Lauren Spencer – Best of 2014

Behold Lauren Spencer’s best of 2014 list! Check out all of our 2014 year-end lists here.

1. Only Lovers Left Alive soundtrack  – because damn if it didn’t make me realize that lute’s rock even if it’s just being held by a rockin’ vampire.  Director Jim Jarmusch composed the music with his band SQÜRL in collaboration with Jozef Van Wissem.

2. Caitlin Moran‘s How to Build a Girl – the funniest, er, fiction I’ve read in …ever…about a girl–yes a girl–in the music biz.

3. The Handsome Family‘s theme song for “True Detective” is both creepy, evocative and catchy at the same time. Or maybe that’s just the main actors, but regardless I like the tune.

4. Kim Gordon‘s performance of “Aneurysm” at Nirvana’s rock & roll hall of fame induction ceremony in February.

5. Brooklyn Rod & Gun Club – a fantastic place to hear music in a great local setting is closing but a Kickstarter campaign to preserve it/move it elsewhere, plus a documentary are keeping it alive.

6. Beyoncé – I’d never paid much attention, but now I realize the power of a well-placed fan & smoke machine. And I liked the music too.

7. WFMU – continues to be the only radio station worth anything in NYC (even though it broadcasts from New Jersey) since 1958. What?

8. A Punk Prayer – the Pussy Riot documentary.

9. David Bowie Is –  exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Art rocks.

10. Leonard Cohen – because by picking up smoking again at 80 he reminds me that the true motivation behind music (whether punk, indie, opera, what-have-you) is ignoring common wisdom and just doing whatever the fuck you want. Or it’s just because he’s Canadian, and they can be a bit individual, Gawd bless em. Just to put a face on it: