https://www.earbuddy.net Opening your ears to good music en https://www.earbuddy.net/54517/2014-100-41.html/albums-of-the-year https://www.earbuddy.net/54517/2014-100-41.html/albums-of-the-year Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT The first page of our 2014 countdown, rebuilt in 2026: Ought, Wild Beasts and Alvvays lead it, and Army Navy's The Wilderness Inside stays at 68. https://www.earbuddy.net/65021/2016-top-ten.html/albums-of-the-year https://www.earbuddy.net/65021/2016-top-ten.html/albums-of-the-year Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Our top ten albums of 2016, rebuilt in 2026: Frank Ocean on top, then David Bowie, Solange and Angel Olsen, with Radiohead, Mitski and Anohni further down. https://www.earbuddy.net/12008/angel-haze-classick-review.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/12008/angel-haze-classick-review.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Six borrowed beats, six new sets of words. Angel Haze's free 2012 tape argues with its sources and ends with a song that outweighs the one it rewrites. https://www.earbuddy.net/48864/army-navy-the-wilderness-inside.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/48864/army-navy-the-wilderness-inside.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Army Navy made their third album over three years with Adam Lasus, releasing two of its songs early. Bright guitars, bruised lyrics and more slow songs than before. https://www.earbuddy.net/10344/band-of-horses-mirage-rock-review.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/10344/band-of-horses-mirage-rock-review.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Glyn Johns cut Band of Horses' fourth album live to tape. Critics split, and Ben Bridwell later called the performances stilted and some lyrics insincere. https://www.earbuddy.net/2046/bhi-bhiman-bhiman-review.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/2046/bhi-bhiman-bhiman-review.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT A hobo, a North Korean labourer and an Enron-style executive: Bhi Bhiman's first real record is at its sharpest when someone else is telling the story. https://www.earbuddy.net/64542/black-marble-its-immaterial.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/64542/black-marble-its-immaterial.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Chris Stewart made Black Marble's second album alone, over a year in a Brooklyn apartment he would not leave until it was done. Less reverb, the same narrow room. https://www.earbuddy.net/19767/cayucas-cayucos-dungeonesse-remix.html/streams https://www.earbuddy.net/19767/cayucas-cayucos-dungeonesse-remix.html/streams Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Dungeonesse, two Baltimore musicians out to reclaim pop, reworked the first Cayucas single with 1980s beats, weeks before Bigfoot came out. https://www.earbuddy.net/67228/charly-bliss-guppy.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/67228/charly-bliss-guppy.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Charly Bliss scrapped a first version of their debut for not being fun. The one they kept is 29 minutes of power pop where Eva Hendricks's jokes carry the hooks. https://www.earbuddy.net/51816/christopher-owens-a-new-testament.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/51816/christopher-owens-a-new-testament.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Christopher Owens took the gospel and country he grew up with in the Children of God and made an atheist's record of them, with most of the old Girls band. https://www.earbuddy.net/32199/coke-weed-back-to-soft.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/32199/coke-weed-back-to-soft.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT After a record cut live in ten days, Coke Weed spent nine months on overdubs at home in Maine. Despite the title, Back to Soft is their heaviest album. https://www.earbuddy.net/67340/colin-stetson-all-this-i-do-for-glory.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/67340/colin-stetson-all-this-i-do-for-glory.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Colin Stetson made his first solo album in four years alone, live and without overdubs, with microphones close enough to catch his breath. https://www.earbuddy.net/70205/disown-290-dessa-false-hopes.html/columns https://www.earbuddy.net/70205/disown-290-dessa-false-hopes.html/columns Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Dessa's first record was an unofficial five-song EP in Doomtree's False Hopes series. At fifteen minutes, it already sets out the writer she became. https://www.earbuddy.net/74968/don-henley-building-the-perfect-beast.html/columns https://www.earbuddy.net/74968/don-henley-building-the-perfect-beast.html/columns Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Don Henley's second album made him a solo star. Its two lasting songs came fast from other people's tracks; the rest is expertly made and hard to sit through. https://www.earbuddy.net/8618/download-dying-machines-await-you.html/downloads https://www.earbuddy.net/8618/download-dying-machines-await-you.html/downloads Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Thomas Buschbach's first EP as Dying Machines banned synthesizers. Its second track starts with a lone piano and ends in echoes. Out on Mush in September 2012. https://www.earbuddy.net/71014/dusted-blackout-summer.