So Last Monday I Was Diagnosed With Thyroid Cancer

So last Monday I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Jenny says my face turned white as a sheet when my Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor broke the news, but I don't know how she saw anything because she was in tears. Rosie was there, too, oblivious to the gravity of it all. It was a surreal fifteen minutes. Deep down, as the doctor explained that fortunately, thyroid cancer is very treatable, I couldn't help but mentally pat myself on the back because I fucking called this shit.

In early November I started worrying about a lump on my neck. Not huge, just a weird, hard little lump an inch away from my Adam's Apple that moved when I swallowed. I thought it had been there for a year, maybe more, but now I don't even know. The entire history of the lump is lost to the world. But for some reason or another, I started panicking and googling "Neck Lump" on a regular basis. One night I felt my blood run cold after using the internet to diagnose the lump as an enlarged thyroid nodule (because no one has ever been wrong about their own internet diagnosis). I got into bed that night and whispered to Jenny, "I think I have thyroid cancer." She said, in so many words, shut up, you don't have cancer, go to sleep.

That's the appropriate response. I'm a massive hypochondriac and chronic worrier. In my early 20s I effectively willed my right testicle to have an inflammation called epididymitis and spent months thinking I had AIDS, testicular cancer, or some other horrific STD. As soon as the blood tests came back clean, the pain went away and everything went back to normal. Bullet dodged.

Not so much this time around. The day after coming up with this shocking internet diagnosis, I went to the doctor. "Your thyroid is down here," she said, indicating that no, it wasn't an enlarged thyroid nodule. It was definitely weird, but probably nothing to worry about. I went in for an ultrasound two days before Thanksgiving and, while they did notice a couple of small nodules on my thyroid, they weren't large enough to cause concern. They deduced that the lump was a lymph node within normal parameters and probably nothing to worry about.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief! And yet, the following Monday I got a call from the doctor saying the lump warranted further evaluation and I was being referred to an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist. A couple weeks later I was sitting down across from a very chill and capable doctor who reassured me that it was probably nothing, although the fact that it moved meant it probably wasn't a lymph node since lymph nodes don't move. He ordered a CT scan. With the exception of the lump, the CT scan came back normal. "You're the interesting patient," he said. "You're a mystery." "I don't want to be a mystery," I said. He almost let me walk. To go on with my life, monitor the lump, and see if it got any bigger. He didn't feel right about the lump's mobility, so he ordered a biopsy to see if, once and for all, we could figure out what the fuck this thing was.

The biopsy was one of the worst experiences of my life. It wasn't painful, per se, but definitely worse than the root canal I had a couple years back thanks to the weird pressure of the needle interacting with the lump and the emotional terror of not knowing if I was going to feel a sharp stab of pain in an unanesthesized zone. I soldiered through it and a shut my mind off for Christmas. After the holiday, I went back in to the ENT who, once again, couldn't figure out what the hell it was. He said the pathology report didn't show any indication of the lump being malignant, but wanted to take the lump out in the name of thoroughness.

A week later I was at the ambulatory surgery center at Olathe Medical Center chewing my nails in the waiting room. I should note that, since these procedures spanned two years, I was guaranteed to be on the hook for $6,000 in medical bills because the American Healthcare System gotta get paid. The surgery was a rousing success. They were able to remove the lump no problem and I go to go home, take painkillers, and watch movies for the next couple of days before going back to work. Everything was healing up nicely and I felt like I'd had some black, toxic weight lifted. The lump that had caused me so much stress over the last few months was gone, and after the post-op followup where he would tell me it was a benign lump as expected, I would get on with my life.

But he told me it was thyroid cancer. My brain frosted over as he explained everything. The lump had a malignancy stemming from those little thyroid nodules from the ultrasound. "They're so small, I wouldn't have even biopsied them," he said. He then went on to detail the treatment, which Jenny had him write down because jesus christ, when someone tells you you have cancer you're going to be useless for a little while. He assured me that they had a very successful treatment plan in place for thyroid cancer. They would schedule me for surgery the following week to remove the offending gland. A few months after that, I would take a pill of radioactive iodine and hole up in isolation at the hospital for a few days because my body would literally be emitting radiation. The radioiodine targets any thyroid cells left in my body (he referred to it as a "broad leaf killer") without damaging anything else and, assuming they get it all, that's that. After that I follow up every few months until I get sick of coming in to have them tell me everything's fine.

