Welcome BuzzJackers (better collective noun pending).

 

200 Tracks, 10 Albums and commentary of an inconsistent quality. It can only be, Lex's End of Year Chart countdown! This will be serving as my primary type of procrastination over the next month so expect this to be updated extremely regularly. Famous last words right there.

Edited January 19, 201510 yr by LexC

I imagine there will be several gems here *.*

Kicking things off in the usual (dull) way: Albums #8-10 of 2014. These were all deemed 'good but insufficiently fabulous to warrant a full review'

 

10. Sam Smith - In The Lonely Hour

Lex's Hot Tracks: Like I Can, Stay With Me, Leave Your Lover, Life Support

 

9. Neon Jungle - Welcome To The Jungle

Lex's Hot Track: Future X Girl & The Singles (Trouble, Braveheart, Welcome To The Jungle, Louder)

 

8. Ariana Grande - My Everything

Lex's Hot Track: One Last Time, The Singles (Break Free, Problem, Love Me Harder)

 

The Male Adele, The Poor Man's Little Mix and The Next Mariah Carey. Fun Times.

 

Gurl i actually know and like all 3 of them :o good going (y)

 

The Male Adele, The Poor Man's Little Mix and The Next Mariah Carey. - lol if that's what constitutes a commentary in here, i'm sticking around *.*

 

(La Roux to sleigh please and i'm sure she will~)

Heard both Sam Smith's and Neon Jungle's albums and they were pleasant enough.

 

Looking forward to the rest! :D

Ooh I'm pleased to see that you enjoyed Neon Jungle's album, Lex!

7. Cher Lloyd - Sorry I'm Late.

 

 

Prior to this album I actively disliked Cher Lloyd. Back in the days when I still watched THAT Television show I thought she was overrated and the less said about 'Swagger Jagger' the better. But in the intervening 4 years since she was first on TV, Lloyd has evidently been working hard on her Sophmore effort and it shows (and in retrospect I'd probably attribute a lot of my previous intolerance to the peer pressure of 16 year old classist "lol she'll just go back to stealing stuff from Primark" jokes). As has been written extensively across the internet, she's really grown up and the emotional mature songs like 'Human', 'Bind Your Love' and lead single 'Sirens' are the highlights of the album. Some of the tracks are a bit throwaway, dulling the shine on the body of her work but all in all, a vast improvement and a great album.

Next ^_ ^ (0 )(0 )

6. Ella Henderson - Chapter One.

 

 

Surprised this is so low? Well allow me to explain. Chapter One is an album full of promise, which is often than fully realised in several moments on this album. But for me, beyond the immediate highlights, the whole thing is rather unremarkable. So many of the tracks on this album seem to be serving the same purpose to the point that they become homogenised and unrecognisable. There's a fine line between cohesion and a 'lather, rinse, repeat' formula. So ultimately, this album is merely a collection of 5 or 6 brilliant songs and a remainder of filler tracks which take the edge off such a strong set of highlights. (I know this review has seemed a little scathing, but we'll get to the highlights of this album later, all of which feature in the top 200 tracks).

^ Completely agree with "Chapter One" - best left as an EP of like 5 or 6 tracks IMO.

5. Tinashe - Aquarius

 

 

I'll be the first to admit that R&B/Urban/whatever the kids are calling it now is a very hit and miss genre for me. That said, this album is glorious! There's a constant sort of fluid sensuality to the mixing on this which really works for me. In a way it's a complete contrast to Chapter One in that its whole is more than the sum of it's parts whereas on their own only around 3 or 4 of the tracks work as stand alone songs (again, we'll visit those exact ones in the top 200 tracks). But still, complete testament to how excellent this album is that it makes a non-believer like me a fan (there's still hope then for next year's foremost thrash metal artist to win me over then surely?).

 

(dedicated to KebabHaus)

*.*

 

Truly an album for EVERYONE if it gets you on board too :wub: a surprisingly good list so far, keep it up~

 

 

(is this when it descends into eurovision territory? :/)

4. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Wanderlust

 

 

If you'd have told me last year that Sophie Ellis-Bextor would release one of the best albums of 2014 I would have laughed in your face, but by gosh she's got it! After years of (increasingly soulless) dance albums, she came back with a startling about face into a retro inspired adult contemporary record. Almost out of nowhere she's produced a series of rich compositions from the dramatics of Birth of an Empire and Cry To The Beat of The Band to the softer lilting rhythms of Young Blood and the crazed ethnic instruments of 13 Little Dolls. A truly exquisite album.

I was quite sceptical about SEB ditching dance for MOR ballads but I was totally won over by it, it's so much better than I thought it was gonna be, and I say this as a really big fan of her dance material too. Excellent stuff.

3. The Common Linnets - The Common Linnets

 

 

The song, subsequent album and chart success that nobody saw coming! Country music is almost like the opposite of R&B to me, in that it works for me but generally in this part of the internet it doesn't excite a lot of people. Ideally timed for after eurovision too as this type of music is perfect for a sunny day in the garden. Proof that ESC music isn't all (as a friend once put it) "ding a dong a woo woo" music.

So, I Present to you the two albums in contention for the top spot.

 

La Roux - Trouble In Paradise

vs

Taylor Swift - 1989

 

Who will win? SPECULATE!

