2020 in music

→ December 24, 2020
→ By keith

Top 100 songs of 2020.

It turned out to be a good year for music despite the pandemic and various responses by incompetent governments; perhaps there was a lot of good music already recorded and ready, but at least some of the songs on this ranking were recorded during lockdowns. I had more songs on my first cut at the top 100 than I have in years, and I’m sure I omitted something I liked, although I have proofed this list a few times now. You can also check out this year’s top albums ranking, and previous years’ top 100 lists are all here: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.

If you can’t see the Spotify widget below, you can listen to the playlist here.

100. Creeper – Cyanide. Creeper’s sophomore album, Sex, Death, and the Infinite Void, was my #2 LP of 2019, with multiple, hook-filled tracks that draw on multiple genres. The best tracks recalled early Suede and other glammy Britpop darlings, including this one, the first of two on my top 100.

99. The Weather Station – Robber. I didn’t care for this folk-jazz-rock hybrid track when I first heard it in the spring, probably because it’s so subtle and has a slow build, but it has grown on me, especially in the last few weeks as I was reviewing songs for this ranking.

98. Disclosure ft. Eko Roosevelt – Tondo. Disclosure’s ENERGY was an honorable mention for my best albums list, but “Tondo,” which features the prominent Cameroonian musician Eko Roosevelt, is only on the deluxe edition. The most interesting tracks on the album are those with African musicians contributing, like “Douha (Mali Mali),” with Malian singer/actress Fatoumata Diawara; and “Ce n’est pas,” with Cameroonian singer Blick Bassy. If they’d made the whole record out of this, it would have been in my top 5.

97. Purity Ring – Stardew. I finda little of Megan James’ vocals goes a long way for me, but it only works in certain musical contexts, rather than across an entire album or body of work.

96. Christine and the Queens – People, I’ve been sad. This tenebrous, soulful track made numerous top ten lists for 2020, including Pitchfork (#2), NPR (#2), Paste (#1), and the Guardian (#3), and I agree it’s a great song … but it wasn’t my favorite song from Héloïse Letissier this year.

95. Fontaines D.C. – A Hero’s Death. For some reason, repeating the line”Life ain’t always empty” makes it seem far more convincing that life is, in fact, quite often empty. This Dublin group might be the most authentic punk band in the world right now, and while they don’t always hit with their formula, when they do it’s up there with classics of the genre.

94. Dirty Streets – Can’t Go Back. Unapologetic blues-rock throwback songs will always go over well with me. If you think there’s something clever or interesting about Greta Van Fleet, go listen to Dirty Streets instead.

93. Moon Destroys, Paul Masvidal – Stormbringer. This might have been the heaviest song I’ve ever included on a top 100 – I’ve had an Opeth track, but modern Opeth is more prog-rock than metal anyway – except for an even heavier track in my top 25 this year. Masvidal, who adds vocals on this song, is the only remaining original member of technical heavy metal icons Cynic, two members of which died this year (Sean Reinert at age 48 in January, Sean Malone at age 50 just two weeks ago).

92. MID CITY – Forget It. Australian indie rock that reminds me a bit of the Killers’ first album. MID CITY just released their first EP, Wishing for the Best, three weeks ago, including this banger.

91. LA Priest – Beginning. When I first heard this song, I thought it was Hayden Thorpe, former lead singer and guitarist/keyboard player of Wild Beasts, but Thorpe’s solo stuff since Wild Beasts broke up isn’t actually this upbeat or interesting. My second guess was Neon Indian, but the voice wasn’t right. LA Priest is neither of those artists, but a singer and electronica musician (formerly of a band called Late of the Pier) who released his second LP, Gene, this June, five years after his solo debut.

90. The Go-Go’s – Club Zero. I don’t quite know how this song fell so far under the radar; maybe because the documentary with which it was released was only on Showtime. It’s vintage Go-Go’s, which is amazing since we’re 39 years past Beauty and the Beat.

89. Zeal & Ardor – Vigil. Zeal & Ardor dialed down the death-metal aspects of their gospel/metal blend, and it’s for the better, especially on this track, where the lyrics are quotes uttered by black people murdered by the police (“I can’t breathe/It’s a cellphone, please/don’t shoot”).

88. Sunflower Bean – Moment In The Sun. I know Sunflower Bean haven’t remained critical darlings since their debut, but their sunny indie-pop sound is just right for me even if they never evolve away from it.

87. Texas & the Wu-Tang Clan – Hi. This improbable pairing has a long history, as they collaborated on a live rendition of Texas’s best song, “Say What You Want,” with new vocals from Method Man and RZA, after they were both playing the same event in 1998 and Texas singer Sharleen Spiteri heard that the promoters had segregated the rappers to keep them away from other (white) artists. The groups have stayed in touch over the ensuing two decades, and collaborated again on this brand-new track, which works better this time because the song is specifically built around the rappers’ contributions.

86. The Amazons – Howlin. A compilation album called Introducing … The Amazons appeared in the U.S. this past January, featuring tracks from their first two proper LPs as well as several bonus tracks, including this one, which has the kind of big, muscular guitar riff that has made me a fan since their debut.

85. Public Enemy featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and ?uestlove – Fight The Power: Remix 2020. This song was the opener on the 2020 BET Awards and later appeared on PE’s comeback album What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down? Artists revisiting and re-recording their classics nearly always goes wrong, sometimes to cringey effect, but this song, with these new lyrics, appearing this summer was spot-on. The video, built around images from this past summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, is also worth watching.

84. HAERTS – It’s Too Late. Here’s hoping 2021 brings us a new album from this indie/soft-pop duo, whose sound also hasn’t changed much since their Hemiplegia EP appeared seven years ago.

83. Working Men’s Club – White Rooms and People. If you just heard this without any context, assuming you’re old enough to make this connection, wouldn’t you think this was some English post-punk track from 1981? The guitar and synth lines could have appeared on any number of albums back then, and the off-kilter vocals will always evoke that particular time in music, even though it’s become more common (at least in European pop/rock) in the interim.

82. Pale Waves – Change. This Mancunian band got quite a bit of airplay back in 2017 for “There’s a Honey” and “Television Romance,” but I’d rate this as their best single to date, a timeless pop track with a clear nod to the heyday of late 1990s alternative music.

81. Radkey – Seize. Why haven’t Radkey broken through yet?They write hooky songs that blend punk and power-pop, they’re a good story, and as an all-Black rock band, they’re still a bit of a rarity in the music world (although I hope that’s becoming less notable over time). Their fourth album, Green Room, just dropped a month ago and I still need to dive into it, but this lead single rocks.

80. Tame Impala – Lost In Yesterday. Tame Impala’s The Slow Rush was one of my favorite albums of the year, taking Kevin Parker’s project from psychedelic rock into everything from acid house to ’70s soft rock, with at least four songs I considered for the top 100.

79. SAULT ft. Michael Kiwanuka – Bow. Get usedto seeing SAULT on this list, since they released two full-length albums in 2020, one of which, Untitled (Rise), was my #1 LP of 2020. This sparsely arranged track, driven by a potent bass line and wah-wah guitar riff, features the artist who scored my #1 LP of 2019, the amazing, Mercury Prize-winning singer/guitarist Michael Kiwanuka.

78. Yard Act – Fixer Upper. The most British song on this list, bar none, with spoken-word lyrics like a short story where the presence of music is almost a happy coincidence.

77. The Mysterines – Love’s Not Enough. Add The Mysterines to the list of bands I think should be a lot bigger than they are, although the fact that they haven’t released a proper LP yet might be holding them back. Singer/guitarist Lia Metcalfe is a force on vocals and with the axe, and the group just keeps churning out songs with powerful riffs and incisive lyrics.

76. Ten Fé – Nothing Breaks Like A Heart. This track was the only release this year from the soft-rock quintet Ten Fé, and it’s a cover of the Mark Ronson/Miley Cyrus song, performed in a bare-bones vocals/acoustic guitar rendition by bandmember Leo Duncan.

75. Space Above, So Below – Golden. Space Above is the new project from former Naked & Famous keyboardist and producer Aaron Short, releasing their second album this August at the same time that TNAF’s Recover dropped. It’s more atmospheric and slightly more experimental, but on this, the album’s best track, you can hear the same pop influences you do in his former band.

74. Arlo Parks – Black Dog. I root for the success of many artists, and sometimes express surprise when certain artists aren’t more successful, but I am cautious not to predict success very often because so many variables go into it beyond just talent or musical quality. But my God, if Arlo Parks isn’t the next big thing in 2021, there’s no justice whatsoever in the world of music.

73. Black Honey – Run For Cover. One of twonew singles from this Brighton indie-rock group who have a real knack for great pop hooks.

72. Middle Kids – R U 4 Me? An exuberant pop/rock track from the band behind 2016’s alternative radio hit “Edge of Town.”

71. Wild Nothing – The World is a Hungry Place. I go back and forth on Wild Nothing; I prefer him to be a little less experimental, generally like his sense of melody, but have also found him being extremely derivative (never more so than on “To Know You,” which borrows very liberally from Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life”). There is something about his sound that keeps bringing me back, and it’s here on the one standout from his EP of songs cut from his previous record, Indigo.

