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Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The 5 Most Anticipated Albums of Spring 2014

Beyoncé changed the game late last year dropping a visual album out of nowhere on a Thursday night about a week before Christmas. But that change looks to be slow because most of the albums released early this year were announced at least a month in advance aside the new Kid Cudi album (which went as quickly as it came) and Skrillex whose new album drops today after just announcing it last week. Granted there are still plenty of names that are supposedly at work at a new album that could break the internet much like Mrs. Carter (considering they just teamed back up at SXSW, could a second Watch the Throne album be far behind) like Adele and Taylor Swift. Here are some albums that will not be air dropping out of nowhere over the next couple months since they already have hard release dates. Click in the artists name to be taken to their iTunes page and the album tile or cover art to pre-order on Amazon.

1. Sheezus – Lily Allen (May 5): Forget Yeezus, 2014 will be the year of Sheezus. After teasing new songs for the past four months, Lily Allen finally announced her comeback album which will feature the previously released Hard Out Here, Air Balloon, L8 CMMR, Out Time (as well as the Somewhere Only We Know cover on the Bonus Track Version). I am most interested in the title track, if it is half as good as her takedown of Window Shopper’s Window Shopper off her debut, it will be a great start for the new album.

2. Ghost Stories – Coldplay (May 19): The band has always been considered the poppier version of Radiohead, but it still came as a shock when their first new music was the non-pop song Midnight which sounded like Radiohead by way of Bon Iver. A week later the released a more conventional Magic but with its throbbing bass and drum machine mixed with Chris Martin not in falsetto, it still was one of the least Coldplay songs the band has ever recorded it. It should be interesting to hear what the rest of the album sound like, will they be pushing their limits even further or is the rest what we have come to expect from the band?

3. A Dotted Line – Nickel Creek (April 1): 2013 was the year of the reunion and that has seeped into 2014 with the first new album from the Afghan Whigs in sixteen years and Outkast headlining basically every festival this summer. I am more interested in the reunited Nickel Creek who will be putting out the first album in almost ten years. Where most reunion albums are just an excuse to go on a more profitable reunion tour, the album's first single Destination is as good as anything in the band’s library.

4. Supernova – Ray LaMontagne (May 6): Ray started out as the folk guy but on his last album he recruited a full band for a fuller sound and produced the album himself. The Pariah Dogs are sitting the new album out and benched himself when it came to production. Instead The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach is doing the producing the album and if first single, and title track, are indication, Ray is going for a seventies pop-rock vibe.

5. TBA – U2: This album should be higher on the list but it is becoming more and more unclear just when we are going to hear the first U2 album since 2009. When they dropped Invisible during the Super Bowl, a spring or summer released seemed inevitable, but after the song was met with a resounding, “eh” it was reported by Billboard that the album and tour would be pushed back to 2015 and they would go back into the studio with Ryan Tedder (ugg) and Paul Epworth (Adele). But that story was refuted by a spokesman for the band who said, “U2’s album is planned for this year, is still on track and touring plans haven’t been confirmed yet.” Though still no date, or even timeframe was given. So maybe there will be a U2 album this year, but maybe not until the holiday season. Maybe after all this gossip, maybe they will just end up Beyoncing the album just before Christmas.

Here is a list of more albums coming out this spring that will at the very least worth a spin on Spotify.