Top 10 Albums of 2014

And once more with the lists. Picking my top 10 this year was actually really hard, because there was a lot of great music this year. Pretty much all of my favorite artists put out new music, some after having made us wait nearly a decade, others having made us wait even more than a decade (sorry D'Angelo, your album will have to wait until next year's list). I always pick my favorite albums and then listen to them over and over slowly changing the order until I've got my top 10. Usually the long list will be max 20 albums, but this year it made it up to like 30. It was a good year. So it actually takes me longer to order my top 10 than to pick it. But anyway, now it's picked and ordered and here it is for you.

It's a pretty good mix of new music by old favorites and debut acts. There's 3 debut albums on here, which I love to see. So without further ado, I'll count it down.

Warpaint
Warpaint




Little Dragon
Nabuma Rubberband




St. Paul & The Broken Bones
Half the City




Leif Vollebekk
North Americana




Sharon Van Etten
Are We There




alt-J
This Is All Yours




St. Vincent
St. Vincent




My Brightest Diamond
This Is My Hand




Adult Jazz
Gist Is




Sylvan Esso
Sylvan Esso




So there you have it.

And for those of you who are interested, here's that long list I put together. After the top 10 it's only somewhat in order. I get focused on the top 15 or so once I think I've got my top 10 to make sure I got it right, so everything after gets moved around some but not so much. But they're all great albums.

Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso
Adult Jazz - Gist Is
My Brightest Diamond - This Is My Hand
St. Vincent - St. Vincent
alt-J - This Is All Yours
Sharon Van Etten - Are We There
Leif Vollebekk - North Americana
St. Paul & The Broken Bones - Half The City
Little Dragon - Nabuma Rubberband
Warpaint - Warpaint
First Aid Kit - Stay Gold
Strand of Oaks - HEAL
Phantogram - Voices
Banks - Goddess
Wild Beasts - Present Tense
Kishi Bashi - Lighght
Chet Faker - Built on Glass
Saintseneca - Dark Arc
Hozier - Hozier
James Vincent McMorrow - Post Tropical
SOHN - Tremors
Fanfarlo - Let's Go Extinct
Cymbals - The Age of Fracture
Lo-Fang - Blue Film
Caribou - Our Love
Temples - Sun Structure
Damien Rice - My Favorite Faded Fantasy
Bear's Den - Islands
The War on Drugs - Lost In The Dream
SOS - SOS
Tycho - Awake

And the Spotify playlist of all of that is here:

So enjoy, and see you next year!