My 25 Favorite Albums of 2020

Buckle in, baby, this shit is over 10,000 words long.

A friendly reminder that unlike film, I have absolutely zero knowledge of the technical side of music or music theory, all I know is the emotional effect the music has on me. This is not my attempt to list the best albums of the year, simply the ones that have had the biggest impact on me. So if there's anything you enjoy that's not on here, I'm not saying that these albums are objectively better or worse than anything else that came out this year, just the albums that I loved and want to give some shine to, and hope that others will get enjoyment out of them too. That being said, 2020 was a strange year for music. Not one of my favorites, but not one of the worst. A lot of the more anticipated releases either underwhelmed me, or simply weren't my taste, so there's a good chunk of artists on here that I'd never listened to before. 

Maybe even more notable (for me), 2020 is by far the most I've been into rock music since my teenage years, but rather than the post-hardcore, post-grunge and alt-metal I favored back then, this return has leaned heavily into punk and noise rock. I guess all the solitude forced by the pandemic - paired with the relatively small amount of hip hop releases from big-name artists - encouraged me to look for a wider range of energy outlets. And speaking of solitude, not many topics popped up more often throughout the music of the year than the loneliness caused by quarantining, lockdowns, and social distancing. Between the pandemic, politics, and the hurricane of social unrest following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of the police, many artists gravitated towards apocalyptic themes on their albums this year as well.

25. OTHERLiiNE - OTHERLiiNE

Producers George FitzGerald and Lil Silva linked up for a retro-futuristic electronica album that sounds like driving a stolen muscle car down an abandoned freeway in the tropics as a giant red sun sets on a purple horizon. That's pretty much the whole story of why I enjoy this concise debut from the duo. This will likely be the shortest summary on this list. Let's move on to things I have stronger opinions about!

24. The Beths - Jump Rope Gazers

The Beths self-titled debut was a top 10 album for me back in 2018, and while their sophomore release Jump Rope Gazers still has a delightful energy to it, it's missing the naturally intoxicating energy of their previous record. A big part of the reason seems to be because their original percussionist, whose drumming seemed to have a wild enthusiasm to it, left the band, and the replacement is not able to provide nearly the same vivacity. 

The three old Beths and the one new Beth do still deliver a smattering of some of the year's most bubbly and sincere indie pop though. "Do You Want Me Now" spills over with naked longing, the acoustic ballad "You Are a Beam of Light" features the bands most angelic vocal melody on its chorus, and the unrequited support from frontwoman Elizabeth Stokes on "Out of Sight" is backed by a jangly guitar riff that is equally outta siiiight in the way that a cool cat 1950's jazz musician would say it as they bip and bop about. Stokes shows that her songwriting prowess is as creative as ever on Jump Rope Gazers as well on tracks like "Mars, the God of War," where she implies that technology has made the ancient Roman deity's job much easier. Who needs divine intervention on the battlefield or the favor of the gods when we wage virtual war against each other on phones and computers every day?

23. Gum Country - Somewhere

My enjoyment of this debut album from the two-piece indie rock band Gum Country doesn't extend too far past the simple fact that it acts as a sense of escapism and for 44 minutes makes me forget that it's 2020. I have little to no clue what the lyrics are on this album because I'm immediately mesmerized by the warm and fuzzy guitar tones and transported to a floating dimension of comforting textures and beautiful lights, where I'm reclining on a magic carpet with the most satisfying cup of hot cocoa in existence, wearing sunglasses and a smile on my face. Am I even awake under those sunglasses or am I having a delightful dream? Will I spill the cocoa on myself? Who cares! I'm gone, baby*. I'm content just to be.

22. Declan McKenna - Zeroes

The promising young British singer-songwriter Declan McKenna blasts off into the stratosphere on his soaring sophomore release, Zeroes, an attempted concept album with definite Bowie vibes about humanity taking to the cosmos after destroying the Earth. I say "attempted" because McKenna seems to orbit the concept rather than ever really landing on it. The ideas are there but there's not much detail, so the lyrics can be rather vague and the themes unfocused. What the album really has going for it is the invigorating instrumentals that are as massive, shiny, and polished as a species-saving spaceship. The production - handled entirely by Jay Joyce - blends the grandeur of stadium rock and the surging energy or power pop with the cheerful, off-kilter vibrancy of indie music. 

