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 \u201980s. But as we are living in an era when everything that was once old is new again, I\u2019d like to think that this is just reflective of the cream rising to the top as it resurfaces. I no doubt have a soft spot for the bands of my youth, but I\u2019ve never been one to live in the past, and if their albums didn\u2019t past muster (as many of the records they\u2019ve made haven\u2019t), I wouldn\u2019t be listening to them. I could also make comment on the glut of hobbyists and no-nothing fashionistas cluttering the virtual airwaves, but that just sounds like the complaints of someone indeed in the midst of that midlife crisis. Besides, the young bloods on this list show there\u2019s plenty going if you know where to find it. So without further ado…<\/p>\n
20. Simple Minds, Big Music (Caroline)<\/strong> 19. Pere Ubu, Carnival of Souls (Fire)<\/strong> 18. Echo and the Bunnymen, Meteorites (429)<\/strong> 17. Nots, We Are Nots (Goner)<\/strong> 16. Merchandise, After the End (4AD)<\/strong> 15. Spoon, They Want My Soul (Loma Vista)<\/strong> 14. Camper Van Beethoven, El Camino Real (429)<\/strong> 13. Various Artists, C86: Deluxe Edition<\/strong> 12. Loop at Le Poisson Rouge<\/strong> 11. Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s by Lori Majewski and Jonathan Bernstein<\/strong> 10. Parquet Courts, Sunbathing Animal (What’s Your Rupture?\/Mom+Pop)<\/strong> 9. Devo at Best Buy Theater<\/strong> 8. The Woodentops, Granular Tales (Cherry Red)<\/strong> 7. Tweens, Tweens (Frenchkiss)<\/strong> 6. electric eels, Die electric eels and \u201cSpin Age Blasters\u201d (Superior Viaduct)<\/strong> 5. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at the Mann Center<\/strong> 4. Johnny Marr, Playland (Warner Music Group) and at the Music Hall of Williamsburg<\/strong> 3. The Crookes, Soapbox (Modern Outsider)<\/strong> 2. The Rock*a*Teens at Le Poisson Rouge<\/strong> 1. Angel Olsen, Burn Your Fire for No Witness (Jagjaguwar)<\/strong> 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 \u201980s. But as we are living in an era when everything that was once old is new again, I\u2019d like to think that this is just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":2758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2479],"tags":[398,687,313,381,558,1070,250,1072,743,1071,1010,41,591,826,228,658,386,507,1043],"class_list":["post-2832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-of-the-year","tag-angel-olsen","tag-c86","tag-camper-van-beethoven","tag-devo","tag-echo-and-the-bunnymen","tag-electric-eels","tag-johnny-marr","tag-mad-world","tag-merchandise","tag-nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds","tag-nots","tag-parquet-courts","tag-pere-ubu","tag-simple-minds","tag-the-crookes","tag-the-rockateens","tag-the-woodentops","tag-tweens","tag-x__x"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nSeeing Simple Minds live in 2013 rekindled my love for this band who I had first started listening to nearly 30 years ago. Admittedly, as they hadn\u2019t put out anything that even approached their heyday (Sparkle in the Rain<\/i> and New Gold Dream<\/i>) in decades, I was skeptical when they announced this record\u2019s release. But Big Music<\/i> combines the grandiosity of its namesake with truly stirring emotion, musical ingenuity, and catchy hooks. It\u2019s easily their best record since Once Upon a Time<\/i> and hopefully the start of a new era of rejuvenation for the band.<\/p>\n
\nIn the nearly 40 years that David Thomas has been leading the Cleveland-born Pere Ubu, the ever evolving group has consistently released records that have challenged musical norms in one way or another. That you can point to highlights of the band\u2019s career in every decade is a testament to its vitality. Carnival of Souls<\/i> is this decade\u2019s benchmark (thus far). Led by Bob Wheeler\u2019s electronics, it is a whirl of mechanized ambience and organic dissonance, with Thomas sounding particularly thorny as he wails over top of it all.<\/p>\n
\nWhile singer Ian McCulloch has insisted that each record the Bunnymen have made since reforming in 1997 has been a return to the heights of its magnum opus Ocean Rain<\/i>, that hyperbole has never held much water (pun intended). With Meteorites<\/i>, though, the band has done its legacy proud. Beginning with the splendorous title track, the album is full of both gravitas and delicacy. However, it\u2019s not so much a continuation of the band\u2019s heyday, but rather a lofty highpoint of its second chapter.<\/p>\n
\nDespite punk\u2019s seemingly simple DIY formula, many still get it wrong. Memphis femme four-piece Nots, however, do so much right within their uncomplicated framework of rickety guitar ruckus and synth whine. Cuts like \u201cReactor\u201d are reminiscent of luminaries like The Raincoats, but are so completely idiosyncratic that such comparisons only serve as a point of reference. Indeed, We Are Nots<\/i>, as its very self-defining title would seem to denote, is its own thing altogether, dense with ideas both fully formed and half-baked, but in both instances played with complete commitment.<\/p>\n
