1 SAM SMITH AND THE BRITISH INVASION THAT KEPT ON GIVING
Sam Smith sold his blue-eyed coals to Newcastle – well, the US – with his heartfelt debut, In the Lonely Hour. Charli XCX truly arrived with hook-ups with Iggy Azalea and her own Fault in Our Stars tie-in, Boom Clap. 1D got their fourth No 1 album and Ed Sheeran also went straight to No 1 in the Billboard charts, with Sam Smith at no 2.
2 THE WAR ON DRUGS WAS WON
The UK music press was (virtually) unanimous: No 1 in Q and Uncut, no 2 in Mojo, no 3 in NME, handing a bouquet to Lost in the Dream, the third album by Philadelphian LA transplant Adam Granduciel. Granduciel’s delivery of his lovelorn songs recalled a slacker Bob Dylan, while the classic rock playing beneath paid hazy homage to the 80s.
3 JAY & BEY & SOLANGE (& KIMYE)
We still don’t know why Solange Knowles attacked her brother-in-law in a lift – theories rage about a woman called Rachel Roy, or Jay’s desire to go to a Rihanna afterparty – but Beyoncé remained tight-lipped, other than to rap: “Of course sometimes shit go down when there’s a billion dollars on an elevator…” on a remix. We do know that Jay and Bey went On the Run (the name of their co-headline tour). Although Jay and Kanye go way back, the Carters skipped the KimYe nuptials. But when Solange got married, Jay & Bey went. Meanwhile, the perils of even thinking about not adoring Beyoncé were made plain by Saturday Night Live in one seriously good skit.
4 MILLENNIAL SEX-ANGST R&B
FKA Twigs and Banks were two standout vocalists whose coos came allied to itchy digital productions on their respective albums, LP1 and Goddess. This trend has been going a while now (see the xx, the Weeknd, passim), but as long as the quality control stays high, it is welcome to stick around.
5 THE APHEX TWIN PUT A RECORD OUT…
One of electronic music’s most sinister-sounding agents, Aphex Twin chose to announce his return on the deep web, where true evil frolics. No one but Richard D James knows how old tracks such as the snappily named 4 bit 9d api+e+6 [126.26] are, but its parent album, Syro, did feature serious wickedness – plus passages of grace and warmth.
6 ... BUT OTHER GUYS HAD A HANDLE ON ‘ART’ TOO
It was a fine year for more modern haunted digitals too. Actress’s Ghettoville, Arca’s Xen and SBTRKT’s Wonder Where We Land all raised the bar. Thom Yorke’s Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes also pioneered a new music delivery method.
7 SLEAFORD MODS
Not mods any more, and not actually from Sleaford, these acerbic East Midlands 40-somethings – Jason Williamson (shouting) and Andrew Fearn (scrawny backings) – spared nothing and no one on their breakthrough seventh album. Divide and Exit was an acerbic takedown of modern Britain that recalled the Streets fronted by Shane Meadows stewed in spleen.
8 VINYL UP, PLATINUM DOWN
2014 almost became the year in which the platinum album died. Until Taylor Swift dropped her 1989 album in October, no 2014-released LP had sold 1m copies in the US except the soundtrack to a Disney film, Frozen. Swift moved the units required (and by now Sam Smith might have too), but not before a lot of industry hand-wringing. Meanwhile, sales of vinyl LPs – you know, the large black circles inside the nice artwork – sneakily rose to 1m in the UK for the first time since 1996.
9 BEING FEMALE REMAINED UNNECESSARILY COMPLICATED…
In pop, women’s glutes disproportionately figured, thanks to Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda and Meghan Trainor’s All About That Bass , two ultimately unsatisfying takes on body image that sort of didn’t really counteract all the other nonsense about body image.
10 … BUT KATE BUSH MADE IT ALL OK
Pop’s most famous recluse set foot on a stage and sang. This means anything is possible.