Currently, everything is not fine. The last week has been spent both not trying to think about it and go about my life business as usual, the other half has been trying to cope with the idea of not seeing my daughter grow up. That's all I care about. They say children make you cope with your own mortality, and that's true. When Rosie was born Jenny and I became her secret service. Any parent who wouldn't take a bullet for their kid should probably have their kids taken away. That's just what you do. Your life exists as a supporting role to the child. The only reason I give a shit about my own life anymore is because I know I need to be there for Rosie, and the thought of not being there for her, of seeing her grow, of watching her make breakthroughs and mistakes is the realest horror I've ever known.

Surgery is tomorrow at 8:30 AM and while I'm not so scared of the surgery, I'm scared of what they'll find. The trend of going to the doctor a dozen times and getting inconclusive and ultimately, bad news has my dread sensors tingling. A week after the surgery I'll go in for a post op and get the pathology reports from my dear, departed thyroid and I'm bracing for the worst because that is my natural way of thinking. The biggest thing I've learned from this experience is that the universe in no way gives a single shit about any of us. It is cruel and it is chaos, and there is something beautiful about that. That's the only way I was able to get to acceptance.

Acceptance came quickly. It was an unseasonably warm day and we took Rosie for a stroll on the Indian Creek Trail after the appointment where Jenny and I tried to make sense of this. Was it all the dental X-Rays I've had over the years or just shit luck? Bad genes? It didn't matter, because it was happening and the only thing to be done was whatever the doctor ordered (both Jenny and I scoffed loudly when he said, while he didn't approve, if we wanted to try a homeopathic approach that was our choice).

There's that thing they say about how atheists will change their tune when they're staring down the reaper, but if anything my tune has even more clearly tuned in on the idea that there is no God. I've become more spiritual over the years and wouldn't technically classify myself as an atheist because I'm open to there being something transcendental and completely incomprehensible waiting for us after we die, but all Gods seem preposterous now more than ever. Though I ironically adopt a fatalistic worldview with a karma-based moral code, I understand that shit is just totally fucking random. Any meaning in life is the meaning we create. It's in the relationships we forge in defiance of nature's will. The fact that I can even write this blog post is a natural miracle.

Humans evolved, and evolved imperfectly in a way that one's organs and glands can turn into ticking time bombs at a moment's notice. I look at pictures of myself from the last few years and wonder when the cancer was present, or if it had always been there. Something uncontrollable and eventual that was to be met with anger, confusion, and despair but ultimately, something that could only be accepted. And that's where I've been this past week, but I'm still scared as shit because this shit is scary. Still, to paraphrase one of America's greatest poets, the waiting is the hardest part. That's where the despair breeds. In the Schrodinger's Cancer that is either an easy enough fix or something much worse.

It helps that I have an adorable, perfect daughter to keep me positive. I have to be positive for her, and watching her learn how to drink water on her own and learn how to stand on her own have been little reminders of why I fight. I don't know how you fight cancer, that's something they like to show you in movies but it seems preposterous that one person could be more of a fighter than the next. Regardless, I feel like a fucking gladiator or some shit, ready to deal with whatever poking, prodding, scanning, and radioactivity they can throw at me. Because I have to. Because Rosie needs a dad and Jenny needs a husband and besides, we haven't even finished having all of our kids. It's just amazing how much the stupid bullshit you're used to stressing out about fucks right off when you find out that your body is actively trying to kill you like a self-contained kamikaze pilot.

