The 25 Best Albums of 2020
Do we call this year’s best…“Quarentunes”?
(Preface — While I gave myself extra time on this, I have to admit an omission. Kid Cudi’s Man on the Moon III: The Chosen came out right at the tail end of the year. It’s a clear return to form but my list had been basically all but finalized at the point of its release; consider MOTM3 like…“25.5” in these rankings. Maybe like 20? I don’t know. It’s good. Go listen to it.)
25. songs /instrumentals — Adrianne Lenker
Welcome to this year’s entry into the “John, are you okay?” sweepstakes: Big Thief lead singer Adrianne Lenker unleashes this beautiful assortment of minimalist, sweeping, light, and charming tunes that are, as many songs ended up in 2020, the result of the deep isolation of COVID-19. Written after a long-stay in a cabin with her sister, this is the most personal Lenker has ever sounded, with truly heart-smashing lyricism backing these plinking, conversely simple and vast tunes, touching the range of emotions from frustration (“Anything”) to painful memories (“Two Reverse”), it’s Lenker’s most complete and most haunting work yet. The second half of the double album, instrumentals, paints a quiet soundscape of that same pain, without a word. A surprising achievement.
24. Miss Anthropocene — Grimes
When Grimes isn’t busy…well, naming a child a series of random letters, she’s out making some of the most oddly enthralling anti-pop you could imagine. Miss Anthropocene is a glitch in the matrix — an album that is constantly pulling and fighting against itself and its own concepts, but you can’t turn away. Grimes is apparently playing a mystical goddess of climate change and fertility or something (see the above “Delete Forever” and “My Name is Dark”), while also approaching tracks like “Violence” and “We Appreciate Power” sounding far more crushing in comparison to the whole angle of the LP itself. And yes, it’s Grimes, so it definitely gets weird — for crying out loud, half of the tracks sound like vaporwave club remixes of themselves, but Miss Anthropocene feels all the better for it.
23. Women in Music III — HAIM
It’s felt like HAIM has been an ubiquitous force in the background of alternative and pop music in the last half of the 2010’s, but yet they never felt like they had come into their own in all that time. Days are Gone and Something to Tell You felt like they were halfway to transcendence but never quite achieved what they could. Then, Women in Music Pt. III lets Este, Danielle, and Alana finally discover what their sound can be. This is the most focused, most on-point from top to bottom HAIM has been, railing throughout a rock-solid 16 song track list on the industry that made them, and the personal tragedies they’ve faced in the last several years. “Now I’m In It” and “Gasoline” are as close to pop perfection as we’ve seen this entire year.
22. Suddenly — Caribou
Sometimes electronic music doesn’t need to be so full of bombast that you can’t enjoy it. Caribou, as a project, has been focused in delivering solid, accessible, yet still experimental electro-pop, and Suddenly is the most Dan Snaith has ever achieved in putting out his hand to help along his listeners, a gateway into an entire genre. “You and I” is the centerpiece, but I particularly love the songs surrounding it; “Sister” is a phenomenal opening track, and the third and fourth tracks, “Sunny’s Time” and “New Jade”, become distrorting, disorienting layers of sample loops that are inescapably catchy. If you’ve ever wanted to wander down the electronic pop rabbit hole and see where it’s potential lies, here’s the door.
21. Heaven to a Tortured Mind — Yves Tumor
And now, the “Pitchfork artist who suddenly blew up” album, per tradition. While I might not have found Heaven to a Tortured Mind to be the all-time classic some of the reviews poured in on, it’s obvious Yves Tumor, or Sean Bowie, had a clear, bombastic vision for this entire project, combining debaucherously borderline-Satanic R&B with wailing guitars and plenty of strange, sensual interludes in every song for one of the most unique sonic mixes of the year. I don’t think there was a better opening track in 2020 beyond “Gospel for a New Century”, a humming anthem that just *feels* cloaked in sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Psychadelic, vast, and winding, this is a long-form listen with plenty of great tracks to pull.
