January 4th, 2016 | by Richard Sanford | published in Best of the Year | 9 Comments »
10. Algiers, Algiers (Matador Records)
This Atlanta band starts with the dark gospel heart that’s always been the engine powering rock & roll and adds noisy, choked guitar and keys over layers and layers of raw percussion. The sparseness of these arrangements makes the intensity of the songs almost unbearable, but intoxicating at the same time. Algiers is a magical record with …
December 31st, 2015 | by Matt Slaybaugh | published in Best of the Year | Leave A Comment »
Here are the highlights from my year in music, in vaguely chronological order.
Sleater-Kinney
My whole year revolved around Sleater-Kinney’s words and guitars. It started in late 2014, as their joyously designed vinyl boxset, Start Together, waited on the porch for me to return from vacation. That box contained a lot of surprises, none more exciting than the unlabeled 7-inch which turned out to …
December 30th, 2015 | by Staff | published in Best of the Year | 1 Comment »
#10Pere Ubu frontman David Thomas once told me, “I am pretentious and I revel in my pretensions, but I don’t like elitism, particularly.” The title of this boxset of Ubu’s earliest work flies in the face of that assertion and is no doubt more than a little tongue-in-cheek. But whatever you make of the …
December 29th, 2015 | by Staff | published in Best of the Year | Leave A Comment »
#10Music Complete marks the departure of Peter Hook, the founding member responsible for the signature basslines that helped define the sound of New Order (and, before that, Joy Division). But even without Hooky’s bass, the new record is undeniably New Order, from the soaring synths to the often dark lyrics that belie the danceable music. With Bernard Sumner’s …
January 9th, 2015 | by Stephen Slaybaugh | published in Best of the Year | 1 Comment »
Glancing over the list of things that highlighted my 2014, one might think that I finally suffered the midlife crisis due for one whose formative years were in the ’80s. But as we are living in an era when everything that was once old is new again, I’d like to think that this is just reflective of the cream rising to the top as it …
January 6th, 2015 | by Josie Rubio | published in Best of the Year | Leave A Comment »
This year wasn’t a personal best: much of the earlier part of the year was spent in and out of the hospital for cancer treatment, including a month-long stay for a stem cell transplant. While I was there, a friend sent me a mix CD. Listening to that was like a breath of fresh air into my sterile hospital room, and I remembered what life …
January 5th, 2015 | by Kevin J. Ellliott | published in Best of the Year | Leave A Comment »
10. PC Music, DISown Radio Mix (self-released)
It’s rare that I’ll include any kind of mixtape on a year-end list (actually I’m pretty sure it’s unprecedented, unless I included Diplo’s first mix for MIA years back), but what the shadowy, commercially bent PC Music enclave did with utopian electronic pop throughout the course of the year was undeniable. I spent much more …
January 2nd, 2015 | by Dorian S. Ham | published in Best of the Year | Leave A Comment »
Doing an end of the year list increasingly seems to be less about what I’ve loved over the past year and more about, “Oh my stars and garters, look at all the records I haven’t heard yet!” So there is likely more than a few unintentional glaring omissions, but what can ya do? But hey, if folks are still fine with revisiting records from 40 …
January 1st, 2015 | by Nate Knaebel | published in Best of the Year | Leave A Comment »
I listened to a staggering amount of music this year, and was again pleasantly reminded that so much truly amazing stuff continues to be made—or was already made and I got to experience it again or, in several cases, for the first time. It’s genuinely inspiring. That said, what’s with these knuckleheads waxing thoughtful about Taylor Swift? Taste is taste, I get that, but they …
December 31st, 2014 | by Matt Slaybaugh | published in Best of the Year | Leave A Comment »
10. Ought, More Than Any Other Day (Constellation)
Ought’s wheelhouse was built by David Byrne, Television, Jerry Seinfeld, Naomi Klein, and the editors of Adbusters. It’s a place I love to visit, full of epigrammatic lyrics, jagged guitar riffs, slogans that defy deep thinking, and simple songs about the stupidly complex nature of modern life. These are glorious songs about …