Jenny is making me healthful juices and we're going whole ham on organic foods and I'm getting rid of all the plastics, and I feel like a more positive person. More grateful to be alive. More grateful for Rosie's little toothy smiles and screeches. More at peace with my infinitesimally small place in the universe with the knowledge that terrible shit happens, but also that, to quote MPLS rapper POS, "worse things have happened to better people."I stop feeling sorry for myself when I see those bald six-year-olds on the commercials for children's hospitals and pediatric cancer research. At the present, I've had 29 years to be a fuck up, to fall in love, to sire an heir, and to devote way to many hours of my life to video games and way, way, way too many hours of my life to music. Over the next few months I plan on turning this tale into a graphic novel as a coping mechanism, and I can't wait to chronicle the radioactive iodine therapy because as far as I know, no one has ever written about that in a literary fashion and a title like "Radioactive Dad" is too good not to use. It's been embarassing to tell people about this, I don't know why. Calling my mom to tell her was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. It's so much easier to dump it here in a blog post. The whole, sordid tale of how sometimes, even though they say you should never, ever diagnose yourself via the interent, you can scare yourself enough to take action and get weird shit checked out. Check your lumps, people. It's worth a $30 copay to find out whether or not your body is plotting against you.

Naturally, I wouldn't be a proper music junkie if I hadn't already started cobbling together a mix for this terrible journey. But I've got one I've been playing on repeat like a call to arms:

28 Days of Christmas: Frightened Rabbit - "Boxing Night"

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! Now here's some beautiful Scottish glumness for those who celebrate Boxing Day!

28 Days of Christmas: The Pogues - "Fairytale of New York"

Name a better, more affecting Christmas song and I'll give you a dollar. Seriously, go on, do it. I dare you. Life ain't always sleighbells and reindeer. It's messy and dirty and frequently beautiful and full of joy in the darkest places. Merry Christmas everyone!

Bonus! Because it's Christmas here's the No Use for a Name cover, which introduced me to the song many years ago. Tony Sly duets with Cinder Block from Tilt and it's so so so so so great (and has more muted power chords).

28 Days of Christmas: Low - "Just Like Christmas"

Low may be best known for their gorgeous, moody slowcore, but when they add the sleighbells and up the tempo for the standout track from their Christmas album, it's just pure Christmas magic. Though it doesn't cover your traditional Christmas fare (the last line of the first verse is, after all, "It wasn't like Christmas at all") it captures the essence of the season perfectly.

My Favorite Albums of 2014

2014 was an year with an overwhelming amount of good music, but getting down to it, and thinking of the albums I truly devoured this year, it feels like I’m forcing it a bit. I started with 30, then 25, then down to 20. Now it’s down to 15 and I’m thinking, “Do I really need to put those extra five records on a list is constructed purely for my own personal enjoyment? This isn’t Pitchfork or Rolling Stone, but a survey of one nerd’s habits. In putting together this list I realize how set in my ways I am, and how that is never going to change. All I did this year was watch the baby, not sleep, work, and drive. That’s it. Pete Holmes’ “You Made it Weird” podcast replaced music in the car, and I don’t know where I found the time to listen to records. Some of the quieter ones I listened to when I was staying up all night and Rosie was sleeping on my chest, but most of these I squeezed in when I was doing the morning deposit at work or whatever.

2014 was a year where it was easy to make a Best Of list and hard to make a My Favorite list. There was a great amount of innovation to be had this past year, but then, when isn’t there great innovation? We got to see artists take their crafts to new heights (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Owen Pallett, Mac DeMarco) and workmanlike lifers contribute rock solid records to their already rock solid catalogues (TV on the Radio, Fucked Up. I listened to way more rap than I have ever listened to, but entirely shunned anything remotely electronic. It was a year of listening to great songs, sneaking them in whenever I had a free moment (of which there were very few). I spent more time listening to Crooked Fingers’ complete discography than any one record this year. And now the list feels exhausted at this point, as these are the fifteen albums I listened to the most, pretty much in order. And I just cut it down to Top 10 because that feels right.

Despite only listing ten albums, I gushed over many, many more that made the Best of 2014 tag. Tons of good stuff this year, but then again, there's tons of good stuff every year. 

10. Open Mike Eagle – Dark Comedy

So much wit. So much wisdom. Open Mike Eagle’s gift is sharing a worldview that very much lines up with this album’s title. It never feels like joke rap, even when he enlists a professional comedian (Hannibal Burress) on one of the album’s best tracks (“Doug Stamper (Advice Raps)”).

