Best Of The Year 2014: First Quarter Update

One of our favorite articles to do every year is our quarterly lists. For all you new readers out there, every three months each of our writers posts a list of their five favorite releases of that year as of that moment. This could include albums that aren't even out yet; any album that we have heard that is released in 2014 is eligible. On this edition of our quarterly updates, The Hotelier, Cloud Nothings, St. Vincent, Sun Kil Moon, The War On Drugs, Real Estate, and You Blew It! all appear on multiple lists, highlighting the diversity of our writers. We hope you discover something you wouldn't ever expect. All lists are below, and will be linked to any coverage we have done on the albums.

Album Review - You Blew It! - Keep Doing What You're Doing

Album Rating: A-

Last year, emo was all the rage. Major mainstream publications wrote articles about the "emo revival," focusing on the subdued instrumentation and heartfelt lyricism expressed through the technical stylings of bands like Dads and The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die. Many fans in the "scene" (whatever that is) chimed in, and debates ensued over what bands were emo, when emo went away, and if it ever went away at all. The proverbial genre bastardization "twinkle daddies" was spewed over Tumblr referring to this new generation of bands influenced by the likes of American Football, Sunny Day Real Estate, and the Promise Ring. Now it's 2014, and we have a whole new box of sadness to pry into. Enter Keep Doing What You're Doing, an album from Orlando's own You Blew It! that's quirky, depressing and anything but derivative.

Album Review: You Blew It! - Grow Up, Dude

Album Rating: A-

2011 was a rough year for emo fans.  The successive disbandments of My Heart to Joy, Snowing, and Grown Ups were simply too much to bear, and left many followers of the renowned twinkle daddies (forgive me) sobbing as they clung dearly to their Parrot Flies records with what little hope they had left.  Certainly, these three acts made their mark and left some seriously big shoes to fill, but bands like Orlando, Fla.’s You Blew It! have proven that there is no shortage of nerdy, cat-loving math rockers in the punk scene willing to step up to the plate.  With their new Topshelf Records debut, You Blew It! truly show improvement from their first two EPs, and will undoubtedly win over any remaining skeptics of their previous work (if there are any). Through the use of jangly guitar riffs and scatterbrained lyrics, Grow Up, Dude perfectly encompasses the genre’s quirky charm and rivals Snowing’s I Could Do Whatever I Wanted If I Wanted as the best sing-along party emo album to have come out in recent years.