Jacob’s Top In 2020
I don’t think anyone needs to write a single word more about 2020 as a year overall. Its music was pretty good, though, and that’s worth talking about.
Below, you’ll find my year-end picks for a bunch of different categories, starting with my favorite albums. There are two Spotify playlists to go along with this post: my Top 25 Songs of 2020 and the more expansive What’s Good In 2020. I also want to recommend a playlist full of 2020 songs that I made for a friend earlier in the year that I think is good. You can/should find that here.
Thanks for checking this out. I hope you find something new to love.
1. Spanish Love Songs — Brave Faces Everyone
Any time I thought a different album might be a contender for my favorite of the year, I’d put on Brave Faces Everyone and realize that there really wasn’t any competition. I’ve loved everything about this record from the first time I heard it, and it’s somehow managed to still keep growing on me over the course of the past eleven months. It felt like “2020: The Album” before 2020 became 2020 and, while the references to being in a bar or a movie theater are a little less relatable now, the stark look at circumstances still hits (also hitting: the drums). I can’t believe they let this band put all of these choruses on the same album. There are some (okay, a lot of) depressing lines on this record (the first line of the chorus for the lead single is “my bleak mind tells me it’s cheaper just to die”), but it all ends with something like hope with some of my favorite lyrics of the year: “We don’t have to fix everything at once. We were never broken, life’s just very long. Brave faces, everyone.” Maybe it’s an album for the whole decade.
2. Bright Eyes — Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was
I’ve loved every Conor Oberst solo record, but Down In The Weeds is a helpful reminder of what makes Bright Eyes so special as a group. All of the power of Conor’s writing (heftier and more world-worn than on past records) is only magnified by the magic done by Nate Walcott and Mike Mogis, and this album brings back so much of the feeling of the band’s older work while existing wholly within its own space sonically. It’s lush and detailed, and everything is exactly where it needs to be. It’s easy to fall in love with a different song or element every listen, whether it’s a Flea(!) bass line or a Jon Theodore(!) drum fill or a backing vocal or one of the little staged field recordings sprinkled throughout. It all comes together to be the band’s best album in almost twenty years. They remain undefeated.
3. Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher
It feels criminal to have this record in the #3 spot, so really just think of this as a three-way tie for first. If you haven’t listened to Phoebe Bridgers or Punisher yet, please read the rest of this paragraph, switch to whatever streaming service you use, put the record on, and come back to read the rest of this post. My first draft about this album included me saying that Phoebe’s writing is “so direct and evocative,” and then I realized that I used that exact phrase when I wrote about Stranger In The Alps in 2017. It’s not a bad thing that’s it’s still true. She expertly juxtaposes humor and more serious lines, flowing seamlessly between the two and disguising both a bit with pure, beautiful melodies. The record is full of interesting little instrumental parts and production choices, and it just sounds so good. She played the whole album and a few other songs at Red Rocks in September, and if watching the performance doesn’t make you a fan, I just have to assume that you don’t like music. There’s not a more exciting artist going right now. She’s the just best.
4. Beach Bunny — Honeymoon
This record is just so infectious (a less-restrained version of me might call it “the second-most infectious thing of 2020,” while a more-restrained version would’ve deleted this parenthetical altogether). Even when one of these songs is overtly sad, it’s still a joy to listen to (“Racetrack” is the only exception, but it’s great in its own right). Lili Trifilio’s voice is so present and emotive, so cool and powerful. It just glides along these melodies without losing any character in a way that’s rare for someone with such a unique sound. The album is packed with clever lines, catchy hooks, and fun little backing vocal and guitar parts, and it’s a quick enough listen that you want to start it all over again as soon as it’s over. Debut full-lengths don’t get much better than this.
5. Field Medic — Floral Prince
Floral Prince finds Kevin Patrick Sullivan letting himself exist as a more natural songwriter without overthinking or overworking things, and it’s hard to argue with the results. I really love the writing and production on this record. It’s personal, intimate, and raw in all the right ways. So much of it sounds like a friend just making music in their room, and a lot of the lyrics have an extemporaneous “saying every thought that comes into my head” quality to them (spoiler alert: it’s because some of these songs were limited-take freestyles). That’s in no way a critique — it makes for a much more interesting and engaging listen than 2019’s also-good but somewhat straightforward Fade Into The Dawn. Sullivan has such a intuitive and unique approach to phrasing, and it’s great to hear him just going with it. The record is kind of weird (“freak folk” makes sense), but I can’t recommend it enough.
