My best for 2014 are as follows in no special order
Deptford Goth - Songs
Blue Rose Code - The Ballad of Peckham Rye
Ambient Jazz Ensemble- Suite Shop
Ben Watt - Hendra
Broken Bells - After the Disco
BvDub - I'll only Break your Heart
Dave Douglas Quartet - Be Still
The Gloaming - The Gloaming
James Vincent McMorrow - Post Tropical
L'Anerchiste - The Traveller
Mammal Hands - Animalia
Mathew Halsall - When the World was One
Neil Finn - Dizzy Heights
Passenger - Whispers
Slow Rolling Camera - Slow Rolling Camera
Temples - Sun Structures
Zara McLane- If you knew Love
Marconi Union - Weightless
Damon Alban - Everyday Robots
BvDub - A History of Distance
Richard Thompson - Acoustic Classics
I thought I better get this in early as work and family will start taking up a lot of my times before the festive holidays.
Every year, The A.V. Club invites our regular music writers and staff to pick their favorite albums of the past 12 months. This year, we asked writers to pick their 15 favorite albums, with no. 1 earning 15 points, no. 2 earning 14, and so on. We tallied up the results to arrive at our final best-of list. (In the event that two albums tied for points, the record with the greatest number of votes prevailed.) As youll see below, the voting process made for a list thats both diverse and inspiring.
Village Voice Top 10 jazz list looks good, and especially because it includes new things to check out that I hadn't heard of before. I endorse the Barber/Taborn duo, that's one of my most-played albums this year.
@kargatron that's a useful voting process in principle; the thought crossed my mind that it might be fun to apply that process to emusers, then I thought we would probably end up with a list of albums that had been given 15 points by one of us and none by anyone else...
Gp, yes, you need to overcome low-number statistics to make "voting" meaningful. Still, it's generally the most illuminating approach, outside of accessing any particular reviewer's inherently idiosyncratic aesthetic.
Precincts Reporting (36/??):
American Songwriter|The AV Club|Bleep|Chicago Tribune|Cosmopolitain|Crack Magazine|Crave Online|Decibel|The Drift|Entertainment Weekly|Faster Louder|Gigwise|Gorilla vs Bear|Mojo|MusicOHM|NME|The Oregonian|Paste|PopMatters|Pretty Much Amazing|Q|The Quietus|The Resident|Revolver|Rolling Stone|Rough Trade|Sister Ray Records|The Skinny|Sound Opinions|Stereogum|Telegraph|Time|Time out London|Time Out New York|Uncut|Variance
There is a jazz voting list that works something like that - I can't find it (last year's), but Jonah will know where it is. I find it really useful, not so much for the top vote getters as for the less well known stuff that a lot of people still liked
I am finding there is a significant amount of jazz on best of 2014 lists that is not on spotify. Also that many of the artists have pre-2009 albums on spotify. Is that because they moved on to better labels or has spotify declined for jazz?
The Francis Davis/NPR list will go up pretty soon, I'd imagine. The deadline to submit ballots was 4pm yesterday (Sunday).
I'm dying on the vine trying to create my Top 30. Not a lot of superstar albums this year, but lots of excellent releases and I'm amazed by some of the albums that aren't going to make the cut.
Gp, I'm sure there's a variety of factors, but since streaming-presence is almost always label- and not artist-based, the story should be easier to suss out with some digging. Some jazz labels never got on, some have withdrawn, and sometimes labels deliver to streamers after a waiting period. Might just be an exercise in low number statistics (your noted phenomenon, I mean).
It does seem like there's no obvious heavy hitter like Wayne Shorter this year. Brian Blade is showing up on a lot of lists, it would be cool if he won it.
AV Club I have 2 - Run the Drugs and War on Jewels...
Re; voting I like this article from The Wire that explains how James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual came to be their number one pick of 2011, despite getting votes from less than 10% of voters and despite none of those voters picking it as number one. It does have an interesting method for cutting out the low numbers though; in order to make the list at all an album has to get at least two votes.
