Top 100 Music Albums of 2014 by 
buzzdainer 
The juxtaposition of light and dark is the metaphor that makes the most sense of my 2014. On the light side, I relocated from North Carolina to Colorado to live with my then-partner. It was a purposeful and beautiful time in my life, when I finally quit a tenure-track academic job to be with the person I loved most in the world. We spent a magical summer and fall exploring together the trails in the Flatirons, Indian Peaks, and James Peak Wilderness. We went to farmer's markets together, listened to podcasts, cooked tasty and nutritious meals, and played at the dog park. But like most things in life of such otherworldly splendor, it didn't last. Hence, darkness. To my good fortune, though, I was returned to the West, the place where, turns out, I believe I was meant to end up. The Rocky Mountains took hold of me, and much of the music I listened to that year reflects the feelings of majesty and grandeur that I felt about those mountains. 2014 wasn't quite as strong a year, musically, as 2013, but it contained at least as much depth. And the quality 2014 did provide was perhaps even more rewarding because it could often be found in surprising and unexpected places.
- Chart updated: 11/27/2022 18:45
- (Created: 02/19/2016 19:25).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
There are 2 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Music Albums of 2014 has an average rating of 88 out of 100 (from 3 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.
View the complete list of 53,000 charts on BestEverAlbums.com from The Charts page.
Buy album
- #Sponsored
A highly competent, often sparkling, lyrically amorphous synth-pop album from Dum Dum Girls that achieves very-good-but-not-quite-great status. To my ear the moment on this record where frontwoman Dee Dee and company come closest to realizing their lofty potential is "In the Wake of You," which uses contrasting major and minor keys to achieve genuinely affecting emotional impact. It's been five years since we've heard Dum Dum Girls, and I hope we haven't heard the last of them--since this effort feels right on the verge of genuine brilliance.
[First added to this chart: 06/14/2016]
4
Buy album
- #Sponsored
Until Morning Phase was released, I'd always been able to compartmentalize Beck's involvement in Scientology from his music. Although this album shares a lot of sonic characteristics with Sea Change, which might be both Beck's best album and his mellowest, it begins to show the signs of adult-contemporary mediocrity that I've always associated with celebrities who turn to Scientology. (I realize Beck was raised in that tradition, but I'd never previously seen signs of it in his music.) Perhaps, though, I'm wrongly attributing the boring aspects of this album to Beck's religion when the real reasons are age, celebrity, and/or artistic lack of inspiration. Either way, this is far from terrible--just merely competent.
[First added to this chart: 06/13/2016]
Year of Release:
2014
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,678
Rank in 2014:
Rank in 2010s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
I Never Learn is the resulting album from a painful breakup that led Lykke Li to move from her native Sweden halfway around the world to Los Angeles. While I've never done anything as extreme as that, I did move up 4,000 feet in elevation and into an 1880s mining cabin soon after a similarly painful 2014 breakup. So the themes in songs like “Love Me Like I’m Not Made of Stone," “Never Gonna Love Again," “Heart of Steel," and “Sleeping Alone” are all too familiar to me. This ballad-heavy, highly theatrical album hits hard, and makes effective use of Lykke Li's considerable talents as both singer and songwriter.
[First added to this chart: 06/21/2016]
Year of Release:
2014
Appears in:
Rank Score:
460
Rank in 2014:
Rank in 2010s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
In the spring of 1999, back when Joel Thibodeau was half of a duo called String Builder along with his brother Alec, the two brothers came to visit the school in North Carolina where I was teaching at the time, and they played an after-dinner set for our school community on the hardwood floors of our dining room, the big windows open to the breeze that brought in the scent of azaleas and rhododendrons in bloom. The fragile, delicate alto of Joel Thibodeau's voice still reminds me of that pastoral scene, and on Island Intervals he more fully realizes that feeling than on any of his records to date. It's a folksy artistic vision that's far more Arden than Appalachia, but with an earnestness that more than makes up for its absence of grit.
