2014 has come and gone, so time again for my Top Albums countdown. I didn’t find 2014 to be a great year for music, as it only had a few, what I’d call, elite releases. It was, however, a fairly deep year for albums, in that while there weren’t many that blew me away, I did find there to be a large amount of good albums that made choosing my #5 to say #35 albums quite a chore. Now, it’s always hard to come up with a theme for the year, and kind of a pointless exercise, but what I did notice about many of this year’s releases is how cathartic they were for the artists. Many of this year’s albums were records that the artist needed to make, not necessarily just wanted to make. So you’ll notice that theme coming up a good bit in many of the albums I’m featuring here. That said, I’m not going into quite as much effort this year in actually writing about the albums. I might have a sentence or two for each, but don’t expect more beyond that. Today is, as always, when I present the list of albums eligible for my countdown.
This past year I purchased, in some form, 83 albums, 80 of which are eligible. I do not include EPs, reissues, soundtracks, live albums, holiday Albums, or b-side/rarity type releases as eligible for my list, and this year three of my purchases were EPs. As always, there’s plenty of albums that I never got around to procuring, so yes, there’s going to be very worthy albums that don’t make my list. So if you have a question as to why your favorite album isn’t on my list, well it’s because I either didn’t get it, or just plain didn’t care for it as much as you, simple as that. After the jump, you can see the list of all albums I purchased, in order of release date. Also, over to the right, you can see the schedule over the next few days as I continue the countdown.
Posted by Hawkins 
A Round of Sound 