Making a best songs of the year list is an overwhelming task when you work at a music site. You could go every day of the year listening to only music that's just hit SoundCloud or YouTube, and some days you do. So rather than make a "1,825 Best Songs of 2014" list, we decided to zero in on the music we listen to the keenest: the stuff being made within our borders. 25 sounded like a nice, manageable number when we started, but even that meant making a lot of very tough choices. But we did it.
It's only 25 songs, but it's also a prognostication for a big year in Toronto R&B, a human rights cry, a hangover, an 18 minute punk epic, a cry for independence, a rite of passage, and a listenable display of the absolutely potency of Canadian music circa 2014. Listen to the best Canadian songs of 2014 below.
One of those songs you wish would last another minute, and then another minute, and then even when its creator obliges it's still not enough. A self-contained demonstration of the sublime power of swelling repetition, Dan Snaith's triumphant return to Caribou sneaks its way into your brain, under your skin, into the shower, through the morning commute, onto your finger pressing the repeat button and then back again. You want to live in it. - Richard Trapunski
Tanya Tagaq didn't need to win the Polaris Prize this year to become Canada's newest musical ambassador. Though the $30,000 cheque and resultant publicity helped, you couldn't put a price on her performance and how she broadcasted Inuit tradition and human rights issues to the world (she performed in front of a chilling, scrawling list of missing and murdered Aboriginal women). The studio version of her Animism track "Uja" is totally aware of itself as a new and challenging vocal force, and is yet completely uncompromising. - Jordan Darville
Mac DeMarco has made a career, as most songwriters, passing out pieces. He’s selling his particular worldview built from squalid apartment parties, Viceroy cigarettes, and thousands of beers, he’s testing his mettle in front of crowds nightly, and, you can only imagine, he’s living at least as hard offstage. “Passing Out Pieces” represents a heartbreaking moment of clarity for DeMarco. “What mom don’t know has taken its toll on me,” he confesses over lazing synthesizer. This is a hangover of the existential variety — Sunday in a song — and a powerful revelation about the nature of his performance. - Chris Hampton
There’s no doubt that Alvvays had a big year in 2014. The East Coast-bred 5-piece released their self-titled debut album and Canada instantly fell in love with it. It seemed like “Archie, Marry Me” was everywhere, and for good reason. The song is like a chocolate bar. Molly Rankin’s saccharine voice instantly gets your endorphins running, and the lyrics encapsulate that state of limbo between adulthood in your 20s and adulthood in your 30s... when shit will actually get real. - Simone Zucker
"Continental Shelf" chimes off one of the year's most memorable riffs, degrades into coarse grit under Matt Flegel's bark, and then, somehow, resurfaces on cooing vocals stripped from '60s Doo Wop. When you come to, you're plain old baffled by the tremendous territory its covered and the serpentine trail its brought you by. Women were exciting, but Viet Cong are masters. This bodes very well for their January 2015 full length. - Chris Hampton
Love him or hate him, you can't deny that Drake looms over Canadian music (and music in general) every time he makes a record. He didn't release an album this year, and he mostly directed his attention to co-signing the South, but his year off still produced one of his best songs ever. A Boi-1da beat so good Diddy dislocated his shoulder over it, a less factcheckable "Started From The Bottom" hook, and a coda so good we named a column after it. - Richard Trapunski
The Toronto hardcore band's latest installment of their annual Zodiac series might not be their favourite, but it's certainly their most brutal piece of music released this year. The exploration of aging and maturation which began on their latest LP Glass Boys takes a fatalist turn on the eighteen minute "Dragon": the people in charge of everything are immoral, the promise of heaven is a means of control, and our only hope for improving our lot is a constant battle on this mortal plane. Fucked Up make no promise for victory. They've just made a piece of angry music that's aware of how much oppression has become a lingua franca, and implicitly questions whether or not we ever left the dark ages. - Jordan Darville
