The 50 best albums of 2020 We’ve collated our writers’ ‘best of’ lists and crunched the numbers in a big old music ranking machine. Let’s just hope he doesn’t leave us waiting another five years for the next chapter. – D.K. Alexis Petridis Read more. But this complex art-pop style, exemplified by lead single “Simmer,” is an intriguing step in a new direction. If that means facing the apocalypse, as Bridgers does over the cacophonous apex of closing track “I Know the End,” rest assured that there’s no artist better suited to burn it down and start again. A mix of innocence and sophistication distinguishes this R&B gem, their vocal rhapsodies catching on coy bass lines and barbed percussion. The record doesn’t conclude in rebirth. The dominant mode was strafing house. LS Read the full review. On Murder Most Foul, his longest song ever – and one of his very best – he’s like Walt Whitman spilling his thoughts on a meme page for Facebook boomers: a sublime epic of conspiracy theorising, American history and rock’n’roll nostalgia. That could also be said for dusting off previous collaborator and notorious recluse Zack de la Rocha. After a deluge of canceled or delayed tours, drive-in experiments, Bandcamp Fridays and bedroom livestreams, we’re finally here. Those expecting another Paramore album were thrown for a loop —, ) all over again. Nothing could’ve swept this monumental release under the rug. “Ooh La La” and its accompanying video showcased Killer Mike and El-P’s fun side, whereas “JU$T” battled injustice. It’s hard to celebrate much of anything in 2020. The resulting arrangements are a spring clean for the mind. The breeziness feels like a warm draft off the Pacific, the warmer, messier swirl of sound in the mix truer to life. She had spent a few years off the pulse with try-hard Kiss Me Once (2014) and Nashville-inspired, retirement-tempting Golden (2018). But where his fictional counterparts were criticised for declining to delve beyond surface recognition, Healy’s frustration at the social dynamics that affirm such behaviour is all over Notes on a Conditional Form. Now a “full-time rapper” (“Glock in My Lap”), 21 balances the felonious with the luxurious. Let’s just hope he doesn’t leave us waiting another five years for the next chapter. The album emerged out of Daniel’s anger with the Trump presidency and his desire to avoid creating “‘angry white guy’ music in a purely reactive mode.” What he created instead is a luxuriant deep house odyssey, percolating and humming with drones, bells, murmuring voices, twinkling piano and even some live saxophone. With Suddenly, the Canadian composer/DJ finally emerged with what may be the warmest, most empathetic electronic album of 2020. He shows his brilliance on “How Sway” and once again proves his funkiness on the star-studded “Black Qualls.” As usual, Bruner demonstrates why he’s one of our generation’s most versatile musicians — fearless and unafraid to take a groove to a different time and place. With, , he exceeded his lofty standards and made his best album yet. “Let it drift and wash away,” he sings on Whole Life. First published on Tue 1 Dec 2020 06.00 GMT. As the pandemic turned the world upside down nine months ago, many musicians and their livelihoods were heavily impacted. Considering the dramatic origins of her third album – lupus, a kidney transplant, splitting from Justin Bieber and the Weeknd, rehab for her mental health – Gomez could justifiably have released an hour of equally high-intensity bloodletting, but Rare abides by the maxim “when it’s hot, write it cold”. Snaith flirts with old-school hip-hop breakbeats on “Home” and dusty jazz loops on “Lime” (digging up some wonderfully rare soul samples along the way), but he never strays too far from the soulful, house-inspired pop songcraft he’s mastered on these past two albums. If there were ever a year for Gaga to get back to basics, this was it. – B.G. The album surged forth and pulled back, often within the same song. 2 on the, 200, but it’s also a creative leap for reggaetón itself. Savage Mode II is the aural equivalent of watching black Air Forces step out of a Wraith. By Sean Maunier on January 8, 2021 Stephen Bruner’s fourth album caught some flak for lacking the finesse of his earlier work: spattered with sub-two-minute ideas that seemed to constrict and slacken his six-stringed bass excursions; his louche falsetto barely concealing his existential anxiety and fear of loss. LS Read the full review. It takes a good 20 minutes to offer its first bout of release (the flirtatious boogie of Shellfish Mademoiselle), priming the pumps for Murphy to enter her formidable euphoric stride: industrial funk trailing seedy lounge fantasies, pizzicato strings and screaming disco house. 