20. What’s Your Pleasure — Jessie Ware
Disco. A lot of artists strive to bridge the gap of those classic 70’s anthems without becoming cliche, corny, and lost in concept. Jessie Ware, however, understands how to create smooth, sultry dance music better than anyone in her lane. What’s Your Pleasure is as close to a timeless record as you’ll get: smooth, sexy, and hitting all the right notes from the opener on down. “Spotlight” grooves from start to finish while feeling heartfelt and open; “Step Into My Life” hits those violins in the beautifully layered ABBA-inspired high-art jam; and the title track is intoxicating. It’s obvious this was Jessie Ware’s self-declared labor of love and I don’t think she’s ever sounded better.
19. SAWAYAMA — Rina Sawayama
Sometimes, artists come out the gate not trying to rattle too many cages on their debuts; not so for Rina Sawayama, who decides, flatly, to go scorched earth on the entire pop industry, with this bombastic, effortless collection of sarcastic, venom-filled pop hits. On first listen, I was not ready for “XS” to smack me in the face with early-00’s Christina Aguilera backing beats, followed by abrasive timpani smacks and distorted metal guitar riffs — and that it would be literally a screaming, shouting middle finger to pop music’s tilt towards consumerism. And that’s to say nothing of the gender-flippant “Comme Des Garcons (Like the Boys)”, the haunting and strange “Akasana Sad”, the painful and reflective “Bad Friend”, or…just straight up going TaTu on “STFU!”. I don’t know what comes next but holy cow, what a debut.
18. The Ascension — Sufjan Stevens
It was always going to be hard to follow up on what has grown into Sufjan Stevens’ rogue masterpiece, Carrie & Lowell. While Sufjan’s spent the last several years working on side projects, he’s returned to the electronic glitches, similar to 2010’s The Age of Adz — but unlike that work, The Ascension is far less trapped to the story behind it. This is purely meditative and almost an entire album of venting and release for Sufjan; “Run Away With Me” sounds desperate and desolate, a demand for something that’s been growing for years, and a lot of the album seems to be clearly no so much searching for answers, but hunting them down. And it all ends with “America”, a twelve-and-a-half minute cacophony of sounds and bitterness. This isn’t sad, regretful Sufjan — this is as close as I think we’ll get to stark raving from the indie legend, and it’s all the better for it.
17. A Written Testimony — Jay Electronica
Has there been any artist more awaited to debut than Jay Electronica? Jay was signed to Roc-a-Fella Records back in *2010*, and Jay-Z hyped this project and its eventual debut for nearly a decade. Finally Jay Electronica gets his moment in the sun, right as the world completely shuts down, so…hey, never a better time to follow your passions, I suppose. A Written Testimony, however, is plenty worth the wait — with some of the most unique and gripping instrumentals in hip-hop this year, Jay-Z hopping in on tracks with his usual bravado, and production from James Blake (“Flux Capacitor”) and The Alchemist (“The Neverending Story”). In all of this, it’s Jay Electronica’s own image that takes center stage on tracks like “The Ghost of Soulja Slim” and “The Blinding” with their in-your-face instrumentals and biting lyricism.
16. Monsters — The Midnight
The Midnight’s sound owes plenty to the 1980’s, but they would never shy away from it; they were literally inspired by the synthwave soundtrack of the movie Drive, and have become torch-bearers for the genre as a whole. However, that sound is designed to feel eerily timeless, mixing smooth, personal songwriting and those synthesizer bops with plenty of EDM influence. Monsters is the closest The Midnight leans directly into the dance side of things. While there are less sweeping saxophones or pad drum flows (although they can be found on “Deep Blue”), you find much more outside their comfort zone on tracks like “America Online”, “Fire in the Sky”, and the title track. They even slide into the pop category with the interminably catchy “Dance With Somebody” — and do it all so effortlessly.
15. Untitled (Rise)/Untitled (Black Is) — SAULT
Okay, I’m cheating here — this is two separate albums and there is a lot to digest. 36 tracks following an eclectic fusion of funk, soul, R&B, disco, and house music. But this is some beautiful music and I don’t think you can separate these projects. Untitled (Black Is) plays into somber pain, begging for answers (“Why We Cry Why We Die”) and evoking distant recollections (“Wildfires”) — and then Untilted (Rise) is far more defiant (“Free”, “I Just Want To Dance”) and pressing forward. It’s an incredible encapsulation of black-centric issues, equal parts dark, light, downtrodden, uplifting, and a must-listen if for nothing else than the outpouring of what this musical collective has achieved.
