The 2020 end of year music lists thread

there's some scores in this house

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-songs-2020/

25. 100 gecs: “hand crushed by a mallet (remix)” [ft. Fall Out Boy, Craig Owens, and Nicole Dollanganger]

listen i love fall out boy but lmao at people voting for this shit

fwiw breastcrawl, Pitchfork seem to have gone all in on afrobeats this year...we'll see I guess

― rob, Friday, December 4, 2020 5:00 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

this manifested in one (1) song by burna boy

lol I was just about to post "guess I was wrong about pfork + afrobeats" though ftr there's an Amaarae song too

i saw amaarae, but there's no afro influence on the song they picked

i should say that the song isn't informed at all by the kinds of sounds that populate the rolling afro thread

I will be p surprised if Made In Lagos and Twice As Tall aren't on their albums list, but yeah it's a very parochial list, though I'm bored myself of making that observation now

well, Amaarae has been on the rolling afro thread several times, and I think that argument can get dicey pretty fast but I get what you're saying.

anyway, the real clear signal is that awful line about Fela in the BB write-up: no capacity for thinking about this music as anything other than continent-wide representation

wow the p4k list feels particularly uninteresting this year

also very confused by "what's your pleasure?" being the jessie ware track to place ???

p4k liked afrobeats more last year with burna & davido getting BNMs. this year it's just been amaarae i think.

fireboy got BNM, but he didn't make the list

I think that argument can get dicey pretty fast but I get what you're saying.

― rob, Monday, December 7, 2020 9:49 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i know, which is why i tried to hedge haha. at any rate, that particular track that they picked has elements of pitch-shifted alt-r&b that fits very snugly into p4k's milieu.

oh you're right about those BNMs, shit I'm probably also wrong about those albums placing then, oh well

listen i love fall out boy but lmao at people voting for this shit

the combinations of the words "fall out boy" and "remix" have produced some of the worst music I've ever heard

lifestyle magazine Pitchfork's list has a lot of problems but at least it's correctly identified the best track on the Fiona Apple album

oh right i forgot about fireboy. only burna made the albums last year so probably fireboy or amaarae will i guess, but the don't seem to have gone all-in compared to last year or anything.

I posted about the Amaarae album on the Rolling R&B thread yesterday myself as a matter of fact

baffled by their love of Dogleg

"money machine" was only #61 last year so i'm guessing the shitty fall out boy remix placing much higher (and the remix album scoring better) is because way more pitchfork writers are paying attention to 100 gecs now lol. guess they were slow on the uptake?

but at least we now have clarity about Masego: he’s a “future-soul artist”!

(he’s on the Kehlani track that placed)

would also like to politely enquire why waxahatchee is still a thing

They really erase the good will I have toward them as a useful way to keep track of a decent (but not comprehensive; don't start yelling at me) cross-section of music throughout the year with these lists. I think the "WAP" blurb made me dislike that song even more than I already did; why is it "a feat that the song exists at all"?

this year's waxahatchee album was pleasant but i was quite surprised just how acclaimed it's ended up being?

also p4k's biggest blindspot is still sault. even the rest of the us press is starting to catch on!

https://www.popmatters.com/best-albums-of-2020-2649094823.html

xp
I like Sault a lot, but given how determined their fans are around here, I'm starting to find Pitchfork ignoring them amusing

I liked those two Sault albums well enough, but they felt a bit… basic? Like a few extra sonic tricks would increase their replay factor; maybe some more adventurous songs as well. I get the sense that the best is yet to come.

P4K’s list is surprisingly decent.

PopMatters list looks boring. I might check out the Ital Tek, though.

there’s more stuff i haven’t heard on the pitchfork list than usual, idk if that means they dug a little deeper or i just read the site less

i like both, but the Waxahatchee album makes me *feel* more in about 30 seconds than both Sault records combined

The Quietus mustered a jazz shortlist:

https://thequietus.com/articles/29308-nate-wooley-susan-alcorn-eric-revis-jazz-review

Of those I've heard, I liked the Anna Högberg Attack the most.

I just listened to 30 seconds of Waxahatchee and it's true I did feel ~something~

imo, Sault are classicists--so I have a hard time imagining a more adventurous version of them--but they're very much invested in feeling

judging from p4k’s instagram comments, waxahatchee is probably gonna win the site’s reader poll

I got the sense, as I was listening, that a single spin was enough to exhaust each song, in no small part because of their self-consciousness directness. There was no mystery, no ambiguity, which is a near-dealbreaker as far as I'm concerned. I love the sound palette they draw upon, though, and Cleo Sol in particular is a great vocalist.

xp

The Wire lists are out. Top 5 albums are Beatrice Dillon, Moor Mother, Mourning A BLKstar, Bob Dylan and Duma

Seconded – I'd love to see the full lists as well.

