The 15 Best Albums of 2020
Graphic by Elise Miguel
Stream the highlights: Apple Music
The album was quite possibly the only uninhibited form of entertainment that we had to look forward to this year. While an artist's desire to craft a full LP might have been stunted due to the utter chaos engulfing our world in 2020, the actual ability to record was relatively unaffected. As concert venues, TV productions, movie theaters, and sporting events all shut down, new music was one of the only things we could rely on to ease the stress.
Even though 2020 sucked, there were some truly amazing projects that reached us while we were cooped up in quarantine. From Benny the Butcher’s exercise in rap purism to Waxahatchee’s return to folky Americana, here are fifteen albums that will leave a lasting impression long after the year’s end.15. The Avalanches — We Will Always Love You
As lawsuits against music sampling reach a boiling point, many have claimed that the art of sampling is dead, but The Avalanches’ third studio project proves quite the contrary. The little-known electronic duo has made a career out of manipulating the work of others and transforming it into dancey euphoria. Music academia has dubbed the style plunderphonics — a lofty term for constructing full songs by taking recognizable sounds and recontextualizing them in a new musical environment. We Will Always Love You does less plundering than their first two albums, but it still incorporates hundreds of wide-ranging soundbytes that feel familiar (“We Go On,” “Always Black”) even if you’ve never heard them before.
After giving away nearly 7,000 records from his collection, Robert Chater started anew and sought out to craft a cosmic wandering — from love to death and everything in between. The resulting experience is expansive and blissful, borrowing from almost every genre to create an amalgamation of sampledelia. The album boasts guest appearances from contemporary rappers like Denzel Curry and Pink Siifu, indie-electro pioneers like MGMT and Blood Orange, and even features some alt-rock legends like Kurt Vile and Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction. Although it’s fundamentally based on the creations of others, there’s simply no other music that sounds like We Will Always Love You.
14. Jay Electronica — A Written Testimony
Aside from his acclaimed mixtape rapping over Jon Brion’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind score and his tragically overshadowed verse on Big Sean’s “Control,” 44-year-old rapper Jay Electronica has been out of the spotlight his entire career. Despite this anonymity, he’s stayed relevant by floating through aristocratic social circles, and maintained a high status in the rap world as a Roc Nation signee since 2010.
Amidst much confusion and speculation, Jay Electronica’s mystical debut finally arrived free of disappointment in 2020. A Written Testimony is mostly what fans thought it would be: experimental, odd, somewhat lo-fi, and heavily influenced by his relationship with the Nation of Islam. But one thing no one expected was for it to be a joint effort with Jay-Z. The two icons rap together on nearly every track, showcasing their headie rhymes over a variety of beats, most of which were produced by Jay Electronica himself. From the jazzy “Shiny Suit Theory” that leaked for the first time over a decade ago, to the chaotically intriguing mess that is “Flux Capacitor,” A Written Testimony feels as much like a tripped-out sermon as it does a rap album.
Read more about Jay Electronica’s year on The 25 Best Rap Songs of 2020.
13. Dutchavelli — Dutch From the 5th
It’s no secret that much of the hype surrounding UK drill star Dutchavelli revolves around his street credit. With a five-year prison bid and a sensationalized trial under his belt, his toughness has been turned into a meme. His comments sections are consumed with jokes like “Coronavirus tested positive for Dutchavelli” and “Dutch’s Air Forces are too scared to crease,” but his debut tape, Dutch from the 5th, is anything but a joke. While it may be fun to listen to, at its core, it’s a menacing, dark interpretation of drill that’s best described as sonic intimidation.
Buzzing tracks like “Surely” and “Only If You Knew” showcase Dutchavelli’s ability to cultivate fear and respect in even the simplest of bars. Deeper cuts like “Do It” feature his sharp duple flows and car-rattling 808s that glide so recklessly you’d think they’d have flown off the track. Even the danceable, guitar-laced, “Kaka,” is frightening once you realize what he’s actually talking about. At first, Dutch from the 5th might sound like any other aggressive UK rap, but a closer listen reveals a canonical drill album that uncovers the true ethos behind one of the most popular sub-genres of the year.
Read more about Dutchavelli’s year on The 25 Best Rap Songs of 2020.
