We've got just over 3 more weeks of 2020 to go. Cross your fingers that we make it. This year has been hard, for me, for you, for everyone. Let me tell you, figuring out how to work from home while also getting a 7-year old to learn via remote schooling, and entertaining a 4-year old, while all the while there's no place for you to go is for the birds. And i had relatively easy. I have a job that transitioned to home work without too many hiccups. My son is in a school district that does it's best to do the right thing and a campus that has worked really hard to make remote learning viable. I actually accomplished a ton of goals during "lockdown," ranging from installing a ceiling fan to organizing and selling off a bunch of comic books to fixing faucets, sinks, and toilets galore around the house to writing a whole album's worth of new songs. I've read a half dozen books, watched like 400 movies, gotten my son to ride a bike without the training wheels, and homebrewed a summer beer. None of us has gotten sick. Of my friends who have contracted the virus, they all seem to have weathered it for the time being. And for now, we're able to just keep chugging along.
But there are millions and millions who are not and have not been so lucky, lost income, lost homes, lost lives. It's hard to even fathom. As the death toll rises and rises, it seems to be lost on more and more of the American populace, an icy statistic rather than the absolute tragedy that it is. It's ignored. It's scoffed at. Just like the rampant systemic racism that drives so many of this country's institutions, a kind of original sin that's finally coming home to reap. Right in the middle of a global pandemic, a force of righteous civil unrest we haven't seen in decades. State sponsored violence. A symptom of something far worse. The erosion of everything.
I fear that we live in a deeply corrupt and deeply stupid country. Everything that's just inherently rotten about our whole system has been laid bare in all its ugliness by the Coronavirus pandemic, an oligarchy that enriches and engorges itself on the blood of...well...just about everyone. And we feel powerless to fight it. Or we're gleefully ignorant of it. Or we just simply do not care. Be it the oligarchy, or the endless corruption at every level of government, the encroaching and fascist authoritarian state, the endless wars, the housing crisis, the poverty, the stagnant wages, police beating people in the streets with impunity, bodies piling up in refrigerated trucks outside of hospitals, and the sheer, repugnant indifference to it all that could make someone refuse to do something so minute as to wear a goddamn mask.
It's the apathy. It's the selfishness.
And then i think about the oncoming climate crisis. And i look around at everyone. And a very deep and very real existential dread falls over me.
It's really hard to fight that feeling and the inclination to throw in the towel, especially when you feel like the fight is already lost. But i'm trying my best to stay positive. I'm trying my best to stay in the fight. When i look at Ash and Robbie, i try my best to keep my despondent feelings for their future at bay and instead get really, really pissed off at the people in power who won't fix it now. Let the rage outweigh the despair. I'm not ready to lose all hope.
Like every year, music somehow makes me feel better, even if just for the fleeting three minutes of a pop song. And while we were all locked away watching the world come undone, quite a few great albums still surfaced, a bubbling aural respite. Here are 25 records that helped me get through it all this year. Let's get to them (in alphabetical order), but first:
ABOLISH ICE!
DEFUND THE POLICE!
MEDICARE FOR ALL!
RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE!
TAX THE RICH!
WEAR A MASK!
1. Annie - Dark HeartsSometimes it feels like nobody does pop like Norwegians do pop. Annie's first new album in over a decade is icy cool and cathartic, instantly hummable, a grooving soundtrack for a night time drive.
2. Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt CuttersI don't know if this is my favorite of the year, but i do think it's the best album of the year, the whole thing somehow capturing that early pandemic vibe, like it was conceived and created right then and there, just timely and timeless.
3 The Black Lips - Sing...in a World That's Falling ApartI can't think of a more apt album title than this one, an eerily prescient forethought of what 2020 was going to be. It also finds The Black Lips channeling all of their old school country music inclinations into one hell of a fun record.
4. Cindy Lee - What's Tonight to EternityA handful of albums in, and Cindy Lee's lo-fi churn of melancholia and noise has yet to disappoint, just achingly beautiful.
5. Conway The Machine & The Alchemist - LULUNot to be confused with the Lou Reed and Metallica album, the "LULU" EP from Buffalo rapper Conway The Machine and producer The Alchemist is an entrancing and stoned ride of perfect hip-hop. And while it might not be quite the fascinating disaster of that other album, it rips.
6. The Cowboys - Room of ClonsIndiana rock n' roll band The Cowboys are fast becoming one of my favorite and dependable go-tos, whether they're grooving on post punk, psych pop, or just good old fashioned rock.
