Music...Man. (Aka my favorite albums of 2020)
My golden age for getting lost with a pair of headphones on was from about 14 to 16. It was the mid-’90s and I was still living or dying by the cassette. They were easier to transport and didn’t scratch. There was also just something so soulless about CDs — a compact disc. Just a worthless piece of future landfill that had no feel to it. And one little dent or slice spelled the end of your listening experience. The tape’s many imperfections, however, made it such a great option for listening to music — especially the ones I made myself that were compilations of songs I’d wait for hours to hear on the radio, quickly clicking the play and record buttons at the same time. I almost never got the start and end of the song without circumcising the start or end of the a song, or maybe getting a little bit of the DJ saying “And that was ‘Know Your Chicken’ by Cibo Matto” in there. But that all added to the experience; it made the listening experience all the more personal. I spent hours with those old radio recordings or mix tapes older kids made me or penpals sent in the mail, and it got me through arguably the roughest part of my younger years. And I almost always did it with headphones on. Not earbuds — headphones. Eventually, however, it was the other way around. The last decade has been dominated by listening devices that I push inside my ear, making the act of experiencing music at any time I want easier than ever. Headphones — the big kind that go around your entire ear — aren’t the easiest things to walk around with, even though many people do it. Earbuds, however, simple.
But this was 2020. I wasn’t walking down city streets as much as I have for the last 20 years of my life. I didn’t spend hours on trains and busses, and found myself desperate for anything resembling a connection. So, around June, I got a pair of Beats Solo Pros and spent a lot of time canceling out the world around me and listening to more music than I truly think I’ve ever listened to — which is saying a lot. Not only that, but I actually went looking for music in a way that reminds me of my older crate digging days, when I’d spend hours going to thrift stores and used vinyl places in some city and looking for new stuff. I still buy plenty of records both new and used, but my appetite had decreased in the streaming era and my listening platform feeding me suggestions that I don’t have to do any work for didn’t help. In 2020, I passed the time looking, searching out jazz and funk albums I’d never heard before, or old punk and hardcore albums I wanted to own when I was 16, but never had the money to afford. I never lost my love or obsession with music, but I can’t remember the last time I’d been as obsessed to seek it out. That’s a nice thing I’ll take away from this garbage year.
And there was also new music. Lots of it. I kept a journal, a power ranking of sorts. And two records spent the bulk of the year atop it, playing in my headphones a lot as I sat around my apartment, unable to really go anywhere. Two albums really stood out in a year that saw me add about a dozen new releases to my shelf and to my “Favorites of 2020” playlist. A bad year with a lot of great releases.
Good Songs for Bad People, Drab City
When I was about 16 or 17, I went through this phase where I looked for anything and everything that I read was an influence on Stereolab and Portishead. That was really how I developed most of my musical tastes, if I’m being honest. It was either reading liner notes and seeing what other bands or artists were name-checked, or reading some article and seeing “Oh, Belle and Sebastian are heavily influenced by the bands called Felt and Love. I should check them out.” From Krzysztof Komeda’s score for Rosemary’s Baby to Françoise Hardy, the mixtapes I started making around this time were some of my personal favorites and would probably be described by a critic as “Moody,” or “sppooky,” possibly “atmospheric.” Yet besides maybe Tindersticks, Air track or stray Broadcast songs I dubbed from a cassette made for me from an older and far cooler friend, I didn’t know many contemporary artists that made me feel the way Stereolab and Portishead did.
Fast-forward to this year and the release of Good Songs for Bad People by Drab City. A perfect album from start to finish. One that is obviously influenced by so much that came before it, but that also sounds entirely like its own thing. Good Songs for Bad People is noir music. Spooky and (god, I’m so sorry for saying this) sexy. The whole album just has this mystery to it that had me going back again and again. Every listen was something to look forward to, and for that I’m thankful.
Suite for Max Brown, Jeff Parker
I’ve never quite known what to call any of the music Jeff Parker is involved in. Some might say it’s post-rock, others might say it’s avant-garde, while some may say it’s jazz. The group he might be best-known for, Tortoise, certainly has teetered this line between being influenced by Krautrock and certain strains of jazz from the middle of the 20th century, but still get tagged post-rock. All I know is that names are stupid, and Parker, whose collected works reveal one of the most accomplished and fascinating musicians over the last quarter-century, has outdone himself with Suite for Max Brown, an album that sucks up genres and spits them out as something impossible to define. Little bits that sound like they came from the brain of Flying Lotus or Dirty Projectors, little chunks of ‘60s soul rewired as ‘80s hip hop samples and then stretched back into full songs, and so much more. Maybe even little parts that remind me of This Heat? It’s the musical version of eating a meal blindfolded and being blown away with every bite, but unable to pin down the source of the taste. It’s all so good.
