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Music

Part II of Artists Review 2014 with Albert Hammond Jr, Skaters, We Are Scientists, Lizzo, and more

In the second part of our favorite artists review 2014, we learn about near death experiences, FBI manhunts, fleek, Ferguson, and D'Angelo.

Like when we asked our family to review the year in music, or when we asked the tourists of Times Square to talk about 2014 (or at least the prevalence of ass in 2014), we're interested in the opinions of others. So we harassed a few of the artists we've championed in the past 12 months. Below we learn about near death experiences, FBI manhunts, fleek, Ferguson, D'Angelo, and more. Part I featured Interpol, The Killers, Lolawolf, King avriel, Cheatahs, Thumpers, Prom Body, Tickle Torture, Tt the Artist and the Streets of Laredo. Here's part II.

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ALBERT HAMMOND JR. FROM THE STROKES

Albert needs no introduction, OK? He's in The Strokes. Noisey's Eric Sundermann really loves The Strokes. Albert sums up 2014 just like this: "Motorino is still my favorite pizza. Loved FYF festival. Enjoyed this season's MotoGP. Heard Mac DeMarco. Debated medical marijuana, the drug war, and religion. Was happy to tour my EP and start recording another record. Cosmos was the best thing on TV. Saw The Fall, The Falling, House of Cards season two and Peaky Blinders. Wished I could have the haircut from one of the Peaky Blinders. Discovered magnesium is great for pooping in the morning. Began a fish and salad diet. Started cooking. Heard sex with strangers should occur more often and even amongst friends. Discovered the shortness that is life, but the eternity it can feel like. Realized my album [Is This It] came out 14 years ago the same distance as 86 is to 2001. Chopped down my pine trees so I could let the ground and oaks heal. Lit a lot of fires. And…"

Alby Hammy Jammy on Noisey.


MICHAEL IAN CUMMINGS FROM SKATERS
skaters

Skaters made Noisey Editor Kim Taylor Bennett's albums of the year list so you can read about why they're great over here.

A few months ago, I fell in love with this band called BRONCHO. They just put out a new record and it's stellar. They are currently on tour with Billy Idol and that's their only NYC date announced. I'm going to see a Billy Idol show. That's how much I like this band.

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The next greatest thing that happened in music also changed the city I call home. Taylor Swift was appointed the ambassador of New York. I feel so grateful that we now have a true New Yorker representing our city for what it is and once was. I've learned so much from her. She is going to change people's opinions of New York, and take us out of the dark ages. I never knew what that place I buy cigarettes is called… BO-DE-GA… got it! Thanks, T! Lastly, my strangest musical moment came when I was squatting at this apartment for a month in Brooklyn. I would wake up super early because there were no blinds. So I would grab coffee at around 7:30. If I was lucky, I would run into my favorite songstress. A little Hispanic lady who would sing her greatest hit "Happy as a Rat" to me. Often, this tune would come with a little dance and a high five. It would make my day. The lady kinda danced like this: Other things that happened this year: Got $750 in Australian speeding tickets, our van got the boot twice, I found $300 on the ground and lost it the same night, Josh and I fell in love with a 16 year old in Lisbon, I started eating vegetables, I got kicked out of an apartment one day after moving in, I quit smoking six times, I almost drunkenly bought a car on eBay, I went to the Bacardi triangle and made it back, watched all members of the Orwells vomit, I bought one of those liberal iMacs, and I made lots of new friends and didn't lose a single one. Skaters on Noisey.

LIZZO

Lizzo's "Batches and Cookies" was one of the best songs of last year—a tune that rachets up and up and whistles all the way to down again—so when we went to Minneapolis to film an ep of Noisey's Made In America series, we knew we had to hit her up. We met her at a hidden lake where people go to party and she then showed us round her favorite city spots. Thanks, Lizzo. You rule. Favorite music in 2014:
- Beyoncé popping 7/11 on us and the collective audible gasp of edges and wigs being snatched globally.
- #BlackMessiah dropping at midnight and the ensuing lake in my bed.
- Dessa secretly twerkin' to get her mic pack off on the Last Blowout Ever with Doomtree at First Avenue. (Sorry, Dess! I had to!)

Favorite food (for thought) in 2014:
"Everything from the #BlackLivesMatter #Ferguson movement. Especially the Twitter feed of Shaun King.

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Weirdest thing I saw in 2014:

Fleek. Not the eyebrows… just the Fleek.

Lizzo on Noisey.


tacocat

BREE FROM TACOCAT Tacocat are one of our favorite bands of this year because they write about actual life, like how UTIs hurt and how surfing the crimson wave sucks, and how you can look cool by wearing a leotard, but how that swatch of inconvenient lyrca can also help ward off unwanted suitors. And all this #realtalk is delivered in nuggets of sugared surf-pop-punk. Bree's Top 10 of 2014:

1. Releasing Tacocat's NVM on Hardly Art!

2. Letting some teenagers I had mutual friends with stay at my house on their tour and realizing that they are making the best music: Girlpool.

3. Going on Tacocat's first Euro Tour!

4. Releasing CHILDBIRTH's "It's a Girl" on cassette and seeing internet trolls get mad about "I Only Fucked You as a Joke" in the comments sections of blogs!

5. Watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time in Netflix and realizing that Willow dresses exactly like a teddy bear in the early seasons (Check out #Rosenbear on Instagram).

6. This Lisa Prank video about dating a lawn gnome, directed by Stacy Peck.

7. The new S record Cool Choices.

8. Even thinking about Miley Cyrus and Kathleen Hanna doing an album together.

9. Forcing a bunch of my friends to contribute playing covers and art and making a super cool Sheryl Crow fanzine.

10. Mixing Go Girls and vodka. Tacocat on Noisey.


CHRIS CAIN FROM WE ARE SCIENTISTS

We Are Scientists kicked off 2014 in bloody style, by accidentally amputating body parts, spewing guts and getting the accidental nail in the eye. Oops. They're one smartest and funniest dudes we've ever had the pleasure to interview and their chat is always sprinkled with just the right amount of surreal. Oh and obviously their music bangs too. TV en Français a rad rock record that's sensi in all the right places. Chris recounts a rather formative moment from the past 12 months: This was the year we learned to value our lives after American Airlines threatened to take them away. On April 13th we were flying from Albuquerque to New York when the captain announced that, due to a mechanical problem, we were going to land immediately in Indianapolis. Passengers murmured conjecture for 10 minutes or so, then the captain came back on the PA to clarify that this would be an emergency landing, we should pay careful attention to the flight attendants who would now instruct us on the proper way to brace for such a landing, and what to do once the plane was on the ground. There was no murmuring, just rapt silence, for the next five minutes, waiting for the flight attendants to begin our tutorial.

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You know how much attention you pay when they do the pre-takeoff safety demonstration? Like, you don't even look up from your magazine unless one of them is standing right next to you in the aisle, glaring? This was the opposite of that. They had our attention. People were craning their necks and raising themselves six inches out of their window seats to make sure they didn't miss anything. The next 45 minutes were pretty tense. The last five especially. During the last five, among other things, you realized how frightenening *the ground* is. Not werewolves or terrorists or nuclear bombs or handguns, just—the ground.

Anyway, we landed fine. It wasn't even a little rough. You could tell the flight attendants were as surprised as we were. American Airlines never explained it, at least not to this rock band. They just emailed us a week later with 50,000 hush-miles for our frequent flyer accounts and a non-apology. We Are Scientists on Noisey.


TEI SHI
tei shi

Tei Shi is a bona fide buddy of Noisey. For a while it was just Noisey Editor Kim Taylor Bennett who was banging on about her, but having caught Tei Shi in Montreal recently, fellow Editor Kyle Kramer is all about her too. Here's to her 2015 Here are Tei Shi's Top Three albums of 2014:

1. Perfume Genius - Too Bright: I love this man, I really loved his last album and was really excited about this one, I feel like it has the same beautiful qualities as the first but is much more aggressive and glamorous than the last. I feel like he has developed this really unique and powerful persona through this album… reminiscent for me of both Elvis and Prince-y vibes at moments. And the visuals are stunning.

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2. Caribou - Our Love: Every song is great, all I want to do is be in a crowd dancing to this. Current electronic music at its finest, it's so tastefully done and has the power to be fun party music while still being really laid back and 'musical'.

3. The Acid - Liminal: I love this band, the songwriting and their use of sounds is so spectacular. There's something really heavy and dramatic to a lot of the songs that I love. Also has some of the best music videos I've seen this year.

Best discovery of 2014: There is such a thing as a monthly candy club that you can subscribe to and they send you a monthly box to your door with amazing selections of rare and delicious candy. My manager signed me up for it for my birthday so now every month I have a new arrival to look forward to. It's really improved my quality of life.

Weirdest thing I did in 2014: Drive to Pennsylvania to scope out this abandoned honeymoon motel from the 70s for a music video shoot, and end up in the middle of an FBI manhunt for cop killer survivalist, Eric Frein. Apparently he was hiding out inside the abandoned motel…while we were trying to break and enter for the our video shoot. Safe to say we weren't able to shoot there in the end.

Tei Shi on Noisey.


LENA, MARIAN, AND SHANA FROM LA LUZ

la luz