What can be said of 2020? Well, a lot of bad things. But this is a list of things I love, not things I hate. Plus—bonus—since you’re reading this, you made it! Congrats to you. Even though the almighty algorithms (may they live forever) have already generated mysterious automatic lists of the music I apparently enjoy, I still wanted to create a *~*curated*~* list because it’s, well, tradition, and if we can’t have snobby handpicked year-end music lists from wannabe art critics, what really do we have left? 2020 can’t take that away from us, damnit. I love you all. Really, this time.
40 · Agnes Obel · Myopia
In February I listened to this haunting album in the quiet dark of my room and was overwhelmed by a sense of impending doom. I remember thinking that it felt as though something terrible was coming into the world. I’m not making this up. Before anything had really truly gone wrong, I messaged a friend with a single, solitary, unpunctuated message at 12:36am, “something bad is coming”
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/C2fpFeNZwAg
39 · Celeste · I Can See the Change
In the darkest days of this crazy year, Celeste still managed to find the inner strength to croon this tuneful—in a word, inspirational—prayer. The hymnic ballade rivals the likes of Adele in its sheer emotive power.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/aKXFqLNFuaI
38 · Ethan Gruska · En Garde
Thanks to a lucky collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers, I happened across Ethan Gruska’s tender, almost melancholic, ulimately peace-filled poetry.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/_eNumVa7H1s
37 · Laura Mvula · Brighter Dawn
Even though Mvula’s contract with Sony was severed ungracefully in an act of pure malice, Laura has still been making glorious music including incidental music for a new Shakespeare production. Her music for the motion picture “Clemency” is as arresting as it is uplifting.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/yg9DJ91ONK4
36 · Perfume Genius · Set My Heart On Fire Immediately
The title says it all. Hadreas’s latest masterpiece is hot and heavy.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/ln4S83JeY2Y
35 · Thomas Dybdhal · Then There Was You
As if 2020 had never happened, this track belongs squarely in 2015 (or 1975, take your pick). Crank this up with a glass of wine in hand—quarantine ain’t got nothing on Dybdhal’s wiles. Peter Frampton’s talkbox will send you over the edge.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/96X-Z-x7CK0
34 · Foreign Fields · Terrible Times
Yes, boys, these are terrible times indeed. But don’t despair, our Wisconsin darlings will “wait and watch you cry.”
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/N8u2b2pX4gk
33 · Great Lakes Swimmers · Getting to the Heart of It
Simple, timeless, acoustic: let this track transport you to a world of echoy flutes and crooning wispy vocals.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/el7xvLpWeuM
32 · HONNE · la la la that’s how it goes
An earworm in every sense of the word, HONNE achieves the impossible task of crafting a song you heard somewhere but you can’t remember the words. That’s why they didn’t bother writing any.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/43FgE6uCyLw
31 · Vulfpeck · 3 on E
By now we all know Vulfpeck knows exactly what they’re doing (even from a home studio). Amidst the chaos of this historical moment they are still churning out squirmy grooves with the funkiest jazz flute you could imagine.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/b2_CJ_nx-l4
30 · Avid Dancer · True Romance
In a way, Avid Dancer has reached his final form; no longer hinting at the things of which he was always a caricature. Now Jacob just puts a cheap looking perfume bottle on his album cover and writes lyrics like “find your true romance, take your lover by the hand, whoa.” Once a month, under a full moon, though, I’m not mad about it.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/HJysEy9Wo34
29 · Daði Freyr · Think About Things
Thanks to the power of TikTok dance videos, weird Icelandic baby Daði has pounced onto the music scene and onto my heart. Watch out Björk, you have competition for glitchy synthpop artists whose names I’m willing to learn new keyboard shortcuts for.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/VFZNvj-HfBU
28 · St Francis Hotel / Portugal. The Man · Milkshake
Don’t be gross it’s not that kind of milkshake. Just kidding, it is.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/8TYDDjYxRr0
27 · Laura Marling · Song for Our Daughter
If there were a wax statue of Joni Mitchell and it came alive every night at midnight in the museum and recorded an album, it would be this. And I’m not saying it’s derivative, I’m saying my heart was ripped out and trampled on, rudely. And I said thank you.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/bpE7QQmCbc8
26 · Big Thief · Love in Mine
It seems like for the last three years Adrianne Lenker has been tugging on our heartstrings almost mercilessly. 2020 was no excption.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/-CxYz4iWPCI
25 · Tones and I · Bad Child
In a year when the majority of really great tracks were either sad or just vaguely “powerful,” Tones and I (of “Dance Monkey” fame) came through with a track that can be accurately described as a banger. Still, it’s both sad AND powerful.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/bjFGLXZto3U
24 · Thad Kopec · Nature of Belonging
True to form, Thad Kopec asks intentional, tender, difficult questions. In a normal year these might seem pedestrian, even cloying. In 2020, it comes off as utterly heartbreaking: “I want to feel surrounded by the ordinary sorrow of just being here.”
