Music in 2014 has been filled with a mix of critical favourites, record-breaking mega sellers, and a couple of albums that were a combination of both. The second best-selling album of the year was the Frozen soundtrack, which spent 13 weeks as Billboard’s number one album,  selling 3.7 million copies to date. Not much more needs to be said about this other than that the majority of its purchasers were children who have plagued the world with their individual renditions of “Let it Go”- not to mention a few teens and adults.

Beyonce’s self-titled album was also vastly successful and reached number one with the lead single “Drunk in Love.” The success of the album was most likely due to the buzz around her decision of not promoting the album and then releasing it without an official single. Both albums were released in 2013 but carried over most of their sales into 2014. They were also nominated for multiple Grammy awards, and let’s be honest- will probably win.

Taylor Swift’s album, 1989, was also quite popular in 2014 and was arguably one of the most anticipated albums in the sphere of popular music. Interestingly enough, Taylor Swift paired with Max Martin and Shellback for the album, a Swedish song writing duo that have been responsible for writing many Top 40 hits in the past decade, extending back to the career of the Backstreet Boys. The pair of them were involved in writing the album’s flagship single, “Shake it Off.”

In the realm of lesser known acts, Beck has returned to the musical scene with his first solo album in 6 years, Morning Phase. The album was a more folky, introspective production, harkening back to 2002’s “Sea Change”, and was in fact considered a companion piece to Sea Change. The album debuted at number 3.

My personal favourite album of the year was local band Death From Above 1979’s The Physical World. Because genre is so hard to place these days, I’m going to classify the album by the two most entertaining genres I’ve seen it placed in, which are “dance punk” and “noise rock”. The album is filled with a fantastic energy and a frenetic merging of percussion and intricate guitar work.

Finally, an artist to look out for this year is Milo. He recently released the brilliantly titled A Toothpaste Suburb. Personally, I preferred his previous work Things That Happen at Day/Things That Happen at Night, but the album is still phenomenal. In it, he continues the same art-rap/spoken word style that he is known for, but also encroaches more upon the territory of psychedelic and trip-hop. Frankly, the world could use more exposure to his work.

Artists to look out for in the future: Kendrick Lamar, Walk the Moon, and Imagine Dragons all have upcoming or recent releases (supposedly) and would all absolutely be worth your time.

Featured image courtesy of Veronica Prokopovych