Guest List Week 2014: Gina's Top 25

It's the triumphant return of Guest List Week!  Every day from now until I run out of lists, we'll take a look at 2014 through the eyes of people who are not me.  (My list, if you missed it, is here).  I'm lucky that my friends have such uniformly exquisite taste in music. 

Kicking off Week Two, it's Gina Uriarte!  Check out Gina's 2013 list here, or keep reading for the 2014 magic.

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I wasn't going to do a guest list this year for a few reasons:

1) I'm still stuck in 2013 and "Rage" remains at the top of my heavy rotation playlist

2) Before even putting pen to paper (or, actually, fingers to keyboard), I was worried that my list would basically just be Taylor Swift's 1989, but with the songs in a different order than they actually appear on the album.

3) It's really hard to rank favorite songs. Even just five or ten. I can't imagine the poor soul who would try to come up with 100 - though I do admire the effort greatly.

Then I found myself car dancing to Walk the Moon's "Shut Up and Dance" on my commute home tonight and I realized that there was more to 2014 than Taylor Swift. 

So here are, in no particular order, 25 songs that I loved this year almost as much as "Blank Space."

1. "Shut Up and Dance" by Walk the Moon
2. "I Won't Let You Down" by Ok Go (let's be honest, this is as much for the video as it is the track)
3. "Dead Air" by CHVRCHES (preaching to the choir with this one, pun intended)
4. "Stolen Dance" by Milky Chance
5. "Don't Tell" by Mansions on the Moon
6. "Go Slow" by Lenachka
7. "Dreamers" (Dan Dan Noodle remix) by Scavenger Hunt (I could have used the original but how do you not type "Dan Dan Noodle" when you have the option?)
8. "Young Hearts" by Strange Talk (or substitute this with pretty much any song on the Cast Away album, I love them all equally)
9. "Seasons (Waiting on You)" by Future Islands
10. "Calling Out" by Penguin Prison
11. "You're Still a Mystery" by Bleachers (because there's more to this awesome album than just "I Wanna Get Better" and "Rollercoaster") (just kidding, I take it back, use "I Wanna Get Better.") (No, actually use "Roallercoaster")
12. "Left Hand Free" by alt-J
13. "Free & Lonely" by X Ambassadors
14. "Riptide" by Vance Joy
15. "Break the Rules" by Charli XCX
16. "Bad Habit" by The Kooks
17. "Rocking Chair" by The Districts
18. "Cardiac Arrest" by Bad Suns
19. "Thousand Miles" by Tove Lo
20. "Coattails" by Broods
21. "Waves" by Magic Man
22. "All of the People" by Panama Wedding
23. "Play the Fool" by Chromeo
24. "Where the Kids Are" by Blondfire
25. "Kiss and Not Tell" by La Roux

Honorable mention that should have been on my 2013 list but I didn't discover them until Outside Lands this year - "You & Me" by Flume