The 55 Best Albums of 2014 (33-23)

There have been questions about this year's countdown...to answer the big one:  I did not do a poll this year.  Though I promised, I ran out of my time in my life, day job, and parenting duties.  So, this year, you're just going to have to live with my list and my list only.  Enjoy the kitty. Here are the 55 Best Albums of 2014 (23-33):

23. Johnny Cash - Out among the Stars
24. Movement - Movement EP
25. Ryan Adams - Ryan Adams
26. Jenny Lewis - The Voyager
27. Merchandise - After the End
28. Beck - Morning Phase
39. Y.G. - My Krazy Life
30. You Blew It! - Keep Doing What You're Doing
31. Cloud Nothings - Here And Nothing Else
32. The Black Keys - Turn Blue
33. Claire - The Great Escape

Buy these albums and more...now!!!    

The 11 Best Songs By The Black Keys

Net neutrality has been a growing viral meme lately.  The FCC is about to make a landmark decision regarding the future of the internet; whether to leave it in the control of the people, or give the control to the corporations.  There is only one choice, and I mean there is really only one choice.  The power will always remain in the hands of the people.  Let the FCC try to regulate it.  It would be like trying to regulate the air.  When it comes to computers and technology, the government will be and always has been about ten steps behind everyone else.  The second they try to block it and regulate it, will be the second that some programmer in Wichita comes up with a way around the blocks.  Every single time a corporation or power-hungry entity has tried to cease control of something on the internet, it has only back-fired and ended up in a massive flood of information in the complete opposite direction. It will not end well for the FCC if they try this route.  If they don't believe me...just as the music industry how fighting illegal downloading worked out for them. Here are The 11 Best Songs By The Black Keys:

1. Tighten Up (Brothers)
2. Gold On The Ceiling (El Camino)
3. I'll Be Your Man (The Big Come Up)
4. Lonely Boy (El Camino)
5. 10 AM Automatic (Rubber Factory)
6. Set You Free (Thickfreakness)
7. Howlin' For You (Brothers)
8. Midnight In Her Eyes (Thickfreakness)
9. So He Won't Break (Attack & Release)
10. Dead And Gone (El Camino)
11. Just Got To Be (Magic Potion)

Buy The Black Keys new album...Turn Blue...now!!
 

Don't forget to check out our blog's awesome new book The 111 Best Lists of the 2000s.  Available now!

The 11 Best Record Store Releases (Triple List)

I picked up so much vinyl this year...I'm not even sure how I'm going to pay rent.  And isn't that what good music is about?  Living in a van...down by the river.  There wasn't a release this year that I went in excited about...but I came out loving almost everything I purchased.  I've had the chance to listen to most of my purchases and have heard a lot of other stuff.  And the Calexico album...best release of the year...Period.

It was a crazy day...and I'm still reeling from it.  Some say Record store Day is Christmas for music fans.  It's better than Christmas...because on Record Store Day you get exactly what you want.

To celebrate such a momentousness day and with nearly 400 releases...there's no way to condense it down to a mere 11.  Instead, I've created 3 lists to give light on some on a lot of the material that you may have missed.  And by the way, many record stores still have a lot of product...so if there's something that was sold out at one store...I'd check out the store down the street...just in case.

Here are the 11 Best Record Store Day 7-inches:

1. Pornography (Ryan Adams)  - 7 Minutes in Heaven
2. Elliott Smith - Either/Or Demos 
3. Pink Floyd - See Emily Play
4. David Bowie - Drive-In Saturday Night
5. Hold Steady - Criminal Fingers
6. The Black Keys/Iggy & The Stooges - No Fun
7. Gram Parsons & The Fallen Angels - Live 1973
8. Old 97s & Waylon Jennings - Double Set
9. Superchunk - Void 
10. Iron & Wine - Next To Paradise
11. Husker Du - Amusement

Here are the 11 Best Record Store Day Reissues:

1. Orange Juice - Rip It Up
2. Porno For Pyros - Porno For Pyros (splatter vinyl)
3. White Stripes - Elephant (red, white and black vinyl)
4. At The Drive-In - Relationship in Command
5. Braid - Frame and Canvas
6. The Roots - Things Fall Apart
7. The Band - The Last Waltz
8. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts (yellow vinyl)
9. Blind Melon - Blind Melon
10. Built To Spill - Live
11. The Zombies - The Zombies

Here are the 11 Best Record Store Day Releases:

1. Calexico - Spiritoso
2. Stephen Malkmus - Ege Bamyasi
3. A Place To Bury Strangers - Strange Moon
4. Soundgarden - King Animal Demos
5. Garbage - Because the Night
6. Willie Nelson - Crazy Demo Sessions
7. G. Love and Jack Johnson - Bloodshot & Blue
8. Mumford and Sons - Live At Bull Moose
9. Grouplove/Manchester Orchestra/Frightened Rabbit - Make It To Me
10. Big Star - Nothing Can Hurt Me
11. Deftones - Live: Volume 1

The 111 Best Albums of 2011

Here they are.  The 111 Best Albums of 2011 as voted on by you my readers.  If you don't like the results...then vote for something better next year.

