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G I R L
Pharrell
Pharrell hardly needed a finely crafted solo record to brag about, but G I R L turned out to be much more than a vehicle for Happy.
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Jungle
Jungle
Completely knocked the socks off anyone who likes to dance. Jungle was 2014’s dancefloor revolution.
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LP1
FKA Twigs
Songs like Video Girl and Lights On still send shivers down the spine.
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Sines
Jakob
Sines is a work of art rock perfection. The single Blind Them With Silence is a rare metal explosion.
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Brightly Painted One
Tiny Ruins
The subtle arrangements make for an album of exceptional maturity where the pleasures and pains of love and its hurts seem close.
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RTJ2
Run the Jewels
Aggressive battle raps, blunt beats and some seriously paranoid conspiracy theories. But it was delivered with wry smiles by two guys.
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Lazaretto
Jack White
Blues, country, rock, folk, gospel, and even electronica whirl together on White’s surprisingly vulnerable second solo album.
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Nobody / Everybody
Clap Clap Riot
A riot of styles, from blistering punk to fired-up rock to sweet fireside singalongs.
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Royal Blood
Royal Blood
Their trick was to keep things simple, with their blues-tinged riffs reminiscent of some of the other great duos, The White Stripes and The Black Keys.
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Dynamite
Tami Neilson
This exceptional outing confirms her gifts beyond country music. An album with wide musical and emotional reach.
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Lost In The Dream
The War On Drugs
Delivers all the nostalgia and tingling recognition of many great acts without sounding like an homage toany of them.
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Seeds
TV On The Radio
Seeds felt positively uplifting, with clean production and synthy blueprints spreading their message of love..
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Morning Phase
Beck
The album presents that promising time of day as full of the unknown, and optimism coupled with anxiety.
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Dizzy Heights
Neil Finn
He pushes when a lesser artist might have retreatedand if “21st century singer-songwriter psychedelic soul” is a category, he's in the vanguard.
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Give The People What They Want
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings
A strong, defiant, punchy album from the 58-year-old soul sensation.>
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Popular Problems
Leonard Cohen
Cohen reports on ambiguity, shifting perspectives and seeing the world from your own disadvantage point.
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FVEY
Shihad
Hard, fast and angry is how fans like their Shihad, and that’s exactly what they got with FVEY.
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St Vincent
St Vincent
The groove is the key to the irresistability of St Vincent’s fourth solo album.
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They Want My Soul
Spoon
Shimmering minimilism and subtle electronics came to the fore here, especially on opener Rent I Pay.
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Aldous Harding
Aldous Harding
The debut album from this dark southern songstress is a revelation.
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The Golden Echo
Kimbra
Kimbra's second album is bold, dynamic, boundary-pushing, incredibly well produced.
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My Krazy Life
YG
Compton rapper Keenon Jackson rose to the top of the rap pack with this.
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Broke with Expensive Taste
Azealia Banks
Azealia Banks’ debut gave fans plenty of reasons to smile.
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The Green House
Robert Scott
Yet another career peak for Scott.
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Soused
Scott Walker + Sun O)))
Unlike anything you've heard before, unless it came from Walker.
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Stop and Start Again
Mulholland
He churns out brilliant pop hooks at an astounding rate.
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The Codes
PNC
He’s always delivered 80s-indebted throwback rap, but here PNC cast an eye to the future.
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1989
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift is so enthusiastically unabashed, it's hard to tear your ears away from 1989.
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Hozier
Hozier
his debut self-titled album had him charting all over the globe with good reason.
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When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day
Mirel Wagner
Extraordinary and compelling.
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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Let’s face it: sliding a knife into the neck of a hulking orc is never going to get old.
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Forza Horizon 2
Finally, a world-class racer for the anybodies.
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Far Cry 4
Everything about Far Cry 4’s wonderful open world was worth exploring.
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The evil within
Whether you were impaled on hidden traps or had your head removed by someone called “the sadist”, dying was just part of the fun.
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Titan Fall
Titanfall is also one of the slickest next-gengames, and one of the few online-only launches that hasn't had its servers overloaded.
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Infamous: Second Son
Maybe I should have wanted more, but Second Son was still the most fun I've had playing a game's campaign this year.
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Dark Souls II
Playing it will make you pine for the the breezy heists of GTA, the quaint bloodsport of Halo.