21 Savage & Metro Boomin – Savage Mode II, Blockbuster movie sequels typically raise the stakes to go bigger than the original, and 21 Savage & Metro Boomin’s Savage Mode II adheres to the unwritten sequel rule. –. The ad-libs remain the same, but 21 is a different savage. Facebook Twitter Flipboard uproxx.it. Apple’s lighthearted yet confrontational songs made a terrible year a little easier to process. But the response to. BBT Read the full review. He shows his brilliance on “How Sway” and once again proves his funkiness on the star-studded “Black Qualls.” As usual, Bruner demonstrates why he’s one of our generation’s most versatile musicians — fearless and unafraid to take a groove to a different time and place. is the aural equivalent of watching black Air Forces step out of a Wraith. That sense of promise, half danger, half flirtation, torched the memory of her previous album’s commercial hedge-betting, Ware’s finest record yet rising from the ashes. These songs truly deserve the descriptor Dylanesque, not just for their stylistic nods but for their quality. “Disco revival” is hardly a novel concept in pop music, but it takes a certain kind of star to make it feel fresh again. These are our 100 favorite albums of 2020. With that resolve came an expansion of Owens’ sound: encouraged by Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden, she sang more and counterbalanced her emotionally astute songwriting with increasingly daring production – on Melt!, puckered rapids of minimal techno traced the cracking of an ice cap. – Al Shipley, Ascendant Houston psych-funk trio Khruangbin finally spoke up on Mordechai, their most lyrically-driven LP yet. Ammar Kalia Read more. She sang with an intimacy that conveyed the real-time growth of thoughts from instinct to decision, her hurt at the hands of bad men and racists calcifying into defiance. The beats feel a part with classic hip-hop, but churn with cyberpunk heaviness. Just be sure to leave Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud playing from the bank. “’Cause you are a question that I thought I could solve,” she sings. They sound natural playing hip-hop breakbeats, neo-soul and even reggae, while also bringing country moods to their metropolitan pop, and the extra space throws more light on the lyrics and refined melodies: sustained strengths that make WIMPIII a truly classic record. Pen & Pixel album art and a robust merch line accompanied the album narrated by Morgan Freeman (who, among other things, defines “savage”). Left alone by a departed friend or lover (“I wish you’d’ve taken me with you wherever you went”) on the funny, phantasmagoric My Own Version of You, a truculent nursing home inmate cobbles together a companion like Frankenstein. The 15 Best Pop Albums of 2020 By Paste Staff December 31, 2020 | 2:30pm The 20 Best Indie Rock Albums of 1995 By Garrett Martin December 28, 2020 | 12:00pm More from Best Albums Mac Miller, Circles "Good news, good news, that's all they want to hear," Mac Miller laments on the centerpiece to his first posthumous album. The peak is the ecstatic chaos of Flux Capacitor and its use of Rihanna at full tilt. - Z.S. Soft rock’s poet laureate returned with one of his strongest sets yet, with the coldwave chill that arrived on Ken (2017) now getting right into his bones. adheres to the unwritten sequel rule. Plus, it’s likely the only 2020 rap album that builds a haunting loop around a sample from the ’70s Swedish prog-rock band Zamla Mammaz Manna. “Ooh La La” and its accompanying video showcased Killer Mike and El-P’s fun side, whereas “JU$T” battled injustice. –, Blockbuster movie sequels typically raise the stakes to go bigger than the original, and 21 Savage & Metro Boomin’s. If there was ever a year to wade into an Alabama creek, stare at the sun and figure out how the hell you’re going to keep on keepin’ on, it was 2020. It should be underlined that the sororal US trio’s first two albums, Days Are Gone (2013) and Something to Tell You (2017) are very good: slick without smoothing too much over. Gibbs floats over every Alchemist beat, his versatility unrivaled as he jumps from double to triple time flows, from brute force to melodic finesse. What are the best albums of 2020? Your support powers our independent journalism, Available for everyone, funded by readers. When the world needed something, anything, Run the Jewels came through with their blazing fourth album. Released in March, Colores won best urban album at the 2020 Latin Grammys, and scored the Colombian superstar a No. was Caribou’s most commercially successful album to date, even landing a Grammy nomination. After a decade-plus in the game, Gibbs still finds inventive ways to frame moving weight and riding on his enemies. Taken as a whole, these choices contain drama, solace, poetry and fire, a fitting selection for a turbulent year, by Ben Beaumont-Thomas and Laura Snapes, Fri 18 Dec 2020 08.07 GMT If the Oscar nominee has demonstrated anything in the last 20 years, it’s range. It was bleak, touching on addiction and death, yet carried a sense of triumph. Coyne tried to answer the what-ifs surrounding that visit, delving deep into imagined characters and druggy nostalgia. Deftly cajoling these disparate sounds into a lithe 43 minutes of pristine club-pop music that does sound incredibly “now” is nothing short of alchemy. LS Read the full review. Released on