\nTruthfully, I wanted to like this album even more than I did. All the pieces are here for something truly earth-shattering. As it is, this is a very, very good record\u2014just not a great<\/i> record. The production lifts the band\u2019s melodies from the obfuscation of its predecessor, 2012\u2019s Children of Desire<\/i>, but doesn\u2019t shine them to the sparkling hue that they are due. Similarly, the performances seem to be slightly subdued. Nevertheless, at the album\u2019s heart are some incredible songs and Carson Cox\u2019s croon is a thing of beauty. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love this album and played the hell out of it. It\u2019s just that I can also hear the potential.<\/p>\n
\nWhether it was taking a little more time off between records (it\u2019s been four years since Spoon\u2019s last album, Transference<\/i>) or perhaps frontman Britt Daniel being reinvigorated by his Divine Fits side-project, Spoon\u2019s latest eschews some of the populist propensities that have garnered a larger audience for the kind of hot-wired creativity that has marked its best work. The record as a whole migrates through a diverse succession of attitudinal and textural shifts, and in just 10 tracks, Spoon shows the full range of its abilities and reaffirms that they are still a band capable of making music not only for the masses, but for the ages.<\/p>\n
\nAnother old favorite, Camper Van Beethoven has returned to the peak level of its pre-break-up years of the \u201980s with El Camino Real<\/i>. The record has the same spark that marked the records of its heyday, with David Lowery\u2019s lyrical witticisms matched by musical smarts every bit as ingenious. Indeed, I\u2019m thinking that the band\u2019s mix of folksome college rock will continue to only get better as the years progress.<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s odd to think that a promotional cassette would come to define a certain style of music, but nearly 30 years later C86<\/i>, one of a series of cassette tapes that weekly New Musical Express<\/i> offered to its readers for mail order, is still a seminal document of British music in the mid-80s and the tape\u2019s 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 from such bands as the BMX Bandits, That Petrol Emotion, The Railway Children, Happy Mondays, Blue Aeroplanes, and Pop Will Eat Itself. Like its original 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.<\/p>\n
\nIt is probably fitting that my memory of this April show at New York\u2019s Le Poisson Rouge is as blurry as the music this seminal band made. But what has stuck with me is how truly awe-inspiring it was. Touching on all four albums it made in the late \u201980s and early \u201990s, the band unleashed a furious sound that encompassed all in it attendance. (This was one of the few shows that was as loud as it needed to be.) As there\u2019s been no news from the Loop camp as to whether or not the band will be continuing this reunion in some form, this night may just live on in my head as some wonderful dream.<\/p>\n
\nThis was the year that I began to re-appreciate the music of my prepubescent youth, i.e. new wave, and this book helped spark that interest. Full of lists and pull quotes and organized by song titles (fitting for many of these one-hit wonders), the book\u2019s mix of critical thought and irreverence (as epitomized by the authors\u2019 two voices) is a great read that reveals that sometimes style can impact artistic merit just as much as substance.<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s hard to believe that in this age of the misuse of irony and the word \u201cliterally\u201d that a bunch of kids from Brooklyn (the epicenter of such crimes against humanity) can make a record as smart and cogent as Sunbathing Animals<\/i>. That this is the second such intelligent album from the band, only verifies the Parquet Courts\u2019 merits. Chockfull of wry observations and wiry guitar lines, this record shows that there\u2019s still hope for the youth of today.<\/p>\n
\nWith the death of Bob 2 this year and the future of the band in question, I was kicking myself for having never seen these Ohio-born legends in the flesh. Fortunately, the band continued with its plans to play the songs from its earliest day on this venture dubbed the Hardcore Tour after its recent Superior Viaduct releases. Though a couple more encores would have been nice, the band didn\u2019t disappoint, playing a set that was artful as it was invigorated and included songs like \u201cUncontrollable Urge\u201d and \u201cJocko Homo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nTo my ears Granular Tales<\/i> picks up where The Woodentops left off in 1986 with their superb debut, Giant<\/i>. The band, which includes original members Rolo McGinty (vocals, guitar), Simon Mawby (guitar), and Frank de Freitas (bass), has tapped into the vibe of its earlier years without rehashing past formulas. \u201cA Pact\u201d matches frenetic rhythms to a galvanic acoustic riff and keyboard flutters that are belied by a darkened tone, while \u201cThird Floor Rooftop High\u201d is a bombastic romp seemingly channeling the same energy of yore. Best, though, is \u201cEvery Step of the Way,\u201d which finds a low-key groove and burrows into it. It is an amazing return to form that will hopefully continue onward.<\/p>\n
