Best of 2014
5. Clean Bandit - New Eyes
“If you gave me a chance, I would take it/it’s a shot in the
dark, but I’ll make it.” Those words blasted through our radios more and more
as the year progressed. By the end of it all, English quartet Clean Bandit and
their breakout single “Rather Be” were almost as ubiquitous on this side of the
pond as on theirs. Perhaps the one downside of such a perfectly crafted piece
of pop becoming so, so popular is that the song’s impressive parent album often
goes unnoticed.
New Eyes, the
band’s debut, is much more than the collection of first single similarities
that so many modern pop albums are. Displaying their classical roots, the sound
of live strings permeates nearly every track on the album. From seafaring stabs
on the chorus of “Come Over” to full-on classical movement recreations on the opener
“Mozart’s House”, the band misses no opportunity to add classical flavor to
modern dance music.
Perhaps one of the most interesting pieces on the album is
British single “A+E”, which has criminally not been pushed yet in America. An
enticing classical opening section gives way to an irresistible dance plod,
complete with the trademark bleeps and steel pan synths that Clean Bandit has
made their signature. The four have an unmatched knack for melding pop sensibility
with classical melody.
The influences displayed range from southern trap on the
title track to island music on “UK Shanty” to the aforementioned classical flavorings.
For a record on paper so across-the-board, the result is surprisingly cohesive
and compelling. When pop music is viewed through a serious lens, the results
are often great. Through the lens of the strict structure of classical music,
the result is the catchy, danceable, melodically complex and intrinsically
appealing sound that you know from “Rather Be”. It would be criminal to assume
Clean Bandit to be just a one-trick pony, when they’re more like an entire herd
moving in unison to the sound of strings and techno beats.
4. Beck - Morning Phase
A full twenty years since “Loser”, Beck is still pushing the
boundaries of rock music. After dabbling in glitch, crunchy alternative,
hip-hop and psychedelia, where is an enterprising oddball rocker to turn? As it
happens, the call is a long-requested return to the acoustic melodies of his
heavily acclaimed Sea Change. Where
that album was rooted in melancholy loneliness, Morning Phase deals instead in wide-eyed optimism with folk-rock
flavor. Gone is the breakup-inspired, tearful sunset of Sea Change in favor of a sunrise companion piece with appropriately
bright soundscapes.
To begin the album with a song called “Morning” is no
coincidence. “Morning” sounds like the sigh of relief at 7am after a terrible
night of red eyes and broken memories. The simple brushed drums and solo guitar
four-chord progression gives way to a cascade of vocal harmonies, courtesy of a
choir of Beck’s. The man’s own voice is an instrument he proudly wields like
Hendrix’s guitar.
Early standout “Heart Is A Drum” chugs along on a repeated
guitar line, swaddled in ethereal synth waves and reverb-powered vocal sighs. Following
track “Say Goodbye” seems to tread more traditional bluesy Beck territory, but
expands to include his now-trademark vocal harmonies and a banjo line you
didn’t know you wanted until it enters. Synth organ waves buoy held vocal wails
on “Unforgiven”, and the almost-overproduced-but-not-quite “Blue Moon” stands
as a welcoming first single.
The general positivity of Morning Phase persists in feeling up until and through the epic closer
“Waking Light”. In a culmination of all of the tricks he’s displayed throughout
the album, “Light” slowly builds into a string-heavy cavalcade to close the
album on an essentially-Beck note of all possible technical capabilities in
full force. Morning Phase stands both
as the perfect closure to Sea Change
and a wonderful display of Beck’s raw talent in its own right. Is it an
unexpected sound in the midst of an experiment-fueled musical era never more
similar to Beck’s own heart? Sure, but leave it to Beck to leave us happily
surprised time after time.
