1. Longer Than You’ve Been Alive, Old 97’s
2. Head, Lydia Loveless
3. Bad Self Portraits, Lake Street Dive
4. Truck Stop Gospel, Parker Millsap
5. Shit Shot Counts, Drive-By Truckers
6. Your Children’s Children, Carolina Story
7. Rather Be, Clean Bandit
8. Hunter of Invisible Game, Bruce Springsteen
9. Blank Space, Taylor Swift
10. Sour Times, The Civil Wars
11. A Feather’s Not a Bird, Rosanne Cash
12. This Will Be Our Year, Kelly Willis and Bruce Robinson
13. Life Has It’s Little Ups and Downs, Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives
14. Lies You Forgot You Told, Peter Mulvey
15. I Ain’t Looking for No Trouble, Ray Benson
16. Call Me, St. Paul & the Broken Bones
17. Love Sublime, Tensnake
18. Song for Zula, Ronnie Fauss
19. Black and Blue, Secret Sisters
20. Long White Line, Sturgill Simpson
21. It’s Not Easy, The Henry Girls
22. Platinum, Miranda Lambert
23. Kansas City, The New Basement Tapes
24. Ghosts of Our Fathers, Otis Gibbs
25. Looking at the Calendar, Loudon Wainwright III
26. Send it on Down, Lee Ann Womack
27. Stranger to My Happiness, Sharon Jones
28. Time Shows Fools, Justin Townes Earle
29. The Swan, Cheatahs
30. Dizzy Heights, Neil Finn
Comment: rock nyc writer Steve Crawford has spent much of the year working on a book of the greatest songs in the 1980s, but still followed the latest releases close enough to include Old 97’s encapsulated history of life in a rock band, Lydia’s ode to being told to give oral stimulation and long time faves DBT. A mix of Americana and the occasional curve ball for 2014.
