A Brief Interlude: 10 of Our Favorite Albums in 2020 (So Far)
We recap 10 of the most mesmerizing albums to drop in 2020 — from the cottagecore cornucopia of Taylor Swift's "folklore" to the splattery glitchscape of Black Dresses' "Peaceful as Hell."
If there’s anything to highlight about this year — as absolutely dreadful as it has been — it would be the music. Here are 10 of our favorite albums, featuring excerpts from me, Finn Hadsell-Florin, Courtney Bergsieker, Grace Robinson, Emma Lipkind, Cade Aguda, and Sam Hadelman. Make sure to join the newsletter and share if you enjoy.
Black Dresses - Peaceful As Hell
noise pop | industrial
Peaceful as Hell scratches a very specific itch that I was unaware I had until I heard it. Black Dresses incorporates elements of a wide swath of genres into their music including punk, glitch, noise, industrial, pop, alt-rock, lofi, even goth and black metal. Yet somehow it manages to all come together to seem cohesive and accessible, in a very personal and homegrown way.
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The record has a triumphant dichotomy of tone which you can immediately grasp from the title: Peaceful as Hell. The sound palette and lyrical content walks a precarious tightrope, like a sour patch kid sidling back and forth using noise and distortion alongside bitter lyrics describing nihilism, social isolation, and gender dysphoria; then utilizing more pop-centric alt-rock/punk passages alongside sweet sentiments of friendship, happiness, and being nice to others. Maybe more importantly, the record is incredibly catchy. Choruses pop and hooks are sticky, often in a strikingly off-kilter fashion. In the euphoric tale of “Damage Suppressor,” the chorus explodes with the description of a battle-damaged purgatory hell-world princess. On the fluttering “Creep U,” the duo repeat a cute hook over sunny alt-rock instrumentation, before the track eventually devolves into crushing distortion with the hook being torn apart and turned inside out.
With this album Devi and Rook are exploring unpleasant urges and attitudes. On the piercing banger “Sharp Halo,” the image of a halo is subverted to become something dangerous and destructive. However, within the acidic broth that this record encompasses, there is this optimistic craving for genuine human connection that manages to bleed through and float to the top of the cauldron.
Listening to this album for me is a self-contained journey of personal conflict. One in which I empathize with much of the unrest and frustration, but ultimately come out the tail end with a sanguine outlook.
Favorite Track: “Creep U”
-Finn Hadsell-Florin
Bladee - EXETER
cloud rap | experimental
Don’t get me wrong — I love Mr. Bladee (pronounced “blade”), the unofficial CEO of cloud rap. But — and it takes a true fan to admit this — most of his music is the aural equivalent of eating spoonfuls of plain yogurt over and over again.
Wait! Keep reading!
Bladee’s musical trashiness is the best sort of trashiness. It’s off-the-top-rope trashiness.
EXETER is what happens when, for a change, Bladee polishes his mountain of trash with a lambswool duster and shapes it into something magnificent. It’s short, which is probably for the better — at only 18 minutes, the laconic LP manages a dazzling, hypnotic cornucopia of textures, all of which are produced at a quality level (thanks to Gud) we’ve never seen from Bladee before. There are ethereal lullabies (“Mirror [Hymn] - Intro”), supercharged croons (“Rain3ow Star [Love Is All]”) and ambient moan-fests (“Every Moment Special”). It’s by far the best plain yogurt I’ve ever eaten — haha suck it chobani.
Favorite Track: “Mirror (Hymn) - Intro”
-Kieran Press-Reynolds
Charli XCX - how i’m feeling now
hyperpop | experimental pop
Devised and produced during six weeks of quarantine, how i’m feeling now is a distinct meditation on the present. Charli took advantage of a uniquely awful moment by using newly popular platforms like Zoom and Instagram Live to collaborate with fans, peers and producers while working, so the creation of her fourth studio album became a somewhat shared experience that I really enjoyed watching.
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How i’m feeling now doesn’t leave much up to interpretation; each track works like a diary entry where Charli tells us exactly what’s on her mind. She vents about boredom and restlessness with heavy electro beats and lyrics like “I just wanna go to parties / Up high, wanna feel the heat from all the bodies” on club bangers like “anthems,” then contents herself with soft synths and warm vocals while she sings about new joy in her relationship on tracks like “party 4 u.”
Without abandoning her usual gloss, Charli flirts with vulnerability and experiments with a more electronic, industrial sound on how i’m feeling now. The way she bridges grating sounds and elated pop melodies is unbelievably satisfying and makes the album totally unique yet totally Charli.
Favorite Track: “detonate”
-Courtney Bergsieker
Lady Gaga - Chromatica
dance pop
Lady Gaga’s music will always be nostalgic to me. I grew up having dance parties to “Applause” and “Starstruck,” so to see her bring back the old Gaga, the wild, meat-dress-era Gaga, seems almost too good to be true. Despite getting back to her roots, it is apparent that Gaga hasn’t forgotten to show us how much she has learned in her personal life over the years. Chromatica isn’t just an album chock full of bops, it’s a reminder of how necessary self-confidence and self-validation are. But she doesn’t just simply come out and say these things; instead, she lets us sing and dance our hearts out until we feel the same way she does. With the inclusion of purely orchestral tracks among the nightclub-esque songs, the dichotomy between heartbreak and healing is bold and familiar. It seems as though the iconic pop artist has finally found her perfect balance between letting us have a raw glimpse into her personal battles while keeping the vibe exciting and irresistible.
Favorite Track: N/A
-Emma Lipkind
Lil Baby - My Turn
trap | hip-hop
“My Turn” has finally solidified Lil Baby as the hottest rapper of the moment, a title he has been working for since the beginnings of his career. Though he has had no shortage of time in the limelight, this record has separated him from the pack, and has displayed to the rest of the world that he is indeed the future of music. There are a multitude of sounds that cultivate on this record, which eventually come together for a cohesive, intricate body of work. Lil Baby showed that he can create pop records as seemingly as he can conjure up trap records, all while staying true to his craft. Also, there are moments where all the unique styles that his sound consists of come together seamlessly, including tracks like “Emotionally Scarred” and “How.” He assembled a Justice League-esque feature list for the project, including Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Wayne, esteemed new-comer 42 Dugg, and more. Though the face of hip-hop is ever changing, the standards to which we hold our superstars isn’t, and Lil Baby has beyond stretched the bounds of expectations, and shattered any ceiling that was set above him. Lil Baby is the seminal artist of our time, and “My Turn” exclaimed that he is truly, here to stay.
Favorite Track: Emotionally Scarred
-Sam Hadelman
Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher
folk | country
In her extraordinary second album, the songs that make up “Punisher” tether the highest highs and lowest lows. While some lyrics directly correspond to her own narrative, others point to the traumas endured by others. “Moon Song” recognizes Phoebe’s own abusive relationship, while pointing to the heartbreak of Eric Clapton through her reference, “We hate ‘tears in heaven.’” Her songs leave us with the unsettling feeling that arises when we cannot find comfort in any direction. The frustration that emerges when we lose our grasp on the ones we love.
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Her album transcends us to that one specific feeling of driving without a destination. A serotonin released with this new, complete freedom, but what follows is an unnerving realization that we have nowhere to go. All of these bottled up thoughts are animated in the final song “I Know The End,” which reverses the flow of this album’s steady, emo-folk core with a vibrant finale both vocally and instrumentally.
Favorite Track: Graceland Too
-Grace Robinson
Ryan Beatty - Dreaming of David
dream pop | ambient pop
The first several tracks on Dreaming of David feel like 4 a.m. Ryan Beatty takes us through the doldrums of being an LA prince of pop with ambient soundscapes and relaxed beats. On “Patchwork,” imagery of empty clubs and distorted vocals murmuring lyrics like “Classic / Glassed up and gettin’ wasted / This is not my last masterpiece / I am Michelangelo” create a compelling air of gloom and spotlight fatigue.
