Mid-Year Top 5 Albums of 2014

We're just about halfway through the year, so it seems appropriate to start the midyear accolades. So, let's start off with my Top 5 Albums of 2014 so far.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: 
You're Gonna Miss it All | Modern Baseball
Singles | Future Islands
Morning Phase | Beck
Anywhere That's Wild | Adventure Galley

5. Atlas | Real Estate
I'm gonna be talking about maturity a lot on this list. It's due in part to so many bands breaking out of their usual shells and progressing on to refining their sound into something of their own. Their self-titled did that before. Just one listen through “Suburban Beverage” will show you that, but Atlas is a sign of growth in this little homegrown band that holds a special place in my heart. Real Estate before was an escapist artist. It was music you simply sat back and chilled to, but Atlas turns the mood. Suddenly, the clouds come out, the beachy twang turns into the beat of the pavement. It's like they've suddenly realized that the real world is here and it's menacing. With their same strong production and general cohesion with each other, Real Estate is back and better than ever.

4. Rooms of the House | La Dispute
Speaking of maturity, no album this year showed more growth in an artist that La Dispute's Rooms of the House. Every song is essentially a short story that taps into the emotions that almost everyone feels and makes you buy into what the song is trying to tell you. From something as simple as failure and emotional exhaustion to the complexity of the fear of the unknown, Dreyer takes you and shakes what you know to the core. The entire album is cohesive in its theme, but if you asked me to define its sound, I would just say all of the above. They don't conform to the “post-hardcore” canon, they simply use the music to support the story and that is good music if I've ever seen it.

NEXT: NUMBER 2 & 3

We're just about halfway through the year, so it seems appropriate to start the midyear accolades. So, let's start off with my Top 5 Albums of 2014 so far.

3. Upside Down Mountain | Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst isn't number two on this list just because Bright Eyes is one of my favorite bands of all time, but because this album is the peak of his maturity as a musician. When he returned to doing solo albums in 2008 I wasn't a huge fan. Everything came off a little insincere, unlike Bright Eyes' tragic music, but in this album he revisits his narrative storytelling and accompanies it with this new direction of SoCal Folk Pop and mixing it with the intimacy of previous Bright Eyes albums. The result is an album that is emotional, but not terribly sentimental, simple, but not boring. It's yet another fantastic step in the canon that is Conor Oberst. Check out our review here!

2. St. Vincent | St. Vincent
This album is pretty much at the top, or at least in the top 5, of any given music listener on the planet. It is simply an adroitly put together grouping of songs that are fun to listen to and painful to understand. It's hard to resist her twangy beats and twisted melodies set behind her pain-filled lyrics that almost purge everything she has. It's a phenomenal way to show introspection without being reclusive like some musicians get with their music. Overall, St. Vincent is her strongest, most cohesive, and successful effort of her career that is careful crafted and produced. I can sum up the album in one lyric from “Digital Witness”: “If I can't show it, you can't see me.”

NEXT: NUMBER 1


We're just about halfway through the year, so it seems appropriate to start the midyear accolades. So, let's start off with my Top 5 Albums of 2014 so far.

1. Soulmate Stuff | Antarctigo Vespucci
It's hard not to love this album. It just sounds like a group of friends in a garage just shooting the s**t and jamming out together. That's most of the beauty of the album. It's so organic. There's no sense to it. Some songs sound like it fell off of a Springsteen album, but others sound like a classic Weezer song. Chris Farren (lead singer of Fake Problems) and Jeff Rosenstock (of the now defunct Bomb the Music Industry!) created a 7-song album that you can jam out to in the car or shower and appreciate for the sheer talent put into it. Check out our review here!

What about you? What are your favorite albums of the year so far?