14. KiCk i — Arca
An album designed to smack you right in the face if ever there was one. Arca was already renowned for innovation in production, with several rock solid albums to their name and production for Bjork (practically becoming her heir apparent for a while). Then 2018 happened — Alejandra Ghersi came out as nonbinary, and what few barriers left on her music were smashed and broken in half. This is as tight of an album as you’ll ever see from Arca — throwing everything at you before you can even stop and catch your breath. Mixing dark, pulsing electronic statements of force (“Nonbinary”, whose message is obvious) with Arca’s own clear influences from Venezuela and Spain (“KLK”, and “Mequetrefe” in particular, even grabbing fellow Spanish star ROSALIA for the former), and twists and turns so unexpected you can’t even prepare for them (“Machote” or “Calor” for pure example) and you get one of the most unique albums of the decade before the decade even really has begun in KiCk i.
13. UNLOCKED_ — Denzel Curry & Kenny Beats
It’s okay to just get fun hip-hop once in a while. Denzel Curry has ripping flows that stand unmatched, and Kenny Beats has become the hallmark producer of innovative rap in the last several years. Put them together and we get UNLOCKED, which is set like a random-found demo tape that the two “never intended to release”, with titles that still look the root files. And of course, every single track bangs — “DIET_” bounces perfectly with Curry’s wordplay, “Cosmic’.m4a” closes things on a perfect note with one of the best instrumentals on the LP, and “Take_it_back_V2” might have Denzel’s best mix of humor and ferocity ever, flatly. This is just fun, and we needed a little of that in 2020, right?
12. how im feeling now — Charli XCX
Coming off one of the best pop albums in the last several years, Charli XCX does the next logical thing — writes an album from her bedroom, depressed over the state of the world, at the start of the pandemic. It’s not like Charli hasn’t been willing to be open before, but this is the most out-there she’s ever put herself in her work, clearly inspired by the isolation everyone was feeling this past spring. “Forever” is just heartbreaking, and helped only by the strange production choices by EDM crazy-man AG Cook. She can also give some huge props out to Dylan Brady of 100 Gecs fame on “Claws”, and the whole album plays out in this way — sweet, bubblegum pop over haunting but enrapturing electronic pop production. From “7 years” to “Anthems”, Charli has carved out her own lane that moves beyond the product of its time.
11. Shabrang — Sevdaliza
A kick to the gut. Shabrang is just draining, an image of a woman who is so spent by the world and how it has hurt her — a slow ballet dance that pulls you in, and you cannot look away. Sevdaliza sells this with her lilting voice and moments that make you feel as though she is approaching tears in her own music. Every word on “Joanna” feels like you, yourself, are being bewitched and thrown to ruination by the title character; every piano run on “Darkest Hour” as the backbeat drums pick up seems to laugh at the desloation around Sevdaliza. It’s not an easy listen but this is trip-pop taken to its very real endgame — an enigmatic ode to a woman scorned.
10. The Slow Rush — Tame Impala
Kevin Parker’s career arc has been so very, very strange. Starting out with psychadelica that very clearly emulated The Beatles-era post-60’s prog rock like “Elephant” and “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”, the Tame Impala project is coming into it’s own sound heading into a new decade. Well, maybe “their own” sound is a misnomer — The Slow Rush is a lovingly crafted homage not only to Parker’s trips back into prog rock, but also plenty of 80’s pop rock…including a strange Michael Jackson-esque track on “Glimmer”. But the standouts are when Tame Impala simply rears back and let’s the tracks stand on their own, like “Lost in Yesterday” or “Borderline”. It’s not only a great album, but one that begs what the next step will be for a band that’s been constantly trying to find it.
9. Color Theory — Soccer Mommy
Some of us are 90’s babies; I’ll often just get a jones to toss on a random “80’s, 90’s, and today!” radio station just in the vein hope of catching Duncan Sheik, for crying out loud. It’s often easy to mask frustration in throughts of a simpler time — just ask fellow 90’s baby Sophia Allison, aka Soccer Mommy, who watched her mother’s terminal illness, and decided to wrap the process of dealing with it in one of the most sweetly, strangely nostalgic album in years that didn’t borrow neo-soul or 80’s pop. “Circle the Drain” is a smile with tear smudges; “Royal Screw Up” is a deeply personal song that could also fit in some random cheesy 1997 rom-com with ease. The result is a strange appeal from the mix of wistfulness and weeping lyricism — and you know that’s all up my alley.