Most of my favorite moments on Zeroes come from the instrumental bridges and outros, and the exhilarating momentum with which the songs progress. I mean a song like "Daniel, You're Still a Child" that's about the way alienated young people turn towards fringe ideologies and violent actions should not be as wildly catchy as it is, but try listening to it and tell me you don't want to shout-sing the lyrics with the same zeal as a Ke$ha anthem. 

I don't think anything on the album matches "Rapture" though, a searing highlight that truly seems to express the concepts McKenna was aiming for. It perceptively captures the current zeitgeist of 2020 while fitting in with the album's themes of technology and apocalypse in its simple but ingenious chorus: "Rapture in my head / I keep looking up like I'm already dead / Rapture, oh my Lord / I've been playing catch-up / I'm already bored." Whether or not it's entirely intentional, in five lines the singer conveys the existential dread of the year, the unrelenting paranoia that it's caused, the constant doomscrolling we've all become accustomed to, and the way our attention spans work in what's become a microwave society, always moving on from one thing to the next. I wish this audacious song would have been the jumping off point for Zeroes, but it's still an admirable endeavor as is from an artist who's still full of potential and clearly not afraid to shoot for the stars.

21. Gorillaz - Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

The beloved art pop band Gorillaz has been regularly attracting many of the best artists in the world to feature on their songs over the past decade, but on their newest record Song Machine, they've begun combining these features in some truly mind-boggling (and awesome) ways. I don't know how someone comes up with the idea to put the moody Atlanta R&B artist 6lack on a song with the legendary Elton John, but someone did. And even more bafflingly, it works. Damon Albarn, 6lack, and Elton John's overlapping voices on the outro of "The Pink Phantom" is one of my favorite musical moments of the year. The album seems to have a narrative to it, especially with the corresponding music videos, but I'm not even going to attempt to hypothesize on it. I didn't start listening to Gorillaz until recently and the virtual characters and their universe have like 20 real-life years of history that I have no knowledge of. I just think there's a lot of catchy songs, especially the extended version of the album. I had no idea that I'd wanted a collaboration between experimental hip hop artist JPEGMAFIA and the Japanese punk band CHAI until I'd heard it, and now I want more. Honestly, I think I want JPEGMAFIA to collaborate with everyone. 

Dear Gorillaz

Please recruit JPEGMAFIA into your band so that he can collaborate with the world. 

Sincerely, a mild fan of both you and JPEGMAFIA 

P.S. Am I supposed to be saying "the Gorillaz?" 

P.P.S. Don't answer that question, I like the mystery

20. Kvelertak - Splid

Speaking of my teenage rocker days, damn this album takes me back to the times in high school when I would head bang so hard my neck would be destroyed for days afterwards (I do not have strong neck muscles). I'm still not really into the metal genre but the Norwegian band Kvelertak seems to be one of the exceptions to the rule with their dynamic blend of black metal, prog metal, hardcore punk, and classic rock. The forceful but melodic instrumentals really get me going whenever I listen, like a sexy pot of coffee taken to the face. Just a hot cup of java straight into my ugly mug. Many of the guitar solos in indie and pop music can come off as low energy and uninspired, so it's not often that I get to listen to new music that I enjoy, and the guitarists absolutely shred. Like damn baby*, I'm wired, give me another coffee facial because I like it so good. One of the reasons I stopped listening to the genre is because the lyrics stopped appealing to me, so a second reason why I think I enjoy Splid compared to other genre albums is because I don't understand the lyrics. About 90% of the track list is performed in Norwegian, so I have no idea what they're saying, and I refuse to look up the translations. I just enjoy the vibe and hope that they're not saying anything abhorrent like "I took a stray cat up to the top of The Sears Tower, wrapped it in a wet towel, and made it watch me gorge on 15 sloppy joes while I screamed Denzel Washington's monologue from Training Day at the sun as food flecks sprayed from my gaping maw and sauce dribbled down my shirt." On an unrelated note, if anyone is looking for a lyricist, I'm available.

19. R.A.P. Ferreira - Purple Moonlight Pages

"Of course it's Rory Allen Phillip Ferreira / None other than, the ignoble peon poet from nowhere" raps Ferreira as he introduces himself on the album opener "DECORUM." The underground experimental hip hop musician, also known as Milo and Scallops Hotel, matches MF DOOM with the number of pseudonyms he performs his jazzy and abstract, surreal, stream-of-conscious, and occasionally spoken word songs under. Ferreira is one of the most intellectual minds making music, and whenever I listen to him, I feel like I need another four years of liberal arts education not just to understand, but even to catch all the musical, literary, philosophical, religious, metaphysical, and whatever-the-else-fuck references and concepts present in his artwork. That's not to say that his music is completely unapproachable to a layperson either though. His lyrics are sprinkled with silly nonsensical one-liners like on "OMENS & TOTEMS" when he interrupts his musings to comment on the production saying, "This beat sounds like a long walk to the dumpster." 

