Best of 2020
One of the reasons I love music is it’s unique ability to lift us away from our troubles. And in a year that was chock full of moments that we all wanted to escape from, there were plenty of great albums to escape into. 2020 was a year I spent viewing mostly through various screens, secondhand to the action at hand. With everyone and every thing held at a distance, music was one of the things that brought me comfort and companionship. When I was out and about, I always had a mask over my face and usually music pumping through my ears.
Most years, I can almost trace my journey through the year - the ups, downs, all of it - by the albums I listened to. Putting on Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot still puts me right back on campus in the fall, hanging out in my old college radio station. Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly puts me back on my bike, cutting through the night on my way home from work. Spoon’s Kill the Moonlight transports me tossing pizzas at my first job after moving to Portland. The Tallest Man on Earth’s The Dark Bird is Home brings me back to the streets of Bergen, Norway, a city that forever has my heart. The list goes on and on, and even includes little gems like how the Amy Grant song “Baby Baby” reminds me of reading about 19th century American history. Music has soundtracked my life for as long as I can remember, but 2020 kinda broke that.
It all just blended together into one long playlist, with only one or two albums that I can really place in time. Instead, they more or less arranged themselves by mood. Though honestly, it’s kinda hard to tell for sure after spending much of the year in some combination of angry, sad, depressed, exasperated, and lonely.
On top of that, the complete absence of live music has been tough. Missing all those great performances, shared moments, sing-alongs, and everything else hurts. It’s a stark reminder of how important local music venues really are to a community and its culture. There are a lot of things I’ve missed about Portland this year, but the live music scene is right there at the top.
Groups like the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) have worked hard to raise awareness and fundraise through Save Our Stages, which recently passed as part of the COVID-19 relief bill. If you want, you can still donate to their emergency relief fund to help venues stay afloat until the funding starts to flow. Hopefully, we can all get together to pump our fists and bob our heads in those wonderful places soon.
Despite all that, there are still some incredible artists making great music right now. My listening habits only covers a small portion of it, and even that is overwhelming at times. The sheer amount of artists and groups that I’ve heard about but never listened to, or have only listened to a few tracks from, but that I know I would like if I had the time is daunting. Each of us have our little cadre of musicians that are “ours.” Supporting artists, especially those whose music enriches our lives immeasurably, is so important at a time when they can’t tour to support themselves and reach a wider audience. Streaming their music is great, but merchandise, tickets, and physical or digital copies of their albums is a big part of how small, medium, and even big-time musicians make a living. Bandcamp was one place that really stepped up by waiving their revenue share - starting on March 20, then for all remaining Fridays in 2020. Sales on those Fridays were multitudes higher than normal. And it helped to put $75 million in the pockets of artists and labels.
Pretty cool example of music bringing us together even when we can’t be, if you ask me.
On that note, let’s get to the albums that got their hooks into me in 2020.
Waxahatchee
Saint Cloud
(Apple music)
As much as her 2017 album, Out in the Storm, was a sort of coming out from behind the curtains of the intimate, lo-fi sound that permeated Katie Crutchfield’s first few albums as Waxahatchee, Saint Cloud is a confident stride through a life transformed by sobriety and hard-gained perspective. It feels immediately recognizable, leaning into Americana, country, and the blues while finding ways to make old those well-worn paths a sight for sore eyes.
Future Islands
As Long As You Are
(Apple music)
Sam Herring’s voice reminds me of Eddie Vedder. Instantly recognizable, eminently imitate-able, their high-calorie, bottom-heavy voices can carry middling songs and raise good ones to great heights. When a singer can go from Oscar the Grouch to angelic harmony in a single breath, it makes you sit up and take notice, regardless of the message. And the message on As Long As You Are is suffused with love and searching for (and finding) acceptance. Wrapped up in pitch-perfect synth pop, As Long As You Are is an album that reveals itself gradually and lingers long after.
Run the Jewels
Run the Jewels 4
(Apple music)
(website)
Somehow Jaime and Mikey manage to keep their fingers on the pulse of whatever is gonna happen a few months after their albums drop. Either that or they’re just synthesizing what we’re all feeling faster than the rest of us. Fourth time’s the charm for this dynamic duo, as they return to remind us to kill our masters and have a damn good time in the process. El-P’s production is just as densely rhythmic and paranoid as they always are, but there’s a weariness running through RTJ4. The result is a somehow more intimate album, amid the bombast.
