Top 12 Music Albums of 2014
by 
DriftingOrpheus 
- Chart updated: 09/07/2025 04:15
- (Created: 06/11/2020 13:08).
- Chart size: 12 albums.
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Throughout their extensive history, alternative rock pioneers Swans have made a habit of metamorphosing, trading in bone-crushing no-wave anthems for folk-inspired, religiously-tinged ballads. In 2010, Swans emerged once more with My Father will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky, another drastic change in form and direction, prioritizing prolonged excursions drenched in post-rock fueled repetition. This formula was the basis for 2014's To Be Kind, an album that championed the creative advantages of welding moments of ear-splitting fortissimo and hair-raising delicacy. Take A Little God in My Hands for example. Even the most well-traveled listeners have to be taken back by the atomic force of the horn-powered flurry that kicks off the middle of the track. To Be Kind showcases Swans not merely dabbling in a musical style unseen in their discography, but perfecting it.
The centerpiece is the 34 minute odyssey, Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture. A track detailing a Haitian slave revolt with all the ferocity one could imagine. It carries guitar hits that resemble facial punches that only cease once the skull has caved in. Incorporating horse whinnies and tribal chanting, the track dares one to ponder the music's inspiration, or even the headspace of the men crafting it. The most "straight-forward" rocker on the album is Oxygen, a song detailing an asthma attack with inertia that never ceases until the horn-soaked climax.
Rarely has an album embodied both a densely visceral and well-realized existence. The frightening aspect behind it all is that it seems to flow through the band so effortlessly, almost as vessels for transcendent music powered by an unseen force. While it's not a record for the conventional listener, you'd be hard-pressed to find an audiophile not displaced by To Be Kind's translucent beauty, or not horrified by its unfettered explicitness.
"May planets crash, may god rain ash, to sear our skin, to fold us in
Kneeling close, seeking hands, our blood is warm, but what comes next?"
-Kirsten Supine
Standout Tracks:
1. Oxygen
2. She Loves Us!
3. Bring the Sun/Toussaint L’Ouverture
100.4 [First added to this chart: 06/12/2020]
The centerpiece is the 34 minute odyssey, Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture. A track detailing a Haitian slave revolt with all the ferocity one could imagine. It carries guitar hits that resemble facial punches that only cease once the skull has caved in. Incorporating horse whinnies and tribal chanting, the track dares one to ponder the music's inspiration, or even the headspace of the men crafting it. The most "straight-forward" rocker on the album is Oxygen, a song detailing an asthma attack with inertia that never ceases until the horn-soaked climax.
Rarely has an album embodied both a densely visceral and well-realized existence. The frightening aspect behind it all is that it seems to flow through the band so effortlessly, almost as vessels for transcendent music powered by an unseen force. While it's not a record for the conventional listener, you'd be hard-pressed to find an audiophile not displaced by To Be Kind's translucent beauty, or not horrified by its unfettered explicitness.
"May planets crash, may god rain ash, to sear our skin, to fold us in
Kneeling close, seeking hands, our blood is warm, but what comes next?"
-Kirsten Supine
Standout Tracks:
1. Oxygen
2. She Loves Us!
3. Bring the Sun/Toussaint L’Ouverture
100.4 [First added to this chart: 06/12/2020]
Year of Release:
2014
Appears in:
Rank Score:
6,314
Rank in 2014:
Rank in 2010s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 1. Page 1 of 1
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Top 12 Music Albums of 2014 composition
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
| Caustic Window | 1 | 8% | |
| Aphex Twin | 1 | 8% | |
| Ben Frost | 1 | 8% | |
| Run The Jewels | 1 | 8% | |
| Scott Walker + Sunn O))) | 1 | 8% | |
| The War On Drugs | 1 | 8% | |
| Willie Watson | 1 | 8% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 12 Music Albums of 2014 chart changes
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
| Down 1 from 9th to 10th Tomorrow's Modern Boxes by Thom Yorke |
| Down 1 from 10th to 11th El Pintor by Interpol |
| Down 1 from 11th to 12th Caustic Window LP by Caustic Window |
| New entries |
|---|
| The Innocents by Weyes Blood |
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DriftingOrpheus has created 71 other 2014 year charts - click here to explore them all.
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