World Cafe 30th Anniversary Playlist: 2014

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of World Cafe, we're looking back and posting playlists from each year of the show. As music has evolved over the years, so have our playlists, which have grown to reflect a much wider range of music than when we first set out.

When we set out to discuss the best music for 2014, there was consensus among Cafe hosts: 2014 was a really good year — maybe even a great year — in music. Some of the highlights included Hozier's breakthrough debut hit, "Take Me To Church," Spoon's They Want My Soul, Hurray For The Riff Raff's Small Town Heroes, St. Vincent's self-titled album and Lana Del Rey's Ultraviolence.

Other albums of note: The War On Drugs came through with the stunning Lost In The Dream, Sharon Van Etten released the beautiful Are We There, Jenny Lewis released her excellent album, The Voyager, D'Angelo ended a 14-year hiatus when he released Black Messiah, we were introduced to Sam Smith, and we swooned over Taylor's 1989.

Copyright 2022 XPN. To see more, visit XPN.