Best Albums of 2020

Well, we all know that 2020 was a dumpster fire of a year.  We can't even escape the rest of the year unscathed as someone's just detonated a bomb in Nashville the day I'm writing this.  The year is obviously marked by the once-in-a-century pandemic that has made masks fashion accessories while killing almost 2 million people worldwide and causing untold amounts of economic suffering presided over by a rogue's gallery of anti-science, right wing idiots (Trump, Boris, Bolsonaro, Modi) who answered the pandemic the same way anti-science, right wing idiots have always answered crises: by trying to shift the focus to political enemies, minorities, and immigrants.

It's hard to believe there was much time for music in a year where it seemed like our "entertainment time" was spent glued to CNN to see the latest case counts by state, the latest poll results, and what riots were going on in which cities.  It did make for a weird year for music discovery as this was the first year since I was a teenager that I didn't go to a single concert. I did at least make it into a record store one time this year.  We managed to sneak in a vacation to Cambodia in January and hit up a record store in Phnom Penh to pick up a Sinn Sisamouth record.  We flew back through China on January 31, a day before Chinese flights to the US were restricted, and closed the door on any record store visits the rest of the year.

And the events of the year have also affected the type of music I listened to.  An incompetent president that made common cause with white supremacists and conspiracy theorists made this a year where "message music" was essential.  It even got me to listen to The Chicks (which is the video of the year, by the way).  And it is really welcome to see so much music put out this year that had something to say.  In past years, I've bemoaned the paucity of serious music that challenges the status quo.  Some art should always have a revolutionary edge and, in recent history, there didn't seem to be all that much revolution.  We got a deluge of it this year, though, which I actually found to be a little unfortunate because, in my 40's now, I found that I could only listen to so much CNN and so much protest music before feeling like I was going to end up with PTSD.  All of which means I listened to a bi-modal distribution of music: it was either angry and had something to say or it was in my sweet spot of easy-to-digest music.  So, lots of music from bands I know and love and not a whole lot of finding new hip-hop acts, foreign language music, anything slightly experimental, etc.  It's just 2020.

So, let's take a look at the best of that bi-modal distribution.  But first a couple of special mentions:

Worst Album of the Year

The Microphones - Microphones in 2020

This album shows up in the top 20 on Pitchfork's end of the year list which might just be the height of pretension for that most pretentious of music publications.  The entire album is one 45 minute long song that features like 35 minutes of white-guy-playing-guitar-in-front-of-a-bonfire music.  When it finally gets in to some lyrics, the lyrics are just a rambling history of this dude's teens and twenties.  This album makes Sun Kil Moon look palatable.

Honorable Mentions

There was really a lot of great music put out this year.  You could tell artists had some time on their hands.  I've never seen so many artists put out TWO albums in one year.  And a lot of that output was really good.  My favorite of the two album artists was the Alchemist who put out one great album with Freddie Gibbs and another with Boldy James.  In a normal year, one of those two albums would've made the top 10 but hip hop is the sort of music that I need to sit down and really listen to.  2020 wasn't that kind of year.  

There were a bunch of albums that everyone seemed to like that I just didn't.  The Fontaines DC have been staples on this list, but this year's album just didn't seem that inspired or original to me.  People went bonkers for Fiona Apple's Fetch the Bolt Cutters and I thought it was fine but nothing I could listen to over and over again.  I will say that Taylor Swift's folklore is the best Taylor Swift album yet, but still not good enough to make my list.  I tried really hard to get into Moses Sumney's Grae and it just seemed like too much effort and I wasn't getting it.  And I still can't stand HAIM.

On the "Just outside the top 10" list are a bunch of really great albums.  If you haven't listed to Phoebe Bridgers, you really should give her a try.  The Avalanches always put out really beautiful, complicated music that was just a little too beautiful and too complicated this year.  IDLES post-millennial punk is just as good as ever but a step below 2018's masterpiece that topped this list.  Thao & The Get Down Stay Down had one of my favorite songs of the year.  But my favorite song of the year might just be Violence on Miss Anthropocene from Grimes, which is another really great album.  I just had to ding her because of her super weird relationship with Elon Musk.  Meanwhile, Margaret Chavez is a friend of a friend and might have put together the best lyrics of the year.

