What are your favorite albums of the year / of the last months?

[reinholdk]

This is the time of the year where many people are looking back and building up lists of favorites of all kind.
So I thought we should have something similar about music here.

Please provide your personal list of favorite albums but keep it related to the past year or at least to the past several months.
If you have a list, you don't need to give a detailed ranking and also a single album is fine. Adding new favorites here every few months would also be nice.


Here is my list for 2014, with Ben Howard's "I Forget Where We Were" as my nominee for the Album Of The Year title.

Ben Howard - I Forget Where We Were
Robert Plant - Lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar
Lars Danielsson - Liberetto II
Lamb - Backspace Unwind
Nighthawks - Rio Bravo
Tori Amos - Unrepentant Geraldines
Samaris - Silkidrangar
Michael Wollny Trio - Weltentraum
Klaus Schulze & Lisa Gerrard - Big In Europe Vol. 2 Amsterdam
Angus and Julia Stone - Angus and Julia Stone

[garym]

Hmmm, sadly (or maybe not), when I review my album purchases for 2014 (which number over 100, and do NOT count new "vault" releases of any kind (newly released box sets of Velvet Underground, Neil Young, Complete Fillmore of Allman Brothers, Complete Fillmore of Humble Pie, various new vault releases of Grateful Dead, Basement Tapes, Willie Nelson Bear Family Box sets, Freddie King Box sets, CSNY archive concerts, remastered Led Zeppelin, etc. or "new to me" purchases of older, pre 2014 releases, I don't actually have that many actual 2014 "new" releases. I did very much enjoy these (ranked from most to least, although I liked them all).


Lucinda Williams, Where the Spirit Meets the Bone (her best in several years)
Dave & Phil Alvin, Common Ground
Various Artists, This One's for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark
Various Artists, Looking Into You: A Tribute to Jackson Browne
Rodney Crowell, Tarpaper Sky
Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison, Our Year
Hard Working Americans, Hard Working Americans
Todd Snider, Time As We Know it: The Songs of Jerry Jeff Walker (2014?)

[reinholdk]

It's a similar situation for me. I also have more than 100 additions to my library this year but by far less than half of them are original 2014 releases. So I really had to think about what I liked the most.

Interestingly enough, although I'm a long-time fan of both Pink Floyd and U2, I didn't consider their new albums for my favorites list. I do like listening to these, but probably the expectations have been higher, so IMO they are good but not good enough. (Ok, it's debatable whether to account Pink Floyd's album for 2014...)

[d6jg]

Same boat here too.
Well over 100 CDs bought this year probably over 200 but the "Years" view tells me only 11 are 2014. Of these there are half a dozen or so compilation albums from various places (Magazine freebies and the like), Pink Floyd & U2, Rod Stewart's Live 1976-1998 which leaves the only real 2014 albums as Matt Schofield's Far As I Can See and Bryan Ferry's Avonmore. Both are good but they aren't classics.

[get.amped]

A few stand-outs:

Various - Beck Song Reader
The Afghan Whigs - Do To The Beast
Band Of Horses - Acoustic At The Ryman
Beck - Morning Phase
The Belle Brigade - Just Because
Ben & Ellen Harper - Childhood Home
Benmont Tench - You Should Be So Lucky
The Black Keys - Turn Blue
Bombay Bicycle Club - So Long, See You Tomorrow
Broken Bells - After The Disco
Chrissie Hynde - Stockholm
David Crosby - Croz
Devon Allman - Ragged And Dirty
Drive-By Truckers - English Oceans
Ed Sheeran - X
Elbow - The Take Off and Landing of Everything
Future Islands - Singles
Gary Clark Jr. - Live
Glass Hammer - Ode To Echo
Hozier - Hozier
Imelda May - Tribal
Imogen Heap - Sparks
Ingrid Michaelson - Lights Out
Jack White - Lazaretto
Jenny Lewis - The Voyager
Joe Henry - Invisible Hour
Johnny Winter - Step Back
Joseph Arthur - Lou
Keb' Mo' - Bluesamericana
The Kenny Wayne Shepard Band - Goin' Home
Lake Street Dive - Bad Self Portraits
Lenny Kravitz - Strut
Lily Allen - Sheezus
Little Feat - Live In Holland 1976
Luther Dickinson - Rock 'N Rock Blues
Marcia Ball - The Tattooed Lady And The Alligator Man
Minus The Bear - Lost Loves
Natalie Merchant - Natalie Merchant
Neon Trees - Pop Psychology
The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers
Noah Gundersen - Ledges
Passenger - Whispers
Phillip Sayce - Influence
Phillip Phillips - Behind The Light
Phish - Fuego
The Pineapple Thief - Magnolia
Quilt - Held In Splendor
Ray LaMontagne - Supernova
Robert Plant & The Sensational Space Shifters - Lullabye And... The Ceaseless Roar
Rodrigo Y Gabriela - 9 Dead Alive
Roseanne Cash - The River & The Thread
Royal Southern Brotherhood - Heartsoulblood
Ruthie Foster - Promise Of A Brand New Day
Ryan Adams - Ryan Adams
The Secret Sisters - Put Your Needle Down
Shakey Graves - And The War Came
Sharon Van Etten - Are We There
Spoon - They Want My Soul
St. Paul & The Broken Bones - Half The City
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Wig Out At Jag Bags
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Hypnotic Eye
Tori Amos - Unrepentant Geraldines
Trampled By Turtles - Wild Animals
The War On Drugs - Lost In The Dream
Wilko Johnson & Roger Daltrey - Going Back Home
Yes - Heaven & Earth
You + Me - Rose Ave.
Young The Giant - Mind Over Matter

