Live4ever’s Essential Listening 2014 series comes to an end today with The Albums.


It’s been a year when albums have once again come under attack from the established order, described as ‘edging closer to extinction’ by George Ergatoudis. He of course being the man behind Radio 1’s lamentable playlists so a quick look at the state of the station’s output and its uncanny resemblance to the current Christmas singles chart shows just what he’s doing with an undue level of influence over mainstream music.

Fortunately, despite being shunned and undermined by those who could make a truly positive difference, the most traditional format of them all, vinyl, has only gone from strength to strength once again this year. With Pink Floyd offering up new music for the first time since 1994, Royal Blood concocting one of the most popular rock debuts of recent times, and high profile re-releases from the likes of Oasis and Led Zeppelin, sales on vinyl have raced past the one million mark for the first time since 1996 in the UK, justifying all the campaigns which have given a timely boost to long players since Record Store Day was first dreamed up in 2008.

Most importantly though, 2014 has also shown there’s still a mountain of soon-to-be classics out there to discover if you’re prepared to look hard enough. We’ve picked out just 20 of those for our final Essentials list of the year; a few you’re no doubt already familiar with, some you might want to re-visit, and perhaps others you’ll check out for the first time.


Read more: Live4ever’s Essential Listening 2014: The top 20 Albums

20 of the best from our Essential Listening 2014 series in one handy Spotify playlist. Check it out: t.co/bxw2WjM0BL…