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/_ETgbWB93cQ
23 · JR JR · Good Old Days
What if somebody really does break the internet? Well, first of all I’ll probably cry and have a panic attack. Anyway, cool song.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/ezR4lcWep-Q
22 · Bombay Bicycle Club · Two Lives
Despite releasing a very respectable full length album in 2020, my favorite tracks from Bombay Bicycle Club were these three short acoustic banjo takes that sound almost like a demo tape. Music for sipping coffee and watching the birds go by.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/aE90mjr6HEE
21 · Waxahatchee · Saint Cloud
Music that sounds as though it could have been written by your talentless friend who plays at the local bar, but here it’s performed flawlessly like a Mozart aria. The mundane, suddenly, astonishingly elevated.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/OaA7I7B1pOk
20 · Siena Liggins · Perfect
Liggins’s releases were all over the place this year (in the best possible way) but when it comes to singing in the shower, this one rises above the rest. It’s “perfect, oh my god”
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/1g2W8cY2RYw
19 · Gregory Porter · If Love Is Overrated
Even though 2020 seemed to spurn any attempt at realizing hope, the overwhelming response has been to lean into a belief that our most dearly held principles are true. As Wordsworth said, “there are still things worthy of our love. Honor, decency, courage, beauty, and truth.” Gregory Porter agrees, and his beautiful voice will convince you too.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/na01DRa_XH0
18 · Låpsley · Through Water
A rapturous, transporting take on climate change both in the earth and in our hearts, Holly’s writing and performance is basically the musical version of a Greta Thunberg speech.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/WnCuhnmgxi0
17 · TeaMarrr · Before I Spill Myself
Rarely does one stumble on an album this thoroughly good. Genuinely funny, real, sad, wonderful, and artful: make a pot of something and drink in every note.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/sLV4EGnkLGs
16 · SAK PASE / NSTASIA · Ring It Up
Chock-full of hysterical wit and sass, “Ring It Up” is a perfect breakup song with a gorgeous guitar riff in the fade out.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/OBCsxaG9zX4
15 · Lianne La Havas · Lianne La Havas
Of all the years to release a self titled album, Lianne sure picked a good one. We needed this—if you don’t already know Lianne’s music, take an afternoon and consume her entire discography, starting with her life-changing Tiny Desk. The symbolic significance of the self titled album isn’t lost here: this is Lianne at her absolute finest.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/_YOvQNgpfXY
14 · Alice Boman · Everybody Hurts
Somehow made of both space age transparent aluminum and clay pottery filled with ancient grains, Alice Boman sings the pure songs of earth and its inhabitants. Steadfast and right, Alice offers only the most poignant kernels of beauty and wisdom in “Everybody Hurts.”
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/DzKEphFL8Ao
13 · The Chicks · Gaslighter
2020 had its bright spots: one was when when the formerly antebellum Chicks reappeared seemingly from the grave. Country pop at its strongest ever, now with a fierce feminist twist, “Gaslighter” is the highlight of a whole killer album of the same name.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/sbVPcPL30xc
12 · Sam Smith · To Die For
Totally sappy pop, Smith’s ballad is the pure poetry of a tween journal entry. Nevertheless it’s beatiful, scary, and versatile enough to be remixed into either an arthouse film score or a track made for the circuit club dance floor (ugh, I miss dancing).