70. Pure Reason Revolution – Silent Genesis (Edit). Go with the six-minute edit, not the 10:20 version on their album Eupnea. PRR’s music is a peculiar mix of electronic music and ambient metal, and while it doesn’t always work, the ceiling, which they approach here, is pretty high.

69. Jake Bugg – Saviours of the City. Bugg hasn’t built on his first two albums, released in 2012 and 2013, after turning in a slower, more folk/country direction, which led to his original label dropping him after his deal expired. He released three singles in 2020, with this folk-tune more in line with his first album, the more rock-oriented “Rabbit Hole,” and the overly poppy “All I Need.”

68. Ministry – Alert Level (Quarantined Mix). A bunch of 1990s artists had bigand unexpected comebacks this year, including Hum (whose Inlet was their first album in 22 years), the GoGo’s, Rob Zombie (further up the list), Arab Strap (ditto), and industrial metal pioneers Ministry, whose grim outlook on modern, post-capitalist life could not feel more apposite to 2020.

67. Talk Show – Stress. British press call them a punk band, but they’re definitely more post-punk, less abrasive than straight punk and more melodic, although the same indignant attitude is present here on the lead track from their four-song EP These People.

66. Waxahatchee – Can’t Do Much. If this was Katie Crutchfield’s best song of 2020, that would be a strong cap to a year that saw her produce one of its best albums in Saint Cloud. It’s the second-best song on the record, though, which is more evidence of why she’s so great.

65. SAULT – I Just Want to Dance. How can you resist a title and line like that? SAULT sucks you in with the groove, and then the anonymous singer explains that she can’t just dance because Black people are being murdered by cops and nobody cares.

64. Artificial Pleasure – The Movement of Sound. Artificial Pleasure might be the direct descendants of Heaven 17 and the Human League, with just a brief nod to modernity in some of the drum and bass elements, like the pounding backdrop to this very danceable track.

63. Hot Chip, Jarvis Cocker – Straight To The Morning. Hot Chip are good for one banger an album, and this is at least the equal of “Huarache Lights,” but I couldn’t even tell Cocker was on this track.

62. L.A. WITCH – True Believers. The best track on this all-female hard-rock trio’s new album Play with Fire.

61. PAINT – Strange World. This is the best Badly Drawn Boy track in 20 years (that is not actually by BDB).

60. Sprints – The Cheek. The first single from this new Irish band, whose music is a half-step less outraged than Fontaines D.C.’s but still shows a close kinship with vintage pink.

59. Ghost of Vroom – Rona Pollona. The new project from former Soul Coughing lead singer Mike Doughty and bassist Andrew Livingston is more like Soul Coughing than any of Doughty’s solo work, between his free-flowing, half-spoken lyrics and emphasis on the drum-and-bass elements over other instruments.

58. Lauren Ruth Ward – Water Sign. The best track of Ward’s album Volume II pairs her evocative, smoky voice with a heavy bottom of bass and pounding drums.

57. Deep Sea Diver – Hurricane. The intro to this song might mislead you into expecting some sort of big, over-the-top horn section, but it’s subtler and more folk-tinged than that, with a strong hook to support it.

56. Jade Bird – Headstart. The 23-year-old Bird is about to release her second album, led off by this bouncy single that still lets her release her inner Janis Joplin on the chorus.

55. Jackie Venson – Make Me Feel. I missed Venson’s album release in late October, but loved this lead single from the spring, which showcases her guitarwork – even though she’s only played since 2011, according to Wikipedia – and distinctive vocal style.

54. Black Orchid Empire – Natural Selection. If I hadn’t included “Stormbringer,” this would be the heaviest track on the top 100, although I think BOE’s music is a lot more accessible, just produced in a way that emphasizes the heavy drum work in the chorus – which is the best part of the song.

53. James BKS feat. The New Breed Gang – No Unga Bunga. I didn’t know James BKS was the son of Manu Dibango, a famous and popular Cameroonian musician, until the latter’s death this spring from COVID-19. This song, released just last month, is meant as a tribute to Dibango, and brings in more of the Afropop elements that BKS showed on his debut track “Kwele.”

52. Tori Handsley, Ruth Goller, Moses Boyd – What’s in a Tune. The only instrumental track on this ranking probably would never have crossed my radar if it weren’t for the presence of jazz drummer Moses Boyd, whose name you’ll see again on this list. Handsley is a jazz/rock harpist who gets sounds from the instrument like I’ve never heard before. The riff here – and, guitar or no, that’s a damn riff – is good enough to support the whole track without vocals.

51. Django Django – Spirals. As lead singles go, this is promising – better than anything off their last album, I think, and on par with “Shake and Tremble” from the previous LP. They still haven’t matched “Default” or “Hail Bop,” but I suppose that’s a lot to ask of any group.

50. BLOXX – Coming Up Short. This West London quartet’s sound reminds me more of California indie pop/rock, for reasons I can’t quite pin down, but their debut album Lie Out Loud was solid, highlighted by this song and the title track.

49. Are We Static – Wildfire. This is how you build a crescendo in a rock song – the song sets your mind running and pays it off with a hook in the chorus that brings the vocals and the lead guitar together.

48. TRAAMS – Intercontinental Radio Waves. It’sarather lo-fi affair – is that guy playing drums, or just some overturned buckets? – and the vocals sound just as unpolished, but the layering that takes us into the chorus of this alt-rock track is brilliant.

47. The Wants – The Motor. I talk a lot about punk, post-punk, and new wave, since my formative years as a music fan came during the heyday of the latter two and were influenced heavily by the main bands of the first one, so artists that remind me of those periods score well with me. I’m not sure I’ve heard anything as reminiscent of the first generation of post-punk bands, like Gang of Four or Magazine, as this song, from the Brooklyn trio’s debut album Container.

46. Glass Animals – Your Love (Déjà Vu). If it’s not quite up to their peak of “Life Itself,” “Your Love” is still a great Glass Animals track – memorable, danceable, driven by unusual percussion sounds, without too much tweeness in the vocals.

45. Grimes – 4ÆM. Grimes’ album Miss Anthropocene was my #5 LP of the year, placing two songs on this year’s list and one on last year’s (“Violence,” #53). “4ÆM” shows Grimes’ strength on the electronic side, while the track I ranked even higher shows off her straight musicianship.

44. Khruangbin – Pelota. Khruangbin added vocals for their third album, Mordechai, and got worse reviews for it – but for my money, it’s their best album to date, as the added vocal melodies make their incredible technical skills far more accessible.

43. Disclosure – ENERGY. Disclosurewent back to the well that produced their first big hit, “When a Fire Starts to Burn,” once again sampling minister and motivational speaker Eric Thomas over a strong beat for one of their best tracks to date.

42. Fake Names – Brick. If you like the Descendents’ style of tight punk with just a slight nod to the demands of melody, you’ll probably enjoy this new punk supergroup, with former members of Minor Threat, the Refused, and Girls Against Boys.

41. Sad13 – Sooo Bad. The reviews for the second solo album from Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz), Haunted Painting, were stronger than I expected; I think I come down more on the side of her noise-pop sounds with Speedy Ortiz, but this was my top song off the solo album.

40. Mourn – Stay There. The bestsongoff my #15 album of the year is one of the more interesting tracks musically thanks to an off-beat drum line that gives the whole song a sense that it’s about to fall apart.

39. Goodie Mob, Organized Noize – Frontline. This is just right in my wheelhouse, at least in terms of the style of rap, but that’s probably because these guys are all right about my age.

38. Everything Everything – Arch Enemy. I give E2 a lot of rope when it comes to experimentation, but I definitely favor their songs with a strong beat, even if you wouldn’t call them dance songs. This one, my favorite track off RE-ANIMATOR, is definitely good for hitting the floor.

37. Allie X – Sarah Come Home. I wasn’t wild about Cape God, which was as inconsistent with hooks and melodies as her previous releases, but this song is a real standout and deserved a lot more airplay than it got.

36. Cut Copy – Like Breaking Glass. Cut Copy might not reach the heights of their 2011 album Zonoscope again, but with “Black Rainbows” off their last album and this track off Freeze, Melt, they’re at least good for one great pop single per LP.

35. The Beths – Dying to Believe. I liked Jump Rope Gazers, but I had kind of expected to love it; this New Zealand quartet have a great knack for pairing sweet vocal harmonies with crunchy guitar riffs, best showcased here in the bridge and chorus.

34. Lupin – May. Lupinis Jake Luppen, lead singer of Hippo Campus, who released his first solo material this year, including this surprisingly funky synth-heavy track.

33. Arab Strap – The Turning of Our Bones. Arab Strap’s first new music in 14 years also gave us a new sound, gothic, haunting, with unabashedly erotic lyrics.

32. San Cisco – Reasons. This Australian pop trio leaned hard into the vocal and visual presence of drummer Scarlett Stevens, although the music suffers when she takes the lead at the mic, as she doesn’t have the vocal range of singer Jordi Davieson. They’re at their best on tracks like this one, where there’s some back-and-forth between the two, not to mention another great hook. Some other highlights from their newest album Between You and Me: “On the Line,” “When I Dream,” and “Flaws.”