SEB *.*

Think I'll drag out the tension a little bit longer on that one. Before I leap into the top 200, here are/were my top 100 tracks of 2013

 

1. Little Mix - Move

2. Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball

3. Lady GaGa ft R Kelly - Do What U Want

4. Margaret Berger - I Feed You My Love

5. Katy B - 5AM

6. Taylor Swift - 22

7. John Newman - Love Me Again

8. Miley Cyrus - We Can't Stop

9. Kelly Sweet - Ashes Of My Paradise

10. Bon Jovi - Because We Can

11. Samantha Jade - What You've Done To Me

12. Lady GaGa - Gypsy

13. Lorde - Royals

14. Emmelie De Forest - Only Teardrops

15. VV Brown - Ghosts

16. Tone Damli & Erik Segerstedt - Hello, Goodbye

17. Katy Perry - Unconditionally

18. Lady GaGa - Sexxx Dreams

19. Passenger - Let Her Go

20. Lily Allen - Hard Out Here

21. Leah LaBelle - Lolita

22. Ciara - Body Party

23. Zlata Ognevich - Gravity

24. Adelen - Bombo

25. Alida - Some Of Us

26. MKS - Flatline

27. Lana Del Rey/Cedric Gervais - Summertime Sadness

28. Katy Perry - Roar

29. Britney Spears - Work Bitch

30. Lady GaGa - Applause

31. Demi Lovato - Heart Attack

32. Naughty Boy - La La La

33. Valentina Monetta - Crisalide

34. VV Brown - The Apple

35. P!nk - Just Give Me A Reason

36. Tove Lo - Habits

37. Aliona Moon - O Mie

38. Janet Leon - Heartstrings

39. Matt Cardle & Mel C - Loving You

40. Cascada - Glorious

41. Ciara ft Nicki Minaj - I'm Out

42. The Saturdays - What About Us

43. Bastille - Pompeii

44. Amandine Bourgeoise - L'Enfer Et Moi

45. Agnetha Falskog - When You Loved Someone

46. Lana Del Rey - Young & Beautiful

47. Bonnie McKee - American Girl

48. Marcel Woods ft Vanbot - Bring It Back

49. Ralf Gyllenhammar - Bed On Fire

50. Eminem ft Rihanna - The Monster

51. Bruno Mars - When I Was Your Man

52. Bastille - Of The Night

53. Zedd ft Hayley Williams - Stay The Night

54. Emmelie De Forest - Change

55. Justin Timberlake - Mirrors

56. Neon Jungle - Trouble

57. Porcelain Black - One Woman Army

58. Agnetha Falskog - Dance Your Pain Away

59. AlunaGeorge - White Noise

60. Katy Tiz - Red Cup

61. YOHIO - Heartbreak Hotel

62. P!nk ft Lily Allen - True Love

63. Lumineers - Ho Hey

64. Naughty Boy ft Emeli Sande - Wonder

65. Martin Rollinski - In And Out Of Love

66. Ciara - Overdose

67. VV Brown - Igneous

68. Madison Beer - Melodies

69. Ellie Goulding - Burn

70. Younblood Hawke - We Come Running

71. Mel Jade - Not That Serious

72. Anouk - Birds

73. Brigit Mendler - Ready Or Not

74. CHVRCHES - Gun

75. M83 ft Susanne Sundfor - Oblivion

76. Elitsa & Stoyan - Samo Shampioni

77. Duke Dumont ft A*M*E - Need U (100%)

78. Kelly Sweet - Sirens

79. Imagine Dragons - Radioactive

80. Taylor Swift - Red

81. Emmelie De Forest - Beat The Speed Of Sound

82. Birdy - Wings

83. Nicole Scherzinger - Boomerang

84. Krista Sigfrieds - Marry Me

85. AlunaGeorge - Attracting Flies

86. Paramore - Still Into You

87. The Vamps - Can We Dance

88. Wilkinson - Afterglow

89. MKTO - Thank You

90. Little Nikki - Little Nikki Says

91. VV Brown - Knife

92. will.I.am - Bang Bang

93. Polly Scattergood - Wanderlust

94. Cookies N Beans - Burning Flags

95. Daft Punk ft Pharell - Get Lucky

96. AlunaGeorge - Kaleidoscope Love

97. Ellie Goulding - How Long Will I Love You

98. London Grammar - Wasting My Young Years

99. Jessie J - It's My Party

100. YADi - The Blow

 

Without further ado/stalling

 

191. Linda Pritchard - Srummer Boy

192. Aynur Aydin - Life Goes On

193. Josef Salvat - Open Season

194. State of Drama - All We Are

195. Fender Heist/Monika May - Move With The Sirens

196. Ella Henderson - Billie Holiday

197. The Veronicas - You Ruin Me

198. YOHIO - To The End

199. Lily Allen - Air Balloon

200. Hayley Kiyoko - This Side Of Paradise

 

This section is sponsored by this year's BJSC featuring tracks as diverse as 'that one I gave 8 points in January' and 'that one I sent to the last one but didn't get through'. Also the first (of many, trust me if you can't handle at least a moderate presence of ESC/MF songs then you won't be able to handle a LexC countdown) of this year's choice Melodifestivalen cuts make an appearance and in a shock twist they're both ROCK SONGS!!1!11!!

Air balloon is great and you ruin me is stunning :wub:

Edited December 12, 201410 yr by Ultraviolence1989