It also explains why I'm so bad at coming up with my own top ten lists. I like Far Side Virtual, but as of late 2011, I'd never heard it. My listening is largely guided (maybe too guided?) by other people's year end lists, and has been for a long time now (I think I started being into year end lists when I started reading Spin; the first issue I ever bought was Prince on the cover, which was (I just had to look it up) September 1991, which seems about right because I remember getting Bandwagonesque because it was Spin's number 1 that year.) I think I really should try to come up with my own list this year. But laziness and the press of other work, so probably I won't.
Interesting to see the Isaiah Rashad and Protomartyr rank so high there. Both are really good albums, but I don't think I've seen them on other lists yet.
Whilst looking at the Village Voice Jazz list I also went to their Ten Jazz Albums to Hear Before You Die. Hardly any surprises - you will all guess Number 1, and I'd even got most of them. I will follow up this year's list - some interesting albums there that I haven't heard of, plus a few I know emusic doesn't carry - I'll have to ask for some iTunes or Amazon tokens!
The Guardian has now reached Number 2 with War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream. My guess is that The Temples - Sun Structures will be their top choice, as it does not appear elsewhere in the list.
Wondering Sound have their The 25 Best Jazz Albums of 2014 What I find surprising is that several of them are not available on emusic, either in the States or the UK. Contributors include our own Jonah. I already had four off this and have now downloaded three more, with a couple going into my SFL.
That's a good list. I've got 6, and will have several more more eventually! This is the first list I've seen with the Sean Jones album, which I like a lot.
That is one that I have just downloaded, Doofy. I put it in my SFL, probably didn't have enough credits at the time, and promptly ignored it. That is one of the advantages of such lists in that they do remind you of good stuff you've missed. It is a good list, and I would have downloaded a couple more if they had been on emusic. They are awaiting Amazon Christmas vouchers!
I just looked at the Guardian's list, which is up to #2. I have none of them, though I did buy the Taylor Swift for my daughter. No, really. i will seek out Beck, Jenny Lewis and Leonard Cohen at some point. Several years removed from eMusic membership, I am now completely out of touch with the current music scene. On the bright side, I still have thousands of tracks from eMusic and Amie Street that I've never listened to yet. Working my way through those now.
I own the Taylor Swift (good Black Friday deal). It's okay, but I don't think it's as good as the lists are ranking it. "Shake it Off" is a crazy good song, though.
My daughter is in her grade school choir, and "Shake It Off" is one of the songs they're doing for their school concert. I had it stuck in my head the other day for over an hour. First class earworm but it was excruciating.
Taylor Swift's tour is coming to DC next summer, and I bought two tickets so my wife could take her. I have seen hundreds of concerts over the past 30+ years, and never come close to spending what I paid per ticket for that show. She's playing at Nationals Park and added a second show because the first one sold out so fast. It's somewhat mind-boggling (to me anyway).
Though I have not (intentionally) heard a note of it, I hereby declare "1989" the album of the year. To make that much of a splash and sell so many copies is a remarkable accomplishment given the state of the music biz these days...I feel like she deserves some kind of multiplier for degree of difficulty. Pop star yes, but she has gotten where she is by a rare combination of smarts and chops. More power to her.
Wondering Sound considers itself a stand-alone entity. It's why there have been instances (and likely will be more) where my Jazz Picks column have included an album or two not for retail on eMusic. Sorey's Alloy, I believe, was the most recent instance. Either that or the Jarrett/Haden/Motian Hamburg '72 release.
Comments
Cuneiform Records' Year In Review: 2014 - on Soundcloud.
- With excellent stuff from the Swedish world class drummer, Morgan
01. Julia Wolfe: Steel Hammer
06. Vicky Chow: Tristan Perich: Surface Image
09. Maya Beiser: Uncovered
- Emusers links.