31. The Districts – Cheap Regrets. Definitely the best thing I’ve heard from the Districts. The opening builds so much drama, and it pays off as soon as the vocals and drums enter around the one-minute mark.

30. Little Simz – might bang, might not. The only flaw in this furious burst of hip-hop energy is that it’s barely two minutes long.

29. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Be Afraid. Peak Isbell for me. Or, the peak of a certain type of rock/country hybrid that has to be near its ceiling to get my attention.

28. Lucius – Man in My Radio. Thistrack actually dates back to 2013, from the sessions for their debut album Wildewoman, which makes no sense because it’s better than anything on that album.

27. clipping. – Say the Name. Daveed Diggs as MC with a pair of his friends as producers. The album Visions of Bodies Being Burned had a lot of experimental noise that made it a tougher listen than it should have been given Diggs’ technical skill as a rapper and facility with wordplay.

26. Jorja Smith, Popcaan – Come Over (feat. Popcaan). Still waiting on Smith’s sophomore album, although she keeps teasing listeners with one-off singles like this one and her appearance on a song from the Eddy, “Kiss Me in the Morning.”

25. The Killers – Dying Breed. My favorite track from my #9 album of the year, although I also really liked “Caution.”

24. Pallbearer – The Quicksand of Existing. The title track from the doom-metal stalwarts’ fourth album is almost certainly the heaviest song I’ve ever included on a top 100, but the way the band managed to increase the tempo and reincorporate the feel of rock into a subgenre that is often so distant from it made it the best track they’ve ever recorded.

23. SAULT – Wildfires. The best track off Untitled (Black Is) follows the same template as most of that album, marrying lyrics of stark protest against police violence against Black Americans with a sparse but uptempo funk backdrop. The vocals here, possibly by American rapper/singer Kid Sister, are just gorgeous.

22. Fontaines D.C. – I Was Not Born. “I was not born/into this world/to do another man’s bidding” puts the band’s ethos front and center, and it sits atop a driving guitar and drum pattern that refuses to give you a chance to catch your breath.

21. Catholic Action – Another Name for Loneliness. The intro to this track will never not remind me of New Order’s “Love Vigilantes,” but in the right way, and the hook in the chorus is perfectly melancholy. This album appeared on a number of best-of-2020 lists too.

20. Rob Zombie – The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition). This track was Zombie’s first new music in over four years, and it’s a glorious throwback to his halcyon days with White Zombie and his earliest solo work, if maybe a half-step heavier and more abrasive than “Dragula” or “More Human than Human.”

19. Anderson .Paak – Lockdown. The best song written about the lockdowns of 2020 wasn’t actually about lockdowns, but about the Black Lives Matter protest movement that swept the country in the wake of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

18. Doves – Carousels. Doves’ first new music since 2009 was extremely promising, something that sounded right out of the sessions for The Last Broadcast, but the album failed to live up to this lead single’s potential.

17. All Them Witches – Lights Out. A number of critics loved this album, but some of it is just too noodly and navel-gazing for me; three minutes of ATW’s dark, gothic-blues riffing is perfect, but nine minutes is a bridge too far, I suppose.

16. The Mysterines – I Win Every Time. Another killer single from the Mysterines, powered by Metcalfe’s charismatic and vaguely threatening vocals.

15. Porridge Radio – 7 Seconds. Every Bad wasone of the most acclaimed albums of 2020, but I wanted more memorable hooks or melodies than the album could provide. This track had the best earworm of anything on the record, an alternative rock track that seems like it could come from any decade.

14. Bananagun – The Master. This Australian band’s debut album The True Story of Bananagun borrows heavily from late 1960s psychedelic rock, but with some elements from funk and terrific musicianship. The way the vocals are mixed on this, the album’s best track, definitely evokes something from just before I was born, but the music is more daring and experimental.

13. Bartees Strange – Mustang. Strange’s debutalbum met with rave reviews, although his love of the National, and critics’ love of the same, show through in both the music and critical responses. This rocks a good bit more than the National’s music does, more like a good Hold Steady track, and the droning guitars work well with Strange’s voice.

12. Shamir – On My Own. If you rememberShamir at all, it might be from his debut single “On the Regular,” where he rapped rather than sang, but he has a beautiful singing voice that shines here over a swirling, jangly guitar lick.

11. Grimes – Delete Forever. The softer side of Grimes is every bit as interesting as her jagged, rougher side, so while it’s not as daring or experimental as some of the tracks on Miss Anthropocene, but it’s the one I come back to most often.

10. Christine and the Queens – I disappear in your arms. This is the Christine and the Queens song that has been stuck in my head all year; it’s incredible that this and the widely acclaimed “People, I’ve been sad” both came off a six-song, 22-minute EP (La vita nuova) that seemed like a brief filler between albums. With this song, “Tilted,” and “5 dollars,” she should be globally acclaimed by now for her pop songcraft.

9. Creeper – Annabelle. The most Suede-like song on Sex, Death, and the Infinite Void is my favorite, of course.

8. The Naked And Famous – Monument. Alisa Xayalith’s vocals elevate this song above the rest of the tracks on TNAF’s outstanding fourth album, Recover, with some help from a cracking call-and-response moment in the chorus.

7. Tame Impala – Borderline. Kevin Parker’s ability to take a synth riff that sounds like he recorded it in a bathroom on an old Casio home keyboard and build a billowing cloud of melody and intrigue around it is unparalleled.

6. Arlo Parks – Green Eyes. Parks’ debut record, Collapsed in Sunbeams, is due out January 29^th, and I don’t think I’m looking forward to any album more. “Green Eyes” showcases her voice, her lyric writing, and her sense of melody as well as anything she’s released so far.

5. Khruangbin – Time (You and I). The best song off Mordechai is its funkiest track, right down to the vocals, all of which owes a huge debt to ’70s funk and disco. The interplay between the guitar and the walking bass lines is utter genius – taken on their own, they sound like they’d work at cross purposes, but they marry perfectly once combined.

4. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Automation. A heavy dose of psychedelia beneath my favorite guitar riff of the year produced a song that’s been in my rotation for months. King Gizzard flows so easily between styles of rock, blues, and metal, but this right here is his sweet spot.

3. Waxahatchee – Lilacs. My earliest contender for song of the year has just the right balance of country elements in Crutchfield’s formula of indie or roots rock, and her voice shines here on the chorus and every time she sings “And the lilacs drink the water.”

2. SAULT – Free. I dare you to sit stillwhen this song – and its infectious bass line – come on the speakers. The song shifts gears into the chorus, but doesn’t lose any of the momentum from that bass or the drum beat as it moves.

1. Moses Boyd ft. Poppy Ajudha – Shades of You. Boyd, a jazz drummer who’d recorded previously as half of Binker and Moses, was everywhere this year, including his incredible solo debut Dark Matter, his collaborations with jazz/rock harpist Tori Handsley, and work with Village of the Sun (which also includes Binker Golding). This song has elements from jazz, trip-hop, trap, and more, while jazz singer Ajudha sears her way across the intricate instrumentation with one of the year’s best vocal hooks in the chorus. This song floored me when it came out in March and it still floors me now. It’s a great single, but even more, it’s a brilliant piece of genre-bending songwriting.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in music, Music, rankings

→ December 22, 2020
→ By keith

Top 15 albums of 2020.

I tried to do a longer list, but in the end couldn’t really get behind any more albums than these – which isn’t to say there were no other good albums, but there were the fifteen about which I felt the strongest. Disclosure, Working Men’s Club, King Gizzard, Bartees Strange, Freddie Gibbs, and San Cisco all put out interesting albums that just didn’t quite make the cut.

Previous years’ album rankings: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013.

15. Mourn – Self Worth. Mourn appeared on the scene around the same time as another all-woman rock band, the critical darlings Hinds, who barely knew how to play their guitars but succeeded with sheer enthusiasm and a few infectious hooks. Mourn, on the other hand, was more polished out of the gate, and on this album they’ve refined their sound and produced their best, most complete record yet. Running just 34 minutes, this collection of a dozen songs finds the trio contemplating the worthlessness of men and the heartbreaks of loving them anyway, along with more nuanced guitar riffs that seem harder-edged, even to the borderline of old-school metal. Highlights include “Stay There,” “Men,” “Call You Back,” and “I’m in Trouble.”

14. LA Witch – Play With Fire. Barely long enough to call it an album, Play With Fire runs a scant 29 minutes, but packs a punch in these nine songs, recalling some of the earliest female-fronted punk bands, where that scene was more open to women who wanted to be serious rock musicians than the typical avenues of pop radio and commercial labels. L.A. Witch’s sound is probably more gothic rock than punk, though, and has more in common with Killing Joke or Siouxsie and the Banshees than, say, Blondie or even the Slits. Standout tracks include “Fire Starter,” “True Believers,” and “I Wanna Lose.”