9. Cloud Nothings – Here and Nowhere Else

 

Goddamn it’s wonderful to hear a band with such an affinity for pummeling its audience with guitars. Dylan Baldi’s best record to date (because of course, as his back catalog is nothing but great records smothered by greater record) does an excellent job of never letting you off the hook. It’s impossible to skip a track, and at 30 minutes it’s nothing but pure, unfiltered indie rock played at blistering volume. Lines are repeated over and over and while I usually give shit to bands content to repeat chorus after chorus to make a mainstream radio single five minutes long, Baldi finds a way to use repetition as a way of ramping up intensity.

8. Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire for No Witness

Burn Your Fire for No Witness plays like a bonfire at 4am. Everyone has either gone home, or they’re all still sitting there getting high or drinking or smoking cigarettes, maybe occasionally looking over at the fire and being surprised that it’s still burning. It’s a smoldering record. There’s really no better word for it. Full of white hot intensity that sneaks up on you, listen after listen, firmly affixing itself as a staple in your go-to records for years to come.

7. Frontier Ruckus – Sitcom Afterlife

Not content to rest on their laurels after releasing last year’s sprawling epic Eternity of Dimming, Matthew Milia and crew return with a terrific follow up no one asked them to deliver on such a short turn around. And by no one, I mean HOW DOES NO ONE KNOW ABOUT THIS BAND?! It baffles my mind. Even on short rest, Frontier Ruckus found a way to push their sound into new, poppier terrain and maintain the standard of quality in the magnificently detailed songwriting that is right up there with the John Darnielles and the John K Samsons of the world.

6. Sturgill Simpson – Metamodern Sounds in Country Music

I don’t know if there’s a better example of an artist coming to grips with his craft than Sturgill Simpson’s sophomore album. It’s an outlaw country record displaced from time. Some of it is straightforward (“Life of Sin” and “Living the Dream”), some of it is out there (“Turtles All the Way Down”) and some of it is savant (Simpson’s cover of When in Rome’s “The Promise” breaks the song in half, turns it into this song that slow burns and slow burns and slow burns until he cracks it right open at the very end and it’s one of my favorite musical moments of the year). It’s a record for everyone who says they listen to “anything but country” (and if they aren’t believers after this one, then fuck those people, because Sturgill Simpson is the real goddamn deal).

5. Cymbals Eat Guitars – LOSE

Cymbals Eat Guitars third album is erratic in the best possible sense. You can glean the whole scope of the universe CEG have crafted in the lovely, epic opener “Jackson,” which drifts from a dialed-back slow-burner to a big, clattering cacophony to wailing guitar solo over six minutes. It’s a mighty hook, and the rest of the album manages to slip around the entire spectrum of indie rock while keeping its claws firmly implanted in your person. It’s an unassuming classic, and my favorite pleasant surprise in a year of pleasant surprises.

4. Cheap Girls – Famous Graves

Famous Graves is immediately satisfying. It’s a record so good the bonus track would have been a lesser band’s lead single. There were more innovative albums released this year, but none of those albums were my car stereo’s designated hitter i.e. the album I love so much I burn to a CD-R and flip to whenever I don’t want to put on a podcast. It’s a great honor; it really is, in my little car world. As a result, I listened to Famous Graves an insane amount of times considering this was a year when I had so little time to listen to albums all the way through. The album is a reminder that not everything has to blow your dick off to be great.

3. Sun Kil Moon – Benji

Despite its depressing nature (not one, but two of Kozalek’s relatives die via exploding aerosol cans in front lawn garbage fires), Benji is firmly associated with the sweetest time of my life. I got a month of paid paternity leave when Rosie was born, and I spent a lot of that time staying up til 6AM with her sleeping soundly on my chest. It was the only way. To pass the time, I played FTL on the iPad and listened to the quietest music I could find so as to not wake the baby. I would listen to Benji at least twice a night, and each and every time I found something new to love. It’s nothing but heartbreak (with a little levity in the end with “Ben’s My Friend”) but through all that pain there’s a record that feels like a living, breathing representation of the human condition.

