The Best Of Me, 2014










I already wrote about my favorite singles, albums and TV shows of 2014, as I do every year. But one thing I always think about doing and usually never get around to, is a little back-patting overview of things I've written over the course of the year. So here, in chronological order, is a selection of a couple dozen of my favorite things I wrote in 2014. Some of them I think I did a great job with, sometimes I just got assigned an interesting topic or interview subject and managed not to get in the way. I had a lot of editors at a lot of great places asking me to do a lot of stuff this year, to the point that I ended up not pitching a lot of my own ideas, which is a good kind of problem to have, so thanks to all of them. I threw in examples of all the regular columns I've been doing -- The Short List is not really a very writing-intensive feature, but I wrote 52 of them last year, so I wanted to tip my hat to it. Music writing can be kind of an ephemeral thing where what you write about might become a lot less interesting or urgent in the space of a week, let alone a year, but a lot of these are things I hope people could stumble on now or a few years down the road and get something out of, whether it's a silly one-liner or some kind of larger insight.

Hustlin' Flow: On The Recent Trend of Rappers Jacking Each Other's Delivery (Complex, January 17)
A Defense of Sara Bareilles (Splice Today, January 24)
Monthly Report: January 2014 Singles (Narrowcast, February 2)
Pranksters Behind Chili Peppers Parody 'Abracadabralifornia' Tell All (Rolling Stone, February 5)
An Interview With Semi, The Vine Famous Rapper Behind "Another 6 Sec Rap" (Noisey, February 21)
Future Islands: How A Band Of Outsiders Became Pop Heroes (Wondering Sound, March 24)
The Remix Report Card, First Quarter 2014 (Noisey, April 17)
School Of Hard Knocks: XXL Freshmen Ranked From XXL to S (DDotOmen, May 5)
The Dismemberment Plan: The BSides Session (Mobtown Studios, May 13)
Wye Oak's Silent Shriek (Wondering Sound, May 30)
Musician, Teacher, Activist Derrick "OOH" Jones Dies At 38 (Baltimore City Paper, June 6)
Still Kids After All These Years: The Kids In The Hall Bring The Laughs Live In Washington (Splice Today, June 11)
The First Songs By Legendary Rap Producers (Complex, June 16)
Lil Wayne's 'Tha Carter,' Ten Years Later (Noisey, June 27)
20 Biggest Songs of the Summer: The 1980s (Rolling Stone, July 17)
Review: Young Moose, 'O.T.M. 2' (Baltimore City Paper, July 22)
Fall Out Boy and Paramore @ Merriweather Post Pavilion (Narrowcast, July 26)
Mercy Killing: Indie Rap Duo AK Slaughter Goes Out With A Band (Baltimore City Paper, July 29)
DDm Came Up In Baltimore's Macho Battle-Rap Scene. Then He Came Out. (WAMU Bandwidth, August 1)
The 25 Hardest Rap Beats Of All Time (Complex, August 12)
Review: Kix, 'Rock Your Face Off' (Baltimore City Paper, August 25)
BPM: What's Up With Dance Music (Baltimore City Paper, September 2)
The Imaginary Box Set: Sloan (Narrowcast, September 7)
25 Years of Baltimore Club (Boiler Room, September 12)
Best of Baltimore - Best Radio DJ: Mike Brilhart of WZBA 100.7 The Bay (Baltimore City Paper, September 16)
100 Best Singles of 1984: Pop's Greatest Year (Rolling Stone, September 17)
The Rap Sheet: What's Up With Hip-Hop (Baltimore City Paper, September 23)
Monthly Report: September Albums (Narrowcast, October 7)
13 Hip-Hop Personalities Share Memories of Mos Def's 'Black On Both Sides' (The Boombox, October 13)
Lesson Plan: Damond Blue Grows Up, Chooses Beats Over Bullets (Baltimore City Paper, October 11)
The Short List (Baltimore City Paper, November 4)
Deep Album Cuts Vol. 28: Usher (Narrowcast, November 23)
Vid It On 'Em: Nicki Minaj's 10 Best Clips (Rolling Stone, December 30)
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