\nThe debut by Cincinnati\u2019s Tweens bursts from the gate with \u201cBored in This City,\u201d a booming lashing against adolescent ennui following in the tradition of \u201cPretty Vacant,\u201d \u201cNow I Wanna Sniff Some Glue,\u201d et. al. Singer Bridget Battle\u2019s yowl has more sweetness to it than those predecessors, though, and you can fathom the yearning when she screams that her town is eating her alive or when she\u2019s asking her paramour to show less kindness (\u201cBe Mean\u201d). As the band name might indicate, that sweetness is accentuated by a pop element at work here, but so too is there a Midwest grittiness. This is a record that careens with enough recklessness to let you know there\u2019s something behind it and also that there\u2019s still plenty of life to be found in rock\u2019s basic tenants, if only you know where to find it. Surely, these kids know where it\u2019s at.<\/p>\n
\n electric eels, \u201cJaguar Ride\u201d (HoZac)<\/strong>
\n X__X, X Sticky Fingers X (Ektro)<\/strong>
\nMost probably think that punk was born in New York or London, but the argument could also be made for its origination being in Cleveland. Though they were never awarded the acclaim or the commercial spoils of its successors, the electric eels, led by the imposing John Morton, were creating the same kind nihilistic ruckus on the shores of Lake Erie as early as 1972. This year saw several records, the Die electric eels<\/i> comp and \u201cSpin Age Blasters\u201d single on Superior Viaduct and \u201cJaguar Ride\u201d single on HoZac, issued as evidence. Morton went on to form X__X in the late-70s, and with the release of the X Sticky Fingers X<\/i> compendium also this year, got the band back together for a handful of dates that showed him still to be a force to reckon with.<\/p>\n
\nI also saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds play in New York this past summer, but this date at Philadelphia\u2019s beautiful Mann Center was the superior of the two. Comprised of songs from the entirety of the band\u2019s catalog in addition to cuts from last year\u2019s Push the Sky Away<\/i>, this lengthy show revealed Cave and his cohorts to be in top form. Cave repeatedly ventured out into the crowd, often times singing from 20 rows deep into the audience. In such moments of communing with his fans, he held them in the palm of his hand. The show was equal parts fury and beauty, and it still resonates in my head anytime I hear a song from the setlist.<\/p>\n
\nI continue to wonder what Johnny Marr was doing wasting his time with Modest Mouse and The Cribs when he could have been making albums like Playland<\/i> and last year\u2019s equally excellent The Messenger<\/i>. While his former songwriting partner cancels tours and squabbles with his label in the press, the one time Smiths guitarist has proven himself capable of great records on his own. Live, this is even more evident, and his performance in Brooklyn also included runs through \u201cThe Headmaster Ritual\u201d and \u201cStill Ill\u201d that weren\u2019t lacking in anyway. Morrissey who?<\/p>\n
\nThe Crookes\u2019 sophomore album, Hold Fast<\/i>, was criminally overlooked, but fortunately the Sheffield quartet has returned sooner than later with a follow-up, Soapbox<\/i>. Like its predecessor, the record is characterized by snazzy pop that occupies the middle ground between the territories tread by The Housemartins and Gene. Singer George Waite leads the way, his voice a highly tuned instrument that traipses atop each melody with acrobatic glee. Musically, the record is a smart mix of jangly guitar riffs and big backbeats that the Brits seem to have cornered the market on over the past few decades. Ever after many regular listens since its release this past spring, the album\u2019s charms have yet to diminish.<\/p>\n
\nThere was probably no show that I anticipated more this year than The Rock*a*Teens at Glasslands this past August. But when the assholes at the now defunct club nixed the band\u2019s encore in favor of starting their late night dance party, I knew I needed more. Thankfully, they were playing again the next night, and it surpassed the previous night\u2019s gig in all ways. The reformed group careened through a set comprised largely of their recently reissued Sweet Bird of Youth<\/i>, each song seemingly building on the one previous. By the end\u2014and this was the end, the last show of the tour\u2014singer Chris Lopez was in a heap on the stage, having wrung every ounce of emotion out of every note.<\/p>\n
\nThe sophomore album from this crimson-throated Missouri whippoorwill at turns evokes the ghosts of Hank Williams and Roy Orbison, while also sounding decidedly modern. Songs like the opening \u201cUnfucktheworld\u201d are lent an added poignancy by being stripped to just the barest of essentials, but Olsen also at other moments wraps her ruminations in fuzzy coatings of hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman vitriol that adds to the record\u2019s cumulative potency. The album is quiet and thunderous, pensive and cathartic, and simmers with a bellyfire that seems destined to never go out. In short, Burn Your Fire for No Witness<\/i> is one for the ages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"