Along with artists like Shi Wisdom, Falana and Daniel Caesar, a l l i e is making Toronto a global centre for exciting new R&B. She wowed latecomers like us at NXNE, which nearly exploded into sweaty anarchy when she played "Private Island." A Caribana anthem for Dundas West basement parties, the song wines against a growling dubsteppy beat, and promises a very special kind of solitude. Sexiness bursts from the track like an overripe fruit, grown near the beaches of the "Baby Boy" video. - Jordan Darville
This song is an absolute jam and it embodies exactly what makes Brill Bruisers such a fun departure for the Vancouver pop factory. A sample of a male choir is chopped, pitched down and turned percussive, announcing the giant glammy guitar and drums that send the song into bombastic power pop bliss. A.C. Newman and Kathryn Calder’s dual vocals jive together as they knowingly belt out one of the greatest hooks of the year. Now they’ve got the floor. - Michael Rancic
It's been fascinating watching Absolutely Free relax from the hyperkinetic art-punk of DD/MM/YYYY (while still making you wonder how all that head-spinning musicianship is coming from six limbs), stretch out for a couple of epic two-songed records, embrace slower tempos, progressive structures, floaty and spacey melodies, distill it all into perfect little nuggets like this one, sign to Arts & Crafts, record an album and make millions. Okay, that last part might still be waiting to happen, but who knows, maybe the next phase will take them there. - Richard Trapunski
Sometimes it takes leaving home to sharpen your perspective. Now that Foxes In Fiction's Warren Hildebrand lives in New York, he's found the distance to reflect on his dark times in the titular Canadian province, and in doing so he’s created a beautiful album and this equally beautiful single. The shifting dynamics and Hildebrand’s ethereal vocals give the song an oceanic feel, a calming remedy within a song. So maybe that means Foxes In Fictions’ dark days now have a little light in them. - Simone Zucker
Like a strong gust of wind, Jennifer Castle’s vocal melody catches you immediately. The rest of the instrumentation (finger picked guitar, muted percussion, backing vocals and some well-placed swells of strings) takes on a supportive role and comes in behind her as reinforcement. The need for support is minimal though, which is so important for a song about fiery independence. It’s one thing to sing about your independence and something entirely different to actually sound that way. - Michael Rancic
Deep Fantasy’s opener is the Vancouver act reduced to its very best: noisy hardcore that mows along like a combine slapped with a little welcome mat that says, “Like Bad Religion or AFI? So do we.” Here, I imagine they’re running that harvester through the shabby fields of your own head, running its threshing blade through all of the little monsters that live there (the one who’s overly vain or drinks too much or who always wants more drugs). The kickdrum steps heavy on the throttle — if they drive fast enough, maybe they can catch them all. - Chris Hampton
If you were lucky enough to see S.H.I.T. play at all this year (and 2014 was definitely a good year to see them) then you probably heard “Feeding Time.” The song has become a kind of anthem for the band and it’s easy to understand why. Building from a drum beat up, the band layer their instruments in a simple repeating phrase that sounds like a leather-clad giant stomping around before going on a rampage. - Michael Rancic
Both Weaves and THOMAS are musical entities that developed their own gravity instead of borrowing someone else's. Whether it's in the realms of rock or R&B, they make art styled on themselves. This is why after excellent separate releases, it was such a pleasure to see them come together on a remix of Weaves's breakout tune "Buttercup." Their matching M.O.s and divergent sounds provide a newer, stranger soul music, immaculately sculpted yet soft and welcoming as cookie dough. In 2015 expect both artists to reshape our ideas of what a "contradiction" entails. - Jordan Darville
The self-described "loud-rockers" distill the message of Our Band Could Be Your Life into 90 of the most pulverizing, pedestal-crushing, oddly earwormy seconds you'll hear all year: ""There goes my hero / He lives right down the street / There goes my hero / He plays the same guitar as me." And, like their other heroes Constantines have taken to doing, they even make the easy comparison for you, right in the title. Have you started a band yet? - Richard Trapunski
“Mess” is like a punk-rock pep talk: “You’ll find your own way / Through thick and thin / Get out of this mess you’re in / In this life.” It’s like Coach Taylor revving up his football team at the Homecoming game, if Coach Taylor had reverb-heavy guitar riffs and thrashing, thumping drums soundtracking his pep talks. Halifax’s Cousins made a feel-good, indie rock anthem that you can mosh to. - Simone Zucker