6. Christian Lee Hutson — Beginners
7. Ruston Kelly — Shape & Destroy
8. Hayley Williams — Petals For Armor
9. Dagny — Strangers/Lovers
10. Overcoats — The Fight
11. Code Orange — Underneath
12. The 1975 — Notes On A Conditional Form
13. Movements — No Good Left To Give
14. Run The Jewels — RTJ4
15. HAIM — Women In Music, Part III
16. ManDancing — The Good Sweat
17. Nightly — Night, Love You
18. Neon Trees — I Can Feel You Forgetting Me
19. Taylor Swift — Folklore
20. Dance Gavin Dance — Afterburner
Top 5 EPs:
1. The Japanese House — Chewing Cotton Wool
2. Fletcher — The S(ex) Tapes
3. Best Ex — Good At Feeling Bad
4. The Wonder Years — Burst & Decay (Volume II)
5. Bring Me The Horizon — POST HUMAN: SURVIVAL HORROR
Top 10 Songs:
1. “Chinese Satellite” — Phoebe Bridgers
2. “Shuffle Around” — Joe Vann
3. “Brave Faces, Everyone” — Spanish Love Songs
4. “Fire & Fury” — Overcoats
5. “Coulda Woulda Shoulda” — Dagny
6. “Leave It Alone” — Hayley Williams
7. “Under The Sun” — Ruston Kelly
8. “Mariana Trench” — Bright Eyes
9. “Ok On Your Own” — mxmtoon (Ft. Carly Rae Jepsen)
10. “Used To Like” — Neon Trees
I listened to over 2,800 new songs this year. Here are my top 25 in a handy little playlist: Top 25 Songs 2020
Best Album Art: HAIM — Women In Music, Part III
This is the year’s second-best-composed visual HAIM content after this tweet.
Favorite Live Show: N/A
Last year here, I wrote about seeing Anberlin return from hiatus. There were probably 2–3 other shows that were in contention for the choice, but, when I was writing, I hadn’t actually been to a show since September. That continued through mid-March, when I was supposed to see The Wonder Years on their acoustic tour with Spanish Love Songs the night before I’d see one of The Format’s reunion shows. In the coming months, I’d see a 10-year anniversary show for Circa Survive’s Blue Sky Noise, Bright Eyes twice, City And Colour, and a date on Bayside’s 20th anniversary tour with Senses Fail. Extrapolating forward from these tickets I’d already bought, it was shaping up to be maybe my best concert year ever.
Things…didn’t quite turn out that way.
The night I’m writing this, I just finished watching the fifth Anberlin livestream concert since May (their fourth full album performance). I’m grateful for these shows and the other ways artists have kept live music going throughout 2020 (especially that Phoebe Bridgers Red Rocks performance I mentioned above), but I didn’t actually go to a concert all year. I was glad to be able to watch The Wonder Years play their acoustic set live from a studio, but I’ll never get to see Spanish Love Songs playing new songs from this year’s best album in the way they deserve to be heard (loud, packed alongside a few hundred other people singing along, covered in some combination of our sweat). I’ve been fortunate to avoid most real personal consequences of our recent national failures, but I’ve lost more than a year of doing one of my favorite things, and I’m never getting that back. It’s small in the grand scheme of things, but it’s frustrating and sad and didn’t have to be this way. I hope I have something better to write about in this section next time around.
Biggest Surprise: Taylor Swift
Which surprise? Folklore being released on a day’s notice? It being an indie record in collaboration primarily with Aaron Dessner (her collaborating with Jack Antonoff is not a surprise anymore, but it’s always welcome)? The eighth word of the album being “shit?” A duet with Justin Vernon? Evermore coming just a few months later, on similarly short notice? A second duet with Justin Vernon? Secret Marcus Mumford vocals? Almost all of this being pretty good to great? Maybe some of this was less surprising than others, but it was a lot of unexpected and refreshing choices for Ms. Sjöberg this year.
Biggest Disappointment: Elder Brother — I Won’t Fade On You
I love this band and I only kind of like this album. There are a few really good songs, but nothing close to “Throw Me To The Wolves” or “Sunday Mornings” or “You & Me Forever” or “I Don’t Think It Stops.” Those are high bars, but the band set them, not me. You don’t get in this section if your past work wasn’t great, and Elder Brother was on track to be in the “most favorite bands” category. Here’s hoping they’re back on that track next time around.
Best New Discoveries:
1. Beach Bunny
2. Fletcher
3. Dagny
4. ManDancing
5. Nightly
Most Anticipated:
1. Every Time I Die
2. Julien Baker
3. Bleachers
4. Joe Vann
5. The Night Game
6. Pianos Become The Teeth
7. The Maine
8. Modest Mouse
9. Anberlin
10. Hellogoodbye
Again, if you ever need to fill a full day with good songs, here’s almost everything I liked this year, all in one handy playlist: What’s Good In 2020
I promise that it includes the Nick Lutsko Spirit Halloween theme songs.
Thank you for reading. Hit me up on Twitter if you want to talk about music or if you have any hot tips on how I can get one of those 12-foot skeletons.