Chromeo, Cut Copy and Flume perform at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Aug. 5, 2014. Photo by Dylan Langille, heyreverb.com.
As Reverb looks back at the the albums, songs and shows that defined 2014, we wanted to take a moment to step away from our headphones to recall the happenings of the music world that shaped our Colorado music scene this year.
We’ve gone through our archives to find the biggest Colorado music news stories of 2014 that have fundamentally changed the local scene and even moved into the national conversation. For good or bad, these are the stories that shaped Colorado in 2014:
10) Major local album releases
While Colorado artists are releasing music every day, a few local acts released music that either put them in the national spotlight or helped brighten their already growing careers.
Denver favorite, Nathaniel Rateliff, released his sophomore solo album, “Falling Faster Than You Can Run.” , Rateliff released his new album on a temporary label before he signed a record deal with Concord Music Group, who will release his next four albums — including the Night Sweats.
Along with a national tour and a stint opening for HAIM, Tennis released its third album, “Ritual In Repeat” with the help of some big name producers: Patrick Carney (The Black Keys), Jim Eno (Spoon) and Richard Swift (The Shins). We spent some time with the indie-pop duo before they went out on tour, and to write the album.
After a four-year hiatus since its last proper album, emerging Denver hip-hop act, Air Dubai, released “Be Calm,” its first album on L.A.-based label, Hopeless Records. As we wrote in our “Air Dubai occupies a rare space not just in Denver but nationally. The band’s sound isn’t abrasive enough to stand comfortably next to many punk or garage-rock acts — even if that’s where a lot of its fans come from — but not so smooth that its music would fade into the background of the average car commercial.”
Other big releases of 2014 included albums from the Fray, Itchy-O and Ark Life.
No. 9 biggest Colorado music news story: Jack White >>