“Gold Mine” sustains the darker turn KJ took on last year’s sparse “Rave,” but works to fill out the spaces with a head-nodding, swaggering beat. KJ’s rhyming is so kinetic it sounds spontaneous. It isn’t until the chorus where he repeats the words “fall in line” that he slows things down to take a breath. It’s doubtful but possible that the “gold mine” in question is Mississauga, a city that churned out an incredible amount of talent in 2014. - Michael Rancic
Jean-Sebastien Audet is a prolific musician, but you don't have to dig deep to find good stuff. His long-awaited album Tenet distanced itself from the prevailing sound of Canadian post-punk - imitators or progeny of Calgary's Women - with a sound that was confident, seasoned, and yet totally fresh. "Feel" is the rawest track on the album, a vaguely tropical logjam of meandering ideas bouncing around and somehow sticking, despite its rejection of Tenet's pre-established patterns. Near the end, Audet urges us to break out, too: "Over time there's no consequence for the doctrine we practice." - Jordan Darville
The first transmission from the Toronto duo cut an usual figure: robotic minimalists indebted, at once, to Mark Mothersbaugh and Aaliyah (and the disaffected, synthy R&B of her era). “Science” won me immediately, but it was the key change that kept me coming back, when the elegant, smooth-running machine exposes its abrasive, industrial guts. It’s precisely that tension that made Ice Cream one of the year’s most exciting upstarts. It’s also why we need a long player ASAP. - Chris Hampton
Montreal native Kaytranada, who made a name for himself last year with a number of killer remixes, is well on his way to even bigger things now that he’s signed to XL Recordings. “Leave Me Alone” is the first taste of Kaytranada’s new material and full-length record which is set to drop next year. It’s hard not to be coaxed into 2015 just by hearing it. The song is not as low key as the kind of remix work he’s been known for, opting instead to showcase his range. Sure, there’s a cool and relaxed vocal hook courtesy of fellow Montrealler Shay Lia, but it has a groove so cavernous and loose you can’t help but dance in it. - Michael Rancic
“Is that the way you want to be seen?” “Is that the way you want to be loved?” Jane Penny's questions are a self-conscious and self-aware plea, her gorgeous, wafer-thin voice sounding like it could crack at any second. And that's the essence of "Way To Be Loved." It's a confident and sexy track, an effortless pop song as assertive as it is vulnerable. And that's what keeps you coming back for another listen. - Simone Zucker
Singer and guitarist Tim Beeler of Montreal’s Ought begins “Habit,” the centerpiece of their excellent debut More Than Any Other Day, with his toes on the edge of the abyss, tenderly telling into it: “Well there is something, something you believe in, but you can’t touch it, you can’t hold it.” His tone has wrinkles; he trembles, you can hear that he’s seen the proverbial edge he’s describing. Even in weakness, his charm is unquestionable. The strings and drums follow the ups and downs of his rambling, then, derail when he does. Nihilism sure ain’t breaking ground for post-punk, but it’s the way Ought tells it — you want to know to know what they know. - Chris Hampton
Toronto-based singer/songwriter Lowell released her debut album We Loved Her Dearly this past September and I was instantly mesmerized thanks to the opening song “Words Were The Wars.” In just one song, Lowell reveals the dichotomy in her artistry: sonically eccentric, danceable and poppy, yet lyrically mature, candid and straight-up brave. The dreamy ballad says goodbye to an abusive relationship, yet it somehow remains fun in its empowerment. - Simone Zucker
Owen Pallett's credits this year could fill their own best of list. He showed up on records for Jennifer Castle, Slim Twig, Foxes In Fiction, Caribou, Sarah Neufeld and probably 25 or so others I'm missing. So it makes sense that the music he released under his own name has the feeling of autobiography. Owen would warn me to be careful reading it that way, but whether or not "The Riverbed" speaks the words of Owen Pallett or "Owen Pallett," the song's themes of depression, immortality through art and the unease of being childless in your '30s are intensely relatable. Not to mention it's one of heaviest, most apocalyptic sounding songs in his catalogue. - Richard Trapunski
The 25 Best Canadian Songs of 2014 by Chart Attack | Chart Attack.