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/71014/dusted-blackout-summer.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Six years after Total Dust, Brian Borcherdt threw out a sterile studio version and rebuilt Dusted's second album from live takes in small rooms. https://www.earbuddy.net/40023/earbuddy-2013-70-56.html/albums-of-the-year https://www.earbuddy.net/40023/earbuddy-2013-70-56.html/albums-of-the-year Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Ranks 70 to 56 of our 2013 countdown, rebuilt in 2026: Polvo's Siberia keeps its place at 69, among Waxahatchee, Yo La Tengo, Superchunk and Volcano Choir. https://www.earbuddy.net/70003/earbuddys-100-best-albums-of-2017.html/albums-of-the-year https://www.earbuddy.net/70003/earbuddys-100-best-albums-of-2017.html/albums-of-the-year Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Our 100 albums of 2017, rebuilt in 2026: Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Perfume Genius on top, and the positions cited elsewhere kept where they were. https://www.earbuddy.net/73965/earbuddys-50-best-albums-of-2018.html/albums-of-the-year https://www.earbuddy.net/73965/earbuddys-50-best-albums-of-2018.html/albums-of-the-year Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Our 50 albums of 2018, rebuilt in 2026: Parquet Courts still on top, Mitski, Low and Snail Mail close behind, and the positions cited elsewhere kept in place. https://www.earbuddy.net/38746/ejecta-dominae.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/38746/ejecta-dominae.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Leanne Macomber wrote these songs over seven years and Joel Ford polished them. Ejecta's debut is her diary in '80s synth-pop, best when it is saddest. https://www.earbuddy.net/74391/emily-reo-only-you-can-see-it.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/74391/emily-reo-only-you-can-see-it.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Made over five years, mostly in homes around New York, Emily Reo's Carpark debut sets depression, sexism and grief to ten vocoder-pop songs built as earworms. https://www.earbuddy.net/58996/fresh-wax-clairity.html/news https://www.earbuddy.net/58996/fresh-wax-clairity.html/news Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT At 17, Claire Wilkinson turned her cousins' fear of a shark in the pool into her first single for Lava, written with Kara DioGuardi and Kinetics & One Love. https://www.earbuddy.net/28637/goblin-first-ever-north-american-tour.html/artists/on-tour https://www.earbuddy.net/28637/goblin-first-ever-north-american-tour.html/artists/on-tour Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Written in a hurry for Dario Argento in 1975, Goblin's first theme closed every documented set of the band's first North American tour, in October 2013. https://www.earbuddy.net/67871/gracie-rachel-time-official-lyric-video.html/videos https://www.earbuddy.net/67871/gracie-rachel-time-official-lyric-video.html/videos Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT A song about keeping quiet and doing as you're told, from the black-and-white debut a Berkeley piano-violin duo began in their Bushwick loft. https://www.earbuddy.net/871/grimes-geidi-primes-review.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/871/grimes-geidi-primes-review.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Grimes made her debut in GarageBand in about six weeks, named every song after Dune and put it out on 30 cassettes. The limits are the point, and the problem. https://www.earbuddy.net/69612/iglooghost-neo-wax-bloom.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/69612/iglooghost-neo-wax-bloom.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Iglooghost's debut never repeats a bar. It took him more than a year and a toll on his health, and it is as tiring as it is inventive. https://www.earbuddy.net/13288/kishi-bashi-windows-8-commercial.html/columns https://www.earbuddy.net/13288/kishi-bashi-windows-8-commercial.html/columns Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT A song recorded in his parents' house in Norfolk opened a Kickstarter-funded debut, then opened Windows 8. How Kishi Bashi's 2012 went from zero to a national ad. https://www.earbuddy.net/46427/lana-del-rey-west-coast-stint-remix.html/listen/remix https://www.earbuddy.net/46427/lana-del-rey-west-coast-stint-remix.html/listen/remix Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Before Gallant's Grammy-nominated Ology, the Canadian producer Stint pushed Lana Del Rey's slow-turning single into synth-pop, outside her labels' official remixes. https://www.earbuddy.net/7588/listen-rene-hell-meta-concrete.html/listen https://www.earbuddy.net/7588/listen-rene-hell-meta-concrete.html/listen Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT The opener of Rene Hell's side of a 2012 split LP with Oneohtrix Point Never: a piano piece in 12/8 that the computer keeps breaking into. https://www.earbuddy.net/10152/mac-demarco-2-review.html/reviews https://www.earbuddy.net/10152/mac-demarco-2-review.html/reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Mac DeMarco made his first full album alone, on eight tracks of tape in a Montreal apartment, and dropped the slowed-down croon. It became his breakout.