The tidal wave of garbage that is 2020 continues to wash over us, keeping everyone masked and nervous. (And if you’re not masked, seriously, get on that, this isn’t hectoring, it’s trying to save lives.) Luckily, the one thing there might be more of this year than bad news is good music. As always, it’s impossible to keep up with the constant stream of amazing new singles, EPs, albums, mix tapes, reissues, remixes, and on and on—but some new music is simply too compelling to not call attention to itself. While this shouldn’t be considered a comprehensive assemblage of everything good coming out of speakers in the first half of 2020, it’s a solid place to start if you’re looking to check out the collections of musical work that moved us, inspired us, and sometimes pushed us to pump our fists in the air, bang our heads, or just smile a bit more widely under that mask.
For more of The A.V. Club’s favorite music, check out our list of the 25 best songs of 2020 so far. (To highlight as many artists as possible, we made sure there is no overlap between the two lists.)
58 Comments
Well, I guess today just happened to be the day these “Best of” lists caved to the pressure of the slideshow, huh?Not much to say…I’m happy to see Fiona Apple and RTJ right up top. I’m still on the fence on the new Grimes— the poppy production kinda rubs me the wrong way, though I like this a far deal better than Art Angels–but I might be warming to it. As for the rest of this, I got some catching up to do.
These lists would have 100x the comments without the slideshow.
While the authors of the article would probably love to see more comments, I’m guessing the powers-that-be that mandate this format would be fine if comments went away tomorrow. Just gotta get that sweet, sweet CPM trending ever upward!I’ve been around this site long enough to remember the inception of the comments feature. IIRC, their snarky tagline for the new feature read: “Now Tolerating Your Opinion.” Now, I suppose it might be something like “Keep Clicking or Layoff the Staff!”…or something better than that…whadya want? It’s too early for the funny!
For the record, when I personally assembled this feature for the site, it was not in slideshow format at that time.
Noted and believed. Now, spread out, compatriots, there are some malefactors or saboteurs about!
To add some criticism other than just “slideshows are stupid”; When you click play on one of these videos, then hit the next slide in the slide show, the music doesn’t stop. You can essentially layer all the plays on top of each other. It’s ridiculously annoying.
Remember the pre-nested comments days, when we tied onions on our belts because that was the style at the time?
Believe me, I know.
Sorry you guys have to deal with such shitty corporate policies. I appreciate your efforts to spotlight good art despite all that.
@Bernie Liederkranz pointed out on the ‘Songs’ list that you can force the article to reformat back into a single page by resizing your browser window into vertical proportions, which is handy (but also makes me wonder why, if it’s so simple, there isn’t a ‘View as Single Page’ button).
THANK YOU – THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN ZOOMING WAY IN.I usually read these articles on my phone, but occasionally I need to give the impression that I’m working.And there’s no way I’m clicking through a slideshow on the internet, unless the year is suddenly 1997 and that’s the only way to see pictures of Alicia Silverstone in pretty dresses while listening to a midi file of “Kids in America.”
In order to come here and reply to a comment I just had to click all the way through the slideshow again. It wouldn’t let me go right to the replies, it wouldn’t let me type the number of the slide in the address bar. This is so fucking stupid.
It let me click to the second slide and then replace the “2″ with “28″ in the address bar, which is the only reason I’m here and saying “fuck the slideshows, I only bothered to get to the comments in order to say ‘fuck the slideshows,’ I’m not actually going to read the article even though I’m very interested in its content. Instead I’m heading over to Bandcamp and Stereogum and even fucking Pitchfork to check for highly-rated/popular new stuff.”Spanfeller is a herb.
so weird: the replacement did not work, but somebody else said all I had to do was double click my browser so the window was more narrow and it would work and it did!
I thought the new Grimes was pretty awful (I was happy it was awful because the whole Elon Musk thing is disgusting, but it’s an honest opinion)Overall not the worst top 20ish list, Fiona Apple, Phoebe Bridgers, Perfume Genius, and Bob Dylan are probably my top 4, I might have put the new Mountain Goats but not gonna cry about it
As a fan of every other Grimes album, I agree. It sounds like she somehow ran the dullest bits of her earliest works through an art angels pop-y production filter. I’ve listened to it a few times and nothing about it holds my interest.
Whenever I see a slide show on here:Add “slides/x” to the end of the URL where X = the number of slides listed. Comment I how much I loathe slideshow format, leave without reading the article.. Because fuck slideshows.
If you resize the your browser to be more narrow side to side, it will change out of slideshow mode.
Very happy to see Oranssi Pazuzu on the list, but disappointed in the lack of Hum.
That new Oranssi Pazuzu deserves the spot, even if it is thrown in there as the token metal album.
PS: Bring back Loud!
Looking forward to the new Static-X, myself.
Why are all the token metal albums black metal? Is it the hipster cross-appeal?
Obviously because it’s the best style of metal.
I’m joking (kind of.) I imagine the real answer is because it’s what the one person on staff who likes metal listens to.
new Oranssi is great, but the new Hum is way over-rated. First three tracks are really good, but then it just sort of keeps going with little deviation.
Genuinely surprised not seeing Destroyer on here.To each their own and all, but seriously, that album is crazy good.
Can’t disagree with any of the picks (that I’ve listened to anyway). I would have found room for Damien Jurado’s ‘What’s New Tomboy?’ (my favourite of his to date), HAIM’s ‘Women In Music Pt. 3′ (the first album of theirs that I’ve enjoyed from start to finish), and Hinds’ ‘The Prettiest Curse’ (maybe the most fun I had listening to an album).
wait- Jessie Ware doesn’t get on the singles list because she’s too big a deal and could be on the album list, but she’s not on the album list either. My brain hurts.
The level of Jessie Ware erasure…far too much.
I’m also sad the Jessie Ware album didn’t make the cut because it’s SO deserving. But, fwiw, a lot of us submitted our picks for these before the album was out—I had my list firmed up and sent in, then I heard What’s Your Pleasure the following week and immediately wrote it up for A-Sides. Thinking it’ll have a better at EOY.
Good lord, this slideshow format…oof.Posted my singles reply to the albums article.
Ka – Descendants of Cain
Best rap lyrics of the year.
NO HUM???
18! I’m always so happy when I’ve heard of more then half the people on these lists. I even have some of these!
I totally forgot that Miss Anthropocene came out. I really need to listen to that. After all the eye-rolling at the Musk/Grimes stuff this year, I sometimes forget that I really fucking love her music. (and can we PLEASE ditch the slideshow lists? I’ve accepted the Adblock-proof ads and all, but do you guys need clicks THAT badly? I don’t know the analytics side, obviously, but surely making someone click through nearly 30 times does more damage than good, right?)
And if we MUST do slideshows, can they at least come with the base functionality of being navigable by pressing the arrow keys?
LOL. Freddie Gibbs ‘Alfredo’ is the best rap album in years and didn’t make this list? This site has gone so far downhill.
The entire slideshow thing in order to comment has got to go. Criminal. But every comment (not too many) I’ve made over the last 6 months has never made it past “pending”, (and I’ve never said an objectionable thing…ever). I think Beach Bunny’s “Honeymoon” would have been a worthy choice.
Keep spreading the word: If you’re on a desktop browser, you can reduce your window size, and it will switch from a slideshow to a single list. Until they catch on.
I can’t argue with this list with the exception of not including Greg Dulli’s Random Desire.
Feel bad that Butch Walker’s new album has been completely slept on, even though it’s very good but not his best.
You missed Agnes Obel and Hum (their first in over 20 years). The new Beths album was released last week.
You missed Hum’s Inlet
Only clicked to see if phobe bridgers was on the list, i wasn’t disappointed.
No “Sawayama”? Rina Sawayama really outdid herself with this album. It took me right back to last summer in Tokyo. Ah, the pre-Covid times…
Giving chromatica a miss is forgivable, but no Dua Lipa, Sawiyama or Jessie Ware??? The next time any of you see a gay man coming down the street you better RUN
Dragonball Durag is the video of the century. If it doesn’t win every award the system has failed us.
I don’t see Thalassic on here…
Ooh I’ve listened to exactly 0 of these, the only 2020 album I’ve rly gotten into this year is Spirituality and Distortion by Igorrr 😛 time to check some new music out!
Kudos for getting Katie Malco in there, she’s definitely one of my favourites of the year. The listed needed Soko’s new album Feel Feelings but otherwise it’s super solid.
Oh man, not enough a mention of The Dears’ Lovers Rock???
Nice to throw a bone to metal, but Code Orange put out a fantastic record this year. Would have liked to see that on here. Also Hum. Their new one is phenomenal.
I don’t mind the slideshow, but I wish YouTube videos would stop playing when you clicked Next.
You have Dylan but not Neil Young, who released a bona fide lost classic? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
I feel like a lot of these are here just because they’re from incredible artists even if the album itself is less than stellar. New RTJ was fine, but mostly more of the same. Miss Anthropocene is easily Grimes’ worst album. After five absolutely incredible albums in a row, Rosenstock’s No Dream, was a disappointment. The new Charli XCX was just not good. And the new Perfume Genius had to be something else to compete with the absolute masterpiece that was No Shape, but it’s really just OK too with a few standout tracks.
The omission of Local H is a travesty.
2020 is just a year of shit, from Kobe to COVID to Trump to this list.
Not going to cave to slideshow. It was bad design in late 2000’s it’s worse now. Quit forcing nonsense. Let us just read your list.