are definitely moments when it sounds like a parody of Lana Del Rey but I dunno if there's anything wrong with that:

I do quite like Petridis review

– in which one bad-boy boyfriend after another was pined for, and Del Rey either put her red dress on or took her red dress off with the frequency of a woman having a crisis in the changing rooms at TK Maxx –

 

[The39thStep]

Kiasmos _Kiasmos. Erased Tapes began to grow an interesting roster around this time and this mixture of piano, strings , beats with hints of a classical style was a good example of their support for new stuff. Comfortable to engaging to foot tapping.

 

[stavros]

you struggled in 2014 too, nearly voted for a couple of things, but didnt...

Maybe I'll sit this one out then.

 

[The39thStep]

Penguin Cafe-The Red Book.
The second album by the band set up by Arthur Jeffes, son of the founder of The Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It follows the style and legacy but without any of TPCO members in it. A mixture of classical, world and folk . Mood music and dream like .

 

[The39thStep]

Hundred Waters - The Moon Rang Like A Bell. Delicious downtempo pop.

 

[Indeliblelink]

Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders - Playmates
If Nick Cave went synth-pop.
Love this video

 

[hitmouse]

Solid Cloud Nothings album, it's only rock'n'roll but I like it:

 

[hitmouse]

I've not really kept up with Junglepussy since then, but her debut had some unarguable bangers:

 

[hitmouse]

Can you believe it's only been ten years since Moscow Death Brigade dropped Hoods Up? I could've sworn it must've been longer.

 

[braindancer]

Not sure if I voted in 2014 but if I did my guess is that I would have voted for Andy Stott's Faith in Strangers... it's just had a tenth anniversary re-release which has prompted me to spin it again and yep, it fully holds up.

Knackered house was the daft microgenre used to describe his sound

 

[The39thStep]

Glass Animals - Zaba

Noir-pop. Gorgeous, playful and dark

 

[hitmouse]

Glass Boys was...far from my favourite Fucked Up record, but they'd been a band for 13 years at that point and it's hard for even the greatest to keep a good streak going forever. It's a perfectly fine album, just not up there with the heights of Hidden World or David Comes to Life.