(Some of) My Favorite Albums of 2020

Who knew music would be more important than ever in 2020? Regardless of who or who isn’t on your end of year lists, we’ll remember this was the year we clung to music the most. How New Music Fridays became a day of celebration, of listening and of sharing what we were hearing in the moment when we couldn’t hear it anywhere else. Bandcamp gave us another reason to celebrate Friday and show support for our community. This year, we look back with regret for every show we skipped because we were too tired, bored, hungry, hungover. I don’t know about you, but I’d love to have a random stranger spill beer on me, to get jostled in a crowd of sweaty, enthusiastic people at my favorite venue…. 

Music filled our work from homes, virtual birthdays, and helped drown out the chaos within the four walls of our own heads. These albums are the ones that got me through the year, and you can hear a little of everything on my 2020 Playlist (which I’ll be adding to up until the end, baby). 

Playlist: My 2020 On Rotation
My 2020 Spotify Wrapped
What I Loved on Bandcamp

A Few 2020 Favorites

Against All Logic - 2017 - 2019
Amine - Limbo
Bully - SUGAREGG 
Brent Faiyaz - Fuck the World
Caribou - Suddenly
Death Valley Girls - Under the Spell of Joy
Four Tet - Sixteen Oceans
Grimes - Miss Anthropocene
Hum - Inlet
Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure?
Kelly Lee Owens - Night
Kota the Friend - Everything 
L.A. Witch - Play With Fire
Mac Miller - Circles
Moses Sumney - grae
Ólafur Arnalds - some kind of peace
Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never
Soccer Mommy - Color Theory
Sweeping Promises - Hunger For A Way Out
Taylor Swift - folklore
Thundercat - It Is What It Is 
Washed Out - Purple Moon
Waxahatchee -Saint Cloud
The Weeknd - After Hours

And A Few More With Words…

Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia

This one is dedicated to my neighbor who started all of their workouts with “Don’t Start Now”. I heard it approximately 400 million times from the day of its release up until they moved in June. Annoying at first, it became a solid part of my daily routine as much as it was for my neighbor. When Future Nostalgia was released, I paid forward the unbridled enthusiasm by blasting it in my apartment to join the dancefloor next door. Dua Lipa’s album is the soundtrack to our disco-dance parties, the diva too cool to be bothered, but always down for a laugh.  

Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - Alfredo

Most Italian mob movies are a minimum of 3 hours. The fact that Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist could capture a luxuriating vintage opus  in the span of 35 minutes is not only impressive, but a testament to the impact of simplicity. Gibbs compacts his seductive rap flow into Alchemists piano-dressed beats with expert ease. Like a fine Italian suit, the value of Alfredo lies in subtle details and textures, winks and nods rather than shouts and flash. Appearances by Rick Ross, Benny the Butcher and Tyler the Creator build The Family around Gibbs’ empire. With such brevity in this album, it’s easy to imagine what Gibbs will offer a secondi. 

Lady Gaga - Chromatica

Disclaimer: I am a Little Monster and wholly biased towards everything Lady Gaga does and generally regard what she does as genius (including moments of Joanne and Art Pop). Continue reading or skip to the next one if you want to avoid my gushing. 

Chromatica was a sonic return to form, a Mother Monster reset. Gaga joined Dua Lipa and Kylie Minogue in a dancehall trinity of excellence in a year where the dancefloor was closed to all of us. Even so, songs like “Stupid Love,” “Rain On Me” and “Sour Candy” kept us moving in our Zoom parties and silent raves. “Alice” and “911” reminded us that we can turn pain into something beautiful and channel struggle into creative endeavors. For this Little Monster, it felt like home - a safe place to be me. 

Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher 

Indie internet has become the Punisher, the fan who won’t leave Phoebe “Fake Nudes” Bridgers alone at the merch table. But in a pandemic year, the merch table has been replaced by Twitter, a Men’s Health IG Live for the ages, and the fulfilled promise of a cover of The Goo Goo Dolls “Iris” upon the election of a new president. Punisher gave us a memetic antidote to the woes of a very difficult, confusing year. Up until it’s last notes, or rather, its cathartic wailing and gnashing of teeth at the climax of “I Know The End”, Bridgers’ latest album gives us more of her stellar songwriting and deceptively simple instrumentation. This was the soundtrack of sunset watching from my rooftop in Queens, the salve for walking off arguments and troubling days at work.

Tame Impala - The Slow Rush

The Tame Impala roots run deep in the foundations of my friendships. Piling into my car for a  road trip to The Orange Peel to see the band play Lonerism in college. Making new friends at KEXP, working the front desk and hearing “Let It Happen” from Currents at the top of every hour, an indie smash-hit. Taking New York friends to The Sultan Room for The Slow Rush listening party, a month before quarantine. After that party, I couldn’t wait to call my college buddies and Seattle friends - to tell them how much they’ll love it, to compare notes once the album came out, to geek out over what goes on in Kevin Parker’s mind. The Slow Rush came through like a close friend - familiar yet always something new and surprising to uncover. This album is reliable and charming, deep and nuanced.

SAULT - (Untitled) Black Is + (Untitled) Rise

One of the sage bits of wisdom a therapist can impart is that there are years of questions and years of answers. Rarely do we get a compendium like that of SAULT’s (Untitled) Black Is and the subsequent Untitled (Rise) which offer a little bit of both. The former appears on Pitchfork’s summer roundup of “Great Records You May Have Missed”, the seasonal “we regret the error” of covering albums that generate a specific cultural significance. Given the anonymity of the projects and the scarce digital presence, it’s no wonder SAULT’s achievements in powerful cultural commentary woven into smart, sophisticated R&B have been relatively overlooked. But now you, too, can see the phoenix rising from “Wildfires” and groove towards liberation in “I Just Wanna Dance”. One album identifies, one album actions. This reflects how we were in 2020, a year that will not be remembered as a year of certainty. But works like these give us tools to understand the beauty that art can bring to frustration, to community, to progress.