On the upbeat "LAUNDRY," with Ferreira casually rapping about the mundanities of his day-to-day life, we also get one of the most low-key wholesome choruses in hip hop, a snapshot of a tranquil memory, as he fondly repeats, "I'm just hummin' in the kitchen, my son listenin' / He stare with them wide ol' eyes." The following two tracks "DUST UP" and "CYCLES" form with "LAUNDRY" to create a sequential trio of album standouts. "DUST UP" sounds like Ferreira is giving us a really heady TED Talk in deep space about the mysteries of the universe and the absolute truths of life, and "CYCLES" touches on the Black struggle and using art to find community and peace and fight back against oppression. This theme continues on the inspirational "LEAVING HELL" where Ferriera reflects on his own artistic journey and the personal liberation and spiritual salvation he found in creating music. If you're in the mood for contemplating existence as a man spits bars, Purple Moonlight Pages is the place to be.

18. The Flaming Lips - American Head

I honestly don't know if I've ever fully listened through any of the previous 16 albums from The Flaming Lips before, but this release from the psychedelic icons caught my attention on first listen and never let go. Full of small-town drama, small-town crime, drugs, and death, and a tribute to their deceased brothers and friends who lived fast and died young, American Head is one of the most heart-wrenching rock records I've ever heard (also, it really makes me want to check out Kacey Musgraves's work because she features on three of the songs here, and damn she sings like an angel). 

The intro track, with spacey vocals and production like twinkling stars, has clear connotations to both drugs and death, as guitarist Steven Drozd wistfully questions, "Will you return? / Will you come down?". Even more affecting, the following track "Watching the Lightbugs Glow" seems to be the heavens responding, as the aforementioned Musgraves mournfully vocalizes over a forlorn guitar and a timidly pulsing synth that mimics the titular "lightbug" - which itself seems to symbolize wandering stars lost in the night sky, their soft light fading in and out like the slow, rhythmic beating of a weak heart. The firefly imagery evoked by the production returns with a bit more vigor on the deeply personal "Brother Eye," where the bug's luminescent trail seems to linger in the air like a dotted line. I'm sure I don't need to point out what that visual connects to again, but the lyrics reinforce it themselves, with Drozd begging his departed brother to live forever, and lead singer Wayne Coyne comparing his own late brother's birth to stars in the night, and the sun chasing away the dark. 

Even more intertwining of death and drugs occurs on "When We Die When We're High" which sounds like a journey into the afterlife. The track begins with the feel of a rocketing odyssey through a series of cosmic portals between time and space before it gradually slows down and ends with a sense of floating, a sense of serene wonder. If The Flaming Lips are right and that's what happens when we die, there's damn sure not a thing to be afraid of. The Flaming Lips, you've gained a fiery fan. Kacey Musgraves, TBD! 

17. Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - Alfredo

Kendrick Lamar might be the king lyricist, but Freddie Gibbs very well might be the king of the flow. As he assuredly proved on last year's album Bandana - where avant-garde hip hop producer extraordinaire Madlib was feeding him whacked out instrumentals and beat changes galore like a king being fed grapes - the gangster rapper from Gary, Indiana has the ability to rap over any beat with ease, and make it sound like the casual luxury of a cigar-smoking mogul counting money with a hunny on their lap. And that's really what most of this album is: jazzy boom bap gangster luxury raps to count your money to. 

Also impressive is that none of the features on Alfredo seemed to phone it in. I'm sure everyone knows what they're up against when they hop on a track with Gangsta Gibbs, and I'm sure everyone is honored to hop on a beat from the producing legend The Alchemist, so the grimy Griselda boys Benny the Butcher and Conway the Machine, and hip hop stalwarts Rick Ross and Tyler, the Creator, all bring some of the best verses of the year to Alfredo. The Alchemist's production on "God Is Perfect" sounds like a smoky club in a mafia movie where the undercover piano player ends up assassinating a mob boss, and "Frank Lucas" has the tense, menacing atmosphere of a gritty 70's slasher flick right before the killer pops out after having patiently pursued their prey through an abandoned building. On the lighter side, "Baby $hit" has the luxury rap vibe of flying to a paradise destination across glittering ocean waters in a private jet. 

