55 9Bach: Tincian

Welsh is always wonderful sounding to sing in, even though I do admit the language barrier could mean that Lisa Jen Brown could actually be singing beautifully sounding missives complaining about the influx of immigrants on the country and how she now feels like a foreigner in her own country wot wiv all dese darkies about and I’d be none the wiser. With her fantastic voice acting as further and extremely potent musical instrument ‘Tincian’ is essentially a collection of exquisite sounding mood pieces. Extraordinarily listenable

54 Say Anything: Hebrews

Well any album that starts with a song called John McClane is never going to be that bad is it? Brilliant and catchy pop punk that doesn’t mind being a little unusual, so unconcerned in fact that the album’s sound can occasionally verge off into the extremely irritating but no way near often enough to really hurt the record. The way that guitars have been generally thrown out shows how confident the band are that the song’s sheer quality is good enough to work without most standard rock tricks, a belief that’s almost always proved to be correct. Perhaps I only like it so much because the lyrics to 666 speak to me somehow (‘I lost my virginity to myself/I’m just sparks and meat/I believe in love but I’m gassy, dark and hollow/I’d rather drink, smoke, die young, be reborn and repeat’)

53 Mac Demarco: Salad Days

Demarco’s third album may be the most difficult record of 2014 to truly dislike, even if the title track’s ruminations on the difficulties of aging (‘As I’m getting older, chip upon my shoulder/Rolling through life, to roll over and die’) can be slightly annoying coming from the mouth of a 23 year old. Dude, let’s all just chill out, yeah? Too much effort can be, like, totally offensive bro. It can be difficult to truly love an album quite so weightless, even though it must take a shitload of work to sound this effortless.

52 Asgeir: In the Silence

I know, I really thought this would be much higher too, this list is full of twists and turns and it’s me writing the fucking thing. Asgeir’s wonderful second has already sold about a million copies in his native Iceland, which when you consider the population means about 242% of all Icelanders own a copy. Professional polymath John Grant translated the lyrics into English for Ásgeir Trausti’s attemp at the Western markets, so are we to blame Grant for lyrics that occasionally sound far too World-weary and downbeaten for a 19 year old? The one real complaint about ‘In the Silence’ is that it can very occasionally be weighed down by it’s overwhelming ‘niceness’ but it is nonetheless an absolute delight.

51 Jeremy Messersmith: Heart Murmours

My goodness, just listening to this album now has increased my general mood 564%, I love everybody and every thing, there really isn’t enough people in the World to hug is there? Admittedly that could be the MDMA I’ve just taken, but I only did that because I knew I was going to be listening to the wonderful ‘Heart Murmours’ so it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation. A wonderful collection of well- crafted pop songs that really deserve to become new standards- I for one would love to see Fleur East singing the equally wonderfully named I Want to Be Yout One Night Stand on next week’s X Factor, though I accept that may be more for personal reasons. Sure, nothing here is going to shake the World’s very core, but it’s still an absolutely spellbinding collection.

60 Bruce Springsteen: High Hopes

Essentially a stopgap throwaway that combines studio recordings of old live favourites such as the brilliant American Skin (41 Shots) with extremely decent covers of songs such as Suicide’s Dream Baby Dream. As such make-do projects go it’s not bad at all, even if if includes a version of the previously classic Ghost of Tom Joad with extra Tom Morello fret-wanking ejaculated over the top that if it were a cover of another artist’s song you’d accuse Bruce of misunderstanding it shockingly but since it’s his own song you can only put the whole horrific exercise down to early onset dementia.

59 Mark Lanegan Band: Phantom Radio

Ah Mark Lanegan, the guy whose voice provides some much appreciated recognition of the benefits of smoking (it seems to get such bad press in other areas, so it’s nice to have some balance). ‘Phantom Radio’ is more of a straight ahead rock album than a lot of his more recent releases, and it’s actually more when Lanegan actually attempts to widen the vocabulary such as The Killing Season– Mark Lanegan discovers trip-hop??- that it loses its way slightly. Too few genuine highlights to be considered one of the best in a very impressive career, but extremely good in places.

58 Sinéad O’Connor: I’m Not Bossy I’m the Boss

Sinéad O’Connor is unarguably a very good thing, unless perhaps you’re looking to her for advice on the best tattoos to get. The brilliant title of ‘I’m Not Bossy I’m the Boss’ (if this list were based solely on such things you could expect this to be much higher) reflects an absolute confidence in herself, there’s nothing apologetic here and her distinctive voice is layered so it can occasionally sound like you’re confronted with an entire choir of Sinéads, which is certainly no bad thing. There’s also frequent bursts of humour (Kisses Like Mine‘s brilliantly cheeky chorus of ‘I’m special forces/ They call me in after divorces/ To lift you up’ a particular highlight) that you might not have previously associated with her, and the record is just generally shot through with a great sense of a woman happy in herself. There are certainly songs you’ll want to skip, and the second half of the album is markedly the stronger side, but it’s still a generally brilliant collection of songs.