2. The Hotelier – Home, Like Noplace is There

This is album stayed on my iPhone (in its entirety) the longest this year. It became a go to when I wanted the capital A Album experience. It’s a big, emo-fueled (in the best way) concept album about loss and heartbreak and putting everything back together again. It’s an album made up of a series of intense moments. Of dramatic vocal turns, big builds, bigger drum crashes, and straight-outta-the-diary heart-on-sleeve confessional lyrics that are so sincere you almost feel uncomfortable looking that deeply into someone’s soul.

1. Andrew Jackson Jihad – Christmas Island

When it comes down to it, the most important trait a songwriter can have is conviction. Sure, there were a lot more beautifully arranged and technically competent records released in 2014, but Sean Bonnette is like the football player who, while not as physically built for the game as other players, makes up for it in heart and determination. During the album’s most heartwrenching and outwardly gorgeous track—“Linda Ronstadt”—Bonnette sings “I think I like my pretty pretty ugly,” and I keep coming back to that sentiment every time I listen to this record. It sounds like it was recorded in a dumpster, it is frequently ugly sounding and raw and rough, and it is the most exciting, emotionally satisfying, and soulful record I had the privilege of listening to this year.

28 Days of Christmas: Blink-182 - "I Won't Be Home For Christmas"

I must have made half a dozen Christmas mixes in my teenage years, and every year, this song was track one. When you get down to the brass tacks of punk rock Christmas songs, you go back to the Ramones "Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)" but I think it ends with "I Won't Be Home For Christmas." Because why would any other punk band bother, you know? For all the misgivings folks have about Blink-182 (the crass behavior, the lewd lyrics, the proto-broness) it's undeniable that the band operated from a place of pure joy. I never tried to hide the fact that Blink-182 was the reason I got into punk rock. In 2002, it was impossible to pretend. They brought the genre into the mainstream for the first time since Green Day and there you go. I don't like their music as much as I used to, but holy hell, this song never gets old. 

28 Days of Christmas: The Vandals - "Oi to the World"

It's hard to think of a better song that captures the "Goodwill Toward Men" part of the Christmas Spirit. Of all the songs on this list, I feel like "Oi to the World" is the only one I hear and confuse for an actual traditional Christmas song (which, in all fairness, it should be given the same treatment as your "Silent Night"s and your "Hark the Herald Angels Sing"s).

28 Days of Christmas: My Chemical Romance - "All I Want for Christmas is You"

I'm the kind of person who would say "I don't believe in guilty pleasures" and immediately turn around and say My Chemical Romance is a guilty pleasure of mine. And I'm OK with that, because on a human level I know I contradict myself on a regular basis and I have no good words to explain the way I find My Chemical Romance both fiercely annoying and capable of writing some absolutely brilliant earworms and doing it with panache. It's complicated. One thing I won't do is call Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" a guilty pleasure, because it's second only to "Last Christmas" in my hierarchy of Ian's Favorite Christmas Songs. It's kind of an embarrassing song, and I admire how MCR just totally go for it. The results are a mess, but it's got so much energy and conviction that it's easy to overlook the clutter.

My Favorite Songs of 2014: Part Two

It was definitely Songs > Albums this year. Mostly because I just didn't have time to get too invested in more than a handful of albums (more on that next week, or after Christmas, or whenever I can sneak away from Dad Duty to write up the list) and relied a lot on "Siri, Shuffle Songs." These were my favorites (obviously).

25. Sun Kil Moon – “Carissa” (Benji)

Just listen to Benji, ok? I don’t care if you think it’ll make you sad, it’s one of the purest depictions of the human experience you’ll find anywhere. It wasn’t my favorite record of the year, but it was the best album of the year.

24. TV on the Radio – “Careful You” (Seeds)

TV on the Radio got flak for Seeds being just regular great. Pff, this record was outstanding, which is really the expectation when it comes to a band as innovative and badass as TVOTR, but even the people who were like “ITS NOT AS GOOD AS RETURN TO COOKIE MOUNTAIN” gotta admit “Careful You” is the motherfucking jam.