The second half of Dreaming of David reminds me of Beatty’s first album Boy in Jeans with his clear, assertive vocals. Differently, however, Beatty trades buoyancy for a more grounded sway as he sings about his close relationships. Using simple guitar strumming and a catchy hook “Love me to death or don’t give me anything,” standout track “Casino” is modest but resonates deeply and highlights Beatty’s incredible voice.
Overall, Dreaming of David is melancholic, romantic and showcases his impressive vocal versatility.
Favorite Track: “Evergreen”
-Courtney Bergsieker
Taylor Swift - folklore
indie folk | chamber pop
This quarantine I rearranged my room and baked a single loaf of banana bread. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift spontaneously created a masterpiece of an album that captures the rich reality of growing up through her gift of storytelling. Oof. Her album Fearless established the soundtrack of my childhood, and I would trade every penny to hear it for the first time again. In some strange way, folklore granted me this wish. This album, with minimal production and glamour, pushes the limits on what society believes is best for Taylor’s career path. The escalating superficiality of Taylor’s latest releases never felt authentic. While this album touches more on the emotional, vulnerable side of Taylor, the maturity behind the themes and lyrics is finally reflective of Taylor’s age and strength. The best part is that this age does not hinder Taylor’s hopeless romantic imagination. A love triangle plot-line involving the characters of Betty, Inez, and James is captured through Easter eggs within the album. Their three point-of-views are thoughtfully constructed in “cardigan, august, and Betty,” respectively. Their stories blindly draw in our empathy and echo the blur of emotions Taylor piles into this album. As Taylor and I age together, her eighth album captures raw sentiments that finally dig deeper into the heartbreak of the real-world, while circling back to our roots of fairytales and make-believe.
Favorite Track: exile
-Grace Robinson
The Garden - Kiss My Super Bowl Ring
noise rock | hardcore
The vocal style of the two verses of “A Struggle” perfectly capture the whole album — with each line, singer Wyatt Shears switches between a warm, rhapsodic lilt and a high-pitched scream, jumping from 0 to 100 and 100 to 0 like a berserk acrobat. There’s no warning, no grace period, as one smooth, sunny track jolts into a firestorm of bass and punk abandon. Where in another artist’s album this might come across as choppy and disorganized, for The Garden it’s more a stylistic choice than a fault; they want to jumpscare you.
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The Garden is especially well-versed (like a similar hardcore-minded artist, Machine Girl) in stringing together elements from other sounds and scenes — like ‘80s synth, industrial, jungle breakbeats. Everything is put through a punk lens, and done so gratuitously. Not for the faint-hearted, but definitely a mosh pit soundtrack for the ages, Kiss My Super Bowl Ring is my favorite album of The Garden’s to date.
Favorite Track: “AMPM Truck”
-Kieran Press-Reynolds
The Weeknd - After Hours
alternative R&B
As someone who has been listening to The Weeknd thoroughly since the Starboy era, the release of After Hours was nothing short of a holiday for me. My Dear Melancholy, his most recent EP, foreshadowed his transition into a lyrically deeper, darker artist who is diverging away from Starboy’s pop-centric soundscape he is clearly comfortable with, and has so clearly outgrown.
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It’s the eagerly anticipated “sixth chapter” of his career. Abel Tesfaye’s often dark and nostalgic alternative r&b will compel you to get into a car and just drive, drive, drive. Preferably through an unfamiliar city at night. Bonus points if it’s raining and you’re reminiscing about past relationships you may have never even had.
The Weeknd juxtaposes absolute bangers “Heartless” and “Faith” with moody faux-ballads like “Save Your Tears” and “Snowchild.” As per usual, his transitions are impeccable and the whole album’s narrative feels seamless. Sprinkled throughout like lyrical Easter eggs are nods to his album Trilogy, the compilation of his first three mixtapes which garnered significant attention in 2012, eventually leading to his first studio debut Kiss Land.
Seemingly drawing inspiration from the aesthetic of the 1980s with his sublime use of synthesizers, he even uses the saxophone during “In Your Eyes,” which suits the overall vibe very well. Overall, he manages to remain faithful to his unique style while pushing its boundaries. The bonus tracks are a treat, too.
Favorite Track: Snowchild
-Cade Aguda