[First added to this chart: 06/22/2016]
Buy album
- #Sponsored
Sharon Jones was probably born ten years too late, and a thousand miles too far south, to have been fully appreciated for her talents as a funk and soul singer, as she would have fit in perfectly to the Motown scene of the late sixties and early seventies. Nevertheless, she carved out an important niche in the southern soul scene between 2001 and her too-early death from pancreatic cancer in 2016. Give the People What They Want is an aptly named collection of sassy, brass-powered soul tunes that pick up an important thread of soul music and carry it confidently, maybe even a little defiantly, into the twenty-first century.
[First added to this chart: 06/21/2016]
Buy album
- #Sponsored
I first heard Ryley Walker when he opened for Laura Marling at the Georgia Theater in Athens, Georgia, a few years ago. He didn't make much of an impression on me as a singer or performer, but I did spend some time listening to All Kinds of You prior to the show, and found the Chicago-based Walker to have impressive songwriting chops, albeit couched in a well-worn psych-folk style that would have sounded right at home had it been released the same week as albums from the heyday of Captain Beefheart or Bob Dylan.
[First added to this chart: 06/30/2016]
Buy album
- #Sponsored
Just as Fort Collins, Colorado, based You, Me & Apollo seemed to be gaining both creative and popular momentum back in 2014 with the triumphant release of this strong collection of roots rock tunes, they chose to break up. The split seems to have stemmed from differences over how ambitious the band wished to be: how often they should tour, and for how long. Selfishly, I think the world needs more music of the kind You, Me & Apollo made, and I wish they'd stuck around long enough to release a few more albums. The good news is that lead singer and songwriter Brent Cowles has continued a solo career, and we have excellent songs such as "Open Doors" to remember the band by.
[First added to this chart: 07/06/2016]
Buy album
- #Sponsored
The Black Keys and the White Stripes, two of my favorite garage rock bands of the twenty-first century, are obvious points of comparison when it comes to The Pack A.D., considering their raw instrumentation and the blues-rooted structures that serve as the basis of many of their songs. Erstwhile Stripes producer Jim Diamond is another common denominator. Becky Black's voice can taper from a righteous roar to a quavering whisper, conveying concentrated anger and vulnerability in nearly equal measure. The overall power of the band is probably best heard on "The Flight," where drummer Maya Miller's tight beats hold together a track that always feels close to bursting under its own explosive power.
[First added to this chart: 07/05/2016]
Buy album
- #Sponsored
When Stephen Malkmus and his bandmates dissolved Pavement, I guessed at the time that I would love interest fairly quickly in Stephen Malkmus as a solo artist. Even at their best, Pavement never really recorded songs that stirred my soul deeply; what they offered was a lyrical cleverness and band-chemistry charm that I found really appealing. What's surprised me in the years since is how much fun Stephen Malkmus's solo records have been--there's a guitar virtuosity that I wasn't expecting, as well as a deeper quiver of ideas. Wig Out at Jagbags isn't his most compelling work as a solo artist, but it channels enough seventies guitar-rock fun to make it an easy choice for a top-50 album for 2014.
[First added to this chart: 07/12/2016]
Buy album
- #Sponsored
If Skaters' depiction of Manhattan on this record feels overly insular and one-dimensional, they at least come by it honestly: upon arriving from Los Angeles in 2012, frontman Michael Ian Cummings reportedly spent his first year in New York working as a bartender, giving him a nightly front-row seat to a parade of self-indulgence. In his more inspired moments, he channels the smarm and charm (if not the knockout lyricism) of another guy who's seen his fair share of last calls: Paul Westerberg. Really, if the reunited Replacements had decided to make a new record in 2014, they could have done worse than crank out new-waved power-pop pick-me-ups like “Schemers” or “To Be Young in NYC," whose shout-out to “a generation of jerks, directionless on our feet” could be a post-millennial update of the Replacements classic “Bastards of Young.”
[First added to this chart: 07/07/2016]
Total albums: 100. Page 4 of 10
Don't agree with this chart? Create your own from the My Charts page!
