It's the end of the year, everybody has list fatigue, everybody's fatigued of how much everyone talks about list fatigue and so on and so forth until merrily we blah into the new year. Nonetheless, as someone who ostensibly gives a shit about music, I have the ovaries to admit that *maybe* I missed something this year, some incredible artist whose work I ignored because I hated their name or album cover. Music journalists are loath to admit they came late to the party, but let's run down three tracks that flew way under my radar in 2014, from the divisive and confrontational waters of three different year-end "best of" lists.

So predictable it hurts: vaguely "psych," cool-dude falsetto, meaningless lyrics, wimpy little guitar lines that pretend they're sorta funky but aren't... and yet, damn. This is a catchy little number, bobbing along like a beach ball in the surf into the most miniature of crescendos. Are all you indie people into Pure X and not telling the rest of us? Via Livejournalist-turned-music-crit hotspot Tiny Mix Tapes.

Chance the Rapper's less well known but equally ambitious, troublemaking, ladies-love-him partner in crime Vic Mensa takes a sultry, neon-lit house tune and raps his ass off over it in one of the more daring and well-executed genre experiments of the year. This tune got some much-deserved love on wishes-it-were-GQ-and-XXL-combined Complex.

This is pretty much a Speak & Spell reading livid Youtube comments about John Cage, laid over a groaning, industrial-minimalist soundscape. Roll your eyes if you must but it's a damn masterpiece. Courtesy of esoteric-because-why-not UK weirdos Fact.