23. Conor Oberst – “Time Forgot” (Upside Down Mountain)

Conor Oberst, doing what he do, aging like wine. And not Trader Joes wine either! Like, good wine. I used to think Oberst peaked with Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, but now I don’t even know anymore. “Time Forgot” is another beautiful gem from someone who might prove to be his era’s Dylan. 

22. The Menzingers – “In Remission” (Rented World)

No other song this year made me want to pump my fist in the air as hard as this song. Give it a whirl and try to keep your fists balled up at your sides. I dare you.

21. Mac DeMarco – “Let Her Go” (Salad Days)

If people thought Mac DeMarco was some sort of goofy idiot before Salad Days, well, actually, people might still think he’s a goofy idiot. I still think of him as a sort of idiot savant. A poet in clown shoes. And that can hardly be an insult because whatever he’s doing, it’s obviously working. “Let Her Go” is so addictive, and a beautiful contrast to all the “I gotta get her back!” songs flooding the sad rock dude landscape. God, that slack guitar is the most comforting thing in the world right now.

20. Spoon – “Inside Out” (They Want My Soul)

“Inside Out” is a technical masterpiece. Go listen to the episode of the Song Exploder podcast where Jim Eno talks about how they put this one together. It’s fascinating. It’s like finding out you can manufacture true love in a lab or something. Making one of the more seductive, intriguing tracks out of studio magic.

19. The War on Drugs – “Burning” (Lost in the Dream)

The War on Drugs live on feelings we’ve already had for other bands and they barely even bother to retool it for the modern era. The point is we always crave big anthems meant to be blared from American cars blitzing down two lane highways in the middle of the night. Essentially, the War on Drugs are doing for Springsteen-esque anthem music what Fleet Foxes did for Appalacian folk a few years back: nothing new, but who gives a shit it’s really fucking good. Whenever I had to drive home from work late and my podcast ended a couple miles from home, I would say “Siri, play Burning by the War on Drugs.” And then Siri would get confused because that technology is straight fucked and doesn’t work, so I’d pull over, find “Burning” and put it on repeat to guide me home. I’ve still got complicated feelings for Lost in the Dream, but the one thing I can’t deny is that it’s an immensely satisfying record and that is honestly the only thing that matters. Fuck hierarchy or whether or not it’s contributing anything new to the sonic landscape. This is the shit you crave.

18. The New Pornographers – “Brill Bruisers” (Brill Bruisers)

Carl Newman operating at a high level, as usual. It’s all very nuts and bolts. It’s what you expect from the New Pornos, and it’s like getting my favorite dish from my favorite restaurant: a total fucking pleasure.

17. Frontier Ruckus – “A&W Orange and Brown” (Sitcom Afterlife)

I think I’m drawn to “A&W Orange and brown” over the other, more single-y tracks from Sitcom Afterlife because it’s the closest thing to the long-form storytelling that made Eternity of Dimming my favorite record of 2013. I don’t think I was ready for a new one, so I was a little off guard and maybe I’m defaulting to my comfort zone (note: I love the record, as you’ll see when I release my favorite albums list next week) but good lord this track is so good. I find myself whistling its melody, worshipping those newfound boy-girl harmonies, and trying to keep back my bafflement that this band isn’t more beloved.

16. Aaron Freeman – “Covert Discretion” (Freeman)

In case you wanted to know why Ween broke up, Gener went and gave you the answer on his first proper solo record. It’s a brutally honest tale of rock and roll dreams gone awry, and a man coming to terms with crushing that dream to break the cycle of addiction that only ends in death. “Fuck you all, I gotta reason to live and I’m never gonna die,” he sings to…well, everyone.

15. Bob Mould – “The War” (Beauty & Ruin)

If it’s still up, listen to Bob Mould’s episode of the WTF podcast. Not only is it a fascinating look into the guy’s life, but he plays an acoustic version of this track at the end and I was rapt. It got me to give Beauty & Ruin a thorough spin, and further deepened his status as one of my idols. I feel like his power chords are the Rosetta Stone for decoding the sonic touchstones in my life. Or maybe the tone of those chords is my spirit animal. Either way, there is something about them, then and now, that resonates down to the very center of my being.