[bakker_be]

When looking at it I find that I've added around 80 albums for the year 2014 to my LMS. A couple I particularly like in random order:

• Plagues of Babylon - Iced Earth
• Acoustic at the Ryman - Band of Horses
• Blank Project - Neneh Cherry
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Live From the Boston Opera House - Dream Theater
• Broken Crown Halo - Lacuna Coil
• Casualties of Cool - Casualties of Cool (a Devin Townsend side project)
• Live in Amsterdam - Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa
• Lullaby and the ceaseless roar - Robert Plant
• Yav - Arkona
• The Quantum Enigma - Epica

[Wombat]

"Damien Rice - My Favourite Faded Fantasy" is just getting better and better. The sound is unfortunately worse as on his earlier cds.

[Grumpy Bob]

In no particular order:
Neneh Cherry - Blank Project
Goat - Commune
Evil Blizzard - The Dangers of Evil Blizzard
Sleaford Mods - Divide and Exit
Actress - Ghettoville
Scott Walker + Sunn O))) - Soused
The Amazing Snakeheads - Amphetamine Ballads

Reissues:
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground 45th Anniversary reissue
Captain Beefheart - Sun Zoom Spark

Robert

[Wombat]

Here is my list for 2014, with Ben Howard's "I Forget Where We Were" as my nominee for the Album Of The Year title.

Just wanted to buy as flac but can't find infos on the net if the 24/48 is as loud as the 16/44.1?

[reinholdk]

Just wanted to buy as flac but can't find infos on the net if the 24/48 is as loud as the 16/44.1?

Can't tell, cause I've ripped from CD.

[Wombat]

Can't tell, cause I've ripped from CD.

Thanks!
A prime example how to confuse a customer with HiBitrate stuff.
They sell the cd, 16/44.1 downloads, 24/44.1 downloads, 24/48 downloads and a Blu-Ray that i can not find any official specs but different specs at different sellers like HFPA (High Fidelity Pure Audio), 2.0 DTS, Dolby TrueHD, PCM Mixes, 24bit/96kHz.

I'll pass on this one for the moment until maybe the loudness-war database has enough info. Just buying the cheapest only to realize it is broken from additional compression against some other release is not for me.

[Pascal Hibon]

Interesting exercise...
Up until today, I've added 140 albums in 2014. Only 14 albums are actually dated of 2014. Most of the added albums are from 80’s and 90’s. Several 70’s too.

Here are my 5 most favorite 2014 albums (no particular order):

Angus & Julia Stone - Angus & Julia Stone
Christine And The Queens – Chaleur Humaine
Jill Barber – Fool’s Gold
Pink Floyd – The Endless River
Reena Riot – Stop Reverse

[RonM]

I've acquired a lot of music in 2014, much of it actually released this year. Not at home, so can't do my definitive list until later (such as it will be), but a couple stand out for me.

My favorite from the year is without a doubt Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn's self-titled album; duet banjos and Washburn's wonderfully idiosyncratic voice make for beautiful music. Not what you'd call traditional banjo music.

On the jazz front (although I'm not quite sure it fully qualifies as jazz), I really like Dr. John's Ske-Dat-De-Dat - The Spirit of Satch, a tribute to Louis Armstrong. I particularly like that he's brought in some elements of Hip Hop (on Mac The Knife). Enjoyable every inch.

More later.

[garym]

I've acquired a lot of music in 2014, much of it actually released this year. Not at home, so can't do my definitive list until later (such as it will be), but a couple stand out for me.

My favorite from the year is without a doubt Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn's self-titled album; duet banjos and Washburn's wonderfully idiosyncratic voice make for beautiful music. Not what you'd call traditional banjo music.

On the jazz front (although I'm not quite sure it fully qualifies as jazz), I really like Dr. John's Ske-Dat-De-Dat - The Spirit of Satch, a tribute to Louis Armstrong. I particularly like that he's brought in some elements of Hip Hop (on Mac The Knife). Enjoyable every inch.

More later.

I'm going to pick up the Fleck & Washburn album soon. I saw them at Symphony Space on the upper west side of NYC in November, 2014. What a fantastic show. Bela had a lot of family and friends there (he said he grew up around the corner and "Symphony Space" was a movie theater he often visited during his youth. It was really magical (and I say that having seen Bela Fleck in about every configuration possible).

[RonM]

I'm going to pick up the Fleck & Washburn album soon. I saw them at Symphony Space on the upper west side of NYC in November, 2014. What a fantastic show. Bela had a lot of family and friends there (he said he grew up around the corner and "Symphony Space" was a movie theater he often visited during his youth. It was really magical (and I say that having seen Bela Fleck in about every configuration possible).

You can buy it for download in flac, a bit pricey (more than a CD from Amazon), but instantaneous. 24/44.

http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/100547/Bela_Fleck-Bela_Fleck__Abigail_Washburn-FLAC_44kHz24bit_Download

R.