JC’s Top Music of 2020
Dear God. As I sit down to write my annual best-of list, it’s almost unfathomable to capture the scope of where this year started and where it ends, either mentally or musically. But without question, music was the lifeblood that kept me going from day to day and moment to moment. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to more, or needed it more. Thankfully, there was so much to listen to.
Not all of the albums here came out during the pandemic, but all of them got me through the emotional firestorm that was 2020. Some days that meant the righteous anger of Run the Jewels or Bad Religion. Other days it meant Taylor Swift and Bon Iver singing the tangled harmonies of “Exile” on repeat. Still other days it was taking an edible and vibing out to Caribou or Khruangbin. Music was the tempestuous soundtrack to my ever-shifting moods, literally keeping me afloat.
I could easily make a list twice this long (and if you care to listen to my Spotify playlist, it’s all on there and more) but here is one of many possible Top 10s for this burning ember of a dumpster fire of a year.
Scroll down below playlists to read…
TAYLOR SWIFT — “Folklore/Evermore” Let me start by saying, I have enjoyed a Taylor Swift song from time to time. I’m not a fan, but I’m not a hater. I thought 1989 was one of the tightest pop albums of the 2010s. But I wasn’t prepared for this. Those of you who know me know my deep love of The National, so in some ways I was predisposed to love her collaborations with Aaron Dessner, the primary musician in that band. But the immersive world they created across these two albums was even better than anything that combination might have suggested on paper. Time and again, these songs have beckoned me in, rewarding multiple listens, creating a space for possibility and perspective without ever leaving your head. In some ways, Evermore goes even further than Folklore, playing at the outer limits of Dessner’s sonic experimentation while Taylor keeps it all grounded in her ever-accessible songwriting style. Maybe you won’t agree. But if nothing else, listen to “Exile,” her gorgeous duet with Bon Iver, a song that makes me wish for the sweeping musical they must eventually record together.
PHOEBE BRIDGERS — “Punisher” For the indie-music purists who wouldn’t be caught dead listening to Taylor Swift, there’s Phoebe Bridgers, whose layered, piercingly emotional and staggeringly beautiful songs juxtapose a healthy dose of sarcasm and irony with raw feeling. Her debut album was an instant classic, but “Punisher” goes a step further, bringing in the second-album scope of strings, guest vocals, and bigger production while also somehow managing to be more intimate, more heartbreaking, and more inimitable. The millennial Joni Mitchell, without question.
JASON ISBELL — “Reunions” Isbell’s name is one I’ve heard for years, but something in me always resisted because the word “country” was always put next to it. But something about the rawness of this year led me in the direction of “Reunions,” and once I did, it opened up a rabbit hole into a library of some of the richest, most deeply human and empathetic songwriting of the last two decades. For me, this album was the gateway drug, a varied blend of roots country, ’80s heartland rock, and heartbreaking ballads, all anchored by a razor-sharp literary sensibility with lyrics that were both timeless and perfect for 2020. Just try to listen to “What’ve I Done to Help” or “Be Afraid” without thinking of the political, cultural, and economic faultiness of this year.
RUN THE JEWELS — “RTJ4” Then some days, you say fuck the subtlety, give me the rage. And rage RTJ does, across 12 songs that are pure fire, filled with dense wordplay and righteous fury. This album felt like the soundtrack to the revolution that almost was, coming out at the peak of Black Lives Matter protests and giving voice to the victims and those who aren’t going to take it anymore. Intense? Hell yeah. But Killer Mike and El-P are also still a hell of a lot of fun to listen to, and make for the best workout you’ll ever wake up to.
JAY ELECTRONICA — “A Written Testimony” It took 12 years for Jay to release this album, and it comes out sounding like nothing else released in either 2008 or 2020. Over samples and live tracks both soulful and discordant, Jay raps elegantly about his journey as a Muslim, as a rapper, and as a human being — often times without any beats at all. The music feels as spiritual and sweeping as the lyrics, and while his ego often hits Kanye-levels, he’s always quick to take it down with passages of self-doubt and vulnerability. Equally fantastic was the surprise that A Written Testimony is practically a duet with Jay-Z throughout, with Hov dropping some of his most impassioned flows since The Black Album.
THE KILLERS — “Imploding the Mirage” Yeah, I know. I didn’t expect to be listening to a Killers album in 2020. The last one I listened to was in, uh, 2006. But after I started hearing the buzz about this one, I grudgingly threw it on, and it was an instant adrenaline shot to the heart. Rocking unabashedly with the grandeur of classic Springsteen and U2, each song channels the power and possibility of a life without limits, of open roads and big dreams, of love that transcends doubt, and of anthems meant to be sung by 100,000 people in a stadium. In other words, this album was everything 2020 was not, and my 2020 was better because of it.
THE AVALANCHES — “We Will Always Love You” Every decade or so, the Avalanches decide to drop an album, and every time it’s a low-key event. Known as masters of sample collage, they’ve created beautiful crazy-quilts of found sounds and melodies since the late ’90s. But this album is different, made with a massive list of collaborators and voices both familiar and surprising — Neneh Cherry! Perry Farrell! Kurt Vile! Rivers Cuomo??! — all of which are stitched together in a seamless album-long meditation on grief, ghosts, transcendence, and joy. It’s like the soundtrack to the empty dance floors of a pandemic, with the knowledge that one day those same floors will be filled again.
PEARL JAM — “Gigaton” Again, I didn’t expect to put a Pearl Jam album on a 2020 list. But I’d be lying if I said “Gigaton” didn’t carry me through the hardest first few months of the pandemic, with lyrics that were eerily prescient set against the tightest and most accessible songwriting Eddie and crew have made in years, with a fluid, open-to-anything vibe that allowed them to push the boundaries of their formulas, from David Byrne-style anxiety to Soundgarden-esque rockers to reverb-drenched echoes of Yeasayer and Duran Duran. This was the album I didn’t know I needed, from a band I had almost counted out.
FIONA APPLE — “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” When this album dropped in April, it made a certain sector of music listeners drop everything. Not only for the miracle that it existed, but because it sounded so goddamn fresh — so unbelievably unique, so idiosyncratic, so bracingly unfamiliar that it made you feel like you’d never heard music before. Fiona’s been pushing the limits of sonic invention and experimentation with each album since Tidal, but never before has she sounded so fully herself, so confident in her own skin. In song after revelatory song, she excoriates abusers, ex-lovers, and those who put up with them, while also digging into her own past to break free of the shackles of all those who have doubted her. In other words, the bolts are off, the gauntlet is thrown down, and nothing will ever be quite the same.
CARIBOU — “Suddenly” Sometimes you just need a vibe. A musical world to enter that isn’t about lyrics and personality, but about a soundscape that can carry you through the day. This isn’t a criticism, but in fact a strength of “Suddenly,” an electronic album that is as rich and absorbing as anything else on this list, while equally good at being great background music for working from home, a home workout, or a socially-distanced backyard hang. Put this back to back with Khruangbin for the vibiest of Sunday afternoons or Blursday evenings.
