15. Spoon They Want My Soul

Never got into Spoon prior to this year, but after going through a good chunk of their catalog in 2014 I can def. say that that their newest release stands tall next to the all the best ones they've come out in the ~20 years leading up to it. At surface level this album succeeds in large part due to the snappy, bluesy rock energy that starts up with opener "Rent I Pay" and pushes all through its 10 songs, but there are a lot more intricacies -- emotional and musical -- along the way that make for an experience which holds up really well under repeat listenings. "Inside Out" subverts the formula more than a bit and comes out swinging as one of the most beautiful songs I heard all year. The production work is super crisp and likewise the lead singer's voice is realllllyy smooth, assuring in a way, so he works extremely well in tandem as a transmitter of what is often very direct pop music! Waaay better product than a band that has been in action since before I was born could ever be expected to offer up.


KEY TRACKS

14. Beck Morning Phase

Historically I been a bigger fan of Sea Change Beck than I have Odelay style (though as of late my attitude's shifting?), so lucky me that for all intents and purposes what we got this year was a Sea Change sequel, LOL. But Beck is at a pretty good spot in his life atm with nothing much to mope about, so in contrast to that masterpiece's continuous heartbroken-ness, this album emerged as a much more optimistic and reflective one. Musically though, maybe a whole lot hasn't changed; his melodies are as gorgeous as ever + in combination with arrangements that do a lot without ever frequently rising above drums n' strums, the end product is stunning and super easy to digest. Yo if it gets decided that ÁRTIST isn't quite Album of the Year-strong, better Beck to snag it than a chubby Brit.


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13. Tinashe Aquarius

Soooo I was the very FIRST (vocal) Tinashe fan here on ATRL, I discovered her through her free online mixtapes and all 3 are seriously good, high-level R&B work worth checking out; consider those an honorable mention. My first exposure to the major-label breakthrough segment of her career, before even 2 On I think was an announcement that her debut full-length would be calld Aquarius. I was like what? Who names an album after their Zodiac sign? Basic ass. But even though I'm still not sold on her talent for naming things, the title started to make a little more sense for after the music started dropping. Tinashe's sound is hard to pin down, but she has a strong gift for pulling the sound of the various producers she works with way out into her own center. If I had to try to define it, two words to come up might be "watery soundscape"...hence, maybe the AQUA.
Anyway, doesn't matter since Aquarius as a MUSICAL project as it turns out is ****ing awesome. She hits on all the essentials necessary to make up the perfect Rihanna album — ratchet club banger ("2 On"); perfect conflicted pop song ("Pretend"); sex jams warm ("How Many Times") and cold ("...Sweat"); she saves the obligatory sad moment ("Bated Breath") for almost the end, but it's legitimately a showstopper. She gets apocalyptic on us too, more times in an hour than I ever could have asked for. <3 An album that does everything it tries to do REALLY WELL; keep chugging em out like this one + she could v. well take over the scene.


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12. YG My Krazy Life

RATCHET BOPS. With some actual heart in appropriate locations. YG's debut album takes up a similar "day in the life" shtick to fellow Compton native Kendrick Lamar's instant classic good kid, m.A.A.d city, but to steal a good analogy that I read somewhere on the internet, if K-Dot's opus was rap Oscar bait, then My Krazy Life is the best kind of stoner buddy film, and we all know hip hop in 2014 could do with a little more of both of those things. Y is not a krazy skilled rapper, but he immediately establishes a very likable presence on the mic, and he really follows through on delivering a clear and well-told story while keeping every song separable from the master narrative so that they can be enjoyed on their own terms as well. It's MOSTLY produced by DJ Mustard, but as formulaic as that mastermind became at times this year, he understands that nonstop bleeps and bloops wouldn't carry well with regards to momentum over the course of an hour and makes the right choice in pursuing a much slicker and more classic West Coast-driven aesthetic to support the story being told. Rly something very high-concept packaged as low-concept, and I love it.


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11. Mac DeMarco Salad Days

I don't even know what makes that sound? Maybe a banjo? Listen to the first 2 seconds of "Goodbye Weekend" and see if you can figure out what instrument is behind that strumming sound. It is important information because that sound is very literally the primary building block of Salad Days, and it's what gives the record a vibe unlike anything else I heard this year, but really from any other time either. It helps Macky-boy construct a record that's chiller than chill; there is no sense of angst or confrontation hiding behind the haze of these songs, rather what you see is mostly what you get here, with Macky-boy dispensing great and surprising amounts of wisdom, or passively detailing the experiences through which he clearly obtained it. Then there's "Chamber of Reflection" which on top of all this takes a little sonic departure and does Beach House better than Beach House is always able to do. You can ignore his advice and he probably won't care — he is above other things a friendly spirit and you know there's gonna just as much up for grabs the next go around.


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The cute gangbanger
The guy whose set I missed at Coachella to charge my phone
That rising starlet who's the most famous person to like any of my IG pictures

Legends

Originally posted by madonnas wait has run the jewels already been posted?