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Alien: Isolation
Alien: Isolation took things back to the drawing board.
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Skylanders: Trap Team
Beautiful animations, great action set pieces and puzzles that capture littlies’ imaginations.
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Child of Light
Oh, this game is beautiful. Child of Light surprises and delights with wild imagination.
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Boyhood
Director: Richard Linklater
Hindsight only increases admiration for the scale of Linklater’s artistic and logistical gamble with this 12-year undertaking.
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The Dark Horse
Director: James Napier-Robertson
In a golden year for New Zealand film, The Dark Horse was its crowning glory.
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Whiplash
Director: Damien Chazelle
Not so much a movie about the joys of higher education, but a riveting psycho-thriller delivered in 7/4 time.
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Ida
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
The story of a novice nun confronting her past was a miracle of conciseness and a deeply thrilling experience on many levels.
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The Broken Circle Breakdown
Director: Felix Van Groeningen
Much more than a Belgian bluegrass movie.
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Only Lovers Left Alive
Director: Director: Jim Jarmusch
Veteran left-field American director Jarmuschmight have finally made a vampire movie.
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The Past
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Film of deep humanity full of pitch-perfect performances and devoid of melodramatics and cheap sentiment.
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Housebound
Director: Gerard Johnstone
Year’s best local on-screen comedy was this hysterical haunted house tale.
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Two Days One Night
Directors: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Star Marion Cotillard created a character of specific authenticity.
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Mr Turner
Director: Mike Leigh
Funny, tragic and savage, it will endure as one of the cinema’s truly great portraits of the artist.
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Edge of Tomorrow
Director: Doug Liman
An exceptional thrill-ride.
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Like Father Like Son
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Intricate construction and swooningly beautiful visuals.
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Wadjda
Director: Haifaa al-Mansour
Addressed social questions by way of deceptively simple domestic melodramas.
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We Are The Best!
Director: Lukas Moodysson
A warm, spirited and uplifting film about three misfit teenage girls who start a punk band in Stockholm.
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Belle
Director: Amma Asante
A costume drama with both beauty and brains.
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What We Do in the Shadows
Directors: Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement
Ancient European vampires living together in Wellington and still not quite getting the hang of the local nightlife.
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Inside Llewyn Davis
Director: Ethan Coen
It felt like one of the best, most heartfelt Coen movies ever.
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The Lego Movie
Director: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
This action comedy was a hit with kids and adults alike.
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The Selfish Giant
Director: Clio Barnard
A brilliant and boldly cinematic tour de force, it soared on the work of debutant 12-year-old Conner Chapmanas.
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The Grand Budapest Hotel
Director: Wes Anderson
With a production design that outdid anything of the gently esoteric American director’s past elaborate creations.
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Fargo
SoHo
Fargo was flawless, nailing the film’s awkward simplicity with Martin Freeman’s Lester (pictured) leading a bunch of compelling small-town characters.
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True Detective
SoHo
Watching Rust Cohle and Marty Hart unravel the dark, volatile, skin-crawling mystery of a Louisiana serial killer didn’t just make for a brilliant new TV show, it made for a TV breakthrough.
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House of Cards
TV3, Lightbox
Serving up some of the sharpest dialogue seen on telly this year, Spacey’s Frank Underwood is a despicable delight. Must-see TV.
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Game of Thrones
SoHo
For a show in which characters faced being impaled, beheaded, poisoned or worse at any minute, Game of Thrones sure delivered plenty of blood-splattered thrills in its fourth season.
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Broadchurch
TV One
No other programme this year has delivered such competitive boasting about who figured out the killer first.
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Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
SoHo
A news host who can criticise America’s statistics while dancing with geckos.
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The Fall
SoHo
It’s the series that made Jamie Dornan a star and reminded us there’s more to Gillian Anderson than just Agent Scully.
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Transparent
Lightbox
It’s a dramedy so dark, it was often hard to see the humour but there’s no denying Transparent made for compulsive viewing.
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Orange is the New Black
TVNZ, Lightbox
This season delved deeper into the intertwining stories of the inmates, many of whom you hate to love and love to hate.
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Wentworth
TV2
It’s the closest we came to a quality local drama this year— with two Kiwis leading the cast in this sterling Aussie series.