We had massive tours of the United States for The Script, Hozier, and Imelda May, while 2014 was a ripper year in Australia for James Vincent McMorrow, Kodaline, and Glen Hansard.
But how do you find out which bands are the best? We’ve gone for online views as a marker and trawled through YouTube, Vevo and official band sites to find the top ten Irish bands of the year.
We were stunned to find U2 only came in at number three, while the the number one video had five times more views! And no it’s not Hozier either!
So here they are the top ten Irish bands of 2014. Enjoy!
#10: Delorentos (12k)
"Show Me Love" is the lead single from their spanking new album and comes with a fantastically bizarre video!! We loved both.
#9: Coronas (151k)
The Corona’s kicked off the year with a four-city Australia tour and on returning headed straight to the studio to record their new album which was pretty much a “f*** you” tribute to Danny’s ex-girlfriend. The lead single "All the Others" is Irish rock at it’s most polished.
#8 Riptide Movement (265k)
Absolute bangin’ year for Riptide Movement when "All Works Out" was selected by Bord Failte as the soundtrack to their 2014 tourism campaign. It ended up becoming the soundtrack tune of the summer!
#7 The Strypes (409k)
While still relatively low-profile in Ireland, these Cavan teenagers are making a big name internationally. They’ve toured everywhere from Australia to the United States, where their stint on “The Late Show” with David Letterman" got the 219k YouTube views. However, it’s their upload from Feb ’14 which got the most views of the year. Turn it up LOUD for "Hard to Say No."
#6 Sinead O’Connor (663k)
Sinead re-launched her career with a new look that shocked everyone by going from nun to nympho. But she’s still very involved religiously with this hit "Take Me to Church."
#5 Damien Rice (1.9m)
Into the big hitters with over one million views starting with Damien Rice who also came back with a new album this year and a number of instantly sold-out dates across the US and Canada. His lead track "I Don’t Want To Change You" has clocked almost 2 million views in just three months.
#4 Kodaline (2.7m)
Amazing year for the Swords, County Dublin, boys, kicking off with a successful Australian tour. They also recorded a new album to be released this spring and wrapped up the year headlining Dublin’s New Year's Eve gig in College Green. Their current "Perfect World" album was rarely off the radio and this song – "One Day" – pulled in nearly 3 million views since it was uploaded last January.
#3 U2 (4.5m)
No surprise to see U2 pulling big numbers near the top of the chart. However, nothing like the number of people who viewed our number 2 and number 1 Irish bands. Bono and Co. had two videos of note, both from "The Tonight Show" with Jimmy Fallon. The first was an iconic performance of "Invisible" on the roof of New York’s Rockefeller Center and the second, with twice as many views, was Bono and The Edge singing "Ordinary Love" on the "Tonight Show" couch.
#2 Hozier (6.2m)
Undoubtedly the big success story of 2014. The story is that one night Hozier uploaded this video from his attic and before he went to bed it had 9,000 views. When he woke up it had 90,000 and a legend was born! Since the video was re-uploaded to Vevo on March 25, 2014, it’s had over 6 million views.
#1 The Script
If you add all of U2's and Hozier's views together, then double them, you still won’t have as many views as Danny O’Donoghue and The Script had this year. After touring the States extensively with OneRepublic across the summer, the boys released their new album and sold out Croke Park in record time. The Script are without doubt the number one Irish band of 2014 by a country mile!
For more of the same visit www.globalirishacts.com.
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