2020 is a hell of a time to be doing anything, including releasing music, and it’s safe to say that most of the albums that have been released this year are landing in a world very different from the one in which they were created (except, of course, for Charli XCX’s made-in-quarantine “how i’m feeling now”). The changed world has led many artists to delay planned album releases, but it hasn’t stopped many others — and, in an unusual case, apparently inspired Donald Glover to finally release a long-in-the-works album, albeit in a very strange and under-the-radar manner (more on that below).
For most of the people who would read this article, music isn’t just something to put on in the background — it’s literally a soundtrack to our lives, something that immediately evokes a person or place or time, often the first occasion we heard it. So for better or worse, for many people the songs and albums below will recall this time, whether it’s “After Hours” dropping at the end of that awful week in March when coronavirus truly took hold in North America; whether it’s Gambino’s album arriving unexpectedly a few days later, when we wondered what could possibly come next; or whether it’s Tame Impala’s “Slow Rush,” which dropped on Valentine’s Day but feels like a postcard from a different universe. Here’s to hoping there will be better memories to associate with the great music that’s to come in the next six months.
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The 1975, ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Dirty Hit / Polydor The old cliché says that if you don’t like the weather in England, don’t worry, it’ll change in a few minutes, and the same can be said of the sprawling, 22-song fourth album from the rainy isle’s biggest rock export in years. “Notes” starts off with a grim but necessary spoken-word ecological piece by Greta Thunberg, follows with a blistering punk rock song, and then, for the next hour-plus, settles into a kind of electronic-informed rock groove that is consistent but still ranges all over the map, from ballads to ‘80s homages to a kind of white-boy R&B. Somehow, after those first two songs, it all flows together, creating that rare long album that you can just put on and leave on, with peaks and valleys and some songs standing out and others less so, but still interesting sights on the ride. —Jem Aswad (Read our original review here.)
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Fiona Apple, ‘Fetch the Bolt Cutters’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Epic It’d been eight years since her last album, but “Bolt Cutters” was worth the worrying weight — it might even be this Gen-X standard bearer’s best album. Much of the material is challenging on first listen, and smoothness is a quality Apple consigns to criminals, not her own middle-period work. But once you get past the experimental tinge of some of the arrangement (often involving banged-upon household objects), the album is nearly conventional in the pleasures it provides, in the form of earworms matched with emotional catharsis. Apple unbolted is a lot like the rest of us, unquarantined: dealing with jealousy and microaggressions, hoping for transcendence, looking for love on all the wrong mortal coils. An album-of-the-year contender this funny, moving and bold went a long way all by itself toward keeping us from being able to write off 2020 as a washout. —Chris Willman (Read our original review here.)
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Childish Gambino, ‘3.15.20’
Image Credit: Courtesy of RCA Gambino a.k.a. Donald Glover is often enigmatic, but he really outdid himself with the baffling rollout for this, his fourth full-length album: Expected by fans for nearly two years, it was briefly posted online on 3.15.20, days after coronavirus took in the U.S., with no advance notice, removed after 12 hours, and then released officially, again with no notice, a week later. It has no title but its initial release date; most of the songs have numbers for titles; the cover is a blank white square — and yet it’s one of the most dynamic albums of the year, showing Glover’s immense maturation as a singer and songwriter. While the influences loom large — “Sign O’ the Times”-era Prince, Kanye, some Bill Withers and even a little Beach Boys — the songs range from soulful ballads (the Princely “Sweet Thing,” the Ariana Grande-featuring “Time”) to confrontational rock, Caribbean rhythms (“Feels Like Summer”) and even an irresistible song called “Big Foot, Little Foot” that could be from a children’s album. Why he decided to give his long-awaited masterwork a stealthy anti-drop is anyone’s guess, but its outward anonymity can’t conceal its greatness. —Jem Aswad (Read our original report here.)
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Dua Lipa, ‘Future Nostalgia’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Warner What is Lipa nostalgic for, exactly, on her second album? Is it the thumping disco of the 1970s? The primo funked-up Prince (and his coterie of female protégés) from the ‘80s? The dance sounds she might have remembered from when she was a toddler way back in the ‘90s? Why ask Jamiroquai? It’s all of the above, on a 100% ballad-free collection that literally doesn’t skip a beat but also never skimps for a moment on bringing the joy. The best dance-pop record to come along in years was a throwback in some stylistic ways, like its focus on some actual living-and-breathing bass playing you can feel at the bass of your spine. But it was also calling back to a time in which there was joy on the dance floor. Lady Gaga would soon come along and cement this as the feel of the season, but it was Lipa who was there at the very top of the pandemic urging us to “Don’t Stop Now,” and we didn’t. —Chris Willman (Read our original review here.)
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Jason Isbell, ‘Reunions’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Southeastern What we really need to be reunited with, Isbell suggests, is our better angels. Without taking too ministerial a tone, the singer-songwriter indulges in some serious conscience-pricking, on our behalf and on his own. The stirring and haunting opening track, “What’ve I Done to Help,” speaks to would-be do-gooders in retreat: “Now the world’s on fire and we just climb higher, until we’re no longer bothered by the smoke and sound,” he sings. “Good people suffer and the heart gets tougher / Nothing given nothing found.” Sound like any recent social apocalypse you know? The careful songwriting of “Reunions” offers bittersweet childhood memories of summer nights and broken homes; forlorn tales of marital separation; sweet celebrations of parenthood; advice for newly sober pals just starting along the 12 steps; or angry broadsides against apathetic celebrities. The musical definition is a little slippery, as Isbell’s folky rock creeps more toward the Mark Knopfler-esque. But the lyrical genre for these alternately prodding and soothing songs couldn’t be clearer: it’s soul. —Chris Willman (Read our original review here. For our profile of Isbell, read here.)
