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Ten Albums I Didn't Know Came Out This Year: Reviewed

Did you know Counting Crows, Mya, and Anastacia released records this year? Us neither, so we decided to critically assess the LPs that got lost in the shuffle. Oh Eric Clapton and Friends too? Sweet…

Emma-Lee's face while she listens to the Counting Crows new record.

As I flick through the end of year music roundups, I start to get that feeling of ennui that comes from having heard everything. It turns out that me and the people who compile tastemaker lists for 2014 have listened to a lot of the same music this year, and it turns out that I have a lot of time on my hands. Maybe you have too. And maybe you, like me, have become so spoilt by the constant stimulation of modern life, that you need a few more albums to fill up the final, limping days before 2015 begins.

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If this is you, I’m your holiday miracle, because I decided to spend a day listening to and reviewing 10 albums that I didn’t know came out, either due to not seeing them reviewed or written about, or not finding them on any end of year lists. Ethics require me to tell you that I didn’t make it to the end of every album, because of skipping, but I did try. And because I am a genius: I did all this on my worst hangover of the year. Did you know that the only known antidote to Nurofen is Insane Clown Posse? I just found out.

Here’s my thoughts on ten albums I didn’t know came out this year, I also made this helpful Spotify playlist. Happy Christmas everyone!

The Killjoy Club is a collaboration between Insane Clown Posse and Da Mafia6, a group made up of members of the Academy-Award-winning inventors of crunk, Three 6 Mafia. I’m assuming that none of the songs on this album will be winning any Oscars, though they may win being featured on season two of Serial. Much of the subject matter is so rotten that I can only imagine these two bands first met on a murder aficionado website, and I hope that none of the people who listen to it mistake the lyrics for instructions. I much preferred it when Insane Clown Posse were singing about being Christian, and did it so weirdly their song was funnier than its own SNL parody. Don’t get me wrong, I love a Juggalo, but I never want to listen to this album again.

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Best song: Um…

The Presidents of the United States of America - Kudos to You!

So this band are still going and they’re still writing songs about important topics like what it’s like to be a fly. (If you’re wondering: "In the summer / He’s poking out the poops / Round and round like a buzzy hula hoop.") Although I think listening to this album was a waste of my time, I find it very hard to think bad thoughts about the kind of person who could write it. The songs, half of which are about insects and other small animals, like "Flea vs. Mite," or "Electric Spider," make me think that the Presidents of the United States of America live in a better world than me, a world where a fly crawling on poop is not a disgusting example of the consequences of not picking up after your dog, but an opportunity for power chords. This band seem as innocent as the bird on track 11, "Innocent Bird," but unfortunately some of the production is as crappy as the ghost on track two, "Crappy Ghost." That last one is a banger though. And "Electric Spider" makes me think that if someone showed them a Spiderman comic it would actually blow their minds.

Best song: "Crappy Ghost"

David Crosby -

This is David Crosby’s first album in 20 years, and it’s all original material, which is interesting because he could so easily have done The American Songbook or something and that would have been fine. The musicianship is amazing on this album, and the songs are rock solid, like masterful. I especially enjoyed the blissed-out old hippy vibe on "Morning Falling," and not just because it has a pipe riff. I do have to address one thing, which is that his voice has aged a lot. Some people say that a voice carries all of the singer’s life experience in it, and David Crosby’s voice tells me this: he has great-grandchildren. I bet they think he’s really cool.

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Best song: "Morning Fall"

Mya -

Mya has started producing and releasing her own music, after a lengthy battle with her old record label, and this EP was the first release since this happened. A couple of the songs on here are selling her short, like "Super Woman" or "M-O-N-E-Y," which both sound like they could have been rejected demos for Destiny’s Child songs back in the day. "Cherry Lips" is a classic though—in the vein of Amerie’s "One Thing"—and "Same Page is the kind of slow-jam-with-a-story which best suits her distinctively sweet vocal. Sweet XVI wast not quite the perfection that I wanted it to be, but it’s a welcome return from Mya and was one of my favorites out of the ten. I tried to get my boyfriend to slow dance to it with me, but he was too traumatized by the Presidents of the United States of America song about nurses that I made him listen to.

Best track: "Cherry Lips"

Eels

I’m sure that if I’d spent a minute researching, I’d have seen a few features about this album, but I guess I missed them when it was released in April. Although the title of the record sounds like a McSweeney’s essay, I think it’s supposed to allude to the idea that The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett is a solo record. It’s a lot more stripped down than previous Eels albums, and it seems really personal. It’s also genuinely excellent, but it is not fun. I might be drawing my own conclusions here, but I think Mark Oliver Everett is depressed. He seems particularly down about breaking up with this girl Agatha Chang, though I’m suspicious that he’s only saying that because of all the things that rhyme with Chang. A lot of the songs seem to be about winning Agatha back, which makes me think that this album was the indie version of Paula.

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Best song: They’re all pretty great.

Anastacia - Resurrection At first, this was torturous to listen to. I kept starting draft emails to my editor saying I couldn’t do this piece because I was sick or my hands had fallen off. Then something changed. I think the best way of saying it is not that it beat me into submission, simply that it proved Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and that although in the real world it was only thirty minutes of listening (I did some skipping), in my experience, it was an infinitely long time, and in that time, I came to know Anastacia and her voice quite well. I now think she has a really amazing and powerful command of her voice, and that when used in the context of show tune-esque pop ballads, it can be enjoyably emotional. When the album finished, as though a tornado has set me down on the green grass of home, Anastacia and I were at peace. I think she is my friend.

Best song: "Lifeline"

Eric Clapton and Friends—

I’ve always found it kind of bizarre that no one calls Eric Clapton out for making a fortune appropriating black music and then coming out in support of racist politics in the 1970s. So I guess although this looks like quite a good Christmas present for my dad, I’m not going to tell him about it. It's for his own good. There’s something so boring about it anyway, like everyone in the room is too good at what they do, and they’re kind of shaking their heads and grooving to the soft, half-time beat from the drummer, while tapping their feet at the exact same time. I think that if we’re talking long-standing figures in rock, David Crosby was a lot of braver with his record. It bums me out that even Willie Nelson sounds like he’s jamming with his guitar teacher.

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Best song - "Song Bird"

Tori Amos

Tori Amos’ output has been getting a lot more Tori Amos in recently years, and this album is, I think, probably the highest level of Tori Amos that you can reach. Tori, you had me at Unrepentant Geraldines, but the point was hammered home when I reached the song "Maids of Elfen-Mare." There’s some distinctive Medieval-jig-flavored music going on here, and plenty of her trademark, Danny Elfman evoking piano arrangements, which can sometimes feel too much like a certain fantasy RPG that I often find myself throwing hours of my life into. I’m not really relating to Tori Amos as much as I did when I was going through puberty and she was singing about relationships, but I can take these Canterbury Tales type songs for a spin without getting mad. It is Winter Solstice after all.

Best song: "Promise"

Best song: "God of Ocean Tides"

Pink Floyd—

This album was the most pre-ordered album of the year, so it doesn’t really count as having slipped under the radar, but my friend Franny who lives in England and caught its TV ad campaign says that she thought The Endless River was a perfume. I decided to put this album on as I was going to sleep so I could multitask, and because I assumed it would give me cool dreams. All I can say is that it’s definitely a Pink Floyd album and not a perfume, and the level of sound quality is really high. I don’t remember if I had cool dreams.

Best song: I like the drums on "Skins"

Emma-Lee Moss is drained and emotional after listening to all those albums, and is going to go home and Facetime Anastacia. She's on Twitter.