Phoebe Bridgers
Punisher
(Apple music)
Like many, Punisher quickly became my go-to for when 2020 got me down and I just wanted to wallow in some beautiful sadness. After spending the past few years releasing music with boygenius and Better Oblivion Community Center, Punisher is a pitch-perfect return to form. There’s a world-weary precociousness to her songwriting that is consistently surprising, and each song is cradled in a carefully constructed musical web that captures you without letting you know that you’re trapped until it’s too late.
Sunbathe
Somewhere In Between
(Apple music)
Somewhere in Between is one of those albums that I put on one day and never really stopped listening to all year long. I’ve been a fan of Maggie Morris’ musical sensibility since she was fronting the band Genders (which featured Katherine Paul of Black Belt Eagle Scout on drums). Somewhere In Between builds on the promise of Sunbathe’s self titled debut. There’s a golden sheen over it that makes even melancholy songs like the excellent Somewhere In Between shimmer like a fond memory.
Fiona Apple
Fetch the Bolt Cutters
(Apple music)
(website)
I was accidentally introduced to Fiona Apple’s debut, Tidal, when I picked up a high school girlfriend’s CD Walkman while relaxing during play rehearsal. Utterly different from the oldies, country, hair bands, and grunge that had dominated my listening to that point. I was stunned by her confidence as a singer and especially as a songwriter. 24 years later, I put on Fetch the Bolt Cutters on a whim and was blown away all over again. Angry, passionate, funny, disaffected, and oozing with confidence - it conveys multitudes. Lines like “I spread like strawberries / I climb like peas and beans / I’ve been sucking it in so long / That I’m busting at the seams” from Heavy Balloon is going to stick in my head for a long, long time. Such pastoral imagery, delivered with a tightly clenched fist, is an oddly intoxicating combination.
Deep Sea Diver
Impossible Weight
(Apple music)
I’ve known for years that Deep Sea Diver put on one hell of a live show and their previous EPs and LPs always had a few songs that just blew me away. Impossible Weight feels like the most complete album they’ve put out so far. There is a purpose and swagger that is incredibly infectious, and Jessica Dobson’s songwriting has never been better. The result is easily one of my favorite albums of the year.
Marlowe
Marlowe 2
(Apple music)
Producer L’Orange’s incredible crate-digging soundscapes once again creates a funky funhouse framing for the elastic-voiced Solemn Brigham to bounce all over on the follow up to their debut pairing. Marlowe 2 took me back to late ‘90s - early ‘00s rap underground classics like Deltron 3030, Madvilliany, of Dr. Octagonecolygist in the best possible way. In a year when the real world was filled with things to run from, Marlowe 2 provided a welcome escape from the real world.
Hum
Inlet
(Apple music)
When a ‘90s one hit wonder drops their first album in 20 years, one wouldn’t immediately assume that they would be able to pick up right where they left off. Nor would you imagine that dusty, squalling, riff-heavy space rock would fit in all these years later. Hell, it barely even fit in at the time. And yet now…it somehow does. This is not a radio-friendly record, with maybe Step Into You or Waves able to fit into any kind of rotation. Some of the best songs on Inlet are the sprawling epics with riffs heavy enough to bend time itself, Desert Rambler and In the Den.
Sault
Untitled (Black Is)
(Apple music)
Untitled (Black Is) came out on Juneteenth, in the midst of the George Floyd and racial justice protests this summer. The mysterious collective seems to like surprising us with albums, releasing both Untitled albums this year and the albums 5 and 7 with very little notice or fanfare. Songs sound like they’ve always existed, telling stories that are all too relevant to today. The beats and rhythms recall forgotten favorites without mimicking them, more continuation than even homage. Sault has honed a sound that can harken back to the essence of Black music while being firmly rooted in the current moment, and it’s enchanting.
One last thing I noticed in going back over what I listened to in 2020 is the stark divide in my listening between pre and post-COVID. Albums released before mid-March have kind of faded into the background, lost in the beforetimes. When I listen back to them, they don’t fit. It’s not really fair to relegate the likes of Squirrel Flower, Andy Shauf, Jeff Parker, and Bonny Light Horsemen to some sort of end-of-year-list purgatory, but it’s also hard to evaluate them fairly. It’s like they didn’t come out in 2020, but in “2020” and in my mind, they’re forever stuck between those parentheses. Regardless, check them out, they’re well worth your time.