12. Parcels — Live Vol. 1
The Australian electro-pop meets disco-soul band, Parcels, released their self-titled debut album in 2018 and it’s been nothing but smooth-sailing from there. In the following two years, they’ve garnered an international reputation as a can’t miss live act, and Live Vol. 1 captures the essence of this appeal with unmatched clarity.
Recorded live on tape at the iconic Hansa Studios in Berlin and mixed without any edits, the album is a testament to Parcels’ overwhelming talent. The band seamlessly transitions from track to track, literally without skipping a beat. “Bemyself” flows into the standout, “Myenemy,” with such fluidity that it’s hard to tell when one song ends and the next begins. Breezy, funk-influenced singles like “Tieduprightnow” and “Lightenup” somehow feel better than their album recordings. Overall, Parcels sounds at ease on Live Vol. 1, and the accompanying performance video reveals just how casually they performed this flawless live set. This album is not only an easy-listening gem, but a reminder that true musicianship is alive and well if we look in the right places.
11. The Koreatown Oddity — Little Dominique’s Nosebleed
If you’ve never heard of The Koreatown Oddity, his hour long, collage-like 7th album, Little Dominique’s Nosebleed, is the perfect place to start. This experimental, sonic scrapbook is an autobiography revolving around “two serious car accidents” that left him with frequent nosebleeds throughout his childhood. Contextually, each track touches on this predicament in some manner, sometimes directly like on the grooving title track, and sometimes more abstractly like on “The World’s Smallest Violin.” Regardless, the central theme is far beyond the odd details and theatrical storytelling. Little Dominique’s Nosebleed is simply about trauma and the way the mind tries to categorize it as it becomes a part of our history.
The production, handled mainly by The Koreatown Oddity himself, is jazzy and sample-based, mixing the styles of J. Dilla and Madlib with extra doses of strangeness. It’s filled to the brim with interruptive skits and jarring interludes. The album almost plays like a musical, with various events surrounding the accidents not only rapped about, but acted out for the listener to gain perspective beyond lyricism. TKO’s songwriting is quirky and idiosyncratic — many bars are worded in a roundabout way that forces you to take a moment and digest. The eclectic nature of the album is only a minor part of its appeal, though. The real achievement of Little Dominique's Nosebleed lies in its ability to use intense, unrelatable specificity to explore a universal phenomenon that anyone can relate to in one way or another.
Read more about The Koreatown Oddity’s year on The 25 Best Rap Songs of 2020.
10. Soccer Mommy — color theory
Led by the shimmering, 7-minute rock ballad, “yellow is the color of her eyes,” Soccer Mommy’s second album is a prismatic emotional reflection on early adulthood through Sophie Allison’s 23-year-old eyes. Compared to her raw debut album, color theory is more polished and expansive. Although she’s well-known in the indie rock scene, tracks like “bloodstream” and “circle the drain” sound more like mid-90s pop rock, landing somewhere between Sheryl Crow and Liz Phair while still maintaining their modern appeal.
Even though the album has moments of brightness, its spirit is unquestionably bleak and mainly deals with questions of mortality and existential anxiety that Allison confronts with her blunt lyricism. The closer, “gray light,” was written about her mother’s battle with terminal cancer. Its shoegazey slide guitar and electronic rhythmic loops might sound dream-like, but Allison’s repetition of “I’m watching my mother drown,” ends up grounding the mood closer to nightmarish. color theory approaches early-20s dissociation, melancholy, and fear with unreserved honesty, effectively communicating the dreadful uncertainty that rears its head as “real-life” becomes a child’s reality.
9. Tennis — Swimmer
Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley first met in an undergrad philosophy class at the University of Colorado, Denver in 2008. After sailing the Eastern Atlantic Seaboard for eight months following their graduation, the couple returned home and decided to record an album chronicling the adventure under the band name Tennis. Ten years into their career, the now husband-and-wife duo is still making some of the sweetest indie-pop you can find.
