beck

June was LIT! The month featured a lot of sneaky good tunes, and for me, two amazing covers. Here’s the list:

25. M83 f. Beck – Time Wind

24. Band of Skulls – Bodies

23. The Joy Formidable – A Second In White

No video available at present. Cool track.

22. Drake & Rihanna – Too Good

No video available.

21. Fifth Harmony f. Missy Elliott – Not That Kinda Girl

20. YG, Drake, Kamaiyah – Why You Always Hatin?

19. Sam Sparro – Happiness (The Magician Remix)

18. Jamie XX – SeeSaw

17. Hinds – Bamboo

16. Chemical Brothers – Swoon/Dig Your Own Hole

15. Hannah Georgas – Don’t Go

14. John Grant – GMF

13. The Strokes – Oblivius

12. Dan Deacon – Meme Generator/Learning To Relax

11. The Temper Trap – Burn

10. DJ Shadow f. Run The Jewels – Nobody Speak

9. Gorgon City – Doubts

8. Usher – Crash

7. Sundara Karma – Flame (Roosevelt Remix)

6. Rihanna – Kiss It Better (R3hab Remix)

5. The Tragically Hip – In A World Possessed By The Human Mind

Long live The Hip.

4. Andy Hull & Robert McDowell – Montage (from Swiss Army Man soundtrack)

Andy Hull is a genius.

3. Monarchy – Lost Cause

What a cover.

2. Disturbed – The Sound of Silence

An even better cover. This is chill-inducingly good.

1. Broods – Heartlines

Co-written with Lorde, this is a massive hit.

This is what I thought of 2014.

I typically write a lengthy preamble when I issue my Top 100 Songs of The Year list. This year’s won’t be an extended or hyperbolic one.

2014 was fucked up in all manner of ways. One giant ray of light that helps pierce the omnipresent darkness of the world, at least for me, is music. 2014 was no different. My love for and of music is as strong as ever. I continue to zestfully seek out good music, as there’s a bounty of good new music around every corner, if you know where to look.

“Genres” and “types” of music are harder than ever to distinguish and designate, though if I had to isolate one type that resonated the strongest with me in 2014, it’d be pop music. It’s not that pop music ever went away, it’s just that pop has become such a versatile and shifty chameleon — it seems with every passing year, more types of music get sucked into the massive “pop” black hole, and “pop” infiltrates other genres with gusto and stealth. A tip of the cap to “pop” in 2014; a handful of brilliant pop songs made an indelible mark on the year in music (more than I can recall in recent years).

Music does so much to and for me; I won’t go into that though, as I mentioned at the outset of this piece that I’d practice brevity. So instead of me spitting game at music, I’ll end this introduction with some light, but ever true words, from the one of a kind one hit wonder, Cansei de Ser Sexy…

“Music is my boyfriend, music is my girlfriend, music is my daddy. Music’s my imaginary friend. Music is my brother. Music is my great grand-daughter, music is my sister, music is my favourite mistress…my music is where I’d like you to touch…”