7. Cut Worms - Nobody Lives Here AnymoreAn expansive and ambitious collection of bedroom pop songs that wades the waters of folk, country, doo-wop, and so much more, a kind of Americana masterpiece.
8. Marie Davidson & L'Œil Nu - Renegade Breakdown
Absolutely the most pop thing that Marie Davidson has ever made, and i am here for it.
9. Ela Minus - Acts of Rebellion
Just kind of stumbled on Brooklyn artist Ela Minus by accident, but was immediately hooked by the chilly techno beats and dreamy aesthetic.
10. Frank Ene - No Longer
I probably listened to the "No Longer" EP more than anything else this year. Frank Ene goes for a kind of Nick Cave/Barry Adamson vibe that would cause most to fall flat on their faces, but totally nails it.
I live for discovering new darkwave synth to inject straight into my veins.
So, 2020 gave us a new Hum album, and it was awesome. Maybe the year wasn't a complete dumpster fire?
13. I Break Horses - Warnings
Holy Moly do i love the new I Break Horses album. Just pitch perfect dreampop from wonderful start to wonderful finish.
14. Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi
I can dig on a lot of black metal, but when it goes as weird as Finland's Oranssi Pazuzu, it's utterly divine.
15. Kelly Lee Owens - Inner Song
"Inner Song" is Kelly Lee Owens' sophomore effort, but it feels like the work of an artist that's been at it for decades, drawing from the best of everything that's come before. It's one of the best electronic albums i've heard in years, an all-timer.
One of the things that made 2020 easier to endure was Matt Sharp and The Rentals releasing a new track every couple of weeks in the buildup to the summer's "Q36." Sharp has always been a great songwriter and he uses his powers to create a melancholy and fun space rock opus that's maybe my favorite of the year. Maybe?
17. Run The Jewels - RTJ4
You'd be hard pressed to find a more timely release, this year or any, than Run The Jewels' fourth LP, "RTJ4." Landing right in the center of this summer's social and political upheaval, it spoke of and to the movement in a way few could have ever predicted. That it's really fucking good certainly didn't hurt either. Killer Mike and El-P have gotten better with each successive release, so i am now anxiously awaiting the inevitable "RTJ5."
18. Salem - Fires in Heaven
Were you expecting a new record from witch house originators Salem this year? Me neither. But it's here. And it's great.
19. Sault - Untitled (Black Is) & Untitled (Rise)
For the second year in a row, mysterious UK project Sault releases not one, but two amazing sister albums that i'm absolutely flabbergasted at, they're just so good. Soul and blues and R&B and world beat and dance music and so much more, these two records served as a good back drop to this summer's protests, just as much as "RTJ4" did but in a completely different way. Where "RTJ4" felt like a mission statement or an angry call to action, Sault's "Untitled" duo felt more like a celebration of blackness. Just amazing stuff.
20. Sea Oleena - Weaving a Basket
Looking for something to soothe your soul and send you off to dreamland, look no further than the gentle, but sometimes sad, sounds of Sea Oleena. The album is a mix of folk, ambient tones, and drone, and is perfect background music for...anything really.
21. Tan Cologne - Cave Vaults on the Moon in New Mexico
I do love me a dusty, dreampop and Americana infused desert vista, and New Mexico duo Tan Cologne provide.
22. Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
I can't think of a more perfect collaborative pairing than Emma Ruth Rundle's darkened, gothic folk and Thou's ambitious and expanding sludge metal. My prediction upon first hearing of this record certainly came true: it rules.
23. Sven Wunder - Eastern Flowers
A little bit of a cheat since this album actually came out overseas at the end of last year, but it's new to these American ears for 2020, and its infectious and funky world psych is hard to beat.
24. Zeal & Ardor - Wake of a Nation
These guys have yet to release anything under par, but this year's EP hit on a deeper level than anything prior. "Vigil," the album's opening track, actually made me cry when first listening to it. Powerful stuff, in line with everything that was going on this summer.
25. Zetra - With Your Demons Vol. 1 & Vol. 2
Starting with last year's 3-song demo, UK duo Zetra have become probably my favorite band these last two years. There's just something about their lo-fi mix of darkwave synth pop, industrial noise, gothic melodies, and black metal aesthetic that speaks to my soul. Love.
Well, those are my favorite albums of the year. Some really good stuff just missed the cut too (Porridge Radio, Infant Island, etc.). I'll be back tomorrow with 100 songs that i loved this year too, and hopefully without the morose intro.
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