Their fifth album, Swimmer, is an ode to their aging romance that refines their woozy surf-pop down to a nostalgic lo-fi R&B. Moore’s soft delivery has hints of Stevie Nicks, Blondie or even Gwen Stefani, but the essence of Tennis lies more in ‘60s pop due to Riley’s tropical, wavy production; picture vintage coral swim caps and chilled saltwater on a sunny morning. Beachy songs like “Echoes” and “Tender as a Tomb” feel like breeze under a cabana or atop a sailboat, but the album isn’t limited to this vibe alone. Polished R&B-pop tracks like “Swimmer” and “Matrimony II” feel more like an intimate glass of Pinot in the boat’s cabin, expounding on the beachiness with sultry progressions and airy melodies. Maybe the underlying appeal of Swimmer is that it’s a soundtrack to the seaside trips we wish we had this year, but whatever it is, there’s something to be said for an album that feels like a vacation in and of itself.
8. Benny the Butcher — Burden of Proof
The term “instant classic” has been haphazardly thrown around since hip-hop’s inception, but there really is no better way to describe Burden of Proof. Even though it’s only Benny the Butcher’s second official studio album, his unwavering street aura and confidence has been fine-tuned and perfected in a back catalog of over 20 mixtapes between 2007 and 2018. The only thing he’s actually new to is releasing music directly to streaming services.
Benny’s raps almost feel biblical — they’re short and concise with every word packing the punch of a battle-hardened veteran. “I was young in my prison phases, how you know you really gangster / Jail cells where I learned decision makin'.” Biographic, wisdom-driven tracks like “One Way Flight” are contrasted by braggadocious posse-cuts like “Timeless,” all tethered together by Hit-Boy’s immaculate production. In its entirety, Burden of Proof demands attention and respect. You can’t help but listen when the title track drops, and luckily, Benny makes it more than worthwhile to stick around.
Read more about Benny the Butcher’s year on The 25 Best Rap Songs of 2020.
7. Haim — Women in Music Pt. III
Haim’s third studio album, Women in Music Pt. III, is a triumph of modern alternative music. It’s multi-faceted and lush, trading Haim’s signature soft rock sound for a more expansive variety of genres. It feels boundless, but it’s held together by the sister-trio’s newfound ability to balance their rock background with experimental pop/R&B styles in a way that maintains the integrity of both.
Produced by Danielle Haim and ex-Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij, Women in Music Pt. III takes the group into previously uncharted territory: a risk that pays off in full. “3 AM” is a futuristic mix of smooth funk and 90s R&B with scattered vocal samples and vinyl scratches over fake voicemails. The closer, “FUBT,” starts as a stripped-down ballad but eventually transitions into a pseudo-EDM track that layers reverberated harmonies over lo-fi trap drums and distorted guitars.
“Up From a Dream” features eerie reversed vocals and sporadic fuzzy guitar riffs. It’s a near-perfect record, showing off lead singer Danielle’s knack for penning vivid vignettes that maintain relatability in their vagueness. Women in Music Pt. III deserves recognition for its catchiness and accessibility, but the album’s most impressive feat is its ability to bring separate, contrasting elements together to create something wholly wonderful for the alternative genre.
6. Run the Jewels — RTJ4
The first installment of the RTJ series in 2013 established El-P and Killer Mike’s supergroup as a force to be reckoned with, and the subsequent release of RTJ4 in 2020 confirmed them as one of the greatest duos in hip-hop history. Their radical mix of alternative rap and rock almost transcends music — the group’s concerns are far beyond a cool beat and a 16. Issues of police brutality and race are covered at length, and although RTJ4 is actually one of their least political records, the essence of politics remains at the core of their artistic identity — who is a friend and who is an enemy?
“walking in the snow” features some of the group’s most leftist bars as they ruminate on the outdated American philosophy of freedom within liberalism. This might come off as overly lofty, but Killer Mike tethers the philosophical question to the tangible reality of George Floyd’s murder earlier this year. “JU$T,” led by Zack de la Rocha’s refrain, “Look at all these slave masters posing on your dollar,” takes a similar angle by questioning our obsession with currency and how it distorts our understanding of morality. This album tackles massive philosophical topics with what we might call grace, if it’s possible to describe these ideas with a word so positive. El-P and Killer Mike have never shied away from trying to lift the veil, and RTJ4 suggests that they have no intention of stopping anytime soon.
Read more about Run The Jewels’ year on The 25 Best Rap Songs of 2020.
5. Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher
Phoebe Bridgers’ acclaimed follow-up to Stranger in the Alps is her best work yet, and this is saying a lot considering how excellent her collaboration projects have been. From her supergroup’s boygenius - EP, to her 90s-alt project with Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, she’s established herself as a pioneer in the Gen-Z indie scene in a brief three years. Punisher perfects her whisper-in-your-ear vocal style and introduces even more personal, individualistic songwriting. It’s a nocturnal and sobering take on emo-folk that would make Elliott Smith, the major influence behind the album’s title, undoubtedly proud.
In Bridgers’ typical fashion, Punisher is almost entirely composed of slow ballads. Dynamic deviations from the norm like the uptempo “Kyoto” and the sneakily explosive “ICU'' provide some relief from the gloomy mood, but her intimate and sardonic lyricism stays at the forefront regardless. The production is emotional and dramatic, albeit subdued. Somber tracks like “Punisher” have an uncanny ability to make you feel stuck, or even lost, in time. From the haunting reverb filling the song’s ambient arrangement to the pitch-shifted vocal harmony sheltered underneath her lead murmurs, the record’s heightened attention to detail simply accelerates the vehicle that carries you into her world.
Listening to Punisher feels like fighting back tears when the screen turns black at the end of a movie that really hits home — it’s difficult not to reflect on yourself while staring into her void. The album is a tour de force for Phoebe Bridgers. It’s a striking, candid, vulnerable look into the post-love healing process by one of the most promising artists of our generation.
4. Dua Lipa — Future Nostalgia
Dua Lipa spells out her glistening second album’s mission statement in the first line: “You want a timeless song, I want to change the game.” She certainly accomplishes the former, and in time, we may see some validity in the latter. Future Nostalgia is one of the smartest pop records to come out in recent memory — it’s well-researched, musically thoughtful, and above all else, tremendously catchy. It’s a quintessential example of successful pop revitalism, drawing carefully on an abundance of influences from the late 20th century, bordering on triteness but never actually reaching it. From the bass-driven, nu-disco single, “Don’t Start Now,” to the electro-R&B highlight, “Pretty Please,” the album’s production effortlessly soars through every popular sub-genre the ‘70s and ‘80s had to offer.
Dua Lipa’s energy is infectious on Future Nostalgia. Her lyrics are cheeky and authoritative, focused on female autonomy and sexuality. She flows through chilled, spoken word-esque verses in a smooth low register (“Physical,” “Love Again”) that compliments the explosive hooks that often follow. Glossy embellishments, shifts in accent, and high-register vocal cracks make her addictive delivery even more dynamic.
What ultimately separates Future Nostalgia from its throwback counterparts (take Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic or Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION) is its unwavering adherence to the retro sound it draws from. Cohesion throughout pop projects is oftentimes pushed aside to make room for contemporary radio cuts, but aside from “Good In Bed,” Future Nostalgia contains very little trap or EDM pop influence. The album’s brief 37 minutes are essentially filler-free. It’s nothing but nostalgic, timeless pop that helped elevate the genre in 2020.
3. Lil Uzi Vert — Eternal Atake
For non rap fans, it might be hard to explain why Lil Uzi Vert is so special. Much of his appeal is contextualized within the current state of hip-hop. Although the genre has now stretched its arms around most walks of life, initially, it was ideologically limited and homogenous, plagued by hypermasculinity and an underlying lack of political correctness. Lil Uzi Vert has been a major catalyst behind trap’s recent shift into the odd and obscure — the strange voices, the autotune, the performative obsession with rock music, etc. He’s adopted an androgynous style, donning off-the-shoulder shirts and wearing spiked choker chains and braces. His kawaii mannerisms have been memed on multiple hilarious occasions and his emoji-littered tweets are certainly full of charisma, to say the least.
Eternal Atake is an excellent summary of Uzi’s ingenuity, both as a musician and as a celebrity. Branded as a loose concept album about his alien abduction, the LP explores a variety of futuristic sounds glued together by Uzi’s consistently bizarre delivery. It ranges from straightforward bangers (“Baby Pluto,” “Lo Mein”), to high-speed hypnotic trap loops (“Silly Watch,” “POP,” “Homecoming”), all the way to electro-trap experiments that sound like Dance Dance Revolution with 808s (“I’m Sorry,” “Celebration Station”). The album is inventive and exciting, parading his full arsenal of metamorphic flows and playful lyricism through time and space. Lil Uzi Vert isn’t scared of being weird, and Eternal Atake shows that he’s going to be himself no matter what anyone else thinks, even the aliens.
