Top 10 Songs of 2014 According to Laut.de

For those not familiar with the concept: I am in the middle of retrospectively compiling my top ten songs of each year of the 2010s. Afterwards, I compare it to the top ten picks of three very different publications: Rolling Stone, Laut.de, and Complex. Rolling Stone is probably the biggest music magazine worldwide and focuses on mainstream opinions. Laut.de is a well-known German music critic website that claims to have good taste in music. Complex is a former magazine, now website, that focuses on youth culture and music and writes their lists subjectively.

So, what is there to say about what Laut.de picked for their 2014 list?

First of all: their number one is from an Austrian band that's specifically famous in their home country, not even in Germany. I am not sure how they discovered it, but I like that group, so points for that.

But Laut.de also did something that, out of the three magazines/websites I'm comparing, usually only Rolling Stone does - something I didn't expect from a website that usually does not care at all about success or hype. They included a song that's originally from 2013 but became a hit in 2014. Their number two song also ranks in my personal top ten - but in that of 2013, which is still in development.

I also like their number ten. This is by a German rapper who is heavily polarizing. Some call him the worst rapper of all time. Others hail him as a great artist of the decade. The main reasons are his extremely prominent accent, the fact that he doesn't speak proper German, and that his topics are almost entirely drug-trafficking related.

The thing is: while this sounds very bewildering at first, it's 100% authentic. This guy is not someone who plays the role of someone living a street lifestyle like many other (and even lyrically better) rappers do. He really comes from the lower class and actually dealt with drugs. His language is that of migrants in poor districts, many of whom are badly educated.

In their early reviews, Laut.de harshly panned him, thinking of him as just another gimmicky thug rapper with no lyrical ability whatsoever, and even wrote a one-star review about him. But then suddenly, for no apparent reason, they changed their mind and awarded his 2014 album a full five stars (something they rarely do).

As much as I hate Laut.de's attitude of hatefully bashing everything remotely mainstream-oriented, the inclusion of this song shows that sometimes they themselves realize they didn't listen close enough.

Their number three on the list is fine, too, but the rest isn't really my personal style. These songs probably have redeeming musical qualities, but they fall outside of my territory.

Source: http://www.laut.de/News/Best-Of-2014-Die-Songs-des-Jahres-08-12-2014-11041/Seite-16, Created on 2/7/2018

The Top Ten

Bologna - Wanda