Top 100 Music Albums of 2014 composition
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
|
|
| Angel Olsen | 1 | 1% | |
| Angus & Julia Stone | 1 | 1% | |
| Nickel Creek | 1 | 1% | |
| FKA twigs | 1 | 1% | |
| James Vincent McMorrow | 1 | 1% | |
| Rosanne Cash | 1 | 1% | |
| Ryan Adams | 1 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
| Country | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
78 | 78% | |
 |
8 | 8% | |
 |
6 | 6% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
 |
1 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 100 Music Albums of 2014 chart changes
| Biggest climbers |
|---|
 Up 3 from 4th to 1stSylvan Esso by Sylvan Esso |
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
| Down 1 from 1st to 2nd After The Disco by Broken Bells |
| Down 1 from 2nd to 3rd 1989 by Taylor Swift |
| Down 1 from 3rd to 4th This Is All Yours by alt-J |
Top 100 Music Albums of 2014 similarity to your chart(s)
Not a member? Registering is quick, easy and FREE!
Why register?
Join a passionate community of over 50,000 music fans.- Create & share your own charts.
- Have your say in the overall rankings.
- Post comments in the forums and vote on polls.
- Comment on or rate any album, artist, track or chart.
- Discover new music & improve your music collection.
- Customise the overall chart using a variety of different filters & metrics.
- Create a wishlist of albums.
- Help maintain the BEA database.
- Earn member points and gain access to increasing levels of functionality!
- ... And lots more!
Register now - it only takes a moment!
Other year charts (from the 2010s) by buzzdainer
Top 100 Music Albums of 2019 by buzzdainer (2024)Top 89 Music Albums of 2018 by
buzzdainer (2022)Top 51 Music Albums of 2017 by
buzzdainer (2020)Top 89 Music Albums of 2016 by
buzzdainer (2020)Top 79 Music Albums of 2015 by
buzzdainer (2024)Top 100 Music Albums of 2013 by
buzzdainer (2022)Top 98 Music Albums of 2012 by
buzzdainer (2022)Top 72 Music Albums of 2011 by
buzzdainer (2022)Top 79 Music Albums of 2010 by
buzzdainer (2024)Top 100 Music Albums of 2014 ratings
88/100 (from 3 votes)
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
N.B. The average rating for this chart will not be reliable as it has been rated very few times.
Showing all 3 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 100/100  | 11/12/2019 01:40 | DJENNY | | 100/100 |
| 100/100 | 04/29/2019 02:48 |  NickVolos | | 92/100 |
| 80/100 | 03/19/2019 23:31 |  mickilennial | | 77/100 |
Please log in or register if you want to be able to leave a rating
Top 100 Music Albums of 2014 favourites
Please log in or register if you want to be able to add a favourite
Top 100 Music Albums of 2014 comments
Showing all 2 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Maximum Rated First |
Longest Comments First
(Only showing comments with -2 votes or higher. You can alter this threshold from your profile page. Manage Profile)
From buzzdainer 09/28/2019 19:03
buzzdainer 09/28/2019 19:03
Thanks for that kind comment, NickVolos! Glad to see we're aligned on Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, among many others. I'm pretty excited to hear Sturgill Simpson's new album, which just dropped yesterday.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
100/100
From NickVolos 04/29/2019 02:54
NickVolos 04/29/2019 02:54
Thank you for commenting on my chart! You've got a great chart going here as well. Yes, we've got some selections in common for the year. But you've also got a lot more here that I haven't heard yet. Will certainly use your chart as an inspiration when revisiting 2014.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Please log in or register if you want to be able to add a comment
Your feedback for Top 100 Music Albums of 2014
Let us know what you think of this chart by adding a comment or assigning a rating below!
If you enjoy our site, please consider supporting us by sparing a few seconds to disable your ad blocker.
A lot of hard work happens in the background to keep BEA running, and it's especially difficult to do this when we can't pay our hosting fees :(
We work very hard to ensure our site is as fast (and FREE!) as possible, and we respect your privacy.
A lot of hard work happens in the background to keep BEA running, and it's especially difficult to do this when we can't pay our hosting fees :(
We work very hard to ensure our site is as fast (and FREE!) as possible, and we respect your privacy.