Read more about Lil Uzi Vert’s year on The 25 Best Rap Songs of 2020.
2. Waxahatchee — Saint Cloud
If Southern-style sweet tea had a sound, it would be Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud. Its airy, summery atmosphere feels like the relief of stepping back into familiarity after a long trip — that primal love for where we come from despite our fondness for wherever we’ve been. Lead singer Katie Crutchfield, who previously approached her records with more traditional indie rock angles, finally embraced her Southern roots and crafted a masterpiece of American folk that feels more like her countryside upbringing in Alabama than anything she’s written prior.
For the most part, Saint Cloud is a reflection on Crutchfield’s recent journey to sobriety. In a sense, it’s an album detailing the return to oneself. Easygoing, bonfire-soundtrack singles like “Can’t Do Much” and “Lilacs'' hone in on this self-love, the latter being a tale of the constant rebuilding and repair necessary to stay the course. Another highlight, “The Eye,'' is a lilting folk anthem that hymns the tornado-like nature of loving someone else, which can be especially overwhelming when you’re still working to truly love yourself. Crutchfield delivers flowery, warm melodies with the childlike freeness of running off the porch barefoot on the first warm day of spring.
Her twangy, syrupy timbre is on full display in “Fire,” which also serves to confirm the central theme of the record with the poetic, self-directed refrain, “If I could love you unconditionally, I could iron out the darkest edges of the sky.” Like this line, Saint Cloud is beautiful in its ability to convey lucid emotion through descriptions of the physical world around us. It’s a blithesome reminder that sometimes all you need to do is come home.
1. Samia — The Baby
Samia Finnerty’s kaleidoscopic indie debut, The Baby, is a perfect album. From the very first line, “I said loving you is bigger than my head, and then you dove in,” the 23-year-old singer/songwriter demonstrates a knack for writing captivating and particular stories of youth that are insightful beyond her years. Her voice is sultry and impassioned, cracking into a stark falsetto at the perfect times over production that ranges from warm indie to acoustic balladry. The Baby is poignant at heart, turning intimate and ephemeral moments into coming-of-age vignettes that feel eternally relatable.
Samia trudges through the confusions of modern youth with a sardonic precision. From “Waverly,” which details the shameless idealization of a mystery restaurant worker, to “Winnebago,” which opens with Samia crying in the bathroom at a party, she’s able to relay adolescent anecdotes with a tender sense of sentimentality that makes them feel significant. Whether or not they actually are is beside the point, because Samia captures the grandeur that we attribute to our actions when we’re growing up. It all has to mean something, doesn’t it?
This desire to preserve the trivialities of our youth is elucidated on “Does Not Heal,” where Samia sings of cutting her leg on a fence trying to break into a school bus lot with a friend. In her perfect throaty vibrato, she repeats, “I hope I do not heal,” wishing for a scar on her thigh so that she’ll never forget the moment. Despite detailing the gash’s deep reds and blues and her fear of tetanus, the only thing that truly matters to her is freezing that feeling of invincibility in time — creating a constant reminder of the teary-eyed freedom that transformed a flash of stupidity into a moment that felt existentially profound.
A running theme on The Baby is Samia’s battle against the false belief that she’ll always need someone else to take care of her — that everything is too overwhelming to make sense of alone. She told American Songwriter, “When my friends leave a room I say, ‘Who’s gonna watch the baby?’ and I guess I’m the baby. It’s just a way to guilt the people I love into not leaving the party.” What she’s expressing is not a feeling of toxic dependency, but rather the deep-rooted fear we have of losing our sense of security as things change around us. Some of the stories she tells are inconsequential and fun (“Minnesota”), and some are filled with pain (“Stellate”), but she reclaims power in the simple act of sharing them with such confidence.
The Baby subtly communicates a yearning to retroactively turn our experiences, both the positive and negative ones, into something transcendent. Most of the time, however, this sense of overwhelming importance is just an illusion, but there’s power in cataloging the times when we felt unquestionably alive. Later in “Pool,” Samia asks someone, “How long do you think we can sit here, before we have to move?” At the core of this question is the idea that, eventually, we all have to move. The Baby accepts this as a sine qua non, instead striving to honor the moments of our youth that felt like they’d last forever, even if we knew deep down that they couldn’t.