14. Cloud Nothings – “I’m Not Part of Me” (Here and Nowhere Else)

Cloud Nothings was one of the only bands I saw live this year, and I thought the band seemed burnt out. But when they played this song, through their touring haze, it was still electric. It’s a track that possesses both immediacy and a tremendous amount of depth in its franticly chiming power chords, repeated lines, thundering drums, thumping bass, and howling vocals. It feels like true catharsis all the way through.

13. Perfume Genius – “Queen” (Too Bright)

Mark Hadreas is no stranger to these lists. At this point, whenever I see that there’s a new Perfume Genius record coming out I pencil it in to my best of. It’s not surprising that he keeps getting better and more inventive on each successive album. It’s the status quo. For someone who’s first record was just him and a piano and a fistful of the most heartbreaking songs you’ve ever heard, the sonic prowess of “Queen” is a revelation. It’s one of the most gripping tracks of the year.

12. La Dispute – “For Mayor of Splitsville (Rooms of the House)

This song feels like getting punched in the face for three and a half minutes. The guitars stab at you, the singer yells at you, it’s a pummeling. And the centerpiece from an emotionally exhausting concept album. It’s knotty and a little voyeuristic feeling as you stare in at a whole bunch of human wreckage. Who needs weapons when you can hurl around pointed lines like, “I’d rather run for mayor of Splitsville/ Than suffer your jokes again.”  

11. Sturgill Simpson – “Turtles All the Way Down” (Metamodern Sounds in Country Music)

On the surface, Sturgill Simpson might sound like an outlaw country revivalist with vocal cords made of solid gold, but the introspective, metaphysical, and psychedelic content of  “Turtles All the Way Down” sets the table for one of the year’s best deepest records. 

10. Angel Olsen – “Forgiven/Forgotten” (Burn Your Fire for No Witness)

Burn Your Fire for No Witness earns its keep in the top ten records of 2014 with it’s more smoldering moments, but the fuzzy crunch of the guitars on the brisk “Forgiven/Forgotten” is the album’s most accessible track. The hook. The brief sampling that leads you down the rabbit hole into one of the most devastating records of the year.

9. The Hotelier – “The Scope of All This Rebuilding” (Home, Like Noplace is There)

Home, Like Noplace is There is the emo revival record of the year. God, that’s gonna sound so stupid in two years. It already sounds stupid, “emo revival.” But I got no better words. This is powerful shit. “The Scope and All This Rebuilding” is the most dynamic track, and the one that cracks the album wide open and lays bare all the heavy shit inside. There are heavier moments and deeper truths within the album’s quieter moments, but even those are connected to this one

8. Against Me! – “Black Me Out” (Transgender Dysphoria Blues)

It’s really sort of a shame that Laura Jane Grace’s transitioning overshadows how fucking great that new Against Me! record is. When the anarcho-punk heroes signed to a major label and released two radio-ready mainstream rock records, it was safe to assume they were gone forever. “Black Me Out” functions as both a brilliant/brutal fuck you to the major labels (“I wanna piss on the walls of your house/ I wanna chop those brass rings off your fat fingers/ As if you were kingmaker”) and dovetails nicely with the album’s titular theme.

7. Cheap Girls – “7-8 Years” (Famous Graves)

Famous Graves is a remarkably solid indie rock record. No frills, ham and egger dude jams with killer hooks. I could have picked any song from this record, but the bonus track "7-8 Years" is the one I was humming to myself all year. Something in that line "I spent all of my money on this Vizio TV" gets me. That detail. Plus the chorus "So kick me in the kidneys really hard/ I'm gonna write my name in blood in the backyard" is just fantastic. This was actually the first Cheap Girls song I heard, because my track listing was accidentally reversed on iTunes. I thought "Damn, what a great opening track" only to realize it wasn't even technically on the album. But I've always admired bands whose b-sides are better than most bands' album stuff, so there you go. 