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/POIK1H3L86k
11 · Bodek Janke & SONG · Take on Me
A cover so astonishing it belongs in a list comprised otherwise entirely of brand new releases. When I heard it I audibly gasped.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/K8zZZddRvEg*
*The live recording linked above is from 2019, but the studio recording with ATOM String Quartet found on Spotify was released in 2020.
10 · Miley Cyrus (feat. Dua Lipa) · Plastic Hearts
Yes, Miley. No, I’m not sorry.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/l81u-oSIAp4
9 · The 1975 · Notes on a Conditional Form
The 1975 has always come through with timely messages, but this year’s release was especially moving. Highlights include the opening track, an underscored speech by Greta Thunberg the leads into a frightening attacca. The real high point, though, is the heartbreaking “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America.”
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/K0kbllNyEO0
8 · Phoebe Bridgers · Punisher
Thanks to a number of fruitful collaborations, Bridgers exploded onto the scene this year, and not without merit. Her writing and performances are as beautifully haunted as they are “overly sincere.”
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/VJlR3pvgLQA
7 · Eleri Ward · Prism
Recording from a keyboard in her NYC loft, Eleri came to us on YouTube in the mysterious, uncanny form of Sondheim covers in the style of Sufjan Stevens. When I discovered her (few and far-between) originals, I was hooked. Then, as if by magic, her studio album dropped in middle of the darkest days of quarantine. These songs are, in a word, perfection.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/MUfAjLsNGq4
6 · Sufjan Stevens · The Ascension
Sufjan fans have become accustomed to expecting one of two outcomes when our favorite Michigan singer-songwriter releases new music: either crooning, heartbreaking, folk-inflected ballads, or experimental weirdness that we lovingly call “bleep bloop” music. In a miraculous happening only the absolute chaos of 2020 could produce, the great tearjerker Stevens managed to blend the two into a cohesive, intelligible aesthetic with The Ascension. Although the artist described the album as a judgmental, unforgiving take on the American predicament, the music comes off—unsurprisingly—above all, as compassionate.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/OK9EImqaKvI
5 · JONES · Giving It Up
I could wax poetic about the syncopations, the lyrical wit, the perfect mixing, the funky mall grooves, but what you really need to know is this: sometimes there are tracks that come up on shuffle and just make you grin from ear to ear every time. This is one of them.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/g2S3HJVcQ_4
4 · Rina Sawayama · SAWAYAMA
I actually have no idea what say about Rina. She’s a genius—no, she’s a polymath. Her ability to navigate a broad range of styles, aesthetics, and emotive spaces is joyously astonishing. Her self-titled album has been well-reviewed by others, so I’ll just leave it at that and let her music do the rest of the explaining.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/OLXtc2OSrLQ
3 · Beyoncé · BLACK PARADE
Like “Formation,” “Apeshit,” and many of her other recent releases, “BLACK PARADE” is far more than an R&B banger. It’s a challenging exploration of black art, culture, politics, communities, and the American condition. The day the track dropped I kept it on repeat all day just to work my way through an analysis of the lyrics. It’s a lot. It’s also great music to play at a protest march.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/EJT1m1ele00
2 · FINKEL · Sick 2020
FINKEL was there every step of the way with us through quarantine, the protests, and the election. Releasing a mildly shocking quantity and intensely startling quality of tracks, they finished out an unpredictable year with a surprise album drop. Sick 2020 was the Christmas gift we needed after a very, very “looong summer.”
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/Fk2QS6yfgok
1 · Victoria Monét · JAGUAR
Almost defying description, Monét’s music excels beyond the limits of its own genres. Retro beats, groovy synths, silky smooth vocals, and positively intoxicating lyrics make this music equally at home in the ballroom, the bar, or the bedroom. The songwriter’s own words put it best when she says, “my music could be put on a coffee table to start discussions.” As a bonus, the versatility of the tracks is evinced in totally bizarre fashion on the surreal holiday orchestral remixes.
♫ LISTEN: https://youtu.be/ZAYAzmehOoQ
