75. "The Instinct" - Mark McGuire
74. "It's Not Too Late (To Say Goodbye)" - Doug Paisley
73. "No Rest for the Wicked" - Lykke Li
72. "Forerunner Foray" - Shabazz Palaces
71. "Disco/very" - Warpaint
70. "Morning" - Beck
69. "Instant Disassembly" - Parquet Courts
68. "Heavy Seas of Love" - Damon Albarn
67. "Automatic" - Miranda Lambert
66. "Careful You" - TV on the Radio
65. "Fuego" - Phish
64. "Left, Right" - YG
63. "Dark Star Blues" - Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.
62. "Boom Clap" - Charli XCX
61. "Habits (Stay High)" - Tove Lo
60. "I Wanna Get Better" - Bleachers
59. "Sunbathing Animal" - Parquet Courts
58. "minipops 67 [120.2][source field mix]" - Aphex Twin
57. "Forevermore" - Thurston Moore
56. "In Love With Useless" - A Sunny Day in Glasgow
55. "Ain't It Fun" - Paramore
54. "Turtles All the Way Down" - Sturgill Simpson
53. "Platinum" - Miranda Lambert
52. "Whole New Dude" - William Tyler
51. "Milly's Garden" - Steve Gunn
50. "Little Fang" - Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks
49. "Warning" - Cymbals Eat Guitars
48. "Inside Out" - Spoon
47. "She's Not Me" - Jenny Lewis
46. "Kelly" - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
45. "Happy" - Pharrell
44. "Are You Okay?" - Dum Dum Girls
43. "Plateau of the Ages" - Agalloch
42. "Blast Magic" - Comet Control
41. "Put Your Number in My Phone" - Ariel Pink
40. "Fuckers" - Savages
39. "Love Me Harder" - Arianna Grande f. The Weeknd
38. "Gunshot" - Lykke Li
37. "Brando" - Scott Walker & Sunn O)))
36. "Out of the Woods" - Taylor Swift
35. "An Ocean In Between the Waves" - The War On Drugs
34. "O Father O Satan O Sun" - Behemoth
33. "Partition" - Beyonce
32. "Our Love" - Sharon Van Etten
31. "Back to the Shack" - Weezer
30. "Move That Dope" - Future f. Pharrell, Pusha T & Casino
29. "Johnny & Mary" - Todd Terje f. Bryan Ferry
28. "Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes" - Sun Kil Moon
27. "Jackson" - Cymbals Eat Guitars
26. "The Singer" - Ty Segall
25. "Tough Love" - Jessie Ware
24. "Red Eyes" - The War On Drugs
23. "Bury Our Friends" - Sleater-Kinney
22. "Pet Semetary" - DJ Quik
21. "Problem" - Arianna Grande f. Iggy Azalea
20. "Digital Witness" - St. Vincent
19. "Can't Do Without You" - Caribou
18. "Choices (Yup)" - E-40
17. "Silver" - Caribou
16. "Do You" - Spoon
15. "Delorean Dynamite" - Todd Terje
14. "Blockbuster Night Pt. 1" - Run the Jewels
13. "Never Catch Me" - Flying Lotus f. Kendrick Lamar
12. "Seasons (Waiting On You)" - Future Islands
11. "Shake It Off" - Taylor Swift
10. "Transgender Dysphoria Blues" - Against Me!
For an absolutely bracing, cathartic and life-affirming record like Laura Jane Grace brought us with Transgender Dysphoria Blues, the album's lead-off title track is probably the most "all of the above" of the batch. A powerful thunderhead of a "fuck you" meets the shore of "don't give a fuck anymore", resulting in a swirling squall that is equal parts anthem and throwing in the towel. While later tracks on the record took more full advantage of Grace's songwriting chops, this title track set the table for one of the most engaging rock records in recent years.
9. "***Flawless" - Beyonce
Despite it's ultimate position as the fifth single from Beyonce's surprise released self-titled record, "Flawless" was the one that hung with me the most - far more than the bigger hits "Partition" and "Drunk In Love". Ultimately I think it comes down to the red-hot collision of the trap influenced beat and the pro-feminist sample from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TedX talk, a playful bit of message shifting that manages to capture the spirit of Bey in 2014.