13. Pallbearer – Forgotten Days. The best metal album of the year, without any close competition, was the fourth LP from these American doom stalwarts, quite likely the best doom metal band still active today. (While it’s not a metal album per se, Inlet, the comeback album from 1990s alt-rock band Hum, has a lot of doom elements to it.) Forgotten Days has a little something for everyone, from the practically exuberant title track to the crunching “Rite of Passage” to the twelve-minute opus “Silver Wings.” The album distills everything Pallbearer did well on their first three albums into a single 50-minute record, and pushes them from much-admired heirs to the Black Sabbath/Cathedral throne to undisputed kings of modern doom.

12. Everything Everything – RE-ANIMATOR. More consistent start to finish than their previous albums, RE-ANIMATOR works better as a cohesive whole than anything they’ve released to date, which makes up for the lack of a huge single like “Cough Cough” or “I Believe It Now.” The frenetic arrangements, falsetto vocals, rapid tempo shifts, and idiosyncratic vocals are all still here, but now they’re just a bit more under control. Standout tracks include “Planets,” “Violent Sun,” “In Birdsong,” and “Arch Enemy.”

11. The Naked & Famous – Recover. This New Zealand duo’s fourth album, and first since 2016, is their best yet – although, as with RE-ANIMATOR, it doesn’t have a single to match their all-time best (I’d argue “Young Blood,” my partner would say “Punching in a Dream,” and is either of us really wrong?). There’s a new lyrical sophistication here, and they maintain their melodic strength over the entire album, where on the last two records in particular it seemed to lag as the albums went on. Highlights include the title track, “Sunseeker,” “Death,” “Everybody Knows,” and “Monument.”

10. Bananagun – The True Story of Bananagun. I only heard about this Melbourne psychedelic rock/funk group a few weeks ago, but I’m all about this album and their strange mélange of late ’60s flower-child rock and funk guitar work from the decade afterwards. Standout tracks include “The Master,” “Freak Machine,” and “Bang Go the Bongos.”

9. The Killers – Imploding the Mirage. I was never a huge Killers fan beyond a couple of their singles, especially when they turned towards a more over-the-top, affected sound on their second album, Sam’s Town. On their sixth album, they seem to have rediscovered a lot of what made their first album successful without regressing to an earlier, less musically sophisticated style. There’s still a lot going on across Imploding the Mirage, from vibraphones to E-bows to a makeshift string section, but this time that all feels like it’s in service of the music, not the other way around. Standout tracks include “Dying Breed,” “Caution,” and “Blowback.”

8. Tame Impala – The Slow Rush. I’ve always been a few degrees short of the critical acclaim for Kevin Parker’s music; I’ve liked many of his tracks but he often needs an editor to rein him in, and his albums haven’t come together as well as they should. The Slow Rush still has too many tracks that go on too long – half of the twelve songs here run five minutes or more, up to 7:13 for the closer – but it’s the most coherent record he’s released to date. Standout singles include “Borderline,” “Lost in Yesterday,” and “Breathe Deeper.”

7. SAULT – Untitled (Black Is). SAULT released one of the best albums of 2019 but did so after my 2019 rankings came out – in fact, they released two albums (7 and 5) last year, and both were great, but I didn’t hear either until May of this year. Despite working to cloak their identities for over a year, they’ve gained some critical attention nonetheless for their soul/funk/spoken word sound, and with Untitled (Black Is) they’ve become overtly political with a series of anthems supporting Black Lives Matter and other causes of equality and justice. Standout tracks include “Bow,” featuring Michael Kiwanuka; “Wildfires;” “Monsters;” “Why We Cry Why We Die;” and “Black.”

6. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud. Folk-rocker Katie Crutchfield bares her soul, recounting her struggles with alcoholism and decision to get sober after her previous album, the uneven Out in the Storm (which still gave us “Never Been Wrong”), and the result is her best and most complete album to date. Standout tracks include “Lilacs,” “Can’t Do Much,” and “Hell.”

5. Grimes – Miss Anthropocene. A good example of when to separate the art from the artist. Grimes’ last album, Art Angels, was my #1 album of 2015; this record is more experimental and expansive, but still has several tracks that stand well on their own thanks to strong melodies, including “Violence,” “4ÆM,” and “Delete Forever.”

4. Khruangbin – Mordechai. I was late to the Khruangbin party, only hearing their last album, Con Todo El Mundo, a year after it came out, helped by The RFK Tapes’ podcast’s use of “Maria También” as its theme song. I think I got here just in time, though, as Mordechai is going to be their big breakout, as it has the same kind of Thai jazz/funk/rock hybrid sound as their last album, but now with extensive vocals from all three members. Standout tracks include “Pelota,” “Time (You and I),” the funky “So We Won’t Forget,” and “Connaissais de Face.”

3. Moses Boyd – Dark Matter. I don’t have any comparison for this album by percussionist Moses Boyd, one half of Binker and Moses. It’s a dark, swirling journey of modern jazz and house that has the energy of improvisational music but the tighter focus and melodic sensibility of more mainstream genres. Standout tracks include the stellar “Shades of You” (feat. Poppy Ajudha), shimmering opener “Stranger than Fiction,” and the guitar-laden “Y.O.Y.O.”

2. Creeper – Sex, Death, and the Infinite Void. Soapparently Creeper was a punk band just a few years ago on their debut album, but completely changed their sound for this sophomore release, a bombastic, showy, riveting album that recalls the earliest days of post-punk/New Wave with a very heavy dose of early Suede, especially in Will Gould’s swaggering vocals. It’s a concept album about an angel who has fallen from the heavens into a small town in California, and experiences love and heartbreak for the first time. Highlights include “Cyanide,” “Annabelle,” “Born Cold,” the country-tinged “Poisoned Heart,” and the Roxy Music-esque “Paradise.”

1. SAULT – Untitled (Rise). SAULT’s second album of 2020 and their fourth in about 14 months was their best yet, tighter than Untitled (Black Is) and more focused without losing any of their previous three albums’ strength, sense of rhythm, or lyrical indignation. “Free” is one of the best songs of the year, a timeless funk/dance song powered by an epic earworm of a bass line, while “I Just Want to Dance” deceives you with its title and rhythm when it’s actually another protest song about police killings of black men. Untitled (Black Is) earned more praise this year, topping NPR’s best albums of 2020 list and coming in at #5 on the Guardian‘s, but my argument here is that Untitled (Rise) is better start to finish, whereas its predecessor loses some steam towards the finish. They’re both tremendous albums, and any publication – looking at you, Pitchfork and Rolling Stone – that omits them from their year-end lists should at least explain their absence. Other highlight tracks include “Strong,” “Fearless,” “Little Boy,” and the spoken-word track “You Know It Ain’t.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in music, Music, rankings

→ December 6, 2020
→ By keith

Music update, November 2020.

A quick playlist of new tracks from November, as we head into mid-December and time for my year-end lists of 2020’s best albums and singles, which I’m tentatively planning to run on December 21^st and 22^nd. As always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

James BKS feat. The New Breed Gang – No Unga Bunga. French producer and hip-hop artist JamesBKSwas the first signing to Idris Elba’s new record label, and this is now his fourth single for the imprint, following last year’s “New Breed,” with guest spots from Q-Tip, Little Simz, and Elba himself.

Arlo Parks – Caroline. At this point, I might be looking forward to Parks’ debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, due out January 29^th, more than any other album scheduled for next year. Her voice is stunning and I love the lush sound of just about everything she’s released so far.

Jade Bird – Headstart. The Welsh singer-songwriter Bird hasn’t announced a new album but this is her first new track in over a year, since her debut album dropped in May 2019.

HAERTS – It’s Too Late. The duo announced a release date for their third album, Dream Nation, of March 21, with this track and “For the Sky” to be included.

Mourn – Stay There. ThisBarcelona punk-rock trio seem to be getting more experimental as they get older – although they’re still all between 20 and 23 years old – with their fourth album, Self Worth, released on October 30^th.

Khruangbin – Summer Madness. Khruangbin had already released one of the year’s best albums in Mordechai, and now they’ve put out a full album with 15 covers, including this reworking of a Kool & the Gang track from 1974.

Django Django – Glowing in the Dark. The title track from the Djangos’ fourth album, due out February 12^th, is more of the same electronic rock we’ve gotten from the group since their more experimental first record, 2012’s self-titled debut.

Radkey – Seize. The Brothers Radke are at their best when they turn up the tempo, which they do here on this punk-infused track. Their newest album Green Room just came out on November 27^th.

Record Heat – Nathan. Record Heat used to be called Spirit Animal, but they changed their name based on criticism of the possible cultural appropriation involved in the old moniker. I find their music a mixed bag – when they try to introduce anything resembling rap, it doesn’t work, but their straight rock tracks can be pretty strong.

Romero – Troublemaker. A new power-pop group from Melbourne, Romero just released this, their third single, in advance of a debut album coming out next year.

The Lounge Society – Burn the Heather. This West Yorkshire teenaged quartet have called themselves “the antidote to The 1975,” which is good enough for me, although I also dig the post-punk vibe on this, their second-ever single.

Pale Waves – Change. This is my favorite song to date from the Mancunian indie-rock band, whose second album, Who Am I?, is due out on February 12^th.

