The concept of buying albums is foreign to an entire generation of music listeners, who typically consume music using services like YouTube, Soundcloud and Spotify. Even older generations are now shifting away from the iTunes model and embracing popular streaming services including Pandora, Spotify and Apple’s Beats Music service. I personally wrote recently about how my music consumption has changed from downloading albums to streaming, but I still often listen to music by the album because these artists are trying to tell stories and I want to hear them in their entirety.
This year was packed full of great stories, and now you can relive 2014 with a great list of the 50 best albums of the year.
DON’T MISS: Confessions of a music thief
Pitchfork’s editors recently put together their picks for the top 50 albums of 2014. The list focuses mainly on independent artists, as should be expected with Pitchfork, but it’s a solid list with tons of great music.
The list is also very eclectic, with slots occupied by a wide variety of artists ranging from Ariana Grande to Leon Vynehall to Sharon Van Etten to Pharmakon.
There is plenty of music on the list that you’ll absolutely hate, some you might enjoy, and some you may even discover you love. Whatever the case, it’s a wild ride and it’s linked down in our source section.
