Run the Jewels – Ooh La La Winner of my Best Beat of the Year (thank you DJ Premier) via a classic sample from Gangstarr / Nice and Smooth but elevated with a modern-day, Bauuer-style harshness. I thought – wow, amazing to have a new American woman to listen to over the next decade….wait, KJP is from Bristol, UK? WTF KJP, where did you learn this? Why is no one in the UK talking about KJP and this album? A future star is rising in your backyard, although, to be fair, it sounds like her backyard is 4,000 miles away in Nashville. I loved the crossover between pop and country that only a few artists can authentically create (sorry, Taylor Swift – not you). Katy J Pearson – Tonight When I first heard KJP, I became nostalgic of my American roots. Yes, it is true I’ve been a sucker for distorted vocoder harmonies since the old Air albums, but the pinnacle for me starts at 2:28, delivering the best musical minute of the entire year. With this year’s album, BC finally pulled it all together for me, delivering painfully realistic yet ironic lyrics with great music sensibility. Just what the doctor ordered.īC Camplight – I Only Drink When I’m Drunk I’ve been a fan of BC Camplight for the last couple albums, but it was typically one or two great songs and a lot of experiments. K-IRSE’s mix of MBV and Scandi death metal culminates at 5:15 when a growing build crescendos into full face explosion. For those new to “RYFO” songs, it is important to note that these can derive from a variety of genres – my preference tends to be from the My Bloody Valentine school, focused on over-volumed, high distortion guitars. Kairon IRSE! – An Bat None Sometimes in life, you need a headphones on, volume 10, “Rip Your Face Off” song to get you through the day. Over time, will this song prove to be my favourite of 2020? Not sure, but I felt it important to give praise to a special music moment in a challenging year. First, because Another Sky delivered a phenomenal album, but, more importantly, because it delivered the type of surprise adventure all music lovers want – to find something unexpected. It became my musical highlight of the year. I read an article about Another Sky which highlighted Catrin Vincent’s lead vocals and decided to give it a listen late one lockdown night. So, without further ado, here is a long list to be enjoyed in orderĪnother Sky – How Long? In the age of singles and Spotify, it is increasingly rare that we gain the experience of listening to a new artist in pure form – opening an album, pressing play, listening to the first song and knowing immediately that you are embarking on something special. Just keep my mom out of it because she’s a nice lady. So, I welcome the spirited debate about anything I’m wrong about or anything I missed. I have no musical expertise other than being an avid listener for many years. I do try to stay close therefore, you won’t find a 2012 album that I personally discovered in 2020, but you may find a song released in October 2019 that I only heard for the first time in 2020. Therefore, there can be some debate on whether some of these songs are 2019 or 2020 releases. In a streaming world, it is hard to time stamp songs because they are often released first as singles and then as albums. Rather, my objective was to spend time thinking about the year of music in the context of the year overall and then to take a view of what will be memorable years from now. I know it’s February, and I’m delivering a “Best of 2020” list so who cares, but I always felt that sending this on New Year’s Day isn’t the point. ![]() In some years, it’s not hard, which is the sign of 2020 being a good music year. In 2020, it was hard to break that listening regiment down to 40 songs. The Spotify playlist link and below commentary represents over 116 full albums and hundreds of other single songs. As predicted, the jeers came in heavy but the critiques were outweighed by the positive comments and more importantly the feedback about music I had missed during the year, which is always something I’m looking for.Īfter 3 years of absence while I tried to help raise my daughter, I decided to write the next chapter of my annual list. This way I could feel what it was like to be abused for my musical taste as I had previously criticized others. About a decade ago, suffering from the boredom of Pitchfork’s growing lack of credibility, I decided to stop complaining and to prepare my own top songs of the year.
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