Middle Kids – R U 4 Me? I never got this Sydney indie-pop act’s their 2016 hit “Edge of Town,” but this new track, their first since an EP came out last May, is pretty solid.

Zeal & Ardor – Wake of a Nation. The title track from this gospel-blues-metal band’s new EP, released October 23^rd, has more of the same righteous anger in the lyrics and tones down the harshest elements (e.g., blast beats) of some of their earlier output.

Moonspell – The Greater Good. The Portuguese doom metal stalwarts announced their 12^th album, Hermitage, will come out on February 26^st; it’s their first since 2017’s concept album 1755.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in music, alternative, hip hop, indie, metal, Music

→ November 1, 2020
→ By keith

Music update, October 2020.

October turned out to be a great month for new music, perhaps boosted by five Fridays (I feel like music analytics would have to adjust for that). I also think that the pandemic and inadequate responses by many developed nations have left musicians and labels at the point where they don’t feel like they can keep delaying releases – movie studios have a financial incentive to keep kicking the can down the road, but record labels don’t. So this month I have 24 songs on the playlist, with over 90 minutes of new music, running the full gamut of musical styles I like. You can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Automation. Maybe the best guitar riff of the year. I don’t love everything King Gizzard does, but I’m always amazed by their musical shapeshifting. They can move from psychedelia to metal to blues rock and in between and still put out two albums a year.

Creeper – Annabelle. Creeper’s first album was a horror-themed punk record, but they’ve remade themselves on their sophomore album, Sex, Death & the Infinite Void, which is one of the best LPs of 2020, a mad, sprawling record that recalls Suede, the Killers, My Chemical Romance (in a good way), Americana, and elements of early 1980s post-punk/new wave. Some other standout tracks on the album include “Paradise,” “Cyanide,” and “Poisoned Heart,” but really the whole album is incredible.

HAERTS & Ed Droste – For the Sky. I don’t know if or when HAERTS will give us a new album – lead singer Nini Fabi just had a baby, which I’m sure impacts their timeline – but this one-off track with Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste is a lovely interlude to tide us over.

Peking Duk & the Wombats – Nothing to Love About Love. I wasn’t familiar with the Australian “mad rock” duo Peking Duk, but this came on my Release Radar because I’m a huge fan of the Wombats – and this sounds like a Wombats song remixed.

Battles, DJ Dairy, & DJ Orient – Stirling Bridge. Battles put out a call for artists interested in remixing tracks from their 2019 album Juice B Crypts, and the resulting EP will come out on November 20^th. This track comes from two members of black midi, and it’s not a remix of any single song but a new creation from the raw tracks Battles recorded when making the original record.

Goodie Mob ft. Organized Noize – Frontline. Goodie Mob’s first album in seven years, Survival Kit, comes out on November 13^th, with tracks featuring André 3000, Big Boi, and Chuck D. This single is an anthem for Black Lives Matter protesters, with prominent mention of the federal government’s use of tear gas on peaceful demonstrators. Cee-Lo also appeared on a new track from Big Boi and Killer Mike called “We the Ones,” which has great work from the two MCs but sluggish music and mailed-in vocals from Cee-Lo, who is a pretty terrible person anyway.

Tori Handsley ft. Ruth Goller and Moses Boyd – What’s in a Tune. Tori Handsley is a jazz harpist who’s been playing with other artists since at least 2010, but is just now releasing her first music under her own name, leading a trio that includes drummer/producer Moses Boyd (whose Dark Matter is one of my favorite albums of 2020). I heard this song before knowing anything about Handsley, and I assumed Handsley was playing a guitar via two-handed tapping, or maybe a Chapman stick, but she gets sounds and patterns from the harp that I don’t associate with that instrument.

Jorja Smith ft. Popcaan – Come Over. This new track from the Mercury-nominated English singer-songwriter Smith appears to be a prelude to a sophomore album, although it’s at least her third single since Lost & Found came out in 2018. It has a more obvious reggae influence than the last few tracks and includes a contribution from dancehall artist Popcaan, although I don’t think he brings much to the table.

Arlo Parks – Green Eyes. Parks’ debut album is finished, and due for a release early in 2021, but this is at least her fifteenth single to date, at least according to her artist page on Spotify. I’ve been late to this party but her voice is gorgeous and whatever you might call her style of music – it’s soulful but not really soul, folk-ish but definitely not folk – I’m here for it.

TRAAMS – Intercontinental Radio Waves. I hadn’t heard TRAAMS before this song, but they released two albums in 2013 and 2015, and a song in 2016, before going dark for the last four years. Wikipedia calls their early music “krautrock” and that’s certainly still evident here, with a flat vocal delivery over a pulsing electronic backdrop.

Slow Pulp – Track. Slow Pulp’s music is indeed slow, and atmospheric, although here they sound more like Slow Smashing Pumpkins (the intro is a lot like the chord pattern from “Today”) – with lyrics about the lead singer’s mother’s anxiety over getting Alzheimer’s disease, which runs in their family.

Artificial Pleasure – The Movement of Sound. Artificial Pleasure released their second album, A New Joy, on Friday, so I haven’t had a chance to crack it yet – we’re seeing a flood of new material this fall, which is great except that I’m never in the car to listen to music at long stretches like I used to do – but it includes this banging track as well as last year’s “Boys Grow Up,” this year’s “Lose Myself Again,” and both parts of “Into the Unknown” as a single song.

Hot Chip ft. Jarvis Cocker – Straight to the Morning. I think I take Hot Chip for granted, because their singles are consistently good, just rarely great on the level of “Over and Over” or “Huarache Lights.” This track includes former Pulp lead singer Jarvis Cocker, although he’s barely noticeable, and the melody is strong enough that the song doesn’t need any help.

Deep Sea Diver – Hurricane. Deep Sea Diver grew out of a solo project of that name by Jennifer Dobson, now the lead singer/guitarist/songwriter of a full four-piece band. Sharon Van Etten makes a cameo on the band’s new album, Impossible Weight, which gives you some idea of their sound, although Dobson’s vocals are far superior and give this song a hint of pop.

The Struts ft. Joe Elliott and Phil Collen – I Hate How Much I Want You. It is entirely appropriate for a band as bombastic as the Struts to call in two members of hair metal icons Def Leppard for a song this ridiculous. I love it.

Dinosaur Pile-Up – It’s Tricky. Another snotty rock band covers another seminal early hip-hop track. This shouldn’t work, but it does.

Are We Static – Wildfire. This new track from AWS starts out a little like that annoying 2014 song “Geronimo” by Sheppard, but instead of turning into a poppy sing-along it converts that nervous energy into a swirling guitar-driven chorus, a quantum improvement in my mind.

Black Honey – I Like the Way You Die. I love Black Honey but this title is on the bleak side for a band this poppy.

All Them Witches – Lights Out. ATW’s Nothing as the Ideal has some incredible psychedelic sludge rock riffs across its eight songs, highlighted by this one and “Enemy of my Enemy,” although the six-minute-plus tracks go too long for their content.

Rob Zombie – The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition). I did not foresee Rob Zombie dropping one of the best hard-rock tracks of 2020, I have to admit, but this is peak RZ content, even hinting back at the last White Zombie album Astro-Creep: 2000 with samples and electronic elements.

Pallbearer – Vengeance & Ruination. The kings of American doom metal – or just modern doom metal, period – just released their 4th album, Forgotten Days, and I think it’s their most accessible work to date, although it still has some longer tracks to satisfy diehards (and perhaps scare off folks looking for more radio-friendly lengths).

Killer Be Killed – Dream Gone Bad. Mastodon vocalist Troy Sanders is involved in two side projects that released new tracks this month; this is the better of the two, as the latest Gone is Gone track didn’t do much for me. KBK includes Max Cavalera of Soulfly and formerly of Sepultura, but the sound is closer to Mastodon’s here, very bass-forward with thrash elements but mostly clean (and strong) vocals.

Dark Tranquility – Identical to None. DT’s newest album Moment will drop on November 20^th; it seems like more classic Gothenburg melodic death metal, with some great thrash riffing below the growled vocals. I haven’t spent a ton of time on this but I think Gothenburg bands have a distinctive melodic sound that works more at the middle and higher ends of the guitar’s range in each song’s standout riffs, whereas comparable bands from other scenes just try to blow you away with speed or riffs at the bottom end of the range.

Carcass – Slaughtered in Soho. And this is the one exception to everything I just said – but Carcass is sort of an exception to a lot of generalizations about extreme metal, coming out of grindcore to create a ridiculous subgenre termed “goregrind” (which didn’t need its own name), only to abandon both the style and the lyrical content with Heartwork, among the greatest extreme metal albums in history and proof that you could craft compelling melodies without sacrificing speed, growled vocals, or other trappings of the death-metal genre. This track comes off their four-song EP Despicable, which just came out on Friday, with tracks that missed the cut for their next album. The riff on this one is great, and remarkably slow and grooved for Carcass.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in music, alternative, hip hop, indie, jazz, melodic death metal, Music, rap

→ October 3, 2020
→ By keith

Music update, September 2020.