8. Is It What It Is — Thundercat
Thundercat does…simply not give a damn. He will make the music he wants to make, and we will all be subject to however that manifests itself. In this case, on It Is What It Is, Bass Master General decides to deliver an eclectic, twisting path of tunes that span (un)intentionally hilarious (“Dragonball Durag”), (un)wittingly heartbreaking (“Unrequited Love”), (un)abashedly Sly Stone soulful (“Black Qualls”), and even (un)foundedly confusing (“I Love Louis Cole”…seriously, where did this come out of?). Whatever lane Thundercat opts to tread down, every single time, it’s too damn entertaining to pass up.
7. Visions of Bodies Being Burned — clipping.
Everyone loves Hamilton don’t they? What if I told you one of the stars of Broadway smash-hit Hamilton had their own hip-hop project? And that project was focused on horror-core with terrifying distorted production and violent, demonic lyrics?
Ah, Daveed Diggs. If your only exposure to him is Hamilton, may I introduce Visions of Bodies Being Burned, a follow-up to clipping.’s 2019 “slasher flick” inspired LP There Existed an Addition to Blood. On the surface, yes, this can be a challenging listen, and yes, the allegories, and the graphic stories that set them up, are at once entirely in your face, but songs like “96 Neve Campbell”, “Pain Everyday”, and the eerily devilish “Body for the Pile”, it all intertwines into a complete package of astounding hip-hop dominance.
6. Set My Heart on Fire Immediately — Perfume Genius
I heavily praised No Shape, Perfume Genius’ previous album, as it drew much from experimental elements and a clear influence from Prince in developing its musical themes and creating an impressive LP that floated from song to song.
And now Perfume Genius decides to say, eh, screw that: let’s do shoegaze, chamber pop, baroque crooning, and even a little My Morning Jacket for good measure (“Describe”) to explain an inexplainable yearning for the shape of a love he cannot in any way understand. Set My Heart On Fire Immediately may read a bit over the top at times but it’s an incredible statement of artistic intent, with songs like “On the Floor”, “Moonbend”, “Borrowed Light”, and “One More Try” creating an epic worthy of the likes of Sufjan Stevens, coupled with the bravado of a true pop star.
5. After Hours — The Weeknd
Has Abel overstayed his welcome after dominating 2020 by proxy? Perhaps. It was obscenely hard to escape The Weeknd this past year, who, in spite of running an album hype cycle directly into the throes of a worldwide pandemic, essentially controlled the Hot 100 thanks to the success of “Blinding Lights”. I’d also posit that After Hours being, undeniably, the best work of The Weeknd’s career to date. The story is crafted to be a depraved car crash in motion, an homage to “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” mixed with a modern-day cocaine bender-fueled, skeevy 80's-synthwave, celebrity-meltdown chaser. The ride never stops along the way, from the sax line on “In Your Eyes” to the pain inside “Hardest to Love” and “Save Your Tears”, to the plainly epic title track, I’m not sure we will ever get a better album from the artist, period.
4. Melee — Dogleg
There’s no need to pontificate on this album — it’s a post-hardcore album covering Super Smash Bros., Pokemon, existential dread, and depressive aggression. It’s a fever dream for the wish-to-be-hip Millenial; thrashing, in your face music that just smacks you over the head repeatedly but you cannot escape. Seriously, just give “Kawasaki Backflip” or “Fox” a listen in a car and don’t start slapping your hands into the steering wheel reflexively, fist-pumping your way through all the bummer.
3. RE-ANIMATOR — Everything Everything
I’ve always been a fan of Everything Everything, but I’ve never been one to acclaiming them as a potential “great” band. Turns out all they had to do was embrace their inner-Radiohead — they may never fully acknowledge the clear influence of the indie kings, but, seriously, the influences are all over this one in terms of sounds, concepts, and execution. Heck, it even borrows from Radiohead’s 10-and-ten theory (two albums, OK Computer and In Rainbows both having ten letters each, released ten years apart, and are highly interconnected; this, RE-ANIMATOR, having ten letters and pulling a TON from the latter)
So imagine, if you will, if Radiohead made a pop-friendly record. What would that even sound like? No, not “Creep”. Perhaps Thom Yorke would lean more into the electronic sensibility and blend like we receive on “In Birdsong” with sweeping choruses over pulsing synths, or perhaps a more pressing tune that sounds like a estranged deep-cut enhanced version of “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” like “It Was a Monstering”. Wherever you fall on the concept, the end result is an album that is astounding in how much it draws the listener in — direct, flashy in all the right ways, yet so clearly calling upon its influences and trying to enhance them.
