#10
Grace Jones
Nightclubbing Deluxe Edition
Universal/Island

It seems like there’s been nothing like Grace Jones before she crashed into the world and nothing since. Six feet tall, androgynous, and oozing terrifying sexuality, there was no way for Jones to fall into a producer puppet role. Instead, it was more about harnessing that energy and getting out of the way. After a run with disco producer Tom Moulton, she changed direction, working with The Compass Point All-Stars, who were anchored by the legendary reggae rhythm section of Sly and Robbie and producers Alex Sadkin and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. They did a trio of records, but it was the middle of that run, Nightclubbing, that can be seen as the definitive statement. A mix of originals and covers that merge new wave, reggae, rock and uncut Jones, it’s been the blueprint—or at least the inspiration—for a number of movements that came after it, including punk and early DFA. But beyond that, it’s just chockfull of grooves. This reissue not only features some killer remixes and extended versions, but also unearths two unreleased songs, including a cover of Gary Numan’s “Me! I Disconnect From You.” It is nothing less than essential. DSH

#9
Various Artists
Native North America Volume One
Light in the Attic

Listening to the first volume of Light in the Attic’s new Native North America series, it seems very possible that without the scouring of Canadian thrift shops and trips to hamlets north of the Arctic Circle, an entire world of music may have been lost to the ages. Though much of the compilation is indicative of the influence mainstream Canadian rock and folk had on the aboriginal population—the likes of Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell stretched to those distant outposts—there are many instances where these songs sound like they are from another realm entirely. Outside of artists like Willie Dunn, who recorded his “native” folk for the CBC, and the Chieftones, Canada’s first “all Indian band” who once toured with the Beach Boys, few of these sides have ever been heard by American audiences.

Light in the Attic’s exhaustive liner notes shed light on just how important these recordings were and how many of the issues discussed—threats to the environment and the rights of oppressed tribes, among others—are still relevant today. Though appropriation of classic rock tropes and folkie cadences make the songs here familiar, most are tempered with a off-the-grid sensibility that place them directly in one time and place. The Nunavuk band Sugluk’s three tracks, in particular, are a highlight, a kind of light arctic psych sung in the group’s native Inuktitut, and Cree artist Morley Loon’s “N’Doheeno,” which hauntingly reverberates with a traditional rhythm, is as foreign a sound in rock as you’re going to find. KJE

 #8
The Pop Group
We Are Time and Cabinet of Curiosities
Freaks R Us

The Pop Group released just two studio albums before breaking up in 1981, but the reach of these post-punk Brits lasted much longer, as everyone from Nick Cave to the Minutemen to St. Vincent has cited them as an influence. This year, ahead of some reunion tour date announcements, they released a remastered reissue of We Are Time, a collection of live and early recordings originally released in 1981, and Cabinet of Curiosities, a new compilation of previously unreleased tracks and live performances, including the original version of perhaps the band’s most well-known song, “She Is Beyond God and Evil,” produced by Andy Mackay of Roxy Music. Other gems include “Where There’s a Will,” originally a split single with The Slits in 1980, and a live recording of “Abstract Heart.” The innovative band drew from a variety of styles, mixing funk-flavored guitars with remnants of punk and its raw DIY aesthetic—and of course, pop sensibilities—as frontman Mark Stewart’s distinctive voice always flirted with gleeful madness. What’s striking about listening to these collections of songs now is the realization of just how far The Pop Group was ahead of its time. JR

#7
The Rock*a*Teens
Sweet Bird of Youth
Merge

While there are plenty of records that literally rock your world, there are also those albums that seem to come from God on high, their every note and syllabic utterance coalescing into a potent mix of the visceral and cerebral to create something truly transcendental. Such is the case with Sweet Bird of Youth, The Rock*a*Teens’ fifth album, first released in 2000 by Merge Records, who reissued it digitally and on vinyl for the first time this year. Even when the songs seem to be held together by only the thinnest of semiotic streams of consciousness, there is a conviction that gives each its gestalt. Chris Lopez reportedly laid down the basic tracks on keyboards and guitars, then he, guitarist Justin Hughes, and bassist Will Joiner went in without the others’ knowledge and added to the songs. Perhaps it is this methodology that lends the album its teetering, beautifully shambolic quality. Whatever the case, from the first harpsichord-like notes of “Car and Driver,” it is clear this is a very special record. With an album this tremendous, perhaps The Rock*a*Teens called it a day knowing they could do no better. Fortunately, records such as this always exist in the present, their gilded sounds never tarnished by the years. SS

#6
Life Without Buildings
Any Other City
What’s Your Rupture?

