D'Angelo - Black Messiah

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Label: RCA
Genre: Funk, R&B
Year: 2014
Recommended by: Alura Henry

This is album is funky, and great. It was universally loved by critics, commercially successful, and again it's great. D'Angelo wanted to release it in 2015, but RCA wanted it for 2014. Either way it was going to be the best album released that year. 

Politically charged, wonderfully orchestrated, and incredibly soulful Black Messiah succeed at everything it attempts and then some. It's really a joy to listen to, but where it succeed is indescribable. A feeling of synchronicity with everything seems to creep in. All problems are yours, but the solutions are there as well.

 

Dan Wilson - Love Without Fear

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Label: +180 Records
Year: 2014
Genre: Folk Rock
Recommended by: Melissa Jarotkiewicz

Dan Wilson was the front man for Semi-Sonic. Dan Wilson wrote Adele's "Someone Like You". Dan Wilson is an acclaimed songwriter. I like Dan Wilson. I like his song writing. I just like it.

It isn't going to change my life, but it would be a lot better than the mall rock that currently plays in stores across America. If you are interested in great song writing and listening to great female vocalists Love Without Fear is a perfect album for you.

Ariana Grande - My Everything

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Label: Republic
Genre: Pop
Year: 2014
Recommended by: Chris Heck

This is bubblegum pop. This is where pop is today. The EDM beats and a joyful woman singing on top of it. If you want it to hit a little harder you ask a popular rapper to come and drop a strong verse to make it sound much better.

There are a few songs that are enjoyable. The rest is a very sugary snack that feels like a Halloween's binge fest at the end of the record. However, I some how love the song "Bang Bang", its probably just the simple yet perfect chorus. 

George Ezra - Wanted on Voyage

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Label: Columbia
Genre: Folk, Blues
Year: 2014
Recommended by: Todd Tompkins

The bluesy folk rock singer who is inspired by his childhood hero Paddington Bear has a very good debut album. "Wanted on Voyage" is a sticker on the suitcase that Paddington Bear was always lugging around. I'm unfamiliar with Paddington Bear, but I feel as a teddy bear he didn't need a lot of extra items. Maybe he sweats a lot and needs several identical outfits to change over the course of a day. Still it's just an overcoat and a hat. I guess it's more exercise.

The record is good. It should be a bit more popular here in the States, but it'll just continue the tradition of a British band getting a cult following in America.

Finger on the Trigger - Volume 2

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Label: Self-Released
Year: 2014
Genre: Irish Awesome
Recommended by: The Mandolin Player

Finger on the Trigger is the best Irish Awesome band I have ever heard. Then again, when you create the genre there is little to match you.

Truth be told, The Mandolin Player, or the Mandolinist, is not a hero erased from the Watchmen, it is fellow curler Adam Miller.

You can catch them live this St. Patrick's weekend at:
March 13, 2015: Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro 9pm-12am
March 14, 2015: JP Burke's Patio & Tap 8pm-12am
March 17, 2015: JP Burke's Patio & Tap 7-10pm

The music is not just Irish bar songs or sea shanties, even though they are songs to be enjoyed in bars and on boats, they are songs that illustrate the Irish heavy heart and boisterous nature. The way any man falls in love with a woman, the right or the wrong one, with hopes dashed, or the way you drink them away because you may find the next one to dash them. The Second Volume of Finger on the Trigger is a great listen, and you should see them this week!

Ed Sheeran - x (multiply)

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Label: Asylum
Year: 2014
Genre: Pop
Recommending Person: Jeanne Haut

Anyone who's album cover is a giant X and in print wants it to be "x" and pronounced multiply is a bit up their own ass. A person who does this and releases a straight out and out pop album is an insane person. As I have come to assume about the British Justin Timberlake.

Ed Sheeran doesn't use Timberlake so much as a muse as he does as a crutch and a copy. The music is good, but it's Timberlake's music that is covered by Sheeran. Pharrell produced "Sing" that Sheeran admits is him trying to have JT's sound, is probably the best song on the album. It is not the lone track that just sounds like FutureSex/LoveSongs. Maybe that title is where Sheeran pulled the ridiculous name. 

I don't hate the album. It's a pop album and delivers on catchy hits and is not irritating in anyway. I think I just have a distaste for Ed Sheeran from last year while watching a movie a day AMC would play "I See Fire" on a practical repeat. From that moment on Sheeran's angelic voice seems nothing more than grating.

Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City

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Label: Top Dawg, Aftermath, Interscope
Year: 2012
Genre: Hip Hop
Recommending Person: Phillip Henry

Kendrick Lamar is the current hip hop artist that is always pointed to when ignorant people say that Rap is not music and is just 'crap'.

I've always thought that was silly, not because Kendrick Lamar isn't a talented musician, but those people won't look past the fact his biggest single is "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe". 

I love that Kendrick Lamar has a very unique sound that I imagine in 4 years time we will hear a lot of copies of Kendrick Lamar, with a lot of Reggie Watts-ish backing vocals with unique beats and well thought out lyrics and unconventional hooks. Many of the reviews compare this album to Aquemini or ATLiens from Outkast, but it's just too different for that to be true. I think that it will have a similar impact and I look forward to the next release from Lamar.

Bleachers - Strange Desire

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Label: RCA
Year: 2014
Genre: Indie Pop
Recommending Person: Chris Heck

Jack Antonoff, of Fun. fame as well as the boyfriend of Lena Dunham, went off on his first solo project with Bleachers.

By now everyone has probably heard the first single "I Wanna Get Better". It's one of the strongest songs of the entire album, but it's probably my second favorite. The issue I have with the record is that it's almost a bit too one note. It hits the same melodic beats over and over again. It at least has a distinct sound that separates himself from fun entirely, while still containing the fantastic pop sound that Some Nights had. 

Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright in the End

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Label: Republic
Year: 2014
Genre: Alt Rock
Recommending Person: Greg Fischer

“Adios rock band that we loved the most
This is a toast to what you did
And all that you were fighting for
Who could do more when time marches on?
Words come and go
We will sing the melodies that you did long ago”
— Eulogy for a Rock Band, Weezer

This is vintage Weezer. The song "Eulogy for a Rock Band" is the perfect meta Weezer song. It sounds like Weezer at their peak.  

The whole record is fantastic and is a must listen for any one who has enjoyed Weezer in the past. There are singles that I'm surprised none of them have charted, but there is no EDM remix. 


Sam Hunt - Montevallo

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Label: MCA Nashville
Year: 2014
Genre: Country Pop
Recommending Person: Jill Veenhuis

It seems Country has taken the corner from Boy Bands and soul singers about seducing ladies. That's all the Brett Eldredge album from January was about, and it's mostly what Sam Hunt's album is about.

I enjoyed this one quite a bit more than Eldredge's entry. It is quite a bit more poppy especially the first track, "Take Your Time", which has some influence from recent hip-hop songs. Montevallo is just continuing the trend of Country going pop. 

 

Demi Lovato - Demi

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Label: Hollywood
Year: 2013
Genre: Pop
Recommending Person: Chrissy Walker

Demi Lovato is huge. She has two very successful albums previously and this record was her trying to deviate a bit from the formula that worked previously, AKA "The Taylor Swift".

I really only like one song on the entire record, the intro track Heart Attack. It was the first single and I think the only song that tryies to be an out and out pop song and still uses Lovato's powerful vocals. The rest of the songs just seem like knock offs from other pop songs that have already been released.

I Really Don't Care sounds like I Love It by Icona Pop, Neon Lights is very similar to Starships by Nicki Minaj, and Made in the USA sounds like Beyonce's Halo. (Something That We're Not sounds like Ke$ha, Firestarter is basically a Rihanna song, Two Pieces sounds straight ripped from 1989, Shouldn't Come Back sounds like Kelly Clarkson)

The only thing that seems separate from other entities are the Singer-songwriter type Piano pieces with In Case and Warrior.  

I get it, it's pop so many popular songs are going to ape one another at any certain time, but I wish Demi Lovato would go with a singular voice or feel, Taylor Swift as much as I didn't love the Album was a consistent feel the entire album, Demi seems more concerned with making a "Sorry for the Wait" pop version.

This has basically been the only exposure to Lovato, she seems very talented but confused artistically on what she wishes to accomplish. Or she needs a different producer, or pick one.

Taylor Swift - 1989

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Year: 2014
Label: Big Machine
Genre: Pop
Recommending Person: Sarah Sherry, and many other through word of mouth.

2014 was the year of Taylor Swift. This album was praised by critics and loved by the masses. Each individual song is enjoyable on it's own and is wonderfully produced. It feels to me that the artist herself had not made much of a change, but it's just produced in a much more slick fashion. I'm sure there will be more singles from this record, but I didn't love it. It felt like when one of your friends is obsessed with one guy and won't shut up about that one person and there is no real relationship to speak of. I feel like if the Album was reordered it could have told a more coherent story, but it was just thrown together in a concert order to calm down and then pump up a crowd.