2. RTJ4 — Run the Jewels
Killer Mike and El-P are simply unbeatable at this point.
What started as a chance meeting at Cartoon Network studios has crafted arguably the most bombastic, provocative duo in modern hip-hop. Killer Mike’s biting, politically charged, Atlanta-style flows coupled with El-P’s throwback, alternative-rap Brooklyn bravado is unmatched in the genre today. Now on their fourth entry on this project, RTJ4 is a masterpiece of timing — it was even released two days early by the group in the midst of the protests around the country during the height of Black Lives Matter. Obviously the subject matter hits these notes sharply — Pharrell Williams’ guest slot on the chorus of “JU$T” is evidence enough — but that doesn’t mean that these two can’t switch things up on the fly.
In one record, Run the Jewels jump between some art-house-worthy beats from DJ Premier (“Ooh La La”) to a radio-worthy banger with 2 Chainz (“Out Of Sight”), to 90’s style boombox rap (“Goonies vs E.T.”), and even throwing in Queens of the Stone Age and Mavis freaking Staples (“Pulling the Pin”). This is poignant music capturing its moment, and also just way too much damn fun to ignore.
1. Punisher — Phoebe Bridgers
This year has, flatly, sucked. For every moment of joy, every moment of accomplishment, it seemed 2020 had another boogie-man waiting around the corner to smack us all down, be it from the world itself, personal hardships, isolation, anger, pain, sadness…it’s been present in so much music this year.
Few artists can channel open sur-reality with things that suck quite like Phoebe Bridgers can, though.
Punisher is an unabashed emo-folk album that demands your attention from the start. Bridgers spent the entirety of her prior album using the imagery of ghosts, literally having her on-stage consiglieres wearing bed sheets with eye-holes. A fight against a past now dead. Now, she is no longer grappling with an afterlife at her doorsteps; this entire album cycle has shown Phoebe in skeleton regalia — now it’s the skeletons in her own closet she’s opted to challenge and dive into.
It comes together for a challenging listen with Phoebe opening up to the world — from “Garden Song” looking at self-manifestation, followed by the decidedly more upbeat “Kyoto” focused on dissociation, imposter syndrome, and a history even Phoebe can’t seem to put together — and it all unwinds into ruminations on the dead Elliott Smith (“Punisher”), self-hatred (“Moon Song”), and one of the most punching breakup songs ever recorded (“ICU”).
And finally it settles on “I Know the End”, a bombastic magnum opus of wailing guitars, and wondering when the world will finally come crashing down. Yes, this is all far too heavy for anyone to deal with.
But this was a year where the weight needed a voice — not one of anger, but one that embraced the piss and vigor that was swirling around us. Not to shout out about COVID-19, or racial injustice, or how we should or shouldn’t treat each other, or the mess that was the 2020 election; but to simply let us release about all of the other things we had been sitting on and unable to unleash. From small annoyances to truly scathing moments of anger, so many of us have had those thoughts stuck in our own heads and unable to unleash that upon the world. Be it guilt, or lack of access, I’m sure anyone reading this has had more than a few moments they wanted to vent or scream or simply express their own gloom appropriately between trying to take up yet another hobby on yet another weeknight home alone.
Phoebe leaves these ruminations out here, bare. This is the sadness we have been sitting on, the simple pain we have wanted to express but simply could not, and Punisher stands as an open monument to a shitty, shitty year; a force of nature that we cannot escape, and maybe we’re not suppose to. Maybe we need to confront this lack of comfort, and look to these skeletons, these strains, these internalized, hopeless moments.
…or maybe we just need a good cry to “Halloween”. I don’t know. It’s just really good. And I hope it’s one of the few things to make it out of 2020 with a positive image.
