video review: 'gone now' by bleachers

And that's two... whew. Good record too - wish it was great, but it happens.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN and probably All Time Low next, but you never know - stay tuned!

album review: 'gone now' by bleachers

I distinctly remember not expecting to love Bleachers' debut album Strange Desire as much as I did in 2014. Hell, I remember watching and reading the other reviews, which gave it some token appreciation for 'I Wanna Get Better' and then proceeded to tear into it.

And here's the thing: I completely understand where the majority of those criticisms came from. Is it a shameless 80s pastiche with a frontman who doesn't have the range and presence he thinks he has, relentlessly overwritten with an earnestness that pushes it between aggressively corny and embarrassing? Yeah, absolutely - and yet to some extent the overwritten earnestness, when paired with Jack Antonoff's uncanny knack for huge hooks and a deceptively potent album concept lurking beneath the surface, it lead to a record that hit me like a tidal wave and I still return to fairly regularly, even moreso since I got it on vinyl. And since then, he's popped up all over the place as a behind-the-scenes songwriter for Sara Bareilles, Lorde, the best song Rachel Platten has ever made, and a little someone called Taylor Swift. Yeah, you want to know the reason so many of you idolize 1989 as a pop record beyond the singles, most of the thanks you can direct here.

So you can bet I was looking forward to this - I hadn't listened to any of the lead-off singles, I was excited to go in cold and just take it all in, especially considering he brought on board both Lorde and Carly Rae Jepsen to back him up. So what did we get for Gone Now?

the top 50 best songs of 2014 (part ii: 25-1) (VIDEO)

And there's part two. One last list to come, stay tuned!

the top 50 best songs of 2014

And now onto the third list, and by far one of the hardest to make. This year I discussed 210 albums and from there I had just under 700 songs that I considered eligible for this list. From there, the task of narrowing it down and ranking them was excruciatingly difficult, because I want to make sure this list was of the best of the best, and even with that I had to make some painful cuts. And once again, keep in mind these are not the hits. We have singles and deep cuts here, from artists who are defiantly mainstream to those lodged deep in the underground. And one more thing: for a song to land on this list, it has to have been released from an album I reviewed this year. If it was just a single, it doesn't cut it - but on a contrary note, if the single dropped last year or even the year before and the album was only released now... well, it qualifies in my books.

But enough wasting time, let's get this started with...

video review: 'strange desire' by bleachers

Holy shit, completely forgot to post this. Yeah, the album's awesome and getting better every time I listen through it. But yet it's one of those records that will not click with everyone and I get why.

Okay, I need to get this Sadistik review out of my system. Stay tuned!

album review: 'strange desire' by bleachers

I've made it no secret that I'm a fan of the indie rock act fun., who came into sharp prominence in the mainstream thanks to a lucky Glee collaboration and three killer singles. Now I'm a fan of fun. for a number of reasons, and I'd make the argument their best songs likely came on Aim & Ignite the album before Jeff Bhasker got his hands on their mixes and amped the bombast to eleven and made the Queen parallels all the more stark. And sure, it was cheesy and utterly ridiculous, but there was a certain pop grandeur to their material that always underscored their material, an earnest sincerity that belied their killer melody lines and Nate Ruess' impressive voice.

But here's the funny thing about indie rock acts: most, if not all of the band members typically have at least one or two side projects running simultaneously, especially when they're hoping for that next mainstream crossover hit. And fun. is no exception, and while many pegged Nate Ruess as the breakout star as the frontman, I made sure to take notice when I heard about Bleachers the solo side project of Jack Antonoff, the lead guitarist of fun. and a contributing songwriter for Tegan & Sara, Christina Perri, and Sara Bareilles. And when I heard that he had managed to rope in Grimes and Yoko Ono to boost his indie cred, I figured the debut album was at least worth a few listens. Was I right?