2. Ice Cream (feat. Selena Gomez) - BLACKPINK
3. Levitating - Dua Lipa
4. Boss Bitch - Doja Cat
5. JU$T (feat. Zack de la Rocha & Pharrell Williams) - Run the Jewels6. I Like Him - Princess Nokia
7. Concrete - Poppy
8. Fortune - Wye Oak
9. Video Games - Sufjan Stevens
10. Circle The Drain - Soccer Mommy
11. Captain (feat. Britt Daniel) - Nicole Atkins
12. The Fool - Overcoats
13. You've Had Me Everywhere - of Montreal
14. Feel the Way I want - Caroline Rose
15. Comme Des Carcons (Like the Boys) - Rina Sawayama
16. 4 American Dollars - U.S. Girls
17. Weird Fishes - Lianne La Havas
18. Fire - Waxahatchee
19. Time (You and I) - Kruangbin
20. Ordinary Talk - Half Waif
21. Conspiracy - The Rentals
22. You Can't Rule Me - Lucinda Williams
23. Ghost Limb Gambler - Emily Wolfe
24. Where to Start - Bully
25. King of the Ashes - Gallower
26. Tide of Hyacinth - Ambrose Akinmusire
Third best band? Overcoats. They are so scrappy and good. We saw them live and online for WTMD. The album has several grear songs, and inadvertently or not they really captured the zeitgeist.
Best Notes:
I liked a lot more than 26 songs this year. New music from these people also made me happy and deserves your attention:
(as a matter of fact Eze + Revvnant)
Kitty
And, slightly different is 2020's Most-Played Songs (I wasn't the only 1 playing!):
1. ringtone (Remix) (feat. Charli XCX, Kero Kero Bonito & Rico Nasty) - 100 gecs
2. Pressure Drop - Toots & the Maytals
3. Boss Bitch - Doja Cat
4. the 1 - Taylor Swift
5. The Saga Begins - Weird Al Yankovic
6. It's Bugsnackz! - Kero Kero Bonito
7. Yoda - Weird Al Yankovic
8. august - Taylor Swift
9. Miracle - CHVRCHES
10. Video Game- Sufjan Stevens
Artist of the Year:
I'm going to say Wye Oak; they are local. Not only did they have a great single that rivals "Civilian," but their EP with the children's choir is really incredible. For most of the year "Fortune" was sitting at number #1 for me; now I imagine it proudly regrouping the music to boldly start side-B of my imaginary Best of 2020 mixtape. Plus, they helped save the Ottobar. Their reward is getting to be the thumbnail pic for this blog entry. Congratulations, guys. #Baltimore
Kruangbin is a close second for sorta breaking through everywhere, and having their own great album in addition to that fantastically smooth EP with Leon Bridges. This marks my second year of "Kruangbin" fandom, and while I've read plenty of articles about them at this point, I have still never heard another human pronounce their name. Very 2020.
Best Album of the Year: Does "Doom-Scrolling" count as an album? Honestly, there was practically no full album I listened to more than once or twice in its entirety. It has come to this. (Sorry?)
Best Concert of the Year: I took my wife to see Cold War Kids at the 9:30 Club in February. Overcoats opened and they were awesome fun. It was a weeknight and we both had colds; we left about halfway through the main set... and haven't seen live music in person since. Except!...briefly, my daughter and I did go see Emily Wolfe at a WTMD live lunch (for free!); she played Motorhead. Yep, that was the highlight. Congratulations Emily Wolfe. She and Princes Nokia also win special commendations for making the top 25 two years in a row, fitting as Nokia issued twin albums over a span of months.
 |
| Emily Wolfe |
Ultimately, here's my favorite indie rock DIY gig of the year:
Best Notes:
* Did not love the new Taylor Swift. Sorry, fam.
* Despite her not cracking my top 25, Sierra Hull's new album was better than her last one, and if it takes a Sturgill Simpson bluegrass album to get her network-TV famous then I am all for it. Fingers-crossed for DelFest 2021: both that it actually happens, and that it gets headlined by Simpson and his band.
* I really don't want Best Quarantine Album to ever be a category, but if it is then Charli XCX would win - and that would make two years in a row for her albums. And, at least we got stuff like this.
* Metalheads, don't sleep on this Gallower album! And RIP Riley Gale.
* This was the year I really listened to "Louie Louie" by The Kingsman (that and "Wholly Bully"). Have you ever really listened to it? I mean, really? It is perfect in all its imperfections. How did I not know the sloppy-ass drummer, who executes a successful coup of the band after their instant stardom, drops his sticks and clearly shouts "FUCK" at the 0:54 mark of the song?! Later there are actual mistakes in the song (the singer comes in early so they just go around again), but fuck it- release that thing anyway. Brilliant.
* Also, despite loving John Lennon, I only just learned that his first THREE solo albums were entirely experimental stuff with Yoko Ono, where they basically just hit record and sometimes made music. Brilliant.
* Shout-out to Treme's Lucia Micarelli starring in Hallmark's The Christmas Bow.
* Better luck next year, everybody....
"There’s a fire // There’s a fury // Sky is falling but we’ll get through it..."
