And here it is!!! The #1 song of 2014!!!!! And for me it was an easy choice! From the moment I heard this song I couldn't believe it was Grimes. The voice is obviously her but instead of the cool indie synthpop that we are used to from her, it is a haunting R&B track that turns into almost a rave anthem with a simply thunderous amount of bass. Stereogum tells the story of "Go" "Recently, Grimes and her Canadian countryman Blood Diamonds wrote a song called “Go” for Rihanna. Rihanna, or her people, turned it down. And now Grimes has taken the song for herself, debuting it onstage at the Governors Ball festival earlier this month. Today, we get to hear the studio version of the song, and it’s a fascinating example of what happens when Grimes pushes her spectral, strobing pop style into a more readily digestible direction. Its gigantic globs of crowd-pleasing bass don’t distract from its straight-up beauty at all, and if this is Grimes’ new direction, I am all for it. " We now know that while there was reportedly an entire album that was recorded around "Go", Grimes has denied that was necessarily true and has informed us that "Go" will not even be on her 2015 album that I simply cannot wait to here! The song earned the most points of the year on my weekly countdowns, was #1 for 4 weeks and spent and eye popping 25 weeks on the Top 100. Congratulations Grimes on almost blowing my car speakers about 100 times this summer, and thank you Rihanna for letting Grimes make this song her own!
There was a period of time when there was no question in my mind that this song was going to be the #1 song of the year. The song was #1 on my weekly Top 100 for 5 straight weeks (a feat that got Miike Snow the #1 song of last year) in February and March and spent 22 weeks overall on the chart. Perhaps it's only flaw is that it came out too early in the year! Real Estate is one of my favorite bands and I really think they stand out as a real fresh sound in a sometimes repetitive seeming genre of indie rock. Rolling Stone has "Talking Backwards" as the #47 song of the year and says about it, If only all arguments between couples were as breezy and sweet-natured as the one captured on this easygoing folk-rock tune." I agree. Well done Real Estate, you'll get to that #1 song one day. In all honesty it would have been #1 if a certain David Letterman performance hadn't happened and one of Canada's best indie artists hadn't released an insane summer banger. Any guesses on the Top 2? Hint: you don't have to look far for one of them!
FKA Twigs is not a new artists so to speak. She did release an EP in 2012 and another in 2013, but Tahliah Barnett's 2014 LP, simply called LP1 was what gave her attention from anyone in the indie music world. "Two Weeks" is an R&B song through and through. It could be a Beyonce song or the like, but instead of a normal R&B beat the song has a throbbing bass heavy snarl that echos with every line of Twigs' beautiful voice. She also uses more adult language than Beyonce with lines like "higher than a mother fucker, dreamin' of it, it's my lovin'", Two Weeks seems to be about a woman using her sexual prowess to pry a man away from his current lover with the line "give me two weeks, you won't recognize her" and "i can fuck you better than her". "Two Weeks" was an easy choice for the Top 5 as not only did it score the 3rd most points on my countdowns this year, it was in the Top 20 on year end lists for Pitchfork, SPIN and Consequence of Sound as well as Sirius XMU.
By the time we get to the Top 5 it becomes very difficult to select where each song will be. It probably only matters to me but I always slide these top 5 songs around in the weeks leading up to the end of the year. Say what you want about a specific year being a strong year or weak year for music but you can always find 5 great songs each year and 2014 is no exception. 2014 gave us a few great new bands to listen to (or new to the masses anyway) and Sylvan Esso is one of the best. Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn got 3 songs in the Top 100 and "Coffee" took the music world by storm in the spring. Simply, poppy and easy to sing along to with "get up get down" as the core lyrics, this was an easy favorite for lovers of all genres of music. "Coffee" was also #5 on WTMD's year end list and also made SPIN's list at #38.
Clearly one of the biggest success stories of 2014 is that of St. Vincent. She was basically everywhere all year long and had numerous singles and her self titled album ranked all over everyone's year end lists. "Digital Witness" made #24 on Pitchfork and #22 on WTMD. The funky riff and beat along with perhaps some socially conscious lyrics like "people turn their TV on and throw it out the window" and "what's the point of even thinking" make this the standout song on a standout record, which Clark says is "a party record you could play at a funeral". We'll take her word for it. If you aren't on the St. Vincent train yet, get on soon because it's not slowing down anytime in the near future!
Gainesville's Hundred Waters return with their second Top 25 song, a feat that always seems to happen each year. Last year 6 bands had more than 1 song in the Top 25, 2012 saw 3 more bands reach that number and 2011 had 4. This year only this band can claim 2 spots in the Top 5% of the list! "Murmurs" is a haunting love song that singer Nicole Miglis pleads "I wish you could see what I see". As chorus repeats building up to the end until she claims "now our holy light is blowing out". It's the first song I heard from Hundred Waters and it hooked me instantly. It spent 3 weeks at #1 on the weekly chart and also landed on in Pitchforks Top 100 of 2014 at #91. Watch the video and please tell me if you can make sense out of it!
Another song from Spoon in the Top 100 and their 2nd ever Top 10 song. They reached #6 in 2010 with "Written In Reverse" and get close to that number this year. With 3 songs in the Top 500, Spoon's 2014 album "They Want My Soul" is one of the top ranked albums of the year. "Do You" is almost the perfect Spoon song. It is one of the songs that if someone had never heard the band you could play this as a perfect example. Pitchfork says: “Do You” is not just a strong Spoon song, but one that can stand alongside “I Turn My Camera On” or “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” or “June’s Foreign Spell” or whichever is your favorite. The aforementioned Pitchfork listed this as #29 of the year, Consequence of Sound said it was #7, WTMD put it at #9. I split the difference and say its here at the #8 position. "Do you wanna get understood?" I do!