Whew, that was the most loaded month of the year for new music, perhaps as bands and labels have accepted that we’re not getting back to anything like “normal” until 2021, at the least. There’s over 90 minutes of new music here, including four metal tracks at the end (more than I usually have, but it was a better month on that front as well). If you can’t see the Spotify widget below you can access the playlist here.

SAULT – Free. Do we still not know who SAULT are? The just-released Untitled (Rise) is the band’s fourth album in thirteen months, and once again is full of funk and soul tracks laced with strongly political lyrics. They’ve put out so much music I have a hard time keeping up with specific tracks, but this track might be my favorite so far, and the album is their best yet.

Public Enemy featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, ?uestlove, YG, and Jahi – Fight the Power: Remix 2020. This should be terrible, but it’s not, probably because Chuck D wisely gives up the mic to several other MCs, most of them younger and better rappers than he is right now. The message is what you’d expect, but it hits harder because of the voices delivering it.

Prince – I Need a Man. Prince’s estate released this previously unheard song, which he wrote for the Hookers and later wanted to use for Vanity 6, as part of their mammoth remaster/reissue of Sign O’ The Times. Prince released very few tracks this good after his name change and the end of his contract with Warner Bros. I hope there’s more, since we all know Prince recorded about a billion songs he never released during his lifetime.

Ghost of Vroom 2 – Rona Pollona. That’s Mike Doughty, and this is the closest thing to a Soul Coughing song he’s made since that seminal quartet broke up after El Oso.

Arab Strap – The Turning of Our Bones. I thought Arab Strap was more of a quiet, indie-folk sort of band, but this new track, their first since their last album dropped in 2005, is dark, electronic, and, more in keeping with their prior output, about sex.

Zeal & Ardor – Vigil. Z&A put out two songs in early September, this and “I Can’t Breathe,” both directly aimed at the scourge of police killing unarmed Black Americans with stripped-down backing music with fewer metal elements to it.

Everything Everything – Big Climb. RE-ANIMATOR dropped on September 11^th, although by that point I’d already heard half the album from various singles and early releases. This is the best of the remaining tracks, with their normal frenetic combination of fast-sung lyrics and heavy synth work.

Black Honey – Run For Cover. This is Black Honey’s second new single this year, after “Beaches,” so I assume there’s a new album coming soon. I loved their self-titled debut, which was full of great power-pop hooks.

Porridge Radio – 7 Seconds. This new-new-wave track has an intense feeling of desperation to it that elevates it to something more than just another very catchy rock song with a good synth line.

Sunflower Bean – Moment in the Sun. I’ve been on Sunflower Bean’s wavelength pretty much from the start and loved their 2019 EP King of the Dudes, so this one-off single, which has a summery vibe that feels like the soundtrack to a walk on the beach, is right in my wheelhouse.

Cut Copy – Like Breaking Glass. This track is very obviously Cut Copy, but also reminds me quite a bit of St. Lucia’s first album or his song “Dancing on Glass,” which I assume is some sort of subliminal connection in my brain because of their similar titles. Anyway, this is a perfectly adequate Cut Copy song, not “Need You Know” or “Black Rainbows” but good enough for my purposes.

Django Django – Spirals. The Djangos’ first new track since they released an album and an EP back in 2018 is more of the same, as “Spirals” could easily have fit on Marble Skies or Born Under Saturn as one of either album’s singles.

Of Monsters and Men – Visitor. Unlike most good OM&M songs, this one is driven more by its music than by Nana’s vocals, which are understated here.

Sprints – The Cheek. The driving bass line at the start of this track reminds me of Romeo Void’s “Never Say Never,” of early Killing Joke, even a bit of Joy Division, but with the strident vocals of Karla Chubb. The Dublin quartet have said contemporary Irish punk band Fontaines DC are an inspiration, and you can hear that influence here as well.

Bartees Strange – Mustang. A reader recommendation from last month, Bartees Strange is a Next Big Thing, a huge fan of the National who sounds quite a bit like the Hold Steady on this track from his debut album, Live Forever, which just came out on October 2.

The Aubreys – Smoke Bomb. That’s Finn Wolfhard’s new band, since Calpurnia broke up last November.

Courting – David Byrne’s Badside. This new Liverpudlian post-punk quartet look like they’re barely out of middle school, let alone old enough to know who David Byrne is, although the lyrics have nothing to do with him and are instead an indictment of what the band call “pub culture.”

Mourn – Men. As much press as the Spanish band Hinds gets, Mourn is just better. Both bands comprise only women, but Mourn’s three members are superior musicians and have shown musical and lyrical growth over their three albums. This is their second single of 2020, so I presume there’s another LP in the works.

LA WITCH – True Believers. This is a holdover from last month that I somehow forgot to put on the August playlist, but LA WITCH’s sophomore album Play With Fire would be in my top ten for the year so far.

Pallbearer – The Quicksand of Existing. Is this Pallbearer’s most uptempo song? The American doom stalwarts will release their newest album Forgotten Days on October 23^rd, and this muscular track is dark and gothic but it’s got more in common with Kyuss/QotSA than true doom metal – and now it’s my favorite Pallbearer track.

Carcass – The Long and Winding Bier Road. Carcass’ new album has been pushed back, probably to 2021, so instead they’re releasing an EP, Despicable, of tracks that didn’t make the latest album.

Dark Tranquility – Phantom Days. One of the pioneers of the Gothenburg melodic death metal sound, Dark Tranquility will release their eleventh LP, Moment, in November. The guitar work and melody here are both superb if you can deal with the death growls.

Vio-Lence – California Über Alles. Yes, it’s a cover of the Dead Kennedys song, but also interesting that it’s the first new material Vio-Lence, one of the more significant Bay Area thrash acts of the late ’80s, have released since 1993.

Napalm Death – Amoral. I have talked about Napalm Death more than I’ve ever listened to their music, really, as their early stuff, which practically defined the genre of grindcore, was way too extreme for me. Their sound has evolved over the last thirty-plus years, and their sixteenth album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, sees them working across a range of metal genres and even going into no-wave/post-punk territory, although you’ll always have to deal with Barney Greenway’s vocals.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in music, alternative, hip hop, melodic death metal, metal, Music, rap

→ July 5, 2020
→ By keith

Top albums of 2020 so far.

This year has sucked across multiple dimensions, but new music has been one of the few bright spots of the first half of 2020 – although I worry that there’s a time lag here, and we’re getting great singles and albums recorded before the world ended. Anyway, here are the best albums I have heard so far this year.

7. SAULT – Untitled (Black Is). SAULT released one of the best albums of 2019 but did so after my 2019 rankings came out – in fact, they released two albums (7 and 5) last year, and both were great, but I didn’t hear either until May of this year. The identities of the band members are still unknown, but they’ve gained some critical attention nonetheless for their soul/funk/spoken word sound, and with Untitled (Black Is) they’ve become overtly political with a series of anthems supporting Black Lives Matter and other causes of equality and justice. Standout tracks include “Bow,” featuring Michael Kiwanuka; “Monsters;” “Why We Cry Why We Die;” and “Black.”

6. Tame Impala – The Slow Rush. I’ve always been a few degrees short of the critical acclaim for Kevin Parker’s music; I’ve liked many of his tracks but he often needs an editor to rein him in, and his albums haven’t come together as well as they should. The Slow Rush still has too many tracks that go on too long – half of the twelve songs here run five minutes or more, up to 7:13 for the closer – but it’s the most coherent record he’s released to date. Standout singles include “Borderline,” “Lost in Yesterday,” and “Breathe Deeper.”

5. Bananagun – The True Story of Bananagun. I only heard about this Melbourne psychedelic rock/funk group a few weeks ago, but I’m all about this album and their strange mélange of late ’60s flower-child rock and funk guitar work from the decade afterwards. Standout tracks include “The Master,” “Freak Machine,” and “Bang Go the Bongos.”

4. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud. Folk-rocker Katie Crutchfield bares her soul, recounting her struggles with alcoholism and decision to get sober after her previous album, the uneven Out in the Storm (which still gave us “Never Been Wrong”), and the result is her best and most complete album to date. Standout tracks include “Lilacs,” “Can’t Do Much,” and “Hell.”

3. Grimes – Miss Anthropocene. A good example of when to separate the art from the artist. Grimes’ last album, Art Angels, was my #1 album of 2015; this record is more experimental and expansive, but still has several tracks that stand well on their own thanks to strong melodies, including “Violence,” “4ÆM,” and “Delete Forever.”

2. Khruangbin – Mordechai. I was late to the Khruangbin party, only hearing their last album, Con Todo El Mundo, a year after it came out, helped by The RFK Tapes’ podcast’s use of “Maria También” as its theme song. I think I got here just in time, though, as Mordechai is going to be their big breakout, as it has the same kind of Thai jazz/funk/rock hybrid sound as their last album, but now with extensive vocals from all three members. Standout tracks include “Pelota,” “Time (You and I),” the funky “So We Won’t Forget,” and “Connaissais de Face.”

