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Self-awareness in 2014.

Massive, massive hits reside here. I think all of these tunes are phenomenal. My Top 100 Songs of 2014 (40-26):

40. Allie X – Bitch

A mesmerizing and distortion-fuelled pop gem. Contains one of the most representative-of-the-times lyrics of the year: “I’m your bitch, you’re my bitch, vroom vroom.” (Repeat ’til infinity, bitch.)

39. The New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers/Champions of Red Wine

For my money, the two best songs on The New Pornographers’ 6th full-length album. “Brill Bruisers” is a punishing pop-rock pulverizer. It’s catchy as all fuck too. The bo-ba-bo-ba-ba-bo’s are incredible. “Champions of Red Wine” is just… Neko. It’s always Neko, isn’t it? It is for me. Champions of red wine, red hair, red lips, red rum, and all levels of scarlet, crimson, vermilion, cherry, and ruby in between. Seeing red never felt so good.

38. Justin Timberlake – Not A Bad Thing

This song made my Honourable Mention list in 2013, but was released as a single in 2014, the year I really heard the tune, playing the shit out of it. It could be the best song on either 20/20 album, and that’d be an impressive feat, as there are a bunch of high quality tunes in the fold. I think JT does his best work when his silky smooth voice works over deliriously catchy pop tracks, and this is one such example.

37. Kendrick Lamar – I

Didn’t expect Mr. Lamar to go in this direction for his much anticipated follow-up. But that’s why he’s many people’s best rapper alive. Doing the unexpected and killing it every step of the way. “I” gets better with each listen.

36. Manchester Orchestra – The Mansion (Cope)/Cope (Cope)/The Ocean (Cope)/The Ocean (Hope)/Top Notch (Hope)/Indentions (Hope)

If I could only listen to six songs for an entire year and they were the following sextet, I’d be okay. These songs would comfort me, scold me, profess to me, demand of me. I’d need it. I’d want it. I’d have it. I have it. Thank fucking god.

Manchester Orchestra produced the best rock music of anyone in the world in 2014. I believe this and I don’t have an inkling of doubt about it.

That six (6!) fucking Manchester Orchestra songs have placed this high for me in a year with so many good songs is a testament to how incredible their output (two amazing albums!) was in 2014. And oh yeah, I’m not even close to being done listing them on the Top 100…

Bonus: Marc Anthony – Vivir Mi Vida (from 2013)

Discovered it in 2014. Amazing interpretation on an all-time melody.

35. Kyla La Grange – Cut Your Teeth

I like Kygo’s style of remixing. I really dug his take on this track. But I can’t understand why the remix seems to be more popular than the original, which is a slithering, sexy, deep cut of a chomper. One of the most under-appreciated, great pop songs of 2014. Super cool video too.

34. The War On Drugs – Under The Pressure

If you want to go to dream-land, this is your vehicle. If you want to take a trip to the best 60’s/70’s rock song to be released in 2014, this is your vehicle. If you miss Don Henley, this is your jam. If you want your boys to be of summer, this is the season. If you like foreplay and extended climaxes, this is your sex.

33. Bear’s Den – Sahara Pt. 2

It’s fucking criminal that this track/video has just 13k views on Youtube. It happens though. Things are missed. Not everything that deserves ears and eyes gets it. But this more than deserves it.

This is the sound of trekking an entire desert, and the relief that comes at the marathon’s end. The journey made you stronger, didn’t it? It made you feel alive, even when you thought you’d die. It has that power, and you’ll never forget it.

32. Royksopp and Robyn – Every Little Thing

Favourite song from Royksopp and Robyn’s delicious EP. An electro-pop banger of the highest order.

31. Beth Jeans Houghton & Samuel T. Herring – Pelican Canyon

Samuel T. Herring (of Future Islands) like you’ve never heard him before. His and Beth Jeans Houghton’s voices could not be more different, and they couldn’t fit more perfectly against, on top, and combined with each other. This song is from 2014, but it really sounds like nothing else, a sound out of time.

30. Wye Oak – Glory

By far, my favourite track Wye Oak has ever done. The verses, chorus, instrumentation, vocals: everything’s appealing. This song is an uncontained light, and everything is illuminated.

29. Night Terrors of 1927 f. Tegan and Sara – When You Were Mine

I discovered “When You Were Mine” relatively late in 2014 and I haven’t stopped listening to it since. It’s a mostly straightforward synth-pop-rock tune, but I find it so striking, beautiful, and attractive to my ears. Maybe it’s the lyric, maybe it’s the lead singer’s powerful voice, maybe it’s the amazing harmonies, maybe it’s Tegan and Sara. It’s all of it. And I love it.

28. Future Islands – Fall From Grace/Sun In The Morning/A Dream Of You And Me/Like The Moon/Doves

There’s no way I can separate any of these tunes. All five are awesome. From one of the best albums of 2014, Future Islands’ indomitable Singles.