Infinite Jess, Jesse Kivel and that day, on the beach by Matt Kivel
I’ve been a fan of the Kivel brothers, Matt and Jesse, and their various projects for over a decade now. They used to play together in a band called Princeton, but as they’ve gone their separate ways over the past few years, they’ve both put out an impressive body of work. Matt’s latest album, that day, on the beach, was something he seemed to be hinting at with 2019’s last night in america, where he seemed to be looking for some balance between Neil Young fragile singer-songwriter and Brian Eno’s ambient works. This year, he fully embraced the latter, and the resulting album was a favorite on sun-soaked summertime days. It has continued to be a perfect wind-down album as I write this in December.
I had similarly been a fan of his brother Jesse’s pop duo, Kisses, which he seemed to focus a good deal of attention on, whereas his brother released a steady stream of solo records. Jesse did as well; his 2017 EP, Content, was a favorite of mine. Atmospheric pop that I think I once described as Prefab Sprout trying to be Arthur Russell, or the other way around. Infinite Jess picks up where the EP left off, except the sound is filled out a bit more. I’ve been really enjoying this one the last few weeks. Been playing in nonstop.
Destroyers and Thundercats
What I love about Dan Bejar is that we’re sold this idea that musicians need to evolve or try and change up their sound. In some cases I understand this, but we also hold musicians up to the standards of the Beatles or the Beach Boys, waiting for them to take the next artistic leap and go make their Pet Sounds or whatever. Pop stars especially are trying to rearrange their sound so they can fit in as they grow older, which is probably why I’ve never been a huge fan of pop music, save for a few like Rihanna or Lana Del Rey. I’m more fascinated by the musician that does whatever they want to do and have it work. That’s why Bejar stands out. The last decade or so of his music, I’d say starting with the Bay of Pigs EP in 2009, has been unimpeachable in my book. He has such a singular focus, and that is to create what he wants to create. I’m pretty sure he gives very few fucks beyond that. Every album feels like the continuation from the last, and with this year’s, Have We Met, he’s made my favorite batch of songs since 2011’s Kaputt.
Speaking of musicians that want to chase their weird ass muse, It Is What It Is by Thundercat wasn’t Drunk — which is fine. It’s hard to replicate an album like that. It is (what it is, duh), however, an album I had a lot of fun listening to a lot this year. Sort of like Bejar, Stephen Bruner does what Stephen Bruner wants, and it almost always works for me. I’m starting to think maybe I like these musicians that really just let their freak flags fly or whatever the kids are saying these days. (The kids are saying that, right? This is 1968, isn’t it?)
I’d be remiss to mention Magic Oneohtrix Point Never in this conversation. Daniel Lopatin does things that always take me surprise. And the surprise here is that he put out an Oneohtrix Point Never album that isn’t really that out of the ordinary for what he’s done, but it opens up and spins around like looking through a kaleidoscope while on an acid trip. The kaleidoscope is there in your hands, but it swerves and moves around in ways you didn’t totally expect it to. That, and he has the single of the year with the Weeknd in “No Nightmares.” And the Weeknd is a whole other story. He’s a pop star that I’m fascinated with, and After Hours was his best album in years.
Unchillwave
One of the few “I can’t believe that bullshit” moments I had when reading a Pitchfork review was seeing the 5.8 given to the new Washed Out album. I think Purple Noon is his best album. I think the reason this album really resonated with me was it came out towards the end of the summer, and it had a real dance party at the end of the world vibe to it which, well, felt pretty real. This album answered the question: How does the artists connected to the “chillwave” tag react to the unchillest of times?
I should mention here that I loved the two singles from Simmons & Matteo, the “collaborative backwards looking but forward thinking mainstream pop-centric songwriting project from Mike Pace” who was in the great band Oxford Collapse, and who also coined the term “Spago Rock.” The two tracks he released this year could both be perfect if you were alive in 1991 and could drive a convertible down a freeway in L.A. It’s that kind of vibe. “Missed Connection,” in particular, sort of calls to mind what Phosphorescent was doing with the track “New Birth in New England.”
A somewhat similar vibe, Raised in a Place by Mountain Brews was another EP I loved, but the song “The Worst Margarita of My Life” really resonated with me and basically everybody else that heard it. You ever heard how Bob Dylan said Jimmy Buffett was one of his favorite songwriters? That was wild, right? I feel like writing the anti-”Margaritaville” anthem should get Jake Longstreth on old Bobby D’s radar. He might dig it.
Hum still rules
That’s it. Inlet is another classic by a band I’ve loved since I was 14. It’s their heaviest album yet. God bless.
Some other 2020 albums I loved:
Alfredo, Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist
Longgone, Alex Zhang Hungtai, Tseng Kuo Hung
We Have Amnesia Sometimes, Yo La Tengo
Patchouli Blue, Bohren & der Club of Gore
Untitled (Rise), Sault
Suddenly, Caribou
Becoming (Music from the Netflix Original Documentary),
Sixteen Oceans, Four Tet