Camiele’s Top 25 Albums of 2014

10. 4MEN – 1998

Another veteran group, albeit this lineup is its most recent. Throughout 4MEN’s sixteen-year career, they’ve had what seems like a revolving door of members, but the now duo of powerhouse vocalists Kim Won-joo and Shin Yong-jae works to provide some truly stellar balladry. However, steering a bit away from their earlier ballad-heavy offerings, there’s a decidedly more diverse element to the music on 1998. It offered some of last year’s most powerful R&B and Soul songs, including track I Was Thankful, which is a gospel-laced piece of R&B that pretty much put every wannabe vocalist in South Korea on notice that there are voices out there that could very well end their careers.

9. Joanna Wang – Midnight Cinema

Oh, how I’ve missed Ms. Wang! Her voice is warm, lovely, and completely necessary. She offered an album that had classic bits of, what else, cinema, such as the theme for Alice in Wonderland and probably the best rendition of Pure Imagination (from the Gene Wilder classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) I’ve ever heard. Joanna proved she isn’t simply a jazz vocalist (as we heard on 2013’s Galaxy Crisis) or a folk crooner. She’s an all-around vocalist with a style that’s as diverse as the songs she pens or interprets.

8. small-o – The Temper of Water

Another album that made it into my top 5 Korean albums and actually stayed there the entire year. Indie folk-rock outfit small-o has a huge sound that’s tempered by some truly beautiful lyrics and a brilliant understanding of compositional storytelling. It’s never too big or overpowering, but it’s always got a softness to it that reels you in and makes you yearn for… something in your life. Into the Wild is the perfect example of this combination of light and heavy, a sound that’s at first flirtatiously soft, then expands and swells until it bursts like a pregnant rain cloud.

7. Eddy Kim – The Manual

This was my favorite K-pop album of 2014 without question. Eddy Kim is a paragon of how to make acoustic music without any of the pretense. He’s got a warm, soothing tone to his a voice that translates into some truly moving pop music. Title track The Manual was just such a gorgeous piece of music, I’m not quite sure how I survived listening to it. There’s a heartache and emotion throughout the mini that connects to you and stays there, right on the surface of your skin, keeping you warm. There was literally nothing wrong with this album. Everything was perfect!

6. Big Phony – Bobby

It may seem like I’ve got a lot of Korean artists on my list (which, okay, yes I do), but Bobby Choy (known by stage name Big Phony) was actually born in the States and moved back to Korea within the last five years. And the music he made while back in his family’s homeland was poignant, emotional, and incredibly pure. Bobby touched a chord in me and just kept plucking the damn thing every time I listened to it. Though he’s gotten this comparison a lot, I couldn’t help but feel a strong tug at the Elliott Smith fan in me when I listened to some of the album’s tracks. It’s just that powerful.