Best music of 2020

[dougo]

Exactly two years ago, at the end of 2020, I posted about my favorite music of 2019. In that post, I apologetically explained why it took me a whole year to put together that list of 111 releases. Well, here I am with an explanation of why it took me two years to listen to and sort a list of 211 releases...

For the 2019 list, I kept track of what I listened to up until the end of 2019, and then I went through and re-listened to everything. I snuck a few more things onto the list that I hadn't heard until 2020, but mostly I kept the list about what I heard in 2019. As I was spending 2020 re-listening to 2019 stuff, I kept a list of stuff released in 2020 that I was putting off listening to; once I finished with 2019, I started listening to the 2020 list, but I kept adding new 2020 releases as I came across things that sounded up my alley. (Special shoutout to my friend Brian Eck, because I pretty much dumped his entire list of favorites onto my to-listen-to list.)

As I explained in my 2019 post, I don't actually spend a lot of time listening to music these days (compared to when I had a job and listened to music in headphones most of the workday). So the end of 2021 came and went and I had barely made a dent in my 2020 list, and the list continued to get longer! As the end of 2022 approached, I made a point to buckle down and make it to the bottom of the list—and a few days ago, I finally made it! Whew.

So, great, now I had a list of things that I'd listened to basically once each, roughly sorted from most to least favorite. I decided to give another listen to the ones at the top to make sure I still felt like they were my favorites... and, uh-oh, some of them kinda hit different. Obviously I'm not going to go back and re-sort the entire list, but I went through the top dozen or two, and none of them really stood out as things I'd want to call my #1 favorite album of the year. So I'm going to chicken out and not try to rank them other than in general buckets of Great, Good, Pretty Good, and Okay. (I'm not going to call anything outright Bad, because when I did happen across something that was clearly not my thing, I just took it off the list altogether.)

These are alphabetically sorted within the groups:

Great:

Ancient River - The House of Stone
Becca Mancari - The Greatest Part
Bhajan Bhoy - That Summer Oh Creator! EP
Causa Sui - Szabodelico
Deradoorian - Find the Sun
Dummy - Dummy EP, EP2
Elder - Omens
Electric Moon - Live at Freak Valley Festival 2019
En Attendant Ana - Juillet
Fontanarosa - s/t EP
Girl Friday - Androgynous Mary
Gwenifer Raymond - Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain
Jungle Fire - Jungle Fire
Kairon; IRSE! - Polysomn
Korb - Korb II
Lera Lynn - On My Own
Lifeguard - Dive
Los Estanques - IV
Lowrider - Refractions
Mount Hush - Mount Hush
Peel Dream Magazine - Agitprop Alterna
Postcards - The Good Soldier
Shadow Show - Silhouettes
Shipping News - "Claws"
Slift - Ummon
Steffen Basho-Junghans - The Dancer on the Hill
Tesa - Control
The Asteroid No. 4 - Northern Songs
The Home Current - Devotional Syndrome
Thurston Moore - By the Fire
Tom Vek - New Symbols
Ulaan Janthina - Ulaan Janthina (Parts I/II)

Good:

!!! - Certified Heavy Kats EP
!!! - I'm Sick of This b/w So We Can Fuck
AC/DC - Power Up
Aesop Rock - Freedom Finger (Music from the Game)
Aesop Rock - Spirit World Field Guide
Andy Bell - The View from Halfway Down
Annie - Dark Hearts
Autechre - Sign/Plus
Automatism - Immersion
Bhajan Bhoy - Bless Bless
Cable Ties - Far Enough
Canshaker Pi - Okay Decay
Cut Beetlez - What Beetlez?
Deerhoof - Future Teenage Cave Artists
Deerhoof - Love-Lore
Def Rain - Exit
Doug McKechnie - San Francisco Moog: 1968-72
Feminazgul - No Dawn For Men
Gorillaz - Song Machine: Season One – Strange Timez
Guided By Voices - Mirrored Aztec
Gunn-Truscinski Duo - Soundkeeper
Heavy Trip - Heavy Trip
Horsegirl - Ballroom Dance Scene et cetera EP
Hum - Inlet
In Gowan Ring - Full Flower Moon EP
Khruangbin - Mordechai
L.A. Lungs - Magishishan!
Landing/Headroom - split LP
Las Kellies - Suck This Tangerine
Lee Ranaldo - Names of North End Women
Lewsberg - In This House
Lightning Orchestra - Source and Deliver
Maker - Sight Unseen
Melenas - Dias Raros
Motrik - Artificial Head
Mundy's Bay - Lonesome Valley
My Heart, an Inverted Flame - Plague Notes, Unnamed, Unknown, A Finger Dragged Through Dust
Neil Young - Homegrown
Noveller - Arrow
OOIOO - Nijimusi
Oceanator - Things I Never Said
Pet Shop Boys - Hotspot
Principal's - Treacherous Dub
Protomartyr - Ultimate Success Today
Pêtr Aleksänder - Another World EP
Pêtr Aleksänder - Clouds in the Mirror (Instrumental)
Rachel Grimes - The Way Forth - Instrumentals EP
Ringo Deathstarr - s/t
Run The Jewels - RTJ4
Scorched Oak - Withering Earth
Shadow Show - What Again Is Real? b/w Is This A Dream?
Shepparton Airplane - Sharks
Sonic Boom - All Things Being Equal
Sunburned Hand of the Man - Covered in Mud
Sweeping Promises - Hunger for a Way Out
The Beverly Crushers - Sick Bay
Thoughts Detecting Machines - That Was the Year That Wasn't
Throwing Muses - Sun Racket
Tina, Age 13 - Good Feelings
Ulaan Passerine - Fragments EP
Various Artists - Southeast of Saturn
Vast - A House in the Distance EP
Windy & Carl - Allegiance & Conviction
Witchskull - A Driftwood Cross

Pretty Good:

A Shoreline Dream - Melting
Anthroprophh - German Oak
Anthropropph - Toilet Circuit EP
Arrested Development – Don’t Fight Your Demons
Baardvader - Baardvader
Bailterspace - Concret
Bob Mould - Blue Hearts
Bongtower - Oscillator
Brad Laner - Only Ghost in Town
Brother Kite - Make it Real
Caspian - On Circles
Charles Rumback - June Holiday
Chris Forsyth with Garcia Peoples - Peoples Motel Band
Christian Löffler - Lys
clipping. - Visions of Bodies Being Burned
Coriky - Coriky
Death Angel - Under Pressure EP
Deathwhite - Grave Image
Deerhoof & Wadada - To Be Surrounded By Beautiful, Curious, Breathing, Laughing Flesh Is Enough
Deradoorian - Cosmic Garden
Dopelord - Sign of the Devil
E - Complications
Einstürzende Neubauten - Alles in Allem
Elderbrook - Why do we Shake in the Cold
Elkhorn - The Storm Sessions
Enhailer/Black Pyramid - split
Envy - The Fallen Crimson
Eric Arn & Jasmine Pender - Hydromancy
Flaming Lips - American Head
Flavor Crystals - Five
Flower - None Is (But Once Was)
Garcia Peoples - Nightcap at Wits' End
Gaytheist - How Long Have I Been On Fire?
Gil Scott-Heron/Makaya McCraven - We're New Again
Grimes - Miss Anthropocene
Guided By Voices - Styles We Paid For
Guided By Voices - Surrender Your Poppy Field
Herbcraft - Trash Heap
Hot Mauve - Saucers
Infromaton - Zittle Muy
John Massoni w/Sonic Boom - The Sundowner Sessions EP
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - K.G.
Kurt Vile - Speed, Sound, Lonely KV EP
Lady Beast - The Vulture's Amulet
Leon Bridges & Khruangbin - Texas Sun EP
Lera Lynn - Love One Another EP
lié - You Want It Real
Mamalarky - Mamalarky
Maserati - Enter the Mirror
Matmos - The Consuming Flame
Megan Thee Stallion - Good News
Metz - Atlas Vending
Mint Mile - Ambertron
Negativland - The World Will Decide
New Boss - No Breeze EP
Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never
Osees - Panther Rotate
Osees - Protean Threat
Ötzi - Storm
Paradise Lost - Obsidian
Paul McCartney - McCartney III
Peel Dream Magazine - Moral Panics EP
Prana Crafter - MorphoMystic
Pretenders - Hate for Sale
Psychedelic Furs - Made of Rain
Pure Phase Ensemble 9 - Live at SpaceFest 2019
Rose City Band - Summerlong
Shiner - Schadenfreude
Shopping - All or Nothing
Six Organs of Admittance - Companion Rises
Skeleton - Skeleton
Slomosa - Slomosa
Soldati - Doom Nacional
Steve Palmer - Useful Histories
Superchunk - "There's a Ghost" / "Alice"
The Noise Birds - The Dark Sea Hides a Bright Light
The Primary Colors - True/Calling EP
The Strokes - The New Abnormal
Tyler Childers - Long Violent History
Wax Chattels - Clot
Wildnisgeist - Death is the Mother of Us All EP
Wildnisgeist - Pandemonium
Wylde Ratttz - Wylde Ratttz
X - Alphabetland
Yatra - Blood of the Night
Yo La Tengo - Sleepless Night EP
Yo La Tengo - We Have Amnesia Sometimes EP
Zopa - La Dolce Vita
Zulu - My People... Hold On EP

Okay:

Brad Laner - The Interregnum
Bully - Sugaregg
Caribou - Suddenly
Cary Grace - Lady of Turquoise
Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters
Gang of Four - Anti Hero EP
Greg Dulli - Random Desire
Hatebreed - Weight of the False Self
Household Gods - Palace Intrigue
John Massoni - Stillborn Dreams
June of 44 - Revisionist
King Buzzo & Trevor Dunn - Gift of Sacrifice
King Buzzo & Trevor Dunn - Six Pack EP
Live Skull - Dangerous Visions
My Dying Bride - The Ghost of Orion
Pêtr Aleksänder - Clouds in the Mirror
Rebel Wizard - Magickal Mystical Indifference
Salem - Fires in Heaven
Sault - Black Is
Spanish Love Songs - Brave Faces Everyone
Sunburned Hand of the Man - Glik Core 2020
Tame Impala - The Slow Rush
Tashi Dorji - Stateless
The 1975 - Notes on a Conditional Form
The Scene Is Now - Trouble at the Crystal Palace
Which Wave - Diagonal Fractal Post-Everything


So yeah, as you might guess, I've also been keeping to-listen-to lists of releases from 2021 and 2022 (and even 2023). And they're already longer than the 2020 list! My current plan is to actually listen to music more often than I have been (because hey, turns out, music is great!) but even so, if I keep trying to be completist about it, I'm going to just fall further behind. So instead I'm going to try to time-box it, and aim to post a 2021 list on July 1st, with whatever I've listened to by then (and hopefully even get a chance to listen to my favorites multiple times). Then the 2022 list would happen at the end of 2023, and by the end of 2024, I'll be caught up and actually posting a timely end-of-year favorites list!

But don't hold me to it. We'll see how it goes...

P.S. Sorry for not including links, but everything here is streamable, and you can probably figure out where to find it. But, as always, if you're curious about anything listed and would like me to say a few more words, please comment!