What was your 2020 album of the year?

Pop Culture & Media Music
#1

As the title suggests, I wanna know what music you were digging in this hellscape of a year.

One has gotta be Phoebe Brigers’ Punisher for me. Just beautifully written. Great mix of sad and hopeful songs that really helped me get through the year.

The second is Jeff Rosenstock’s NO DREAM. Everything I love about Jeff’s music throughout the years is featured on it. I’ve followed him since his first ska band and it’s incredible to watch an artist progress and grow over the years. I feel like this album had some really poignant lyrics for this year specifically.

What about y’all?

4 Likes
#2

I’m gonna put some heavy stuff that I’ve loved.

Xibalba, Años en Infierno
Heavy, brutal, loud. Great band

Mindforce, Swinging Swords Chopping Lords
6 minute long, perfect every second of the way. My wife and I listened to this in the car for the first time, and we were both making “ugh, what a nasty breakdown” faces while nodding (aka, car headbanging)

Ecostrike, A Truth We Still Believe
Best vegan straight edge band around. This will make you want to stop eating animals, and start spinkicking in your living room (because no shows).

@BernardKromwall I haven’t been a huge fan of Jeff Rosenstock’s music after his first solo album, but this one was great

Edit:

Touche Amore, Lament
Really solid melodic/emo hardcore. Not quite as good as Stage Four, but still good.

4 Likes
#3

I think the only 2020 album I listened to this year was Breaking Benjamin’s acoustic album Aurora. I don’t necessarily agree with all of the creative decisions they made (you finally get Adam Gontier in the studio to sing “Dance With The Devil” and it’s the acoustic version?!), but this version of “Dear Agony” gives me chills

#4

The lockdown and this tune has made me nostalgic for dark sweaty clubs, talking to strangers, and hearing some big tunes

#5

If Spotify is to be believed, my most-played song of the year was Rich Brian’s “Love In My Pocket,” which put me in the right head space for the rest of his album, 1999.

#6

Yo, that Mindforce song fucking riiiiiiips. I have a new band to check out!

1 Like
#7

Mindforce is so good! I saw them in 2019 at Sound and Fury (was there for Have Heart) and they blew me away!!! I have never been won over to a band as quickly live as them

1 Like
#8

The Strokes - The New Abnormal came out this year and I really enjoyed it. There was also Fontaines D.C. - A Hero’s Death which hit at the perfect moment and got me through some shit times.

1 Like
#9

Shore-Fleet Foxes
This dropped in the fall and has turned into the best brain massage for me in the last few months

May Our Chambers Be Full - Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou
Two of my favorite artists just made an album together! And it’s weird!

Show Pony - Orville Peck
Cheating a bit because it’s only an EP, but Orville made this, covered Fancy, and did a duet with Shania Twain.

1 Like
#11

For me it’s a tie between Heaven to a Tortured Mind by Yves Tumor and Visions of Bodies Being Burned by clipping.

Yves Tumor’s last album, Safe in the Hands of Love, is one of my all time favorite albums. The only way I find fit to describe it as a love-album written for the apocalypse. Noid and Licking an Orchid are heartbreaking in a beautiful sense, and their latest goes harder into weird psych-pop-rock in a very satisfying way. It’s impossible to NOT dance to the opening track!

clipping is one of the current best experimental and best rap projects I’ve had the pleasure of following. This is a direct sequel to their Halloween inspired album from 2019, There Existed an Addiction to Blood, and has just… so so much going on. It’s an incredible ode to campy horror movies and the entire genre of rap. The title is based on the great Geto Boys song My Mind Playing Tricks On Me which is sampled their song Say The Name, which is in turn based on the horror film Candyman. It’s so much. The album is so aggressive, uncompromising, witty, unrelenting. MASSIVE inspiration in everything I do. Song I have on repeat the most is Check the Lock, but Something Underneath is an honorable mention as a demonstration of Daveed Digg’s incredible rapping skills.

1 Like
#12

No contest for me.

2 Likes