I personally, always like the results of this list much better than most critic lists.  This list is always more honest to me.  While Adele dominated most lists...she only cracks the top 40 here.  Or the Decemberists who barely made it on many critic lists jumped up high here because the people just liked the album.

Here are the 111 Best Albums of 2011:

1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver
2. The Black Keys - El Camino
3. The Decemberists - King Is Dead
4. Yuck - Yuck
5. M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
6. Death Cab For Cutie - Codes and Keys
7. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
8. Radiohead - King of Limbs
9. Wilco - The Whole Love
10. Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
11. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
12. The Weeknd - House of Balloons/Thursday/Echoes of Silence
13. Manchester Orchestra - Simple Math
14. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
15. Wye Oak - Civilian
16. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
17. Jay-Z & Kanye West - Watch The Throne
18. The Strokes - Angles
19. TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
20. R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now
21. Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean
22. Bright Eyes - The People's Key
23. Florence + The Machine - Ceremonials
24. Middle Brother - Middle Brother
25. Telekinesis - 12 Desperate Straight Lines
26. Destroyer - Kaputt
27. War on Drugs - Slave Ambient
28. Wild Flag - Wild Flag
29. Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto
30. Tune-Yards - Who Kill
31. Foster The People - Torches
32. Fucked Up - David Comes To Life
33. Real Estate - Days
34. Beirut - Rip Tide
35. Ryan Adams – Ashes and Fire
36. Rural Alberta Advantage - Departing
37. Tom Waits - Bad As Me
38. Adele - 21
39. Gomez – Whatever’s On Your Mind
40. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Hysterical
41. Raveonettes - Raven in the Grave
42. James Blake - James Blake
43. Stephen Malkmus - Mirror Traffic
44. Alexander (Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros) - Alexander
45. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Belong
46. Tapes N Tapes - Outside
47. Paul Simon - So Beautiful or So What
48. Class Actress - Rapproacher
49. Dawes - Nothing Is Wrong
50. My Morning Jacket - Circuital
51. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams
52. Ersatz G.B. - The Fall
53. Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See
54. Atlas Sound - Paradox
55. Explosions in the Sky - Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
56. Rival Schools - Pedals
57. Sigur Ros - Inni
58. Battles - Gloss Drop
59. Dustin O Halloran - Lumiere
60. Sam Roberts Band – Collider 
61. Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Part 2
62. Drake - Take Care
63. Washed Out - Within and Without
64. Feist - Metals
65. Jason Isbell - Here We Rest
66. Fountains of Wayne - Sky Full of Holes
67. Grouplove - Never Trust a Happy Song
68. Handsome Furs - Sound Kapital
69. Childish Gambino - Camp
70. Low - C’mon
71. Crooked Fingers - Breaks in the Armor
72. Blitzen Trapper - American Goldwing
73. Deer Tick - Divine Providence
74. EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints
75. Hey Rosetta! - Seeds
76. SBTRKT - SBTRKT
77. The Head and the Heart - The Head and the Heart
78. The Roots - undun
79. Noah and the Whale - Last Night On Earth
80. Mates of State - Mountaintops
81. New Found Glory - Radiosurgery
82. Gillian Welch - Harrow and Harvest
83. Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi 
84. Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears - Scandalous
85. Found - Factorycraft
86. Metronomy - The English Riviera
87. Library Voices - Summer of Lust
88. The Vaccines - What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?
89. The Kills - Blood Pressures
90. Juliana Barwick - The Magic Place
91. Cut Copy - Zonoscope
92. We Were Promised Jetpacks - In The Pit Of Our Stomachs
93. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
94. Tennis - Cape Dory
95. Cults - Cults
96. The Antlers - Burst Apart
97. Friendly Fires - Pala
98. Bombay Bicycle Club - A Different Kind of Fix
99. J. Mascias - Several Shades of Why
100. Tyler the Creator - Goblin
101. Noah Gallagher - High Flying Birds
102. Ladytron - Gravity the Seducer
103. We Are Augustines - Rise Ye Sunken Ships
104. The Airborne Toxic Event - All At Once
105. And You Will Know us By The Trail of Dead - Tao of the Dead
106. The Felice Brothers - Celebration, Florida
107. The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar
108. Okkervil River - I Am Very Far
109. Glossary - Long Live Us All
110. Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
111. The Deep Dark Woods - The Place I Left Behind

Buy these albums and more here and here.

The 11 Best Songs of 2011

I usually don't like doing Top song lists of the year (ironic...huh?) but I wanted to give everyone a last chance to get your votes in for the top album of the year.

Just list your favorite albums of 2011 in the comment section below.  Monday is the final day to vote.

Here are the 11 Best Songs of 2011:

1.  Midnight City - M83 (Hurry Up We're Dreaming)
2.  Holocene - Bon Iver (Bon Iver)
3.  The Birds Part 1 - The Weeknd (Thursday)
4.  Shell Games - Bright Eyes (People's Key)
5.  Pumped Up Kicks - Foster The People (Torches)
6.  Under Cover of Darkness - The Strokes (Angles)
7.  First of the Year Equinox - Skrillex (also the best video)
8.  Get Away - Yuck (Yuck)
9.  Gold on the Ceiling - Black Keys (El Camino)
10.  No Church - Jay-Z & Kanye West (Watch the Throne)
11.  Hasa Diga Eebowaii  (The Book of Mormon)

Buy these songs and their albums now!

The 55 Best Albums of 2011 (1-11)

So here it is...my top 11.  My choices.  My opinion.  So, shut up.

SEND ME YOUR LISTS!  I'm still collecting your top 20 lists for a massive 111 Best albums of 2011.  It doesn't have to be 20...just all your favorites albums you can think of.

Here are the 11 Best Albums of 2011:

1.       Yuck - Yuck (Holing Out)

2.       M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

3.       The Strokes - Angles

4.       The Weeknd - House of Balloons/Thursday/Echoes of Silence (get all 3 for free!)

5.       Bon Iver - Bon Iver

6.       Wilco - The Whole Love

7.       Rural Alberta Advantage - Departing

8.       Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

9.       Wild Flag - Wild Flag

10.   Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost

11.   The Black Keys - El Camino

Buy these albums and many more for under $5...for a limited time.

The Unknown: The Black Keys - Surrender & Grab

I have to discuss my epic trip to the mini-Record Store Day last weekend because I wanted to wait to talk about it for a band that had a stronger association with the day and the people.  Nothing against the Smashing Pumpkins...but the Black Keys are one of the few current bands who are still bonding with the record buying audience.

Black Friday was awesome.  I honestly think there were more people at the store than there were for Record Store Day in April.  I was 90 minutes early and was about 15th in line.  I had my sights on 6 records:  the Ryan Adams 7-inch, the Wilco EP, Tom Petty - Kiss My Amps, Pinback 7-inch,  Iron & Wine - Morning Becomes Eclectic, The Byrds - 7-inch.  When I got there, I discovered that the Ryan Adams didn't get delivered...so I needed a replacement because.  Just because.  So I settled on the Janis Joplin 7-inch box set.  Also because I was caught up in the moment of the day...and was just happy to be buying music again.  Now, twice a year, Record Store Day brings the necessary importance to buying music.  It's brought back the fun.  Part of buying music came with the experience of going to a music store and searching the bins, while talking to other music fans.  It was a community feel that can't be replicated online.  The strongest online music communities online are ones who trade music for free.

I wish the music industry would concentrate more on the reasons why people want to buy music.  People who are coming out in droves to buy music are your target audience.  Why?...because they're actually giving you money!  Teenagers are the ones figuring out how to get around paying for the music.  They're also the ones who don't care as much about the sound or the quality of the artist.  They only like what is popular.  Though it's not their fault for being young and stupid and influenced by their peers, but why plant the musical seeds of mediocrity.  The fans buying records are people who grew up on some of the best music ever made.  That's why they keep coming back!  They like the best stuff.  When you serve vanilla music...people will never be satisfied and will always be looking for what's next instead of embracing the product.

The Black Keys get it.  Thankfully there are still great bands out there who give a shit.

Here is the Black Keys - Surrender & Grab:

1.  Chop and Change
2.  Ohio
3.  The Wicked Messenger
4.  Evil 
5.  Dearest
6.  Something On Your Mind
7.  Flash of Silver
8.  Here I Am
9.  Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles
10.  Summertime Blues
11.  Can't Find My Mind

Buy the new Black Keys album, El Camino...now!!!  It's great...btw...

The 11 Best Songs By The Black Keys

Today marks an epic day in my childhood memories.  Both Empire Strikes Back AND Pac-Man turn 30 today.  It's very hard to think of these two major institutions having such influence 30 years later...Star Wars is still as big as ever...and Pac-Man pretty much helped pave the wave for all great video games to come.  If you haven't stopped by Google today.  I highly suggest you do for a quick trip down memory lane.

Here are the 11 Best Songs By the Black Keys:

1.  Set You Free (Thickfreakness)
2.  Strange Times (Attack and Release)
3.  I Got Mine (Attack and Release)
4.  10 A.M. Automatic (Rubber Factory)
5.  Things Ain't Like They Used To Be (Attack and Release)
6.  I'll Be Your Man (The Big Come Up)
7.  Midnight Her Eyes (Thickfreakness)
8.  So He Won't Break (Attack and Release)
9.  Thickfreakness (Thickfreakness)
10.  Just Got to Be (Magic Potion)
11.  Hurt Like Mine (Thickfreakness)

Buy the Black Keys awesome new album, Brothers now!!