Finally, a few albums that you should check out that don't really fit on this list because of technicalities.  My happiest album of the year might have been The Mavericks' En Espanol, an album of covers that span the gamut of great Latin music (think Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, not Ricky Martin).  I don't typically put covers albums on the list unless there's something truly unique about it.  Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmangli dropped three beautiful singles that will most likely make for a great album in 2021.  Thelonious Monk's estate released Live at Palo Alto High School which is a fine Monk album but is the most incredible album story ever.  Apparently, a student at Palo Alto High convinced Monk to play at the school back in 1968 which, I guess, was something you could do back then.  In exchange for setting up the lights and PA system, the janitor was allowed to keep the reel-to-reel recording of the concert.  When that janitor retired, the tapes were re-discovered in his office and Monk's estate finally pressed and released them this year.  And Orville Peck's Show Pony is every bit as good as last year's album that topped this list but it's only an EP.  

Top 10 of 2020

10. Muzz - S/T

Muzz got a lot of press early in the year that just seemed to fizzle out by the end of the year.  There's nothing earth shattering here, but this (and the next album up at #9) fit smoothly into that part of my 2020 dedicated to bands that hit my musical sweet spot.  Muzz is a super-group of sorts featuring Paul Banks from Interpol, Josh Kaufman from the Hold Steady, and Matt Barrick from the Walkmen.  It's like any supergroup record, you go to it because you know exactly what you're going to get and that's exactly what you want.  If you like Interpol, the Hold Steady, and the Walkmen then it's a pretty safe bet that you're going to like this.  It's a really strong singles album as well.  Check out Red Western Sky and Knuckleduster.

9. The Strokes - The New Abnormal

Talk about hitting me in my sweet spot.  Nearly 20 years ago, when this list was just getting started, the Strokes Is This It? took the top spot.  At the time, Julian Casablancas's disinterested delivery over top of Albert Hammond's straightforward guitar singing "I just lied to get to your apartment.  Now I'm staying there just for a while.  I can't think, because I'm just way too tired" seemed so new and different and awesome.  This album isn't new or different, all the songs seem like they could have come off of Is This It? But after years of subpar Strokes albums, it was nice to have them back for an encore this year.  Check out Bad Decisions and The Adults are Talking.

8. July Talk - Pray for It

Ever since I moved back to the States from Europe in 2012, my knowledge of all the great music coming out of Europe has taken a precipitous nosedive.  The only silver lining has been that I've gotten a much closer to the Canadian music scene.  Canada's been doing it for years up to modern indie bands like the Rural Alberta Advantage, Coeur de Pirate, and Born Ruffians.  This year's best Canadian album belongs to July Talk who employ one of my all-time favorite rock and roll devices: male and female vocalists a la Belle & Sebastian.  Every band should use it.  Pray for It hit at the height of the first shutdowns in the Bay Area when my wife and I used to just drive around for 2 hours when our house cleaners were over because there was no where else to go.  Channel 173 on Sirius XM is the Canadian indie channel and July Talk was featured heavily on those 2 hour drives.  Check out Identical Love and Governess Shadow.

7. Algiers - There Is No Year

This was the first concert I had tickets to this year that ended up getting cancelled making this album a harbinger of sorts on a couple different levels.  Released in February, this album wasn't a reaction to police violence and the Black Lives Matter protests, it predicted them.  The focal point of all of Algiers' albums is oppression and, as the first track states, dispossession.  The lyrics on Dispossession are shockingly accurate for a record that significantly pre-dates the riots later in the year: "We'll be there waiting for 'em with assault on a phone.  Run and tell it to everybody underground, freedom is coming soon."  I don't know about the freedom part just yet.  As always, Algiers' signature gospel-punk sound creates the intensity, merging the righteousness of gospel with the righteous anger of punk.  Check out 

Chaka and Dispossession.

6. SAULT - Untitled (Black I's)

If Algiers was the prediction of everything that would follow George Floyd's murder, SAULT is the reaction.  SAULT is a secretive nameless, faceless collective of artists that dropped two untitled albums this year echoing the anger, frustration, and fear of the Black Lives Matter protests.  The albums take a bit of persistence to get through as they span funk, R&B, disco, and indie.  While the tone of Algiers is largely anger, the songs on this album are more nuanced.  There's plenty of anger, but there's also sadness that race violence is still going on, shame directed at the people still perpetrating this violence, and fear about where this will all go.  The wide range of musical genres on the album play a part in communicating that.  On Wildfires, they sing "Take off your badge.  We all know it was murder.  We are dying, it's the reason we are crying."  Check out Wildfires and Bow.

5. Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways

This list has become a refuge for septuagenarians in recent years.  David Bowie topped it a few years back with Lazarus, Bruce Springsteen was on it last year, and this year a surprise album release from the inimitable Dylan.  It's the closest in decades to his Grammy winning Time Out of Mind, bluesy guitars and meticulously crafted lyrics but a lot more subtle and a lot slower than Time Out of Mind.  Out of all the albums on the list, this is the easiest to just let play in the background but it's also worth busting out the liner notes and digging into Dylan's lyrics, through all the literary and historical allegories he digs up.  The only bone of contention I have is with the last song (Murder Most Foul) which is a rambling 17 minutes long.  Oddly enough, that song ended up being the first number one Billboard song in Dylan's 60+ year career.  So what do I know?  Check out I Contain Multitudes and My Own Version of You.  

4. Deep Sea Diver - Impossible Weight

This album took the #1 spot on Seattle's KEXP list which, I'm finding, tends to be more and more in line with my taste in music these days.  If you happen to be fans of the Sharon van Etten album (Remind Me Tomorrow) that took #3 on my list last year, then you're going to love this album.  The title track actually includes a guest appearance from Sharon van Etten herself.  Strong female vocals, guitar-driven rock, not a bad track on it.  Bonus points for making the video for Wishing a nod to all the independent concert halls out there struggling through the pandemic.  Take a look out for Nashville's Ryman, Minneapolis's First Ave., San Francisco's Elbo Room, and a bunch of others you probably know.  Check out Wishing and Impossible Weight.

3. Run the Jewels - RTJ4

Checking in with the highest placement among the protest albums on the list is RTJ who has really mastered the art of wrapping a message into something that sounds like a party jam.  You could pop most any of these tracks on at a club without ever realizing that they're singing about the ills of capitalism, inequality, and the racist police state.  Even my wife who is not a hip hop fan by any stretch has really gotten into RTJ.  She likes the message, but really loves how they can make anything sound like a party track.  I realized this one night when my wife, who has a penchant to talk in her sleep, suddenly blurted out in the middle of the night "Picture this, I'm a bag of dicks" and promptly fell back asleep.  That song is off RTJ3 but the point is that these guys have gotten even better since then.  Check out Ju$t and Ooh La La.

2. Hamilton Leithauser - The Loves of Your Life

Not only this album but, if you're a fan, it's also worth finding Live at Cafe Carlyle, which was also released this year and includes a lot of the tracks now found on The Loves of Your Life.  This is a beautiful quasi-concept album where each of the tracks is about a specific person from Hamilton's life from bit players (the buddy's roommate who used to hide out at movie theaters) to major characters.  It's everything that the Walkmen used to be, from Hamilton's signature howling voice to an immense cast of musicians who provide layers of musicianship to the music.  It's not just that the album is great, but it came at a time when we were hitting the first peak in Covid related deaths.  Everything was shut down at that point, we were barely going outside, event after event had been cancelled, and we were just looking for any sort of normalcy.  Not the best time to release an album, but Hamilton supported the album launch with a series of web concerts done with the only band he could get at the time - his family.  And they were amazing concerts and a source of joy and community and normalcy in a time when we needed it.  Check out one of those concerts below as well as Here They Come.

1. Sigur Ros - Odin's Raven Magic

Orville Peck broke the country music #1 barrier on this list last year and this album does the same for classical music this year.  Yes, this is that Sigur Ros but this album is a full on orchestral operatic piece that sets an Icelandic saga to music in collaboration with Steindor Andersen who is one of the best (maybe the only?) purveyors of Icelandic Rimur chanting.  It doesn't stop there.  For this piece, Sigur Ros built their own 4-man marimba entirely out of rocks from Iceland's Pingvellir National Park.  You've just got to trust me on this.  It's amazing.  This was actually a one-off concert that Sigur Ros performed once in London and once in Reykjavik in 2002 and never performed again.  I had a bootleg digital copy of a couple of pieces from the London performance but they finally re-recorded it and pressed it this year.  There are two albums that I have been patiently waiting over a decade for.  This was one and The Wrens' long promised follow-up to The Meadowlands is the other.  I don't think that Wrens' follow-up is ever going to get here but I'm ecstatic that the wait for this one is finally over.  There's really no way to describe Odin's Raven Magic any more than I have.  You're just going to have to listen to it.  Check out Dvergmal and Stendur: