welp, looks like we made it once again, this time a bit more broken down, with many more falls off the figurative music blog update wagon. what a meteoric start we had at the beginning of 2020! kicking it off with the fugees was the move. moving on to weyes blood, popping around the pop scene with aly&aj and harry styles, seeing what grimes’ new shit was all about, and reaching one of my faves of the year, marine girls, just as the pandemic became very real stateside and everything shutdown.
and then what a continued momentum we had at the beginning of quarantine-times. we got indie, into some oldies, jumped on the fiona bandwagon, swooped on the new gaga/chole&halle asap, continued to adore sault, and by the time summer was nearing a close and tayla graced us with folklore, my propulsion shifted into lethargy.
as the good weather waned, wildfires took over the west coast as well as the political climate, my maintenance of this blog became an unhinged sporadic shell of itself. time really disappeared there. since i don’t think a single soul pays attention to this baby in real-time, it won’t matter that i really had to think back and piece together what i listened to each week from september until now (and i can tell you, it’s undoubtedly inaccurate). but I still listened to the tunes, even if I wasn’t regularly documenting it. and perhaps that’s a lesson for us all, be accountable where it matters, give yourself a break where it doesn’t.
so to wrap-up year two of album-a-week blog world, here are my top 10 albums that I listened to in 2020. a note: this is not reflective of my spotify year-end wrap-up which, let’s face it, shows some truth of what guilty-pleasure-style aural nourishment our souls might need at any given moment, especially such a raucous a time like this shitshow of a year. so, here goes:
lazy ways/beach party by marine girls
punisher by phoebe bridgers
the score by the fugees
titanic rising by weyes blood
untitled (black is) by sault
saint cloud by waxahatchee
ungodly hour by chole x halle
folklore by taylor swift
fine line by harry styles
i’m wide awake, it’s morning by bright eyes
most of these came at just kind of the perfect time this year. marine girls fueled backyard lazy spring days with the dog in early quar. phoebe saved almost all of our lives this year in one way or another. the fugees kicked off the year strong (lauryn hill’s voice can make you feel literally anything everything you might need). weyes blood continues to be the go-to chill sad girl vibes. sault is sault is sault, and so far they’ve done no wrong. this album set the reality for a summer of racial reckoning around the world. saint cloud was a foundational album in the spring that stayed in the rotation all year, just pure good tunes. chloe x halle were the ethereal saving grace in the painful and confusing summer days. folklore was some beautiful basic-bitch cottage-core early0fall escapism. fine line feels like ages ago to be honest, but those were the days of 2020 weren’t they? and finally, old school bright eyes gave me hope in early quar when all i could do was bike in circles while blasting those shaky-ass emo conor vocals.
it’s always tough to narrow it down so here are some honorable mentions:
rtj4 by run the jewels
women in music pt. iii by haim
staunch honey david nance
miss anthropocene by grimes
kiss yr frenemies by illuminati hotties
two hands big thief
i guess another lesson with this blog is that, i’m not listening to bad music? because most of what i picked throughout the year emerged from friend recs, end of year/decade best-of lists, and albums from artists i already love but don’t know their discography all that well. or maybe i’m just not critical enough :) here’s to another year of music-ing over here all over my oops it’s a blog space. may 2021 bring us more peace, justice, joy, and truth. and if not, at least we’ve got the music to keep us company as we bike in circles.