Grybop's Best of 2014 (-#01 + Recap Video)

[Grybop]

Welcome to my 24th year-end chart, the deeply personal chart that promises but never delivers, the only chart that lists any type of songs, from oldies to fresh hits, from unknown homemade recordings to YouTube parodies. The only thing these songs have in common is that I became familiar with them in the past 12 months, ok, maybe 13.

I already know what my #1 is and this year marks the first time a certain oddity occurs - 2014 also marks the return of a certain phenomenon that last occurred in 1999. For now, you can watch my recap video from last year.

[jszmiles]

woo!

Will be checking this for sure

[Virgostar]

Me too! Looking forward to seeing what you dish up George.

[MadeOfBricks]

Always interested in your chart - provides something a little different around here. Also curious to see the thing not seen since 1999!

[ryan_9048]

Woooo!!!

[Grybop]

Oh you didn't just make your first post in more than a year in this very thread!? I feel honoured

MadeOfBricks, I'm sure I know you but I can't remember what your previous name was

[flopho]

Stromae and Antonia are my favs from your 2013 list, glad i found her song through the FSC.

[ryan_9048]

Oh you didn't just make your first post in more than a year in this very thread!? I feel honoured

Haha! All the more you shouldnt disappoint! :p

[Grybop]

Well, anyone who's familiar with our very own Forum Song Contest will see many familiar entries here, and not only mine!

Bofore I start, I must make an honourable mention of a song from last year's chart, #12, Tove Lo's Habits, which sort of fell between 2013 and 2014 and got lost in the end - always as far as my year-end charts are concerned.

This year I'll be counting down 30 songs and will prolly make a video covering the top 20.
Here are some songs that missed out, in no particular order:

Röyksopp & Robyn - Monument
Röyksopp & Robyn - Do It Again
Shakira - La La La
Maya Jane Coles - Dreamer
Charli XCX - Boom Clap (would have charted higher if I had heard it earlier in the year)
Kaleida - Think
Chinawoman - Nothing to talk about
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show - Last Morning (saw the movie this was featured in - turned out it was the best thing about it)
Indila - SOS
Cherry Chapstick - The Line
Jaymes Young - Moondust
Broken Bells - Holding On For Life
J Balvin - Tranquila

[Grybop]

30 Lady Gaga ft. R. Kelly - Do what U want
An Artpop highlight, the chart career of which reflected what a mess this era was for Gaga. Gaga's was the only concert I attended this year and I had a great time.


29 Lykke Li - No rest for the wicked
I won her latest album in a radio competition. Short, somewhat bleak, but nice overall. This was rightfully chosen as the first single.


28 Phoenix - Chloroform (Jamie Jones edit)
Jamie Jones took the last seconds of the original song and formed a completely different piece of music, very dark and melancholic to my ears,


27 Lana Del Rey - West Coast
Coincidence? On April 14, 2014, two videos were uploaded on Youtube. Both were shot on a beach. Both were basically a few seconds of footage on a loop. This was the first one (but a proper video was eventually uploaded a week later). The other one is much higher.


26 Echosmith - Cool kids
Teen emos? This breezy little song won me anyway.


25 Serebro - ? ???? ?? ?????
This would have naturally ended up in the upper reaches of this chart, the thing was that for some reason I always forgot to download it or re-visit the video (which is a mess), hence the relatively low placing.


24 Xara & Fedotova - Circles (Daniel Cheis remix)
A song that's simply inshazammable, probably because it features a set of generic vocals that anyone can purchase through royalty-free music sites. The song has therefore circulated under an abundance of titles and remixers, this here, though, is the best mix of them all IMO. I love chopped up vocals!


23 Taylor Swift - Blank Space
- But it's HER! Miss Sour herself, the annoying Taylor Swift! You loathe her!
- Shut up!
- And the song is a copycat of ten other songs, how can you like this piece of crap?
- Shut up, brain, SHUT UP!


22 Mekkas - Without Dreams
One of only two greek entries this year. A nice summery chill-out track that I played to death.


21 Róisín Murphy - Ancora Ancora Ancora (Severino & Nico De Ceglia Remix)
Róisín's Mi Senti EP is, for the biggest part of it, a collection of covers of italian classics, most of which I was not familiar with. This one was very nicely remixed and became a small radio hit here. Dunno if this EP alienated her audience, because it went largely ignored I think, with me though it was a completely different story. One more song from the EP is to come much higher.

[jszmiles]

23 Taylor Swift - Blank Space
- But it's HER! Miss Sour herself, the annoying Taylor Swift! You loathe her!
- Shut up!
- And the song is a copycat of ten other songs, how can you like this piece of crap?
- Shut up, brain, SHUT UP!

pretty much what I think of myself liking 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! songs form her 1989 album (100% of what I've heard from that LP actually )

[Grybop]

OMG you're becoming a swifter!