This Record Store Day reissue is a time capsule from the last moment in which indie rock bands had so little commercial prospects that they could afford to sound unprofessional. To call the album unprocessed is a cliche, sure, but in 2014 that is its prime selling point. The guitars are undistorted, the bass is inquisitive, the percussion is light as a feather, and vocalist Sue Tompkins’ assertive, girl-punk delivery is immediately intriguing. The result is an album of danceable songs just waiting for some twee chorus to turn them into underdog hits. Tompkins, though, has little interest in such things. For each song she sings a few distinct, choppy phrases, like she’s throwing them at a wall again and again, trying to find the one inflection that will really stick. In between those refrains, she makes indecipherable conversation. “Sorrow” is the one time she slows everything down, repeating, “You’re beautiful but you’re going to slip way,” in a performance of breathtaking intimacy. Like the rest of the album, it is by turns beguiling, bizarre, and enchanting. MS

#5
Slant 6
Soda Pop * Rip Off
Dischord

When Slant 6 debuted with Soda Pop * Rip Off in 1994, it was a breath of fresh air blowing in the face of the prevailing testosterone-driven, archaic sounds of the times. The all-female trio channeled the wiry post-punk of its predecessors (Au Pairs, Bush Tetras, Slits, etc.) into defiant numbers that railed against love, personal politics, and the like. That 20 years later this formula still sounds just as whipsmart is a tribute to the album’s strengths. Part of the record’s uniqueness comes from the idiosyncrasies that come when you don’t let technical dexterity get in the way of ideas. It’s that brashness that is the album’s greatest attribute and which makes it bristle with unmistakable gusto to this day. SS

#4
Various Artists
C86: 3-CD Deluxe Edition
Cherry Red

It’s odd to think that a promotional cassette would come to define a certain style of music, but nearly 30 years later C86, the 23rd cassette in a series of tapes that weekly New Musical Express offered to its readers for mail order, is still a seminal document of British music in the mid-80s and the tape’s moniker has come to represent the presiding indie sound of that era. The original cassette contained 22 tracks from such notable bands as The Mighty Lemon Drops, The Pastels, and The Wedding Present, but also several others who have been lost to the sands of time. For this expanded edition, Cherry Red has added another 50 tracks, a good portion of which have either never been released before or have never appeared on CD. Cuts by the BMX Bandits, That Petrol Emotion, The Railway Children, Happy Mondays, Blue Aeroplanes, and Pop Will Eat Itself share the same dichotomy of veering wildly from one another while also possessing some the same shambolic shared sensibility. Like its original cassette predecessor (and perhaps more so), this edition of C86 reveals that self-made ingenuity and honest creativity were running rampant, resulting in a wealth of music that can never be replicated. SS

#3
David Bowie
Nothing Has Changed: The Very Best of David Bowie
Columbia/Legacy

Many column inches have been spent over the years discussing the chameleon nature of David Bowie. However, such shapeshifting cannot be over-documented as Bowie has had more periods than some entire shelves of bands in the record shop. As a result, he’s been repackaged and re-examined on a number of “best of” and boxset compilations over the years. So when yet another one was announced, it was hard to see why. Nothing Has Changed not only answers that question, it drops the mic, and then proceeds to eat your lunch. However, that’s only going to be the case if you spring for the three-disc edition, as the two-CD version is just a chronological collection of songs and the vinyl version is a hodgepodge in no particular order. The three-disc is in reverse chronological order, opening with a new song, “Sue (Or in a Season Of Crime),” and then taking a winding road backwards with remixes and unreleased and forgotten songs. There are a number of surprises, particularly on the first disc, which is latter day Bowie, but it’s also surprising at how many huge songs he left off. It’s a well-curated look at Bowie beyond the radio fodder, but cheeky enough to include “Dancing in the Streets.” Just when you think you know a guy, he can still surprise you. DSH

#2
X__X
X Sticky Fingers X
Ektro

When he was a member of Cleveland’s seminal proto-punks the electric eels, guitarist and artist John Morton cut a towering pose (he’s been compared to pro wrestler Gorgeous George, but with a penchant for Dadaist violence) that added a layer of true menace to the band’s minimalist chaos. After a move to New York, Morton formed X__X in 1979, an even more conceptual take on the sort of recalcitrant pisstake delivered by the eels. Though labeled a “fake band” by Morton, the art-damaged sounds found on the 2014 collection of the band’s output, X Sticky Fingers X (true to Morton’s conceptual vision, the blank between the X’s could be filled with the anything the band felt they needed to appropriate on a given night), are very real indeed. Comprising the band’s lone single plus various live and unreleased recordings, X Sticky Fingers X is about as nihilistic and hostile as the nascent No Wave scene could get and can truly put a listener on edge with it’s apolitical take-no-prisoners rants and spiky cacophony. Yet for all Morton’s talk of artistic remove and high-concept provocation, the band could really swing too, thanks in large part to drummer Anton Fier who anchored the original line-up. X Sticky Fingers X is an essential document from one of punks most challenging iconoclasts, and it has some pretty good rock songs on it too. NK

#1
Unwound
Rat Conspiracy
Numero Group

The Numero Group, in the second of four archival releases, documents Unwound’s most remarkable period of rapid evolution in glorious cardboard and black-and-white, perfectly evoking the pre-internet age of underground scenes. For two full albums, plus a disc of singles and rarities, the band alternates between punishing and hypnotizing. They’re right on the edge of losing control, doing post-adolescent tension-and-release with as much emotion, more groove and licks, and less restraint than almost any of their guitar-thrashing peers. You can hear the energy of fresh inspiration on the first LP of the set, Fake Train, on which Sara Lund transforms the band’s music through her iconoclastic drumming. The trio (Lund, Vern Ramsey, and Justin Trosper) mind-melded in the first moments after Lund entered the room. A casual jam quickly shifted into a new way of making music together. “I feel like we wrote half of Fake Train that practice,” Vern recalled. This music is less well-known than what followed from the group, but it was in this period that Unwound pushed their penchant for screaming, screeching release to its furthest extremes, achieving their peak of both heart and abandon. MS