70 Glass Animals: Zaba

The best thing you can say about Glass Animals is that they’re what Simply Red probably think they sound like. The absolute worst thing you can say is that they’re what Simply Red probably think they sound like. It’s certainly the soundtrack to the coolest dinner party you’ll never be invited to, so smoooooooooooooooth English cricketer bowlers would be throwing dirt on it furiously*. You could possibly argue that it’s slightly too self-consciously ‘hip’, but even through listening to it now I’ve become roughly 13% more cool so to be fair I don’t really care what you lame nerds think

*That’s maybe the most out of date reference anyone’s made this calendar year, where’s my prize?

69 The Men: Tomorrow’s Hits

Ah c’mon, you know the drill by now: every year The Men release an album that’s very good if not great and it’ll be nestled somewhere near this side of my end of year list. No great changes here of course, there’s the odd accordion thrown in to shake things up a bit but it’s essentially as you were. It used to be that a band playing this kind of 70s good time rock would be huge, but nostalgia these days just isn’t as good as it was when I was a kid. See you here again next year.

68 Broken Bells: After the Disco

Essentially ‘After the Disco’ is the wonderful Holding On for Life and ten other tracks that don’t quite match up to its brilliance, even if they’re often close. A very good record that only occasionally drifts off into slightly listless areas, and despite the smattering of synth sounds you’d generally hope for slightly more eclecticism from any group featuring Brian Burton/Danger Mouse.

67 Flying Lotus: You’re Dead

Whether Flying Lotus is one of the most influential artists working today is debatable, but he’s certainly the one artist you should say you’re influenced by if you want any cred. Saying that you’re new record is ‘heavily influenced by Flying Lotus’ is the 2014 equivalent of saying that ‘there’s always been a dance element to our music’. You’re either cool enough that he’s your favourite artist or so much of a saddo that you’ve never even heard of him. Pffff! Go back to your John Cougar Mellencamp granddad! ‘You’re Dead’ actually comes free with a neatly trimmed beard and a Frank Turner tattoo. ‘You’re Dead’ is so cool that it actually spends much of its time explaining to people how much it actually hates Zooey Deschanel. ‘You’re Dead’ has a haircut you’ve never even heard of. ‘You’re Dead’ has the thickest rimmed glasses you’re ever likely to see’

Did I say if it was good or not? I can’t remember.

What’s with that extra ‘o’ in Zooey Deschanel’s name? How have we allowed that to happen?

66 Eno•Hyde: Someday World

Seemingly something of a throwaway enterprise for Brian Eno, yet still utterly enchanting in places with its slightly off-centre ‘pop’ sensibilities and rattling rhythms. Yet it sounds oddly aimless for an Eno project, and Karl Hyde’s voice- while perfect for Underworld– sounds flat and out of place on this record. The record starts brilliantly with the pulsating Satellites but unfortunately peters out slightly towards the end.

75 Royal Blood: Royal Blood

Phew, thank goodness Royal Blood have come to save rock music, it was getting pretty nervous back there for a minute wasn’t it? If this album really is the ‘saviour of rock’ then it seems that rock was saved by H&M wanting to soundtrack their winter collection but not being able to secure the rights to the White Stripes’ music. The ‘Royal Blood’ album is sprinkled liberally with great riffs, but the Brighton band fail to really sell the music past them being some of the best Guitar Hero players on the south coast. They obviously got effects pedals last Christmas and were dying to show them off.

74 Simone Felice: Strangers

Ah shit, I really can’t think of what to write for this, maybe the year’s most difficult record to transcribe some sort of opinion on. Just close your eyes and picture a ‘singer-songwriter’. Got it? Ok, now imagine the music that singer-songwriter would make. Yep, that’s Simone Felice. The ocasional brilliance is enough to win over the general boredom that hangs over the record.

73 Thom Yorke: Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes

Music’s least phonetically spelled musician (apart from Paughl Smyfth of course, the drummer with Northern Uproar) returns with an album I think was released by being fired out of a t-shirt cannon at a Seattle Sounders game or some shit, I don’t know. Yorke is still capable of crafting some amazing sounds, but ‘Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes’ pales next to even his debut solo LP and last year’s patchy Atoms of Peace release. There’s nothing to really grasp on to here and it sounds worryingly like an artist stuck in a rut and appropriately enough resembles Radiohead throw-outs. The song titles too- A Brain In a Bottle, There Is No Ice (For My Drink)– suggest a man dangerously close to sliding into self-parody. With this out of his system, the optimist would hope it suggests a clean slate for the next Radiohead album.

72 Prince: Art Official Age

After all the hype and playing 7’865 shows to 50 people at the Wapping Community Centre, even releasing a song to Youtube for goodness/Purpleness sake, Prince’s first solo album after his resurgence falls worryingly and disappointingly back on the worst excesses of his lowest 90s ebb- wet r’n’b and soul ballads that treat R Kelly rather than James Brown or Jimi Hendrix or just never before heard weirdness as the ideal destination. However, seemingly out of nowhere the end of the album is bookended by the Affirmation I, II & Affirmation III suites and suddenly turns into something excellent– Way Back Home especially deserves at least a table by the toilets as one of Prince’s best. Rescued at the end and promising much for other releases…

71 Fenster: The Pink Caves

Occasionally challenging, as it it occasionally challenges you not to keel over and die of boredom as it releases another dirge into the atmosphere like a slow and stinky quiet fart gusted onto the wind. I feel I may have started this a little more negative than I had intended: ‘The Pink Caves’ is frequently great and possesses a detached etheral quality that is often bewitching. Basically, if I told you Fenster were German you could probably picture a highly stereotypical and offensive yet completely accurate representation of the kind of cool minimalism on show here.

