Year In Review 2014

     2014 will go down personally for me as possibly the most stressful year I've had. There was so much that we did this calendar year, with selling our home, packing up, garage sales, moving into my parent's home while we searching for a new home, moving into that new (yet old) home, dealing with flooding issues right away, starting a new position at work, and all this with my beautiful wife and our 2 wild and rambunctious children. However, this year was also filled with so many great things as well, including the new home, a great vacation to Cancun, trips to Disneyland, Midway, Bear Lake, & St. George, a successful year for my band, and all with my beautiful wife and our 2 wild and rambunctious children.
     With that, this year also came with a pretty awesome soundtrack. There was a lot of music that surprised me this year, and a lot of music that made a huge impression on me as both a semi-invested musician and person as well. I love finding new artists and well as rediscovering old ones, and there was a lot of that this year. It's like meeting new friends and reconnecting with ones you haven't seen in years. 
     If you are new to this way of how I compile & rank this list, I rank my top 20 albums of the past year and then create a playlist (via iTunes, Spotify etc.) with my favorite song from that album. In some cases - Against Me! for example - I had to find a clean version of the song so that if you are interested in listening to the mix, you'll have a clean version of the song.  Unless you listen to my Spotify playlist or find the song yourself, I can't control that. Although I'm not in favor of censorship in music, movies and art, I know others don't share that same sentiment, so I do my best to make sure I'm giving you a clean playlist. 
     This is my birthday present to myself every year, because I literally spend an entire year debating what will make this list and what music I will put on it. So after all the work I put into this, studying and reviewing countless year end lists from multiple publications and websites, I now present to you my 2014 Year In Review:

1. The War On  Drugs - Lost In The Dream
2. St. Vincent - St. Vincent
3. Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright In The End
4. Foo Fighters - Sonic Highways
5. Alt-j - This Is All Yours
6. Royal Blood - Royal Blood
7. Jack White - Lazaretto
8. Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues
9. Spoon -  They Want My Soul
10. Beck -  Morning Phase
11. Hozier - Take Me To Church
12. Manchester Orchestra -  Cope
13. Delta Spirit - Into The Wide
14. The Black Keys - Turn Blue
15. Coldplay - Ghost Stories
16. Real Estate - Atlas
17. Death From Above 1979 -  The Physical World
18. First Aid Kit - Stay Gold
19. Milky Chance - Sadnecessary
20. Young The Giant - Mind Over Matter

Honorable Mentions:

Cold War Kids - Hold My Home

Broken Bells - After The Disco

Cloud Nothings - Here And Nowhere Else

Foster The People - Supermodel

Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes

Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7sxg3r6pis67fe1/AAAXXhWvu0CMGGx_x1yBwzgma?dl=0

Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/user/sput_nick/playlist/6JYelOktcqxVqdVOiVXLLi