[flopho]

Röyksopp & Robyn - Do It Again
Charli XCX - Boom Clap
30 Lady Gaga ft. R. Kelly - Do what U want
26 Echosmith - Cool kids

Excited to see which FSC songs made it to your countdown!

[xtofer]

HOOOORAY for this making it in your chart:

29 Lykke Li - No rest for the wicked
27 Lana Del Rey - West Coast
26 Echosmith - Cool kids
21 Róisín Murphy - Ancora Ancora Ancora (Severino & Nico De Ceglia Remix)

..and that Taylor Swift song which I cannot dislike as well

[Tansike]

Great entries for Lady GaGa, Taylor and Lana Del Rey

[jszmiles]

OMG you're becoming a swifter!

Wait till you hear her "Style", it's my #1 for 2 weeks already.... I would never expect myself to put her near top 353657

[king_oxymoron]

LOL at your Taylor comment. That and West Coast are the ones for me.

[Grybop]

Cheerios guys <3
Moving on!


20 Sia - Chandelier

I'm just holding on for tonight
On for tonight




A real slow burner, this song took me forever to really enjoy for some reason. Perhaps I hated the fact that the video went viral so quickly and everyone was making the same praising comments over and over. A great song anyhow - funny how she sounds like Rihanna (it's the other way round, yeah, but still...)





19 Moderat - Bad kingdom

This is not
What you wanted
Not
What you had in mind


First heard this gem when jszmiles picked it as one of his FSC entries last year, and even though I voted it, it wasn't until a radio station picked it up a few months later that I really started to like it. Love everything about it, the sound, the vocals, the lyrics.



18 Tomas Barfod feat. Nina K. - Pulsing

My heart has never beaten louder
I can't believe that I doubted
I doubted you


I was looking for a certain Tomas Barfod track to enter in FSC, when I bumped into this weird video (vegans will love it), so I changed my mind and went with that instead - such was the impact this song had on me upon first listen! The other song I had in mind will appear later - it's also worthy of note that another collaboration between Tomas and Nina made my top 10 last year.






17 Hudson Taylor - Care

For heaven's sake I have been screaming at you all the time
It makes no sense how he treats you
How could you miss the signs
He's been cheating on you
messin' with your head



Friend-zoned/forever-alone 3-minute anthem, with such beautiful vocal harmonies that two ears don't seem enough to enjoy them. The official video has somehow disappeared.



16 Kris Menace - Amour fou



Kris Menace's last 2 albums are great pieces of work, and it's just random that this is the first track of his to make my year-end chart. I used it as soundtrack to a video I made with footage from my summer vacation this year, perhaps that's why I loved it even more.

[Benny]

"Cool Kids", "Chandelier" and "Care" are all great. Don't know most of the other stuff.

[steophonic]

Not heard much from your chart this time around, but love Sia.

[jszmiles]

Moderat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had charted this last year at #42.... nevertheless, it's one of those tracks that never gets old. Their gigs are awesome, you should try it.

Listening to Kris Menace - isn't he much known as a remixer? I remember loving some of his work as remixer

EDIT: ahh yes he had remixed Tracey Thorn's It's All True

ohhh and mervelius Lifelike & Kris Menace - Discopolis

ohhh and remix of Belle's What The Hell

[Grybop]

Yes, we all knew him as a remixer, but Features and The Entirety Of Matter put him on the map as an electronic artist capable of making good albums, too!

Lifelike & Kris Menace - Discopolis

Yes!! Love this one too!

[jszmiles]

Oh I will check his albums then.

[Grybop]

15 Rebeka - Unconscious

The monster
Inside me
Is repeating
The heartbeat


A moody electronic song from Poland that I'm not quite sure what it's about. Amazing intro and the video suits the song perfectly!




14 Talisco - Your Wish (Fabrice Dayan Summer of 76' edit)

And there’s no fix rules
on the way we see life


What a transformation! Fabrice Dayan took the original Talisco pop/rock tune from this summer and made something massive that wouldn't sound out of place in 1976 indeed. A feelgood disco number, that somehow echoes Las Vegas in the first half and then takes a 180-degree turn to become an anthem of optimism and free will.




13 Tomas Barfod feat. Eddie Chacon - Happy

All my life
People keep slipping away
They keep dying on me, man!


"I'm gonna say I'm gonna be happy till I believe it" seems to be the meaning here. This is the other Tomas Barfod I was talking about at #18, a collaboration with the living half of Charles & Eddie. Quirky video!

[Grybop]

I was just checking Benny's chart and remembered I probably should have charted Derniere Danse somewhere, possibly somewhere in the mid-20ies - ah well, I've gotten so bored of it by now, it's not even worth editing my list