2014 Recap: Favorite Albums, Shows, Etc.

With all the hectic happenings at the end of the year, things can be missed. This is just a catch up post to point out a few of our favorite things from 2014 that shouldn't go unnoticed. There were many strong releases, great live shows, amazing musical moments....2015 has a lot to live up too.

 In case you missed it here are our Best of 2014 series of posts...

Our picks for best album art of 2014, where we check out some creative album art from the last year.

Our picks for best live show of 2014, what an amazing year for live tunes...all of these were jaw dropping nights in their own ways.

Finally our one, two, three, part picks for best albums of 2014.  Again all of these are fantastic and worth your time and attention. 

Feel free to let us know your choices in the comments and thanks as always for reading and exploring...as the patron saint of this blog stated:

What are those of the known, but to ascend and enter the Unknown?   

Year In Review 2014 - Top Ten Albums - Part 3 (5-1)

Another great year is finishing up for Rock The Body Electric and we wouldn't be a proper music site if we didn't end the year with a "Best Of" list, so without further verbiage RtBE Presents it's third part of the Best of 2013 Top Ten Albums (5-1):

Part 1 and 2 if you missed them

In the instance that RtBE has reviewed the album either on the site or somewhere else we will link to that review and just give a quick summation, just click on the name and title and you can read it.  RtBE worked with the Glide Team to give input on the their Top 20 so expect some overlap. 

Again the focus here is on full albums, not singles, but full releases you can slap on and listen to the all the way through. We know these are a dying breed, but it still is the way we consume music, no shuffle or singles for us. We will remove ourselves from the rankings but we wouldn't mind if you gave it a listen.

This year in the ranking there were a host of good albums but few that are great. We think these 5 form a clear distinction with numbers 10-5, which you can read about here. These top 5 albums all are a major step above those in our opinion and it just happened to be that 5 stood out, some years it is 3 others none really. Just the way it goes and it makes us happy to be able to create music and get a chance to write about: 

Year In Review 2014- Top Ten Albums Part 2 (10-6)

Here is Part 2 of RtBE's Top Ten Albums of 2014.  (Part 1 was here if you missed it) We are continuing our Year In Review for 2014 and lots of goodies still to come...

In the instance that RtBE have reviewed the album either on the site or somewhere else we will link to that review, just click on the Band name and title to get there. RtBE worked with the Glide Team to give input on the their Top 20 so expect some overlap. 

Again the focus here is on full albums, not singles, but full releases you can slap on and listen to the full way through. We know these are a dying breed, but it still is the way we consume music, no shuffle or singles for us. We will also remove ourselves from the rankings but we wouldn't mind if you gave it a listen.

After the jump you will see our list for numbers 10-6, this year seemed to be top heavy with a few really amazing releases and then a sizable gap. These are all excellent and worth your hard earned money and hard drive space, so without further ado Click that read more link.

Year In Review 2014- Favorite Live Show of 2014

The live show is a slippery thing. There are lots of variables at play most having little to do with the performance itself.  Does the venue have enough bathrooms?  Is it going to rain?  What day of the week is it on?  Did I have a shitty day at work before hand?  Did tickets cost waaay too much? All of this effects one's opinion of a live show before the band even tunes up and with reason, but when the stars align, there is no place RtBE would rather be then in the moment of magic occurring spontaneously from the stage.

Live Music Has No Equal.   

While we can't see every show that is out there, we try our hardest to see as many as we can (and more then most) here at RtBE.  Sure there are a few left in the calendar year, but for now here is a listing of of the best concerts we were fortunate enough to have seen in 2014. Also because who doesn't love arbitrary rankings, one show at the bottom that took the top prize as RtBE's 2014 Show of the Year. To continue our Best of 2014 just click that Read More button and get started

Year in Review 2014- Top 10 Albums Part 1 (The Just Misses & Let Downs)

Another great year is finishing up for Rock The Body Electric and we wouldn't be a proper music site if we didn't end the year with a "Best Of" list, so RtBE Presents the Best of 2014 Top Ten Albums: The Just Misses & Let Downs:

In the instance that RtBE has reviewed the album either on the site or somewhere else we will link to that review and just give a quick summation, just click on the name and title and you can read it.  RtBE worked with the Glide Team to give input on the their Top 20 so expect some overlap. 

Again the focus here is on full albums, not singles, but full releases you can slap on and listen to the all the way through. We know these are a dying breed, but it still is the way we consume music, no shuffle or singles for us. We will remove ourselves from the rankings but we wouldn't mind if you gave it a listen.

Today we are going to focus on the "Just Misses" of our top 10 and unfortunately the "Let Downs" released this year. Obviously these are just our personal preferences, feel free to voice your opinion in the comments.  Expect installment 2 (#10-6) soon, but for now click on the jump:

Year In Review 2014- Best Album Art

We kick off our Year in Review section of 2014 with a favorite feature in the Best of... area.  Like in years past we will be choosing our Best Albums of the Year, a few we were underwhelmed with and our favorite show. Today we are starting out by judging books (records) by their covers (vinyl sleeves, jackets, digital pics, etc). We are going to support the creative minds behind the Best Album Art Work of 2014

The biggest gripe RtBE has with digital music is not the quality (that has been massively improved the last few years) nor the disposal nature of it (still a problem, but whatever), it is the lack of amazing album covers and art work.

Sure there may be great artists out there but seeing it on a screen, in iTunes or elsewhere is nothing compared to holding an LP cover or even a CD booklet with pages of lyrics, pictures etc. Thankfully the rise of vinyl is helping this dilemma but it is still not enough. The hours we spent staring at covers while listening to music can not be adequately recorded, it added new dimensions to the sounds...Anyways...   

This was a pretty down year for us in cover art land. Nothing really jumped out as amazing at all. Oh and since we actually released an album this year, we need to take our first release out of the running. Although we do love the cover art which was an amazing photo taken by Bruno _Pek_ We did nothing to alter it as we felt it completely encompassed Angels & Vagabonds as is and I feel contends with any we selected below. It is pretty cosmic someone from Italy nailed our name and feeling with one shot for the cover of The A&V EP.

 Thanks again Bruno.  Now on to the art...