Welcome to Day 7 here of Listmas ’14. Thanks for reading this week, and all year long with Ranting About Music! If you want to check out the rest of Listmas, links to everything are at the bottom. There might be a new Radio Rant or one-off review from this year I missed going up soon, but this is more or less the end of new coverage until January. It’s been fun everyone. Thanks for reading again!

Albums That Weren’t Favorites But I Quite Liked Anyway (“Favorite Album” Honorable Mentions):
YG – My Krazy Life
Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties – We Don’t Have Each Other
Gerard Way – Hesitant Alien
The Smashing Pumpkins – Monuments to an Elegy
Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2
Weird Al – Mandatory Fun

Albums Most Hurt By Being Released in the Middle of December When We’ve All Stopped Paying Attention
Nicki Minaj – The Pinkprint
Charli XCX – Sucker

Album I Kept Meaning to Listen to, but Never Got Around To: The War on Drugs – Lost in the Dream

Album I Couldn’t Get Into Because the Artist Spent the Year Acting Like an Asshole: Sun Kil Moon – Benji.

Album I Could Get Into Despite the Artist Spending the Year Acting Like an Asshole: Azealia Banks – Broke With Expensive Taste, Thurston Moore – The Best Day

Most Underrated Album: Gerard Way – Hesitant Alien. Way made an album of glammy alternative rock that’s a little weirder and a lot more likeable than anything he ever did with MCR. That this got slept on by just about everyone’s a damn shame.

Most Overrated Album: Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2. Don’t get me wrong, I love this thing, but I know full well we’re still on the post-release hype train. I doubt it would get as many accolades with an earlier release date.

“Sleeper” Album of the Year: Sharon Van Etten – Are We There. This thing’s a fall album that had a spring release date.

Least Essential Album of the Year: Maroon 5 – V

Pop-Punk Album Power Rankings
5. Fireworks – Oh Common Life
4. Modern Baseball – You’re Gonna Miss It All
3. Candy Hearts – All The Ways You Let Me Down
2. Joyce Manor – Never Hungover Again
1. The Hoteliers – Home, Like Noplace There Is

Favorite Hot 100 Songs That Didn’t Make the Year End Chart
Childish Gambino – “3005”
Big Sean ft. E-40 – “I Don’t Fuck With You”
Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars – “Uptown Funk” (next year, baby)

Pop Honorable Nominees (Best Hits Considerations)
Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea – “Problem”
Lorde – “Team”
KONGOS – “Come With Me Now”
5 Seconds of Summer – “She Looks So Perfect”
Nicki Minaj – “Anaconda”

Pop Dishonorable Nominees (Worst Hits Consideration)
Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX – “Fancy”
5 Seconds of Summer “Amnesia”
Chris Brown ft. Usher and Rick Ross – “New Flame”
Maroon 5 – “Animals”
Jason Aldean – “Burnin’ It Down”

Best #1 Hit: Meghan Trainor – “All About That Bass” (¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Worst #1 Hit: MAGIC! – “Rude” (yuck)

Most Boring #1 Hit: Pharrell – “Happy”

Respected But Not Liked #1 Hit: Taylor Swift – “Blank Space”

Pop Career Whose Grave I Was Ready to Dance On and Then Fucking “Animals” Happened: Maroon 5. V wasn’t awful numbers-wise, but “Maps” and initially “Animals” failed to catch on. The latter’s latent ascension is proving me wrong, though.

Pop Career I’m Most Curious For in 2015: Charli XCX. Come on, y’all, let’s make this happen. I don’t want to sit through a year of Iggy Azalea verses.

And, Introducing Ranting About Music’s Resident Intern
This is Cinder, guys. He used to chill out in the living room of my old place, but now that I moved, he sits with the CDs and stereo on my desk. His duties include DJing, running social media, and answering the mail. He also likes hats. Refuses to get my coffee, though.

Listmas 2014
December 16th: Worst Hits of the Year (10-6)
December 17th: Worst Hits of the Year (5-1)
December 18th: Best Hits of the Year (10-6)
December 19th: Best Hits of the Year (5-1)
December 20th: Favorite Albums of the Year
December 21st: The Gibby Fifty: 50 Favorite Songs
December 22nd: Odds and Ends