3. Isaiah Rashad - Cilvia Demo
Rap music in 2014 became a very fickle beast. In a world in
which Bobby Shmurda hits the top 10 by wailing that “Mitch caught a body ‘bout
a week agoooo” and iLoveMakonnen lights up radio by singing entirely off-key
about weekday club excursions, it’s hard to see a place for traditional
lyricism in the fray. Record label Top Dawg Entertainment has made its name as
a beacon in a murky sea of punchlines and distorted 808s as modern rap’s
guiding force towards the past, with mainstays like Kendrick Lamar and Ab-Soul
recalling yesteryear’s rhyming passion and Schoolboy Q inserting the same
spirit into today’s sounds.
Enter Isaiah Rashad. Alongside fellow new signee SZA (whose
silky R&B can be heard on two Cilvia
Demo tracks), Rashad has emerged as TDE’s latest hip-hop wunderkind. It’s
not hard to imagine Rashad’s incessant flow and sharp rhymes fitting snugly in
the rap scene of nearly 20 years ago, in the era of Wu-Tang and NWA. From the
beginning of electric piano-led head-nodder “Webbie Flow” opening the album,
the feeling of something both familiar and brand new is omnipresent.
But it’s his brutal personality that anchors Rashad to the
modern era throughout the disc. He tackles the feelings of loneliness and
desperation in his career path over a steel-pan skeleton on “Heavenly Father”,
a show of raw honesty and vulnerability that wouldn’t have been as warmly
received in a pre-808s & Heartbreak
world. And the boastful Scarface referencing “Brad Jordan” could have easily
been recorded on by a Future or a Kevin Gates, albeit likely not with the same
fury and lyrical acrobatics.
The sarcastic musings on substance of “Menthol” betray
Rashad’s dissatisfaction with the materialistic and molly-popping modern rap
scene. “Thought the remedy was balling, I’m falling darling, I’m done/Finna be a
workaholic, an alcoholic or some’” are bitter slams on the cashwise attitude of
today’s young stars. Though only 23, Rashad speaks with the brutal honesty of a
man with the glamorous world in his rearview.
His soul-soaked honesty carries through the project. Here is
a young man with a story to tell and the talent to tell it in rhyme. With
incredibly tight production from the likes of Sounwave and The Antydote, the
result is an album as fresh as it is nostalgic, as haunting as it is optimistic.
“At least we fell in love with something greater than debating suicide,” he
laments on standout “West Savannah”, and it’s one of the most beautiful lines
from a new rapper this year.
2. Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright In The End
One of the year’s most shockingly impressive projects came
from perhaps the least likely source. Weezer, after a disappointing string of
albums through the latter 2000s and culminating with an odd collection of songs
tied together with a picture of Jorge Garcia, had had just enough of being
modern rock’s perennial joke. After entering the studio with The Cars’ Ric
Ocasek, who had previously assisted with their heavily acclaimed blue and green
albums, the band emerged with their best piece of work in over a decade.
Clocking in at just over 40 minutes, Everything Will Be Alright is Weezer’s heftiest work since 2005’s Make Believe. In spite of the longer
running time, the album feels like the band has finally cut the fat that
plagued their recent works. Gone are the experimentally dance-leaning cuts and
Lil Wayne features, replaced with pure, unadulterated power pop. Lead single
“Back to the Shack” finds lead singer Rivers Cuomo apologizing for their
transgressions and promising a return to form. Admittedly hard to swallow upon
its release, it now sits proudly at the start of the album as a vindicated
mission statement.
Weezer has always shined brightest on its catchy pop-rock
hooks; as such, the highlights of the album are the ones you’ll be singing to
yourself for days after hearing. “Lonely Girl”, calling back almost immediately
the sounds of Bleach-era Nirvana, gets its point across with a 3-word chorus
repeated ad nauseam (and that’s in no way a bad thing). The silly historical
rock of “The British Are Coming” ends up as the coolest thing that could
possibly end up in a high school history lesson, and though “Da Vinci” has a
hook without any real meaning, Cuomo’s earnest moans leave the listener at a
“loss for words” all their own.