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Jay Electronica, ‘A Written Testimony’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Roc Nation After an entire decade’s worth of teases and long disappearances, mercurial rapper Jay Elecronica finally released his long-awaited debut album just as COVID quarantine swept through most of the country, and even under those circumstances it still seemed surreal to know that it actually existed. Featuring Jay-Z as a sort of supporting character on a majority of its tracks, “A Written Testimony” comes across like one long exhalation after years of breathless false-starts and overthinking, with Electronica’s hyper-literate, multilingual raps tackling everything from his Islamic faith to imposter syndrome, while his beats largely aim for subtlety and texture over bombast. It’s hard to imagine Electronica could have delivered a masterpiece equal to expectations, so he focused on just making a really, really good rap album instead. —Andrew Barker (Read our original review here.)
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Lady Gaga, ‘Chromatica’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Interscope Gaga’s status as a world-class singer and performer and a promising actor is beyond dispute, but there’s no denying her last few albums have been uneven at best. With “Chromatica” she returns to the dancefloor that spawned her and emerges with her best album since “Born This Way,” packing 13 solid songs (and three interludes) into a compact and concise 43 minutes. But even though nearly every song on “Chromatica” has a four-on-the-floor, butt-thumping beat, the songs themselves are remarkably varied in many other ways. There’s enough musical ear candy to keep fans engaged for months, with flashes of ‘70s disco, house, new wave and electro, and vintage Madonna looms large over the entire album — in fact, one could say this is the album Madonna fans have been wishing (in vain) that she would make for many years. —Jem Aswad (Read our original review here.)
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Ashley McBryde, ‘Never Will’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Warner Music Nashville The intersection of “redneck” and “sensitive singer-songwriter” has been an ever-narrowing Venn diagram in the last couple decades, but McBryde made that twain meet again on a sophomore album that exceeded her estimable first. She’s Patty Griffin and Gretchen Wilson in the same tatted-up package, offering songs that sometimes fit squarely in the country pocket, sometimes revive a brasher outlaw tradition, and sometimes veer further into the realm of tart ‘n’ smart Americana than the mainstream labeling ever would have led you to expect. She’s nobody’s idea of an easy sell in a dude’s world, and her single “One Night Standards” just cracked the country top 20 after a long climb. But it’s a reminder of how great the genre can be when it’s willing to traffic in loneliness or orneriness — not so much a cheating song as a number that acknowledges there are easy pleasures to be found in cheating on yourself. She scoots satisfyingly between modern country, proto-hillbilly and Southern-fried ‘80s rock sounds, but it’s her full-throated willingness to go for the lyrical jugular that makes her the rising star the genre most needs. —Chris Willman (Read our original review here.)
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Perfume Genius, ‘Set My Heart on Fire Immediately’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Matador Records “Masterpiece” is not a word we use lightly around here, but it’s hard to think of a better description for Mike Hadreas’ (a.k.a. Perfume Genius) fifth and latest album. Its ornate, intricately arranged songs have an almost museum-like quality with multiple themes and subtexts in the lyrics and music that ranges from the string-quartet bedecked “Whole Life” to the fuzzed-out guitars and droning rhythm of “Describe” — and that’s just the first two songs. It’s elaborate, dramatic and demanding, and not the kind of art that one comes to lightly. —Jem Aswad (Read our original review here.)
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Run the Jewels, ‘RTJ4’
Image Credit: Courtesy of MBG The latest, and greatest, full-length from the hydra-headed hip-hop conquerors Killer Mike and El-P, “RTJ4” arrived with righteous fury this week, speaking to a nation in crisis with appropriately revolutionary fervor. Whether dissecting the systemic failures of the American police state, the ills of late-stage capitalism, or simply the various ways that Run the Jewels will embarrass you in a lyrical battle, the album seethes with political urgency and pulses with open-veined sincerity, while somehow still managing to retain all of the hilarious, pugilistic vulgarity and what-me-worry swagger that made these middle-aged cult rappers such unlikely heroes to begin with. If these two haven’t yet fully ascended to that most rarefied plane of telepathically attuned hip-hop partnerships — Q-Tip and Phife, Prodigy and Havoc, Erick and Parrish — they’ve come extraordinarily close, and this album sets a bar for the rest of the year that few of their peers can hope to clear. —Andrew Barker (Read our original review here.)
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Tame Impala, ‘The Slow Rush’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Interscope Australia’s Tame Impala — which, on record, is entirely singer-songwriter-producer Kevin Parker — has fused rock and electronic music arguably to a more thorough degree than any major other act working today. Its music has rock-sized guitars and hooks, but the rhythms and atmospherics are almost entirely electronic — and its songs work equally well as singles and background-ish music. “The Slow Rush” is both Parker’s most songwriterly and immersive album to date, and although it’s a little overstuffed, it’s the kind of album where you can just press “play” and sit back for an hour and let it flow. —Jem Aswad (Read our original review here.)
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The Weeknd, ‘After Hours’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Republic A month after he turned 30 — and just days after the pandemic took hold in North American — The Weeknd launched the next phase of his recording career with his most fully realized album yet, “After Hours.” Sonically, the hallmarks are ultra-cinematic keyboards, pulsating sub-bass, hard beats (which are seldom danceable), ‘80s synthesizer flourishes and caverns of echo, all of which contrast with his high, angelic voice. The sound is distinctively Weeknd, but an unusual progression — it’s somehow sharp and blurry at the same time. It’s a real album too, with a smoothly flowing arc and a loose storyline, a combination of bangers and ballads that musically finds him seeing just how much he can challenge his fans while remaining a commercial powerhouse. —Jem Aswad (Read our original review here, our cover story here and a long talk with The Weeknd about the album here.)