1. Moses Boyd – Dark Matter. I don’t have any comparison for this album by percussionist Moses Boyd, one half of Binker and Moses. It’s a dark, swirling journey of modern jazz and house that has the energy of improvisational music but the tighter focus and melodic sensibility of more mainstream genres. Standout tracks include the stellar “Shades of You” (feat. Poppy Ajudha), shimmering opener “Stranger than Fiction,” and the guitar-laden “Y.O.Y.O.”

Upcoming albums I’m at least excited to hear: The Beths – Jump Rope Gazers (7/10); Dirty Streets – Rough and Tumble (7/31); Everything Everything’s RE-ANIMATOR (8/21); Cut Copy – Freeze, Melt (8/21); Sad13 – Haunted Painting (9/25); Doves – untitled (TBD); Noname – untitled (TBD).

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in music, alternative, funk, indie, jazz, Music

→ July 2, 2020
→ By keith

Music update, June 2020.

June started out very slow for new music but finished with a bang, enough that I ended up culling some songs before posting this playlist, which runs the gamut of genres and features a couple of tracks from some of the best albums of the year so far. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.

Khruangbin – Pelota. The Thai funk/jazz/rock trio’s third album, Mordechai, is among the year’s best new records, and it’s their first with significant vocals, which should allow them to make real inroads on the commercial side. I’ll do a list of my favorite albums of the first half of 2020 shortly, but Mordechai is on it.

Doves – Carousels. Doves have reunited and released their first new music since 2009’s Kingdom of Rust. The time off has done them some good, as this sounds like peak Doves around the time of The Last Broadcast.

Bananagun – The Master. This weird Australian funk/alternative group sound a bit like someone smashed together folk rock sensibilities with late ’70s funk-rock or early ’80s new wave on their debut album The True Story of Bananagun. It’s very strange, but it works quite well even at different speeds.

Sad13 – Sooo Bad. Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz is set to release her second solo album as Sad13, with three new singles in the last few weeks, headlined by this track. All three songs are poppier than Speedy Ortiz’s music, but still have her offbeat lyrics and signature use of unexpected transitions.

Frank Turner – Bob. Turner and NOFX recorded covers of five of the other’s songs; I’m not a NOFX guy (although their desire to offend is admirable in a quirky way), but this reworking of a snotty track from their debut album into an acoustic ballad that sounds like Turner could have written it himself is impressive.

The Lazy Eyes – Tangerine. This Sydney quartet just released their first EP, cleverly titled EP1, showcasing a psychedelic rock sound that appears to owe a small debt to their countrymate Tame Impala.

Glass Animals – Heat Waves. I tend to like Glass Animals more when they’re a bit restrained, which they are here, as opposed to songs where it feels like they’re trying to be strange or eccentric.

Arlo Parks – Black Dog. Not a Led Zeppelin cover, as it turns out, although Parks did record an acoustic cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” as the B-side to this love song to a partner (or friend?) suffering from the black dog of depression.

Shamir – On My Own. If you know Shamir, it might be from his 2014 song “On the Regular,” which featured him rapping at a pitch that convinced a lot of people – me included – that the vocalist was a woman. He’s honed his sound in the intervening years to create an expansive mash-up that spans indie rock to classic soul to house and beyond, but I’ve been waiting for years for him to write another great hook. This song has it, along with a mid-80s Prince vibe to the music.

Tricky – Fall Please. Adrian Thaws is still at it at age 52, and still capable of producing a banger like this one, which features vocals from Polish singer Marta Z?akowska. It’s just short (2:27) for a song with such a great groove.

Freddie Gibbs & the Alchemist – Look at Me. Gibbs is probably the best MC working today, and continues to challenge himself musically, although I have a hard time buying in fully given how he speaks about women in his lyrics.

Dirty Streets – Can’t Go Back. Bluesy hard rock from a fairly new Memphis trio whose music I first heard while watching Netflix’s Sex Education. This is one of three tracks from their upcoming fifth album Rough and Tumble.

Muzz – Knuckleduster. Muzz is Paul Banks of Interpol, Matt Barrick of the Walkmen, and producer Josh Kaufman; they released their self-titled debut album in early June. It’s a mixed bag, often too lugubrious, but generally lush and often harking back to early shoegaze with more pronounced vocals.

Coach Party – Bleach. A new indie rock quartet from the Isle of Wight, with this song reminding me a bit of their labelmates Wolf Alice (at least from the latter’s first album).

The Beths – Out of Sight. This New Zealand indie group made a small splash in 2018 with their album Future Me Hates Me, with “You Wouldn’t Like Me” appearing on my top 100 for that year; their second album, Jump Rope Gazers, drops on July 10^th.

Everything Everything – Planets. E2 will release RE-ANIMATOR, their fifth album, on August 21^st; given the first three singles it seems like it might be their weirdest record yet.

Hinds – Take Me Back. I was into this all-female quartet’s earlier work but sort of assumed they’d get more proficient as musicians over time, so the charm of their first two records has started to wear off a bit now that it’s clear that there isn’t another level coming.

Medium – Life After Death. This isn’t the ’90s Minneapolis band Medium, but a project from musician Cotter Phinney, a big Ariel Pink fan who also professes to be into classic metal solos, with the former more evident on this track.

Protomartyr – Michigan Hammers. If there was a moment in some alternate universe when post-punk started to morph into metal – instead of the two strains descending from different ancestors – the result would have probably sounded a lot like Protomartyr.

Mekong Delta – Mental Entropy. I had no idea Mekong Delta, a minor band from the halcyon days of German thrash metal, even still existed, but they sound like they’re still recording in 1989 and I’m here for it.

Ensiferum – Andromeda. This Finnish folk/death metal act show off some great technical guitar work and strong melodic riffs, but the accessibility of their music varies from song to song – “Rum, Women, and Victory,” their previous single, was way more on the death metal side of things, while this has just a little of that and is more traditional metal, which is still my preference.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in music, alternative, indie, melodic death metal, metal, Music, rap

→ June 11, 2020
→ By keith

Music update, May 2020.

This month’s playlist is as long as usual, but the writeup is shorter because of the draft. I thought it was a pretty solid month for new music though, including several tracks I think will end up near the top of my year-end ranking. If you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.

The Eddy featuring Jorja Smith – Kiss Me in the Morning. I haven’t seen The Eddy, the jazz-themed Netflix show from Damien Chazelle, but this song features the Grammy-nominated Jorja Smith, whose Lost & Found was one of my favorite albums of 2018.

Khruangbin – So We Won’t Forget. I have loved both singles from their forthcoming album Mordechai, due out on June 26^th, as they seem like the trio are approaching their artistic peak.

Oasis – Don’t Stop (Demo). It feels like this track, a previously unreleased demo recently rediscovered by Noel Gallagher, first resurfaced six months ago, rather than about six weeks ago. It’s very vintage Oasis, which is a good thing in my book.

Fontaines D.C. – A Hero’s Death. There’s something about the line “Life ain’t always empty,” which these retro-punks repeat throughout the song, during this of all seasons.

Little Simz – might bang, might not. I was a little let down by Little Simz’ EP Drop 6, given how great her 2019 GREY Area was, but she’s still a great rapper and rises above the less interesting music on the new record.

Everything Everything – Arch Enemy. This lead single from their upcoming album Re-Animator – due out in August – is very E2, soaring, ambitious, and slightly manic in its instrumentation.

Maisie Peters – The List. I’m still waiting for the world to catch on to Peters, who just turned 20 in May and already has several incredible pop songs to her credit. This isn’t quite at the heights of “The Best I’ll Ever Sing,” but it’s close.

Ten Fé – Nothing Breaks Like a Heart. I didn’t even realize this was a cover of the Mark Ronson/Miley Cyrus song because they’ve so completely changed the song, turning into a haunting acoustic number that’s almost dirge-like with its funereal vibe.

San Cisco – On the Line. Even San Cisco’s lesser singles still have great hooks, like this one, which, like most of their best songs, has Scarlett Stevens sharing some of the vocal duties.

LA Priest – Beginnings. When I first heard this track, I was sure it was something from the former lead singer of Wild Beasts,but it’s actually Sam Dust, whose second album Gene just dropped last week.

Spielbergs – Go! This track, part of Adult Swim’s singles series, captures this Norwegian band at their frenetic best.

The Mysterines – I Win Every Time. The Mysterines should be stars by now, with great rock hooks and Lia Metcalfe’s snarling, riveting vocals.

The Naked and Famous – Death. I mean, maybe now wasn’t the right time to release a song so explicitly about confronting our mortality?

Disclosure – ENERGY. Disclosure burst on the scene with 2013’s “When a Fire Starts to Burn,” which featured a sample of preacher and motivational speaker Eric Thomas; they went back to the well for this title track from their upcoming album, using more of Thomas’ words as the vocals above music that absolutely lives up to the title.

Black Orchid Empire – Natural Selection. I wasn’t familiar with BOE before, but this is my kind of metal, with big, muscular riffs, and a real melody in the vocals.

Caligula’s Horse – Valkyrie. Progressive metal from the Australian band’s newest album, Rise Radiant, released on May 22^nd.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in music, alternative, hip-hop, metal, Music, progressive metal, rap

→ May 6, 2020
→ By keith

Music update, April 2020.