If it sounds a little corny, that’s because it is. And
that’s the beauty of truly artistic pop music – a band’s own sound captured in the
ultra-polish of a homogenized medium. That’s not to say you’ll be able to
predict every turn. Opener “Ain’t Got Nobody” is about as rock as they come,
and “Cleopatra” evokes the folk-rock movement that gained steam this year. And
of course, Ocasek’s influence means a few proto-Cars tracks like “I’ve Had It
Up To Here” and “Foolish Father”, which are always a welcome addition.
The ambitious three-song suite at the album’s close sums up
the work in a concise statement: this is Weezer, and we’ve still got it. As the
listener finds themselves enveloped by crashing guitars and wailed vocals, the
sounds and feelings of days gone by creep back. If you didn’t know any better,
you’d think you’d been transported back to 1994, when “Buddy Holly” still ruled
the radio. In fact, you haven’t. It’s 2014, and Weezer is determined to
continue their legacy. And for the first time in almost a decade, that’s a good
thing.
1. FKA Twigs – LP1
From its whispery onset to its cacophonous finale, FKA
Twigs’ first full-length (quite literally titled) is a journey in both sound
and feeling. Its eye-catching portrait cover is fitting; a woman painted in
makeup with glazed eyes and the ghost of a smile barely having quit her lips,
simultaneously personal and hollowly reminiscent of the listener’s own
sensualities. But most importantly, it looks like nothing you’ve ever seen
before in an album cover. Likewise, the album breaks new sonic ground
effortlessly and continuously by delving unabashedly into emotion with a
perfectly poised dive.
The chaotic intro, one of many contributions from modern production
weirdo Arca, sets the tone with what can best be described as a quiet storm of
flickering percussion, reverb-soaked vocal coos and pure, beautiful lust. Without
one intelligible word rising above the fray, Twigs paints a picture in jittery
computerized sound that expresses her thoughts better than any essay or memoir
ever could. Similarly evocative highlights like “Hours” forego R&B
tradition for a blend of instrumentation to endorse statement; in the
aforementioned track, the chorus of “I could kiss you for hours” merges with a vast
soundscape complete with whispering synths mimicking a desert wind, holding her
bold sexuality as beauty against emptiness.
Such vastly empty soundscapes and traveling percussion lines
contrast throughout the album with Twigs’ raw, pained vocals. Rather than background
noise, however, the instrumentals serve as scaffolding to underscore her words
- at no point is her heartfelt vocalizing not center stage. Therein lies the
beauty of the album, which almost better understood as a collection of beautiful
acapellas built with exoskeletons of synths into the physical incarnations of
Twigs’ inner monologues.
It’s the wordlessness that speaks volumes. In “Video Girl”,
Twigs reflects on her previous life as just that – a nameless backup dancer
silently attempting expression. You can feel her pained restraint as she sighs,
“You’re gonna get yourself broke one day”, followed by a quiet “Is she the girl
that’s from the video?” It’s as though her bottled emotions exploded in a
studio, caking the walls with spindly snare rolls and ratcheting knocks.
Breakout single “Two Weeks” is a haunting show of pain; a
woman alone, asserting her superior sexuality to an absent ex-boyfriend who has
since moved on. The phrase “I can fuck you better than her” has never felt so
full of regret. The chorus erupts as a symphony of breathy vocals, half-time
drum lines, rolling ticks and moaning sighs. There may not have been a closer
auditory representation of pure, vulnerable lovemaking yet created in modern
music.
In an era of quiet judgment attached to any mention of the
word “sex”, Twigs’ straightforward and unashamed approach to intimacy is
incredibly refreshing. There’s a quiet strength underlying her every word; one
track, “Kicks”, reminds her absent lover that she can and will get her kicks
without him, and – oh yeah – that she has a beautiful body of which she is very
proud. The blend of sheer spirit and technological musicianship is something to
behold. If there’s one absolutely essential music release this year, it’s this
monument to human sexuality hiding behind a woman’s makeup-covered face.
