The best songs we heard in 2014

(Image credit: (Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for iHeartMedia))

last updated 8 January 2015

"Avant Gardener," by Courtney Barnett

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"Avant Gardener," a loopy song-story from Courtney Barnett's The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas, is the most distinctive cut from an already distinguished album. With a wit so dry you could practically snap it in half, Barnett recounts a disastrous lazy Monday that begins in an overgrown garden and ends in an ambulance. ("The paramedic thinks I'm clever 'cause I play guitar. I think she's clever 'cause she stops people dying," sings Barnett, in a characteristically deadpan verse.)

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Emma Jean feels like one of those records you find in a box in your parents' attic that makes you think, "Who cares about the music that comes out today." Except this album was recorded in 2014. Lee Fields is 63 years old and has been playing music since before most of today's stars were born. But people are finally beginning to discover his classic soul sound, which hasn't changed much since he posed in a bell bottom leisure suit on the cover of 1979's Let's Talk it Over.

There's something about Future Islands that has to be seen to be believed. While the Baltimore synthpop quartet has been plugging away on the indie circuit for years, it took one theatrical, utterly sincere Letterman performance to deservedly thrust the band into a larger spotlight. Frontman Samuel T. Herring poured his heart (and his bow-legged dance moves) into that chest-thumping performance, introducing the late night audience to "Seasons (Waiting On You)," the band's catchiest, most pop-forward single to date. Audiences were equal parts amazed and confounded.

The ensuing publicity cycle and meme-ification of the performance may have obscured one important fact: "Singles (Waiting On You)" is a powerful song. It completely nails that wistful, liberating feeling that comes when you finally realize you can't change someone who doesn't want to change himself. Herring did his part in selling us the song, but if we were really listening, he shouldn't have had to in the first place. –Samantha Rollins, news editor

I haven't seen God Help the Girl, the directorial debut of Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch, which was the subject of mixed reviews when it was released in American theaters this summer. (To give you a taste of the conversation: one was called "In Defense of Twee.") But a friend did pass along "Come Monday Night," a song from the soundtrack that echoes some of Murdoch's best work from the 1990s, before twee became a veritable genre unto itself. The song is wistful and melancholic, but doesn't try too hard to get there — a perfect tribute to the saddest night of the week. –Ryu Spaeth, deputy editor

The record's most sweeping, inspiring tune is its first single, "Separate Songs;" a tear-down-the-walls anthem about — as singer/guitarist Jon Loudon told NPR when the song premiered — "throwing your computer out the window." The passion in Loudon's raspy vocals — from the song's powerful first verse to the explosive bridge that finds Loudon screaming his heart out — will have you running outside, with your headphones firmly on. –-Matt Cohen, writer

Vince Staples has stealthily had the best year in rap, hands down. He released not one, but two excellent projects bookending the year: the Shyne Coldchain, Vol. 2 mixtape and Hell Can Wait EP. And Staples, who was often painted early in his career as an Odd Future hanger-on, has found his niche heading into next year. He's classic Ice Cube for the modern day, rapping cold, hard, and powerfully about the world around him without falling into "real hip-hop" schmaltz. And the best example of that is "Hands Up," a song that's as intense musically as it is politically. Over an apocalyptic, paranoid beat, the lyrics explicitly reference the deaths of DeAngelo Lopez and Tyler Woods in Staples' home base of Long Beach, CA, but they're impossible to read outside of the context of the police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. It's powerful, it's raw, and it's undeniably 2014. --Eric Thurm, writer

I used to despise Taylor Swift. Her song lyrics often played into troubling gender stereotypes, and they were all about dating. But with the response — and backlash — to Swift's new album, my opinion about her did a complete 180. She's taking time off from guys! She's a feminist now! She makes funny emoji jokes! She's best friends with Lena Dunham! Before hearing any of 1989, I was sold on the new and improved Swift — and once I heard "Welcome to New York," it changed my outlook on life.

When "Welcome to New York" came out, Swift was roundly criticized for her narrow view of New York City. But as a millennial who moved to New York at roughly the same age as Swift, I sympathized with her wide-eyed description — being surrounded by skyscrapers every day really is a surreal experience for someone from a small town. But what I love most about "Welcome to New York," and its backlash, is that it helped me (and hopefully others) realize that it's okay to be basic. --Meghan DeMaria, staff writer

At first, it sounds like a lo-fi tune, with a chilled out organ and a simple drum beat. She whispers the first verse, but then the chorus kicks in with a mix of searing guitars, post-rock percussion, and violently evocative lyrics. Remarkably, even when she sings "stab my eyes so I can't see you," the song is not a downer. Van Etten pushes beyond her grief, owning her pain, until the repeated chorus is a sarcastic middle finger pointed at the person who wronged her. No other love song this year is this intimate, or this anthemic. --Alan Zilberman, writer

"Burning" won out in the end because, while some of the album's other long tracks devolve into lassitude, there is no fat on this one. It churns from start to finish, crescendoing into a shout-along plateau. And the echoes punctuated by simple, staccato picking are reminiscent of the best New Order songs — bonus points in my book. Put simply, "Burning" is a dance number disguised as artsy indie rock — and I really like dancing. --Jon Terbush, associate editor

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