57 tUnE-yArDs- Nikki Nack

One of the great enemies of ease of typing- I mean look at the state of that fucking name- return with another example of brilliantly inventive and unashamedly odd music. TUnE-yArDs’s (does that first ‘t’ need to be capitalised after a full-stop? This is a fucking nightmare) music however remains strangely distant and easier to appreciate than fully love, perhaps its slightly too self-conciously concerned with sounding ‘weird’.

56 Fucked Up: Glass Boys

Yes yes, if you’ve never heard one of the World’s least firewall-friendly bands (there’s much worse coming up, stay strapped in) you’ve already seen that name and quickly and definitely decided that the music is most certainly not for you. Give it a listen though and I guarantee you’ll be surprised how much you’ll love it, it’s almost like Fucked Up have chosen their explicitly profane name after becoming scared of being possibly considered (spit) mainstream- their commercialism is actually a closely guarded secret. It’s only Damian Abraham’s rasping metal shriek that stops Fucked Up sounding really no less mainstream rock than the Foo Fighters. These songs really should become karaoke standards.

65 Hozier: Hozier

Seen a photo of Andrew Hozier-Byrne? Yeah he might say how this album was ‘heavily influenced by Flying Lotus’. Very, very good debut, which may sometimes sound like it merely exists as a showcase for the voice, but what a voice it is! The constant ham-fisted emotion poured out of every track can grate slightly over 54 minutes, and it can seem a little too convinced of its own importance, but a definite good start. And no matter how many times you’ve heard Take Me To Church (a marvelously good opener that the rest of the album fails to match) or seen its devastating video it never fails to excite.

64 Cats on Trees: Cats on Trees

Already a massive hit in France about 16 years ago *research needed*, and it sounds very French in the sense you can imagine it being directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet- it’s occasionally sickly sweet and even the picture pf the band on the record’s cover captures the type of people who would definitely take photos of a fucking gnome on holiday in a horrifically syrupy way- the chorus of Full Colours is about turning into a rainbow or some shit, I mean come on. Yet even with its slight lack of defining characteristics you can’t help but like an album that sounds this good and often brushes against sheer beauty. A little more unashamed oddness like the brilliant Tikkiboy would be much appreciated.

63 …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead: IX

Album number… erm… No idea what number album it is, there’s really no way of knowing, but it must be, like, number a million or something for AYWKUBTTOD (Christ, even when you spell it out in letters the name’s still far too long) who about a decade ago were absolutely the coolest band to say you liked, but have since dropped off the radar despite still frequently releasing records. ‘IX’ decides that perhaps it was a mistake to try out slightly different styles on their last two albums and instead run back with their tail between their legs to what they do best- a punky kind of pop that’s not quite new-wave that they show on the album they still master rather simply. There are a little too many lurches into U2 arena rock- all echoes, vein-popping emotion and Edge-like guitars. A solid 7.7/10

62 Sohn: Tremors

Following James Blake’s success at creating such critically and somewhat commercially acclaimed angular r’n’b/electronica are we now going to see lots of albums like this? Christopher Taylor’s music is so heavily influenced by James Blake I’d advise James to look in his cupboard right now to check if Taylor isn’t there with hole already drilled into the wall so he can better watch Blake shower. Remember that rabbit I bought you for Christmas James? Yeah, might want to check to see if Sir Foo Foo is still there. ‘Tremors’ is reguarly brilliant, though it lacks direction somewhat and can never truly sound like it isn’t merely a pastiche. Perhaps Sohn’s music is better suited to sound tracking particularly stressful Hollyoaks moments or demonstrating the sounsystem in the new Bose album.

61 Jack White: Lazaretto

Jack White has the ability to be absolutely amazing, as he has proved with each and every one of the wonderful White Stripes albums, but instead he has a strange obsession with proving how much of an authentic bluesman he is- his worrying fascination with delta blues is so strong and all-encompassing I can only assume there’s a disgustingly fetishistic sexual element to it, the dirty perve. The fabulous title track and lead single proves how brilliant he can be if he cuts the chords slightly and cares little about how weird he sounds (second single Would You Fight For My Love is similarly unconcerned with conventions), but far too often he’s so inclined to ape blues rock that with a full band he sounds more like a 21^st century Eric Clapton rather than Robert Johnson reincarnated. Was it the shackles put upon The White Stripes music or Meg herself who previously kept these compulsions in check? Either way it seems that White is now far more concerned with looking backwards than moving forwards.

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.