The 2020 end of year music lists thread

I believe the Mrs. Piss album is actually titled Self​-​Surgery.

We discussed it a bit upthread fwiw.

Huh, don’t see it... anyway, sorry to be a PEE-dant! (Geddit?)

Sorry, I meant the Revolver list as a whole.

x-post-- Amanda Petrusich's favorite album of 2020 ... is from 2018:

She's the New Yorker critic. She picked the 2018 album "No. 1" from Etran de L'Air who are a guitar band from Niger. The rest of her list includes : Adrianne Lenker albums; Mary Lattimore -Silver Ladders; Dua Lipa -Future Nostalgia; Fiona Apple -Fetch the Bolt Cutters; Jyoti- "Mama, You can Bet!"; Bob Dylan- Rough and Rowdy Ways; Fleet Foxes- Shore; Freddie Gibbs & the Alchemist - Alfredo; Phoebe Bridgers- Punisher

She gave Honorable Mentions to- Taylor Swift; Megan Thee Stallion; Natalia Lafourcade- Un Canto por Mexico Vol. 1; Kehlani; Jay Electronica; The Strokes; Waxahatchee

https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/12/top-50-albums-of-2020/full-post/

i think consequence of sound might be more rolling stone than rolling stone are these days

Why do they list the “origin” of every artist?

Jessie Ware has been ranked way too low in every list so far

Definitely. I'm not sure if it's because it came out more recently but I've been very surprised to see Kylie placing above Jessie and Roisin in lots of the lists so far

i like the kylie album but i was pretty confused by that yeah

gen xers be gen xing

Drift Records

https://driftrecords.com/blogs/drift/deluxe-2020-records-of-the-year

Just catching up here and still am but just want to add I'm sorry Emily, we failed you in launching a targeted campaign to get SoL on tQ's list, no doubt (though it shouldn't even have needed a campaign tbf). One of my most played lp's of the year!

drift list yet another chock full of the sort of worthy alt-drudgery that isn't remotely at the cutting edge but which sounds edgy enough to excite sufficiently jaded listmakers

yes that's right it's EOY season and i am getting in the mood

One of the few I’ve seen with my own AOTY near the top (Moses Boyd), so good on ‘em.

the kelly lee owens record is so great and also deserves to be near the top of most lists

Don't know about that but it def feels underrated so far.

It was a September album right? It feels underrated, yes. I'm wondering how many Jan/Feb (pre-covid abyss) records will be forgotten about. My AOTY is actually from before March, it turns out.

Was listening to the KLO record for the first time this morning and was very impressed

RYM sez August 28, so might as well be September, yeah.

I just mentioned it in the fourth world music thread but I belatedly came across Healing Cycles by Koyil and it's blowing my mind right now, way more than Jon Hassell's own 2020 LP. Would've fit snugly alongside Gioia's picks, much like Jéricho's De dreit nine (neo-medieval avant-folk sung in French and Occitan).

xp

*nien, not nine. Fuck autocorrect 4evah.

I was weirdly hit and miss with the KLO record, the hits were v v nice though

I sometimes get bored of the KLO on headphones, but it's riveting when I play it on speakers.

That dull-as-dishwater Jessie Ware album seems to be on every one of these lists, and some of you are complaining that it's too low? I mean, honestly! Take the W!

Careful.

haven't listened to it yet; keeping powder dry for the EOYs. maybe i'll like it! 'spotlight' is pretty archetypical middlebrow catnip tho, i was convinced i'd heard it before when i first did

xp You figured it out but yea my snark was re: katie dey's stupid entitled sounding tweet and not re: any music from ilm people. I def empathize with the frustration detailed upthread and have nothing but respect for ilm musicians.

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/930492613/the-50-best-albums-of-2020-page-1

npr list is interesting

NPR list is very NPR.

Of the stuff I haven't heard, the Siti Muharam and Nubya Garcia seem cool. As though there wasn't enough catching up to do...

Nice to see Victoria Monét show up on a list.

NPR list reminded me of the Buscabulla album, which I like but had sort of forgotten. Also nice to see Lido Pimienta near the top of a list, that album's great.

https://www.loverecordstores.com

The #loverecordstores ‘Independent Albums of the Year’ list is 2020’s favourite releases from independent labels voted for by a cross section of notable independent record stores including Drift, Resident, Rough Trade, Normans, Piccadilly, Bear Tree, Assai, Banquet, Stranger Than Paradise, Bleep and Monorail among many others.

Rose City Band in the top 10, that's one of my faves and it hasn't shown up many places.

the orielles record was solid and overlooked too, glad to see the love (record stores)

I think the NPR list is vastly more interesting than most

yeah the NPR list is interesting. The description of Clarice Jensen's The experience of repetition as death intrigued me & holy cow this is my thing. Any tips for other things in the vicinity would be appreciated!

As in drone music?

If so, this year I quite liked Alison Cotton's Only Darkness Now, Anna von Hausswolf's All Thoughts Fly and Ellen Fullman & Teresa Wong's Harbors, which feature different degrees of single-minded droniness. You may also enjoy Sarah Davachi's Cantus, Descant.

I don't know, is this drone music? I am enchanted, that's all I know.

I call it low-cal classical

Not a dis, I love this shit

Happy to hear it!

Let me know if the others pique your fancy.

xp heh, that's a good way of putting it.

low-cal classical is a great name & def something I like a lot

I will go for the others too, playing the Debussy-Rameau off that NPR list now (Vikingur Ólaffson), a little higher cal I guess

beautiful record that ólaffson one

Love seeing Sault at #1 for NPR.

Surprised to see Tame Impala on the list at all - I thought that was a huge critical dud. (I certainly didn't like it!).

I root for the Spillage Village collective, love a lot of their past work (including various Earthgang & JID releases). But I was disappointed in the album they released this year.

the tame impala record is the best tame impala record imo

puts me in the mind of like a sprawling '70s double album with weird subspaces to get lost in, while also being majorly funky and fusion-y

Based on Rob Mitchum's sheet, NPR has ~ 5 or 6 albums in their top 20 that don't appear on any of the other lists logged so far. For those who haven't checked out the Katie Pruitt thread/album yet (their #16), I expect it to do well in the ilm poll.

Here's the sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vpxZunN4M8gvnsireG4TEPSlA-pxo8Ta9Y6Kj8zgWwg/edit#gid=1452150872

the extent to which the zines concur is always just incredibly mindnumbing

if only they were to concur with specific user such as imago instead

well i wouldn't want that either, but there are SO MANY albums released in a year & yet the overlap on these lists is always just ridiculous, it (criticism) really is just mutual backscratches and lifestyle blogging now

at least the quietus list, for example, is genuinely unlike any other, even if i don't like most of it