34. Ian William Craig: A Turn Of Breath (Recital)
Deptford Goth - Songs
Blue Rose Code - The Ballad of Peckham Rye
Ambient Jazz Ensemble- Suite Shop
Ben Watt - Hendra
Broken Bells - After the Disco
BvDub - I'll only Break your Heart
Dave Douglas Quartet - Be Still
The Gloaming - The Gloaming
James Vincent McMorrow - Post Tropical
L'Anerchiste - The Traveller
Mammal Hands - Animalia
Mathew Halsall - When the World was One
Neil Finn - Dizzy Heights
Passenger - Whispers
Slow Rolling Camera - Slow Rolling Camera
Temples - Sun Structures
Zara McLane- If you knew Love
Marconi Union - Weightless
Damon Alban - Everyday Robots
BvDub - A History of Distance
Richard Thompson - Acoustic Classics
I thought I better get this in early as work and family will start taking up a lot of my times before the festive holidays.
Every year, The A.V. Club invites our regular music writers and staff to pick their favorite albums of the past 12 months. This year, we asked writers to pick their 15 favorite albums, with no. 1 earning 15 points, no. 2 earning 14, and so on. We tallied up the results to arrive at our final best-of list. (In the event that two albums tied for points, the record with the greatest number of votes prevailed.) As youll see below, the voting process made for a list thats both diverse and inspiring.
Village Voice Top 10 jazz list looks good, and especially because it includes new things to check out that I hadn't heard of before. I endorse the Barber/Taborn duo, that's one of my most-played albums this year.
Speaking of compilation:
Hyperconsensus 2014 (an RYM user's effort)
Precincts Reporting (36/??):
American Songwriter|The AV Club|Bleep|Chicago Tribune|Cosmopolitain|Crack Magazine|Crave Online|Decibel|The Drift|Entertainment Weekly|Faster Louder|Gigwise|Gorilla vs Bear|Mojo|MusicOHM|NME|The Oregonian|Paste|PopMatters|Pretty Much Amazing|Q|The Quietus|The Resident|Revolver|Rolling Stone|Rough Trade|Sister Ray Records|The Skinny|Sound Opinions|Stereogum|Telegraph|Time|Time out London|Time Out New York|Uncut|Variance
Here's one 2014 poll vote from a friend: Craig Premo's Top Jazz of 2014
I'm dying on the vine trying to create my Top 30. Not a lot of superstar albums this year, but lots of excellent releases and I'm amazed by some of the albums that aren't going to make the cut.
It does seem like there's no obvious heavy hitter like Wayne Shorter this year. Brian Blade is showing up on a lot of lists, it would be cool if he won it.
Re; voting I like this article from The Wire that explains how James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual came to be their number one pick of 2011, despite getting votes from less than 10% of voters and despite none of those voters picking it as number one. It does have an interesting method for cutting out the low numbers though; in order to make the list at all an album has to get at least two votes.
It also explains why I'm so bad at coming up with my own top ten lists. I like Far Side Virtual, but as of late 2011, I'd never heard it. My listening is largely guided (maybe too guided?) by other people's year end lists, and has been for a long time now (I think I started being into year end lists when I started reading Spin; the first issue I ever bought was Prince on the cover, which was (I just had to look it up) September 1991, which seems about right because I remember getting Bandwagonesque because it was Spin's number 1 that year.) I think I really should try to come up with my own list this year. But laziness and the press of other work, so probably I won't.
Interesting to see the Isaiah Rashad and Protomartyr rank so high there. Both are really good albums, but I don't think I've seen them on other lists yet.
Craig
Craig
Taylor Swift's tour is coming to DC next summer, and I bought two tickets so my wife could take her. I have seen hundreds of concerts over the past 30+ years, and never come close to spending what I paid per ticket for that show. She's playing at Nationals Park and added a second show because the first one sold out so fast. It's somewhat mind-boggling (to me anyway).
Get off my lawn...