Valentine’s Day, the album builds upon the artist’s knack for perfectly fusing prog-rock and psychedelic pop. 15. The beautiful album brought endless moments of quiet bliss during this relentlessly chaotic year. 21 Savage matches Boomin by subtly experimenting with his own delivery — making his menacing, mid-pitched drawl looser and occasionally more melodic. Eliot, has developed her solo persona into a captivating and deeply emotive sad-song dynamo. With more space for Frank Delgado’s shadowy synths and Sergio Vega’s melodic bass, the band’s dynamic shifts have never been more satisfying — like on “Pompeji,” where clean guitars and crooning give way to a flood of distortion. This year demanded one hell of a soundtrack – and these are the 50 albums that brought the noise (Image credit: Press) Page 1 of 5: 50-41 50-41 40-31 30-21 20-11 10-01 We're not even going to go into the usual spiel about what a year it's been. But instead of hurrying to follow it up, Dan Snaith spent years reveling in his dance-y alter ego, and being a parent to his two young daughters. –. –, As a pandemic-riddled summer ushered in an even longer pandemic-riddled autumn, at least we had the bucolic sounds of Fleet Foxes to provide some comfort. Composite: Michelle Lotker/Enda Bowe. That balance of beauty and bleakness also anchors another centerpiece, the crunchy “Death Star” where Stevens unnervingly chants “Death star into space / What you call the human race / Expedite the judgment day.” Earlier in 2020, Stevens also collaborated with his stepfather Lowell Brams for the New Age album, f the Oscar nominee has demonstrated anything in the last 20 years, it’s range. Towering choruses burst with relief for the simple fact of survival. “Burn it to the ground,” she sings. Frustrated by its absence this year, the self-professed workaholic made an album of sugary obliteration that signalled her fierce hunger for the highs: “I’m so BORED,” she spat on Anthems, a bratty shriek to scare off disassociation. –, Freddie Gibbs and Alchemist approach their art like athletes, forever strengthening muscle and refining their respective forms. More laid back than its predecessor (the more rock-focused Out in the Storm) Crutchfield’s best album yet reminds us to accept imperfection and find the joy in our search for whatever comes next. With, , the Canadian composer/DJ finally emerged with what may be the warmest, most empathetic electronic album of 2020. On their third album for 4AD, the brothers drop their concept album ambitions to earnestly ponder human relationships on songs like “Why Do Lovers Own Each Other?” and “No One Holds You (Closer Than The One You Haven’t Met).” There’s always a playful spirit to the performances, particularly when Michael’s voice suddenly flips from Iggy Pop swagger to a Bob Dylan wheeze in the middle of a verse. This year was an exercise in being dressed up with nowhere to go, but Jessie Ware edged us toward the dance floor anyway with her mirrorball-blessed fourth album, started her career in dance music, Ware swapping power ballads for beats isn’t a totally unexpected side-step. “It’s all one river crossing,” he sings, inviting you to stop resisting and step right in. Then again, that’s just one reason why Poppy may very well be a, harmonies to cutesy teen pop choruses to djent-y guitars, while on “I Disagree,” she adopts a clipped trap triplet flow before a chorus that nods to vintage Evanescence. “I thought the sea would make some pattern known / And swim us safely home,” Hadreas laments on sparse closer Borrowed Light. Having (mercifully) reached the end of this awful year, we have even more perspective on the functionality of a great record. Like many of the band’s buzzy, globetrotting grooves, some new lines may come off as opaque — with bassist Laura Lee using multiple languages (including Turkish, Japanese and Portuguese) on the disco winner “Time (You and I)” or abstract spoken verses and a French-language chorus on the seductive “Connaissais de Face.” Other messages are simpler, as “You’re not crazy” is repeated no less than 14 times on the melty “If There Is No Question.” The spacious album, recorded in a barn in the band’s native city, draws from their celebrated melting pot of influences — like “Spanish disco” and “Israeli, Yemenite jams” — as much as indie-rock and soul. On the fluttering “bloodstream,” Sophie Allison grapples with an inexplicable inability to remain happy. The songwriter’s debut LP, Fake It Flowers, takes on ’90s nostalgia, offering hints of Lush, Elliott Smith, Veruca Salt, Sonic Youth and…Pavement. Across 23 tracks, the American R&B star builds a deep, rounded portrait of the highs and lows of a romantic relationship. –. Five years later, naming his follow-up The Slow Rush couldn’t be anything but a cheeky wink. On the fluttering “bloodstream,” Sophie Allison grapples with an inexplicable inability to remain happy. In late May, the U.S. faced a social and cultural reckoning that had been building for years. The guitarist with jazz-rockers Tortoise, who has released numerous solo records and