I got the sense, as I was listening, that a single spin was enough to exhaust each song, in no small part because of their self-consciousness directness. There was no mystery, no ambiguity, which is a near-dealbreaker as far as I'm concerned. I love the sound palette they draw upon, though, and Cleo Sol in particular is a great vocalist.

xp

― pomenitul, Monday, 7 December 2020 15:56 (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think this rather neatly explains my lukewarm response to Sault as well

#50 Fleetwood Mac "Dreams"

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-songs-2020-1097442/fleetwood-mac-dreams-tiktok-1097741/

pom, i think your criticisms apply to (black is), but less to (rise), which I greatly prefer

Really glad to see the JD Allen album show up on the Quietus jazz list. It's a great record, but exactly the kind of thing that falls through the cracks because there's no hook or gimmick for a critic to latch onto; it's just three guys playing really, really well together in a traditional style — if you like circa-1964 John Coltrane, you'll like Allen — but absolutely putting their own spin on it. (Full disclosure: JD is a friend, and I wrote the liner notes for the album.)

vc, that's fair – I do agree that there's an audible progression.

I would also be interested in seeing the WIRE lists.

I helped put on a show for Mourning A BLKStar here in Philly once— it turned into a total nightmare because of a serious miscommunication with the venue, and I ended up having to pay their entire fee out of my own pocket (long story!). BUT!! They were an exceptionally good live band, and interesting, fun people to be around. Glad they're getting love.

that RS song list has Oxlade’s “Away” at 23 - I approve. I also like that they have Curtis Waters’s “Stunnin’” somewhere too. I love that big dumb track.

do we have a thread where Mourning A BLKStar has been discussed? this is srsly great stuff

they’ve hidden those lists very well, I went to the site but wasn’t able to find them. do you have a link?

no, it's in the print issue out today...

Wire Magazine - Releases Of The Year 2020

1. Beatrice Dillon - Workaround
2. Moor Mother - Circuit City
3. Mourning A BLKstar - The Cycle
4. Bob Dylan - Rough And Rowdy Ways
5. Duma - Duma
6. Jeff Parker & The New Breed - Suite for Max Brown
7. Still House Plants - Fast Edit
8. Jennifer Walshe - A Late Anthology Of Early Music Vol 1: Ancient To Renaissance
9. White Boy Scream - Bakunawa
10. Carl Stone - Stolen Car

11. Backxwash - God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It
12. Armand Hammer - Shrines
13. Sarah Davachi - Cantus, Descant
14. Zeroh - BLQLYTE
15. Bill Nace - Both
16. William Basinski - Lamentations
17. Albert Bouchard - Re Imaginos
18. Rhodri Davies - Telyn Rawn
19. Quelle Chris & Chris Keys - Innocent Country 2
20. Special Interest - The Passion Of

21. Irreversible Entanglements - Who Sent You?
22. Aksak Maboul - Figures
23. Liv.e - Couldn't Wait To Tell You
24. Ellen Fulman & Theresa Wong - Harbors
25. ONO - Red Summer
26. The Soft Pink Truth - Shall We Go On Sinning So The Grace May Increase?
27. Sun Ra Arkestra - Swirling
28. Fiona Apple - Fetch The Bolt Cutters
29. Autechre - SIGN
30. Gogoj aka Sheng Jie - Oviparity

31. Mary Halvorson's Code Girl - Artlessly Falling
32. Jay Electronica - A Written Testimony
33. PRAED! Orchestra - Live In Sharjah
34. Angel Bat Dawid & Tha Brotherhood - Live
35. Tara Clerkin Trio - Tara Clerkin Trio
36. Crazy Doberman - Illusory Expansion
37. Oliver Coats - skins n slime
38. Clipping - Visions Of Bodies Being Burned
39. Mary Lattimore - Silver Ladders
40. Pink Siifu - NEGRO

41. Sara Serpa - Recognition
42. Thundercat - It Is What It Is
43. Anna Von Hausswolff - All Thoughts Fly
44. Neptunian Maximalism - Eons
45. Headie One x Fred again. - GANG
46. Neil Charles - Low And Beyond
47. Wendy Eisenberg - Auto
48. Asher Gamedze - Dialectic Soul
49. Tricky - Fall To Pieces
50. Sylvia Hallett - Tree Time

apologies in advance for any typos

B. Dillon and B. Dylan together at last

...and in the correct order

Thanks!