80 Paloma Faith: A Perfect Contradiction

Ah shut up, there are some pretty decent tunes amongst the rather too frequent bilge. It’s hard to think of a song suiting Paloma less than Can’t Rely On You but close your eyes and imagine it’s being sung by someone far cooler and it all kind of works. Honest…

79 Metronomy: Love Letters

Metronomy are a strange band, they almost attempt to sabotage their music through the sheer brute force of their own ennui, it can be a hard mustering much enthusiasm over a band so clearly bored with the process themselves. There are several highlights on ‘Love Letters’ and the album’s general quality can distract you from the fact the music sounds as dated as mid 90s indie-dance at best and all the way back to Buggles at its worst

78 Jungle: Jungle

Jungle are that person walking around their own house party with a plastic cup of vodka and coke constantly asking people “ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD TIIIIIIIME!?!? ARE YOU READY TO PAAAAAARTYYYYY?!?!” and telling everyone who’ll listen that this is definitely the coolest party anyone’s thrown this year. The ‘Jungle’ album pretty much comes packed with a free zoot suit Sigh, I don’t know, it’s fine I suppose, although it all gets deathly dull pretty quickly.

77 War On Drugs: Lost in the Dream

Really? This is the coolest album to like this year? This? You won’t have witnessed a bigger and more embarrassing tribute to Mark Knopfler since your uncle tied his tie around his head and air guitared to Money For Nothing on the dance floor at your sister’s wedding. Ok, fine, it’s pretty good in places, but the fact that this kind of music used to not long ago be marked out as the absolute naffest on Earth makes me worry about living to see a handful of James Blunt copyists be fêted in 20 years time. I can only, as always, hope for the sweet embrace of death,

76 Cheatahs: Cheatahs

Ok this is pretty shameless. If you are one of the many people who chide the fact that My Bloody Valentine no longer sound like they did in 1992 then the Cheatahs (I’m going to let that terrible pun of a name pass by unmentioned, but I hope the band are aware that I am nonetheless very disappointed. Not angry, they understand, just very disappointed) are the band for you, as they sound very much like My Bloody Valentine in 1992. Perhaps that’s a bit unfair- they occasionally rip off Hüsker Dü, or even Swervedriver, but it’s clear that for Cheatahs the musical revolution happened some time in 1993, between the invention of the fuzz pedal and Ride’s third LP. It is impossibly fun in parts though, and hard not to be swept up in it all, it’d probably be top ten if I weren’t so ashamed for loving it. So if you’re taking notes, it’s fine to rip off music if the band you’re ripping off is very cool, Ok?

Yes yes yes, the highlight of the social calendar for most of you I know, just please try to contain your excitement and attempt to avoid any social faux pas such as soiling yourself in joy/disgust. Before any of you hideous pedants (you know who you are) start complaining the famous ‘Palmers’ cover the period from 1^st December 2013 to the 30^th November 2014. Have any complaints about that album you love not being here? That’s because it’s shit mate, I mean really fucking awful. Sorry. It’s actually top eighty five this year, which is patently so ridiculous you should actually be so offended now you refuse to read any further…

Still here?

Ok let’s go:

85 Julian Casablancas + The Voids: Tyranny

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. This is just… awful… An absolutely horrible sounding experiment by The Strokes singer, his previous melodic tendencies forces me to speculate that perhaps there are some songs buried under the hideous fuzz pedal dirge that growls across the record. I actually applaud Casablancas’ thirst to at least attempt something so radically different to the kind of music he’s usually associated with, perhaps this turd of an album’s aggressive unlistenability is something of a success, but let’s just move on now and pretend this never happened, Ok?

84 Pixies: Indie Cindy

What is the point of this? I mean really? No right thinking person would turn their noses up at one of the greatest and most influential rock bands of all time having large lumps of cash thrown at them touring their impeccable back catalogue in every venue that’d have them until the sun explodes, but why bother releasing this drudgen and depressingly uninspited acompanyment? It sounds like the kind of shite Weezer wouldn’t see fit to release as b-sides and muddies the perfection of their previously stainless back catalogue like some especially grievous dirty protest. The title track’s Ok I suppose, but as a whole it’s barely worth the effort to reach for the ‘play’ button.

83 Adult Jazz: Gist Is

A clear winner for the year’s worst name, I can’t think of a band name being as big a turn off since Rick Witter went solo and decided to name his backing singers ‘Necrophiliac Sodomy’. The Leeds group create a gentle and frequently overlong shimmer that is at best diverting and at worst simply a meandering distraction from whatever task you decide to put yourself to while attempting to listen to it.

82 Cage the Elephant: Melophobia

The opener Spiderland promises a decent and entertaining listen, a promise the record quickly and shamefully renegades on by descending into dull indie-rock by numbers. It very rarely rises above forgettable and frequently tumbles into the sheer horrid. The bizarre introduction of saxophones simply underlines the record’s general ugliness.

81 Benjamin Booker: Benjamin Booker

Absolutely the album of 2014 least concerned about the time it was released, you’d have to dig through your dead grandma’s loft to find a record less modern sounding. Benjamin Booker probably fashioned his guitar himself from wood broken off his old Mama’s loom, taught himself how to pluck the strings while working the salt mines down in ol’ Tennessee. Diverting enough blues pastiche that Jack White predictably loves.