The Top 30 ALBUMS of 2020: Part Two (#11--20)...

 

the midway point on the albums list:

11. Sault UNTITLED (BLACK IS)/ UNTITLED -RISE: 

a mystery group being able to remain mysteriously throughout the year means only one thing: fantastic music.

12. Hamilton Leithhauser THE LOVES OF YOUR LIFE:

Leithauser is boyishly eager to ensure that it’s the characters of his tales which sit at the heart of the album. The swinging “Cross-Sound Ferry” recounts a world-wise stranger he met on the ferry from Orient Point to New London, while vaudeville lead single “Hear They Come” depicts a friend of his hiding from life’s problems in a cinema, the lights coming up as the real world refuses to stay outside. (THE LINE OF BEST FIT)

13. Frazey Ford U KIN B THE SUN:  

when one thinks of artists straddling the religious fervour of the pop/soul divide, bias tends to lean towards black singers. Or Adele. Here though we can add Frazey Ford to that list because the Canadian has delivered on her third album with meticulous consistency.

14. Sufjan Stevens THE ASCENSION:

not sure why critics have cooled on The Ascension but while he may be facing backlash for moving closer and closer to pop, Stevens continues a stunning streak of superb, unique expressions of sound.

15. Quelle Chris & Chris Keys INNOCENT COUNTRY 2:

Innocent Country 2 threatens to fade into a pleasant blur, guests help pick up the pace. Homeboy Sandman storms onto “Sacred Safe,” raging that “Every single person on Earth irks me,” while the churchly sounds of “Mirage” might be the brightest beat Earl Sweatshirt has rapped over in ages. Other appearances are less expected. Merrill Garbus appears on three songs, the best of which, “Graphic Bleed Outs,” shows the Tune-Yards singer scale down her usually powerful voice to line up with Keys’ dreamy flutes while she asserts that a lover has slashed at her spirit like a cold blade piercing her lungs. The counterbalance of gore and tranquility is jarring, but if there’s one thing you need to enter Quelle Chris’s world, it’s a mind open enough to reject conventional logic. (PITCHFORK)

16. Rina Sawayama SAWAYAMA: 

right off the bat, SAWAYAMA is powerful. The first three tracks are insanely dynamic, stringing together two vibrant pop songs (the first about standing up on your own, the second about excessive wealth) into what can only be described as Gwen Stefani-meets-nu-metal. As far as the meaning of this record goes, Sawayama sums it up herself in a recent interview: “The album ultimately is about family and identity. It’s about understanding yourself in the context of two opposing cultures (for me British and Japanese), what ‘belonging’ means when home is an evolving concept, figuring out where you sit comfortably within and awkwardly outside of stereotypes, and ultimately trying to be ok with just being you, warts and all.” (PASTE)

17. Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist ALFREDO:  

Freddie Gibbs’ change in producers is immediately noticeable when a Bernie Mac sample precedes a sultry guitar riff in the album’s first track, “1985.” That’s not a jab at Madlib—his work on Bandana was spotless—but The Alchemist’s experimentation is especially stark here. Gibbs maintains his usual level-headedness and stoic disposition through his expressions as an analytical gangster. Features from Rick Ross, Benny The Butcher, Tyler, The Creator and Conway the Machine solidify the credibility Gibbs is back to confirm. (PASTE)

18. U.S. Girls HEAVY LIGHT: 

if Heavy Light were released five years ago, it wouldn’t be considered a political album. Thankfully (or unfortunately), not even a casual listener in 2020 would miss Meghan Remy’s cutting commentary, a convention of her music that’s become quintessential in her over-10-year musical career. Her most referential work to date, Heavy Light is defined by an inward-facing well of civic unrest, with Remy foregoing the prescriptive style of her manifesto-like 2018 album In a Poem Unlimited. The record’s name is itself a reference to Franz Kafka (“Faith, like a guillotine. As heavy as light.”), and Remy merges the ideals of the realist movement with narratives of experiential, hometown frustration. (PASTE)

19. Fleet Foxes SHORE:  

Fleet Foxes remain a quintessential millennial band, and, on Shore—which dropped with only a day’s warning—they’re once again tapping into the millennial psyche, this time with a little more optimism. Upon first listen, Shore lacks the immediacy of Fleet Foxes and 2011’s Helplessness Blues—at least from a sonic standpoint. But frontman Robin Pecknold’s astonishingly thoughtful lyrics quickly bring the listener back up to speed, at times recalling the grandiose scope of Crack-Up’s more cheerful moments, even if the indie-rock stylings are lagging a bit. (PASTE)

 

20. Shabazz Palaces THE DON OF DIAMOND DREAMS:  

the group absorbs and warps a different sonic palette than usual: listen for the loopy guitar solos on “Wet,” or the swaying riffs on “Bad Bitch Walking” and “Fast Learner.” That spectrum of influence is a new strand in their complex sound, but what surrounds it is very much classic Shabazz: glistening synth crystals on tracks like “Ad Ventures,” Maraire’s distinctive kick drum throughout, and a lyrical ode to the Divine Feminine (not their first) on “Thanking the Girls.” (PITCHFORK)

The Top 30 ALBUMS of 2020: Part One (#21--30)...