“Fall From Grace”, the hunter, the incapacitating. “Sun In The Morning”, the eye-opener, the life-affirming, the daily reminder. “A Dream Of You And Me”, the ocean canvass, the brush-stroked clouds. “Like The Moon”, the chilly crescent , the mysterious deep sea dive. “Doves”, the cooing pleas, the will-you-please.

Future Islands, the time stoppers, the level jumpers, the artists.

27. Magic! – Rude

Overplayed, yes, but it doesn’t diminish the fact that these canucks wrote an impossibly catchy song. They’ll never top this one, but that’s okay, when you have something this good, you hold onto it and relish in it for all time.

26. Angel Olsen – Windows

I almost didn’t want to link the music video to this track. The song, and in particular, Angel Olsen’s harrowing, heavenly vocals, need no visual accompaniment. There’s a magic in her delivery, in those devastatingly simple words, “what’s so wrong with the light?” It is a good video though; if someone presses play on the link below and likes what they see, then it’ll have been reason enough to link the clip. But I don’t need it. All I need is to open a window, and let this melody disperse into the air, into the world. It will make things better.

It recently occurred to me that I really dig three commercial dance tracks from the last year or so. What’s the common denominator? All are sung by relevant, siren-voiced chanteuses, produced by DJ’s, and all have streamlined pulsating waves of EDM joy into pop gitch glory.

In the past, finding this type of song would have required some measure of effort on the part of the listener, as the tunes would’ve resided somewhere on the periphery of mainstream accessibility. Nowadays, dance music, in all its forms and machinations, is so ubiquitous that tracks like these are played regularly on all types of radio formats and can be found drawing hits on all manner of music blogs.

Where the DJ + Siren style of song used to be a strictly remix-style venture, now, they’re flat out collabo’s (Jermaine Dupri just got a 75 cent royalty from me because I used the word collabo [another 75 cents] and he’s happy as a pig in dirt he’ll be able to eat dinner tonight). Ahh ha. Ahhhhh Ha!

Here are the three DJ + Siren songs from the past year that I so dig:

1) Florence Welch & Calvin Harris – Sweet Nothing

The chorus of “Sweet Nothing” is elite. When I first heard Florence Welch’s voice on “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)”, I knew she’d be capable of lifting a dance track high up into the heavens. She’s accomplished that feat with aplomb here.

2) Ellie Goulding & Calvin Harris – I Need Your Love

It’s the verses that really get me on “I Need Your Love”, particularly the second one. This is a smash through and through.

3) Sia & David Guetta – She Wolf

Sia’s vocal absolutely dominates this track. The melody she creates with her voice is astounding. “She Wolf” is infinitely better than “Titanium”, and this, for me, is Guetta’s best track (possibly his only other good one) since “Love Don’t Let Me Go”.

The three tunes listed above are my current favourites, but by no means are Harris, Guetta, or the Sirens the progenitors of the style. When I look back at what’s been released over the past several years, another three tracks come to mind that helped build the Siren/DJ bridge into the Danyan-Kunshan style behemoth it is today.

1) Tiesto f. Tegan & Sara – Feel It In My Bones

Technically they’re two sirens, but they’re unfathomably harmonious, and twin sisters to boot, so I’m gonna let the backbone slide on this one. This track cannot get stale.

2) Royksopp f. Karin Dreijer Andersson – What Else Is There?

It may be a tad self-serving to describe Royksopp as DJ’s in the traditional sense, but I feel like they’re close enough, and I there’s no way in Hades I could fail to mention this absolute banger.

3) Gabriel and Dresden f. Molly Bancroft – Tracking Treasure Down

Quite possibly my favourite track from my favourite DJ’s.

Looking back even further, more branches of the DJ + Siren Family Tree become apparent as they woosh in the megawatt-speaker propelled wind. It’s interesting how the release of this type of track has developed. In the late 90’s, I started noticing that the M.O. of the style often saw a DJ, typically an up-and-comer, remixing a track from a well-established, mainstream star.

I know there are tracks that go back even further than the three I’ve listed below (the early 90’s Eurodance movement comes to mind, and of course, like all others, that scene has its own distinct lineage), but the following triumvirate had such a profound effect on me at the time of their release that I have to cite them as indomitable influencers. These songs still sound fantastic (over a decade later), and from a pop-cultural perspective, they clearly aroused a sensation in music fans/producers that has developed into a throbbing, unstoppable scene today. Here they are:

1) Madonna – What It Feels Like For A Girl (Above and Beyond 12″ Club Mix)

My god does this still sound absolutely brilliant 12 years later.

2) Whitney Houston – My Love Is Your Love (Jonathan Peters remix)

Whitney’s voice sounds impeccable on this massive dancefloor anthem.

3) Sarah McLahlan & Delerium – Silence (Tiesto’s In Search of Sunrise Remix)

Delerium and Sarah McLachlan are probably still buttering their bread because of this gargantuan hit.

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