Matt Sullivan

Given all that happened last year, we sent emails to a few movers and shakers in and around the Anchorage music scene, asking them to recap 2014 and offer some of their favorites from the year that was.

Beach House got its start 10 years ago, weaving moody, folk-inspired dream-pop that's powered by Victoria Legrand's smoky alto vocals. They'll launch a tour of northern cities with a show this week at Bear Tooth Theatrepub in Anchorage.

It's still too early to call it a trend but the kind of bands that became popular in MGMT's wake are once again following the duo's lead and trekking to Alaska. Now we're getting a visit from Foster The People, the third of the decade's buzziest synth-pop bands to visit the state in just the past few months.

This year's concert lineup offers the familiar State Fair formula of tried-and-true classic rock, country and contemporary pop, though the organizers did double down on last year's surprising addition of hip-hop.

After scoring two big hits, Grouplove is everywhere. They'll bring their sunny, hook-driven pop to Humpy's Big Spawn summer concert series July 19.

For a time, Swollen Members may have been the biggest hip-hop act in Canada. The Vancouver-based group has platinum records in its home country and four Juno Awards on its shelf (basically the Canadian version of the Grammys).

What informs the music of Hassan El-Tayyab and Shiloh Parkerson is love of folk music and persistent wanderlust.

Several acts from the tour will perform behind the Northway Mall on June 11.

The duo famous for "Safe and Sound" will play downtown Friday.

Before "Safe and Sound" was a multi-platinum single and had a Grammy-nominated music video, it was a random hit in South America.

MGMT (playing Moose's Tooth on May 29) scored big with hits like "Kids" and "Electric Feel," then backed away from their electropop sound.

Cults' music is featured in TV commercials and concerts across the globe, but when the New York-based duo of Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin were starting out, they hesitated to let anyone hear their songs. They released their first three-song EP in 2011, but did so quietly and without offering much information. And given the band name's initial unfriendliness to search engines, the authorship of the songs was practically anonymous.

Glossary spent nearly 16 years churning out records and playing shows to a small but fervent following. That started to change last year. The Tennessee-based rock band scored a deal with London's Xtra Mile Recordings, which gave their most recent album, "Long Live All of Us," an overseas release, while Glossary's previous five albums were part of a stateside reissue campaign. They played about a hundred shows between January and May of last year, including two in Alaska, and appeared on "Last Call With Carson Daly."