 

Not even the Covid crisis could prevent artists from creating new, relevant and personal music that we needed so badly this year. Here are the best of them:

21. Grimes MISS ANTROPOCENE: 

Grimes occupies an alternate timeline. Always a cyberpunk innovator, on Miss Anthropocene she envisions a different universe entirely, one where she embodies a dystopian anti-goddess of the climate crisis. (Yes, really.) But the music tells a slightly different story, in which her creative impulses—toward destruction, esoteric noise and unexpected collaboration—coalesce into a surprising, cohesive harmony. (TIME)

 

22. Run The Jewels RTJ4: 

at this time, political-rap heroes Run the Jewels and Rage Against the Machine were supposed to be on taking a break in the middle of their co-headlining international tour, but it was postponed due to COVID-19. In the midst of economic turmoil, a pandemic and altogether uncertainty, the tragic death of Minneapolis’ George Floyd sparked nationwide protests against police violence. “Fuck it, why wait.” was the cathartic boom written in neon-pink letters that signaled RTJ4’s arrival two days early, for free, in standard Run the Jewels fashion. Both the album’s accessibility and message are intended to highlight the ongoing revolution, which is clearly a cause the duo readily supports. RTJ4 serves as a loving ode to the old school more so than on any of their other albums, with a Greg Nice and DJ Premier feature, Killer Mike’s references to 2 Live Crew on “never look back” (“Uncle Luke don’t stop, get it get it Magic City”), and a brilliantly manipulated Gang of Four sample on “the ground below.” This hodgepodge of styles and references emphasize what their music is all about. El-P’s New York roots meshed with Killer Mike’s Dirty South origins seem strange at first, but it’s their shared love of hip-hop’s history and politics that make the duo unlike anyone else. (PASTE)

 

23. LoveLeo LOOK AT THIS MESS I’VE MADE: 

one of the new exciting musicians marching to the beat of their own drum. 

 

24. Jay Wile BETTER TIMES:  

it's hard to look beyond the Frank Ocean vocal comparison but Wile manages to use it to his benefit here as he builds confidence on all six (6) tracks the longer they spin.

 

25. Of Montreal UR FUN: 

absent from the list for five years but here again the band rediscovers its unique brand of zaniness, sprinkling sage one-liners into infectious pop songs. It's the return to familiar issues but it's all hits here and misses. 

 

26. Pearl Jam GIGATON: 

at 57 minutes, it’s their longest album, as well as the one that took the longest to complete. You feel the weight of both durations throughout. The ballads stretch out slowly, and the uptempo numbers are derailed by meandering build-ups, like stopping for a chat while running in place mid-jog. From the curveball disco-rock of first single “Dance of the Clairvoyants”—a portal into an alternate universe where David Byrne produced the Who to soundtrack an ’80s action film—the band immediately forecasted an attempt to revitalize its sound. In context, it’s more of an outlier: a reminder of their underdog mentality, that they have some fight left in them. (PITCHFORK)

 

27. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever SIDEWAYS TO NEW ITALY:  

devoted not to narrative so much as six-string calisthenics, RBCF are a treat when they play from within one of the aural dust clouds they’ve stirred. On “Cameo,” Fran Keaney lays out a romantic scenario of uncommon banality (“Your voice had an old melody/Like sweet river water,” egads) whose drama gets goosed by Tom Russo and Joe White’s cross-talking electric licks. Or at the three-minute mark in “Cars in Space” when Keaney, Russo, and White pick away at discrete parts: ripple effects that rattle its foundations for the sake of testing them. And on “Sunglasses at the Wedding,” Keaney moves his fingers as if each acoustic strum births a new color trail. (PITCHFORK)

 

28. Laura Marling SONG FOR OUR DAUGHTER:  

having a child is, in essence, an act of optimism. You're rolling the dice and betting on the arc of the moral universe, on a better world, or at least the prospect that humanity won't destroy the planet before one more generation can grow old. Laura Marling doesn't have a child — yet — but she does have that optimism. Song For Our Daughter is framed as a series of lessons for her imagined offspring, warm, intimate folk-rock meditations that acknowledge the messiness of our world while still managing to find the glimmers of beauty and hope throughout. (STEREOGUM)

 

29. Waxahatchee SAINT CLOUD:  

critics tend to use words like "challenging" and "experimental" to talk about the kinds of albums that top year-end lists, but Saint Cloud is decisively neither of those things -- it's immediate, inviting, catchy. "I feel like I've been so wordy in the past," she told Pitchfork. "I'm trying to find ways to say a lot without using that many words." That simple approach to songwriting doesn't yield simple songs. Even now, almost nine months after I first heard it, I'm still surprised by the turns-of-phrase I'd previously missed. I'm still in awe by the way Crutchfield turns simple images into fully realized, gut-wrenching stories. (POPMATTERS)

 

30. Taylor Swift FOLKLORE: 

with the world in lockdown, and the prospect of touring and performing any new material for the foreseeable future unlikely, Swift found herself writing songs in a completely uninhibited way for the very first time. Seeking escape - as many of us have been throughout the year - and dialling down her usual self-referential tendencies, Swift let her imagination run wild, letting just fragments of her reality mingle with the worlds and stories of characters she’d conjured up.As someone whose strength has always been vivid storytelling, she thrived in this state of reverie, weaving some of her finest heart-panging tales of love yet. To go with the stories of love triangles, American dynasties, and ricocheting tears, Swift - together with The National’s Aaron Dessner and regular collaborator Jack Antonoff - conceived a sound akin to a soft breeze that blows through the fallen leaves on a forest floor, a sound gently illuminated by candlelight and autumnal sunsets. Folky strumming and plucking nestles into the pitter-patter of a subtle electronica backdrop, putting Swift’s chronicling at front and centre like never before, and giving us a rich, textured tapestry of folklore to escape into at a time when we need it most. (THE LINE OF BEST FIT)