And so here we are: the last blog post of the last month of 2016. Truth be told, I've spent most of December listening to crappy Christmas music, but I did find time for some other stuff too. Here's the cream of what I've been subjecting my ears to these last 30 days:
A slacker-rock anthem for staying up too late and watching crap on your laptop. "And I'm not getting enough rest/'Cause I can't stop watching Top Chef!"
Time for the big one, then. I've already told you my favourite songs of 2014, and with that warm-up out of the way, I'm now ready to reveal my favourite albums.
Frankly, I can't quite believe that it's been a whole year since Quiet Marauder scooped top honours in December 2013, but a year it has been and we're about to find out who is following in their footsteps. We know that it won't be any of the bands from my Honourable Mentions list; those albums were good, but not quite good enough for the final list.
Without further ado, then, here are The Album Wall's Top 10 Albums of 2014:
10) Commune by Goat
World Music, Goat's first album, was pretty good, but I never managed to shake the feeling that it wasn't quite as good as I wanted it to be. Commune is a lot closer to being that album; it feels much more full-on and much more mystical than its predecessor, and that full-on mysticism is what makes Goat such a great prospect. That and the rhythms - I particularly like Bondye, which uses metal chains as a percussion instrument.
Great albums would be nothing without great songs so before I reveal my Top 10 Albums of 2014, I'd like to share some of the best songs I've heard this year. Some you will know, some you may have missed, but all of them are excellent and that's an Album Wall guarantee.
Just to clarify, any song is eligible as long as its parent album was released in 2014. That stonking new Modest Mouse song, for example, is not on the list; even though we're listening to it here and now in 2014, the new album won't be out until March 2015, and so as far as I'm concerned it's not a 'Song of 2014'.
Also, I'd finished compiling this list before Lampshades on Fire was made available to hear, so there we are. Now, without further ado, here are my Top 20 Songs of 2014!
20) Did I Ever Love You by Leonard Cohen
This song attracted a lot of criticism for its "bouncy country" section that "sounds like Mumford & Sons", but whatever - I still love it, and the contrast between those sad, achy verses and that abruptly upbeat chorus is one of the best things about it.
So here's a brief account of my Afghan Whigs experience to date:
Having heard the band's named bandied about in all the right circles, I picked up a copy of 1965 from The Record Shop on Inverness Place. It cost me £4.
1965 was all right but not all great, and so I didn't revisit the Whigs until a book told me to do so. It was Gentlemen's entry in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die that finally convinced me to revisit Greg Dulli and Co, and I'm glad I did - their fourth album is an altogether darker and more rocked-up affair than 1965, which of course meant that I found it altogether more appealing.
In 2012, I attended the Optimus Primavera Sound Festival in Porto. Here, I braved the rain (typical - you fly all the way to Portugal and it rains) to watch TAW's set on the Super Bock Stage or whatever it was called at the time. They played a blinder, and later that evening, I chanced upon a copy of Black Love in one of the CD/record tents. That album proved not to be quite as good as Gentlemen, but it was still a wonderful blend of noise and sneery attitude.
A couple of weeks ago (i.e. around the end of April), I created a playlist containing my favourite songs of the year so far. I've decided to share it here - not only are the songs really good, I'm also really pleased with how it flows as a playlist.
See, this isn't a bumper-sized free-for-all like my summer playlist. That was one to shuffle and enjoy for an entire afternoon; this is a tight, ten-track affair that was carefully sequenced for the best possible listening experience.
So sit back and feast your ears on the 10 best songs of (the first four months of) 2014. I'll put the songs here without comment for now, and add some more details tomorrow.
(N.B. I would have embedded this as a Spotify playlist but My Name is Ian hasn't put his bloomin' album on Spotify. Thanks for that, Ian - now I have to embed ten things instead of one. Yeesh.)
1) Cult of Love by Dum Dum Girls (from Too True)
Too True isn't a particularly spectacular album, but it does boast the best opening track of the year so far. Cult of Love is a charging krautrock bull of a song, recalling the best parts of goth music among other things.