played sideman to Meshell Ndegeocello, Makaya McCraven and more, was in personal and crowdpleasing form on this LP, which breezes between funk, hip-hop rhythms and cosmic jazz in honour of his mother (named in the title). (or even After Laughter) all over again. She yearns for something more, feels frustrated by a lover who’d rather microdose than indulge – plus she knows that even desire fulfilled simply seeds more desire: “There’s nothing left for us to gain,” she cries against the chill wind of Kingdom of Ends, the nihilistic second track. It’s tough to consider how much further he might have wandered next. But in execution, her fifth record seemed consumed by the spectre of another scapegoated woman: Boucher herself, following another year of high-drama headlines. How I’m Feeling Now was awash with static interference, a familiar sound to anyone who’s battled through video calling in 2020 – but it also mirrored an interior conflict between signal and noise, distraction and fulfilment. Dead bodies are largely swapped out for more bands and women, as homicides are in the rearview. From there, it plays with catchy hip-hop on “Boomer,” brassy indie-rock on “In a Cab” and intimate folk on “Far” — all proving that Bartees is one of our most versatile emerging artists. LS. Dylan turns 80 next year, but he’s still raising the bar for American song. Rachel Aroesti Read more. Both sides combined gorgeously on Re-Wild, where frost seemed to sprawl forth from Owens’ voice as she recognised “the power in me”. “We’ll be safe and sound / When it all burns down.” Let’s assume she’s talking about the concept of genre. BBT, The Atlanta rapper-producer power duo follow their hit 2016 tape with another trap masterclass. – Danielle Chelosky. Published: December 9, 2020. “’Cause you are a question that I thought I could solve,” she sings. Robin Pecknold surprise-released the sweeping Shore as the seasons turned, with his music at its most assured and his lyrics touching a newfound optimism. The Dublin band’s second album is so evocative, and produced in such a way you can feel the echo and space in a room, that it conjures a sense-memory of what gigs were once like: the jostling that glee turns into slam-dancing, the “mm” of agreement when a ballad ends. “‘angry white guy’ music in a purely reactive mode.” What he created instead is a luxuriant deep house odyssey, percolating and humming with drones, bells, murmuring voices, twinkling piano and even some live saxophone. –, Foo Fighters Swing for the Stadium (Again) on, Miley Cyrus Embraces Her Rock Star Destiny on. But that doesn’t account for the skill with which Sawayama picks her way through her formative musical loves, and how adept she is at arranging them as dynamically explosive contrasts. On the early lo-fi Perfume Genius recordings, you can hear the grand ambition of Mike Hadreas yearning to break through the scratchy fidelity. couldn’t be anything but a cheeky wink. BBT Read the full review. It’s been a gradual evolution with each successive project inching him closer to the kaleidoscopic sprawl of, , his fifth and most expansive LP. – Max Bell, “Don’t do to me what you did to America,” Sufjan Stevens croons on the 12-minute epic “America.” And the broader mood of his eighth solo LP, The Ascension, is just as overcast — full of poetic despair set against the experimental, electronic beats and wispy melodies that have defined much of Stevens’ music. – Josh Chesler. At 48, he’s never sounded less interested in chasing rap trends or compromising his vision, and Descendants of Cain is all the better for it. But the ‘70s throwback suits her “queen of the club” style, with Italo disco, Nile Rodgers-y bass lines and grand Minnie Riperton-styled sweeps all used in the name of a shimmying good time. As with Madlib, Gibbs pairs well with crackly soul samples, giving him the lofty statesmanlike air he needs when regarding everyone with such alpha-male hauteur, but he never sounds old. Here are the 50 best albums of a year unlike any we can remember. Quite simply one of the best bands in the world right now, who have something to say and the means to say it. – Laura Studarus, Grief springs eternal for My Dying Bride — and it’s never been more personal than on The Ghost of Orion, which revolves around the cancer diagnosis of vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe’s daughter. But the Grammy-nominated album is the greatest distillation to date of these two singular talents, with their collaboration enhancing one another’s strengths. Many songs were played at the protests, but none summed up that time (and 2020 as a whole) quite like RTJ4. BBT Read the full review. Pick up the December 2020 issue to discover the Top 20 reissues/archive albums of the year. arrived eight years after its predecessor, , but opener “I Want You To Love Me” maintained her signature idiosyncrasies, vulnerability and wit — all qualities that bloom further as the record continues. Enter Dua Lipa, who (much like Madonna and Kylie Minogue) flipped the genre on its head with her sophomore album, .