Hey, here are my 154 favourite albums of 2014. As usual, I haven't aimed for a fixed number; just listed everything, in a loose order, that I've enjoyed these past 12 months.
On the morning of July 29, 1966 Bob Dylan became distracted while out riding his Triumph motorbike. Writing about the incident later in Chronicles Volume 1, Dylan rather gnomically recalled, “I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered.” Of course, there is more to Dylan’s accident than that. After a period of retreat and convalescence at his Woodstock home, he began recording songs with his touring band, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Levon Helm.
Yesterday, after I posted this list of my favourite albums of 2014, I received a few messages complaining that there were too many Youtube and Soundcloud clips embedded here, preventing the page from loading properly. Forgive the repetition, then, but I thought it worth reposting the list as three separate blogs; hopefully it’ll work better this time…
Always a bit of a gamble doing this, to be honest but, since it’s June, I’ve tried to put together a list of my favourite albums of 2014 thus far. Many caveats forthcoming, not least that my slightly ad hoc way of trying to remember what I’ve liked means I’ve almost certainly missed a few things.
Bruce Springsteen is on the cover of the new Uncut, which also includes features on Van Morrison, Mama Cass, The Stooges, William Burroughs and The Damned.
Another song this week from what’s rapidly shaping up to be one of my favourite 2014 albums, Hurray For The Riff-Raff’s “Small Town Heroes”. Have a look, too, at the trailer for Lance Bangs’ Slint documentary, “Breadcrumb Trail”, which is the music film I’ve enjoyed most since the Source Family doc.
This week’s excuse for briskness is I have a longish review of Real Estate to write for the mag, but some good news in here: not least the appearance of a mighty stash of Fela Kuti albums on Bandcamp and some predictably weird mixtapes, compiled by John Fahey, fetching up on Soundcloud.
Strong haul of rad gumbo here, as we’ve taken to saying. Never thought I’d want to hear another Hold Steady album after the last one, but “Teeth Dreams” pretty much reaffirmed the faith. And if you’re that way inclined, I can recommend the new Men album, too; their best, I think.