8. "Two Weeks" - FKA twigs
I took me a little while to come around to loving the entirety of FKA twigs debut full-length (though come around I very much did), but this track hit me immediately and powerfully. It captures the whisper to a scream dynamic range that twigs skillfully wraps up in a silky smooth R&B package that exudes pure sexual energy for its entire 4:14 run time. The Queen of the Damned inspired video certainly helped, a pitch perfect personification of her power and control.
7. "Blank Space" - Taylor Swift
The second of her three #1 singles from 1989, this one proved to have the longest lasting charm of any of them. While "Shake It Off" was, and still is, great fun, it's tied to a particular moment, but "Blank Space" better reflects the uncanny universality of Swift's best pop songs. The haters will point to the winking, self-deprecating lyrics as a negative, but that she makes even those lines so relatable hints at her real power. 1989 was the triumphant coronation of her mainstream takeover, "Blank Space" will be it's biggest song in rotation 15 years on.
6. "Marrow" - YOB
The nearly 20-minute "Marrow" closed out Clearing the Path to Ascend, the seventh (and, to my ears, greatest) album from San Francisco doom stalwarts, YOB. It's a colossally powerful song that earns every second of its running length, with Mike Scheidt's clear voice calling out in hope through the fog of doom and gloom established during the previous three tracks. It's a powerful moment, to date the band's high watermark, and a testament to the visceral power of metal.
5. "Talking Backwards" - Real Estate
Serving as the lead single for the band's terrific third record, Atlas, "Talking Backwards" also serves as the perfect single song distillation of the band's gorgeously melodic guitar-pop, Matthew Mondanile's chiming guitar lines and Martin Courtney's sweet vocals aren't doing anything particularly different from what they've done in the past, but it all blends together perfectly, enhanced by some of the band's clearest, most pristine production to date. If this one song can't convince a newcomer to Real Estate's greatness, you're likely dealing with a cloth-eared fool.
4. "Goblin" - Opeth
Even I'm still surprised that this song has proven to be so durable throughout the course of 2014 and been so permanently lodged in my brain, a pretty rare feet for a mid-album instrumental palette cleanser. But Opeth's Pale Communion was, if nothing else, an album out of time - an unabashedly progressive rock record stuck in 1972 that proved divisive even amongst the Opeth devotees - so the normal rules need not necessarily apply. "Goblin" is an obvious nod in both title and form to the titular 1970s purveyors of horror movie scores, but it slots in perfectly with Opeth's prog world.
3. "Water Fountain" - tune-yards
It took me a lot of time to warm to Merrill Garbus. Hers was always an approach I admired more than I actually enjoyed in practice, but that all changed with the second track on her third Tune-Yards record, Nikki Nack. It's an impossible song not to fall hopelessly in love with, even on the first listen. Over joyous Afropop inspired polyrhythms, Garbus adds deliciously wry and wickedly memorable schoolyard chants that sneak in subtle layers of cultural and socioeconomic commentary. Though you'd be forgiven for not even catching those last ones while you bounce along.
2. "True Trans Soul Rebel" - Against Me!
It's not often that I've ended up with two tracks from the same artist in my year-end top ten, but Against Me! is a band that's never really bothered by bucking traditions. I've already talked about the album's' title track and how well it set up the theme and mood of the album, but it's this track that best balances integrates the newfound ferocity with the songwriting skill that Laura Jane Grace has always out on display. It's a deceptively simple song, but when Grace hits that chorus... "Does god bless your transexual heart?", the inner turbulence and pain is crystallized. This is the power of pure pop music.
1. "i" - Kendrick Lamar
By September of 2014, when this song was first released, the world was hungry for anything new that Lamar might have to offer after the universally lauded good kid, m.A.A.d. city won over hearts well beyond the usual hip-hop world's boundaries. Though only the briefest tease of what To Pimp A Butterfly was to bring, "i" was a powerful statement on it's own. For a genre that usually expresses self-doubt more than self-pride, the Isley Brothers sampling hook was a brilliantly simple and rabidly infectious assertion of black pride - something he's explore even more fully when the calendar flipped and Butterfly finally dropped. It took me a minute to warm to the album version of "i", it makes total sense in the context of the larger record, but I'll always cherish the beauty of the single version.
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