6. Andrew Jackson Jihad – “Temple Grandin” (Christmas Island)

There’s no greater opening line than “Open up your murder eyes and see the ugly world that spat you out.” Thus begins one of the year’s most thoughtful, odd, ugly, and awesome records. I had to narrow AJJ’s contribution to this list down from about seven tracks off of Christmas Island and only settled on “Temple Grandin” because it serves as a sort of thesis statement. On the songwriting front this year, amidst so many amazing contenders, Sean Bonnette’s heart was the purest.

5. Courtney Barnett – “Avant Gardener” (The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas)

“Avant Gardener” is of the more fun and inventive story songs I’ve heard in a while. A tale of getting off of one’s ass, getting back to nature and…having this new life in gardening cut short by a severe allergic reaction. The chilled out slacker vibe of Barnett’s blend of indie rock and the refrain of “I’m having trouble breathing in” maybe makes this the ultimate anthem for one’s mid-twenties. Ace. Also, I’m totally aware this is a track from 2013, but I think it’s that goddamn good it transcends “years.”

4. Open Mike Eagle – “Doug Stamper (Advice Raps)” (Dark Comedy)

The dark sense of humor on the aptly titled Dark Comedy is glorious. Open Mike Eagle enlists his buddy (and one of the greatest comics of our day) Hannibal Burress to craft a hilarious and self-aware piece of rap commentary.

3. Cymbals Eat Guitars – “Jackson” (LOSE)

My favorite thing about “Jackson” is that you feel like you’re in the backseat of the car where this song takes place. There’s this easy going lullabye quality to the song that perfectly captures a car ride, but then somehow turns into one of the biggest songs I heard all year. It morphs into a beautiful cacophony of guitars, the likes of which are rare on an increasingly electronic landscape. Also, the punch that comes at the end of the line “a delirious…KISS” is maybe my favorite moment on any song this year.

2. Mikal Cronin – “I Don’t Mind” (Polyvinyl 4-Track Singles Series)

Sometimes the greatest songs get cast out into the void via weird little singles series. Mikal Cronin’s Mcii was a big miss on my part from 2013, but I spent the majority of the warm months blasting it from my car stereo and on the deck. And yet, I’d be the first to cop to listing Cronin so high as a means of righting that wrong, but I’m not. This song somehow landed in my iTunes and after hearing it once (on shuffle, of course) I took it with me wherever I go. It’s as majestic as majestic pop bliss gets, and recorded on a 4-track no less! Cronin is an alchemist, a wizard, a scholar, and a brilliant tunesmith and I can’t wait for his next record.

1. The Hold Steady – “Oaks” (Teeth Dreams)

The Hold Steady have built their empire chronicling the life and times of party people. There have been massive nights, party pits, and killer parties. Sometimes people end up in chillout tents or (in the case of Hallelujah, the protagonist of their masterpiece Separation Sunday) going through the ringer and coming through to the other side a little bit broken but still mostly in tact. Teeth Dreams epic closer “Oaks” plays like the dark reality of the kids on the corners and the hoodrat chicks. It’s a tragic portrait of junkies adrift, culminating in a metaphor involving a mountain of trees turning to smoke aided by a colossal, mournful guitar riff punctuating the heartbreak.

28 Days of Christmas: Mark Kozelek - Sings Christmas Carols

Mark Kozelek has had a busy year. He released one of the year's most absolutely unfuckwithable albums in Benji (as Sun Kil Moon), started a feud with the War on Drugs that has devolved into something, strangely, both personal and parodic, released a few live records and capped everything off with an album of Christmas standards. Because, you know, why not? Mark Kozelek's Sings Christmas Carols features traditional fare like "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "Away in a Manger," croony gems like "The Christmas Song" and "Christmastime is Here," and a cover of the Pretenders' "2000 Miles" that makes it sound like he was always meant to sing that song. Some of the more standard tunes feel a little rushed through so as to check off a list, and they're fine and all, but when he gets to sink his teeth in and make certain songs his own (Greg Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas" is spun directly into Kozelek's wheelhouse) it's magic. If you like your Christmas songs hushed, gorgeous, and slightly depressive, this is the album for you. Sings Christmas Carols is a palate cleanser for all the stupid "War on Drugs Can Suck My Cock" business and a reminder that few artists are as expressive with an acoustic guitar than Mr. Kozelek.