A shorter-than-normal playlist this month as I think the pandemic has played havoc with release schedules and has obviously kept many artists out of the studio, but there are still some strong singles in advance of albums already planned for releases this summer and fall. As always, you can access the playlist directly if you can’t see the widget below.

Iceage – Lockdown Blues. Yep, he’s saying “Covid 19 lockdown blues/the only way out is through.” There have been some regrettable songs written and released during the pandemic; this one is actually good.

Space Above, So Below – Golden. Space Above is former The Naked & Famous keyboardist Aaron Short’s new project, with So Below (singer Maddie North) contributing vocals on many of their songs so far, including this darkly ethereal track.

Khruangbin – Time (You and I). This new single from the Texas-based funk/jazz trio features extensive vocals from Laura Lee Ochoa, a departure from their primarily instrumental work to date, and is the lead single from their third album Mordechai, due out next month.

Village of the Sun – TED. VotS is a new collaboration between Binker and Moses – as in Moses Boyd, whose Dark Matter is my favorite album of the year so far – and Simon Ratcliffe of Basement Jaxx. This track takes its name and inspiration from a song called “Dreamship” by the Ted Moses Quintet, which I only know from googling.

Talk Show – Petrolhead. I’ve enjoyed Talk Show’s snarling mix of classic post-punk sounds, more contemporary rock rhythms, and just a hint of the energy of dance music without heavy electronic elements.

The Wants – Clearly a Crisis. The Wants are pure post-punk, influenced by Gang of Four and other icons of the earliest new wave bands, and it comes through most successfully on this track and “Motor” from their debut album Container.

bdrmm – Happy. A five-piece shoegaze band from Hull, bdrmm released their debut EP If Not, When? in October, and have returned now with this subdued, swirling track that has some early Lush to it with a more upbeat tempo.

Everything Everything – In Birdsong (Edit). Lead singer Jonathan Higgs has described this song’s lyrics as an attempt to capture what it might have been like to be the world’s first self-aware human, although I find it more interesting for the highly textured keyboard layers below Higgs’ falsetto, crescendoing into a sort of wall of sound that seems almost tactile by the end of the song.

Jake Bugg – Saviours of the City. Bugg seems to have come back around to the Dylanesque sounds of his Mercury Prize-nominated self-titled debut album, eight years later, with this second single ahead of his fourth album, which is due out later this year.

The Naked and Famous – Blinding Lights. TNAF’s cover of the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” from his new album After Hours, beats the original for me – not least because of Alisa Xayalith’s voice.

Asylums – A Perfect Life in a Perfect World. The Southend rock quartet have produced a song that sounds like it could have been recorded and released in 1994, and I mean that as a high compliment.

Ministry – Alert Level (Quarantine). I’m not as big a Ministry fan as you might guess from my age and musical tastes, as I find a lot of Al Jourgensen’s work with the band after their shift from new wave to industrial designed more to shock than to entertain. “Alert Level (Quarantine)” is still harsh and abrasive, but also has one of the best guitar riffs of any song in Ministry’s catalog.

Pure Reason Revolution – Ghosts & Typhoons. I don’t know how to categorize PRR’s music, with its peculiar mixture of progressive rock, electronic, and extreme metal elements, often in songs that run six to ten minutes in length, but their new album Eupnea, their first LP in a decade, has really grown on me this year thanks to songs like this and “Silent Genesis.”

Katatonia – The Winter of Our Passion. These Swedish prog-metallers started out as a death metal act but have shifted to clean vocals and doom sounds that sometimes incorporate metal aspects, but often don’t – if you heard this without knowing who the artist was, I doubt you’d call it metal. It’s one of the most accessible things they’ve done but retains the sophistication of their most recent albums.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in music, alternative, jazz, Music, progressive metal

→ April 3, 2020
→ By keith

Music update, April 2020.

Well, we’re all home now – or ought to be – so let’s listen to some new music, nineteen songs this month, most of which just appeared in March. If you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist directly here.

Moses Boyd featuring Poppy Ajudha – Shades of You. Boyd’s new album, Dark Matter, is the most interesting record I’ve heard since black midi’s Schlagenheim came out last June, and a lot more accessible at that, often evoking the same hypnotic, avant-garde vibe that Radiohead approached on Kid A and Amnesiac. A jazz drummer and producer, Boyd mixes pulsating instrumentals with tracks that feature guest vocalists, including this song, the album’s best thanks to searing vocal work from the south London singer Ajudha.

Waxahatchee – Can’t Do Much. Katie Crutchfield’s latest album, Saint Cloud, dropped last Friday, and is her most complete work yet, with “Lilacs” and this song the two standouts for me so far.

MID CITY – Forget It. An energetic power-pop track about gaslighting from a Melbourne quartet, with a strong flavor of the Killers circa Hot Fuss.

Artificial Pleasure – Lose Myself Again. I’m not sure exactly what it is about Artificial Pleasure that makes me think I’m listening to Heaven 17 sent forward forty years through a time machine, but I’m here for it.

Purity Ring – peacefall. Purity Ring’s latest album, WOMB, just came out this morning, including this single and February’s “stardew.”

Myrkur – House Carpenter. Myrkur, the nom de chanson of Danish musician Amalie Bruun, started out as a bizarre hybrid of dark folk music and extreme metal, but her latest album, Folkesange (Folk Songs), dispenses with blast beats and heavy guitar work in favor of traditional sounds that wouldn’t be out of place on an album from the Chieftains.

ARCADES featuring Prides – Stars. ARCADES have written numerous hits for K-Pop acts BTS and TXT, with just a few singles they’ve recorded themselves; this latest hit my radar because of the presence of the Scottish duo Prides, whose indie-pop sound blends quite well with ARCADES’ songwriting here.

Phantom Planet – Time Moves On. I remain pleasantly surprised by the return of Phantom Planet, and the fact that their new singles have been pretty good, although I think last year’s “BALISONG” is the best of the lot so far.

Catholic Action – Another Name for Loneliness. Catholic Action’s Celebrated by Strangers has earned some rave reviews from independent music press on both sides of the Atlantic, although I found the album a little light on hooks overall; this is my favorite track from the record, reminding me a bit of “Love Vigilantes” due to the main guitar riff.

Allie X – Sarah Come Home. The singer/model Alexandra Hughes released her second full-length album, a concept work called Cape God, in late February; it’s uneven, as her first album CollXtion II was, with this song the best on the album, an upbeat dance-pop track that contrasts with the darker tones on the record as a whole.

Adam Snow, Freddie Gibbs, Tedy Andreas – 9 to 5. Producer Snow’s name comes first, but Gibbs is the star here; the moment Houston rapper Andreas shows up he sucks most of the energy right out of the track, although I enjoyed his name-check of my former colleague Dan Le Batard.

Alkaline Trio – Minds like Minefields. Alkaline Trio released a three-song EP in March just called E.P. after their spring tour was cancelled, with this anthemic punk-pop track released as a single.

The Wants – Motor. This NYC trio show some heavy post-punk influence, unsurprising as lead singer/guitarist Madison Velding-VanDam has spoken about his love of Gang of Four. “Motor” was originally an instrumental track, but the spoken-word vocals that appear about halfway through definitely add to the song’s appeal by breaking what might have been a bit of a monotonous guitar riff otherwise.

Fake Names – Brick. Fake Names is a punk supergroup with members of Refused, Bad Religion, Minor Threat, and other bands. This lead single from their upcoming, self-titled album isn’t even two minutes long but is definitely a throwback to the heyday of melodic hardcore acts like BR and the Descendents.

Poppy – Concrete. I have no idea what to make of Poppy, a singer and Youtube personality who blends bubblegum and J-Pop elements with brief bursts of highly polished heavy metal. She has a fan base that’s independent of her music, based on her videos, her graphic novels, and I think her overall persona; I obviously am not in tune with any of that, but this song is weirdly catchy even though it feels like two completely disconnected tracks that have been smushed together in post-production.

Moon Destroys featuring Paul Masvidal – Stormbringer. Moon Destroys are a new progressive metal project with former members of Royal Thunder and Torche, with a new sound that blends prog and stoner/sludge metal sounds. Their first single featured Troy Sanders of Mastodon, while this has Paul Masvidal of Cynic on vocals … speaking of which, I just learned that former Cynic and Death drummer Sean Reinert died in January at age 48, which is awful news.

Wolf – Feeding the Machine. The title track from Wolf’s first album in six years shows that not much has changed for these guys, who seem firmly stuck in the late 1980s musically, with classic thrash sounds that would have fit well in the San Francisco sounds of that era.

Kreator – 666 – World Divided. Mille Petrozza’s voice has taken a beating – he sounds older than 52 on this track – but these guys can still bang out thrash riffs with the best of them.

Testament – Children of the Next Level. Testament just released their 13^th studio album, Titans of Creation, this morning; I feel about this record as I have about most of their music in the last decade, that guitarist Alex Skolnick is still an iconic author of thrash riffs, and a tremendous shredder, but the songs all leave me a little short of compelling hooks. I like Testament, but I don’t attach to their songs the way I have with many of the other pioneers of thrash.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in music, alternative, metal, Music, rap, thrash

Tags

Archives