While Freddie doesn't often get vulnerable on his songs, he unleashes some of the personal demons that haunt him on the introspective penultimate track "Skinny Suge." Rapping over production that reminds me of a sorrowful whale call, Freddie confesses, "Man, my uncle died of a overdose / And the fucked up part about that is, I know I supplied the n**** that sold it." He touches on the suicidal thoughts that knowledge brought him, and how it drove him down his own hole of drug abuse. It shows the devastating consequences of the choices marginalized people often have to make in order to survive in the brutal conditions of the places the country has given up on. A truly vicious circle of trauma on top of trauma, on top of trauma.

16. Special Interest - The Passion Of

Post-punk quartet Special Interest bring about the second apocalyptic album of the list with their sophomore release The Passion Of, blending the dissonant abrasiveness of the "no wave" and industrial genres to create an atmosphere of disorienting madness. The album seems to be vocalist Alli Logout's (they/them) prophecy, told through the point of view of a young person who's completely lost their mind trying to survive in a ruined dystopian hellscape, in a future where the U.S. fully devolved into a state of capitalist authoritarianism and completely destroyed itself in it's heartless greed. 

On "All Tomorrow's Carry" Logout moans, "I watch the city crumble / And arise from the rubble / Tawdry condos and a high-rise suite / Yeah, we were pushed out and evacuated / House was near dilapidated / Heard them say a prayer for me." The same themes of a country consuming itself are continued on "Homogenized Milk" where the singer mockingly questions throughout the song, "What happens when there's nothing left to gentrify / And genocide is on your side?" Sandwiched in-between these two tracks is "A Depravity Such As This...," a song that sounds like our narrator is descending down into the bowels of the Earth to dance with corpses at a rave that's taking place in hell. It's not just underground, it's underworld! Then midway through the grimness of the album we get the short and oddly beautiful instrumental piece "Passion," which sounds like a beacon in the dark for lost souls, searching for life hidden in the shadows of the rubble. 

Somehow on a project where most of the instrumentals sound like grinding gears and malfunctioning electronics, Special Interest also deliver what I think is one of the most unique dance tracks of the year with "Street Pulse Beat." The track appears to act as the end of the story, where amidst all the death and destruction our narrator gains the power to revive the dead, becoming a figure of salvation (although it could easily be interpreted as another of their delusions), with Logout belting, "For am I not your necromancer? / Your lover in the end of time / In the end of days / Your savior." I say that's the last song of the "narrative," because the final track of the album, "With Love," definitely feels like Alli delivering a laser-focused, here-and-now diatribe in their own voice, rather than the typically incoherent ramblings of the first ten songs. Alli's shown us the alternate reality where the dystopia fully arises; "With Love" is the band leader's own scathing condemnation of racism and oppression, and their own manifesto for liberation, declaring that they won't fall into the well of hate and madness the country drives them towards; they will fight for freedom with the love of the people.

15. Johanna Warren - Chaotic Good

If you're looking for a new indie folk artist to fawn over, Johanna Warren's Chaotic Good contains much of the most potent and poetic songwriting I heard this year. The content is also dark AF though, as Warren seems to be using the album as catharsis to purge all the horrible shit that happened to her during the time she spent fully invested in an abusive, toxic relationship with a partner who she loved but was filled with self-loathing - and took his hatred of himself out on her. She often uses distressing imagery to describe the relationship, comparing it to wiggling loose teeth out of her mouth as a child because she enjoyed the pain; a wound choosing the right knife to fit itself; and walking on a bed of nails, but pretending they're not real. 

On "Faking Amnesia," a haunting description of domestic abuse, Warren connects her damaged psyche at the time with someone suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, singing, "My love for my captor / Is all I'll take with me / He tells me I am shit / And I've come to depend on it." The title of the song itself refers to what happened when the cops showed up, and we can infer from the rest of the album that it was what Warren did whenever people confronted her about the relationship. Although they appear on the track list before "Faking Amnesia," the two tracks "Twisted" and "Hole in the Wall" seem to describe the singer finally coming to terms with the reality of the situation, confronting her partner, and leaving. Warren details her own savior complex during the relationship on "Twisted," where her vocals repeatedly build to a painful screech, as if she's being wrung out and deformed into something she hates, until finally deciding enough is enough. "Hole in the Wall" takes on a much gentler tone, almost like a goodbye lullaby to the man who she can't be with anymore, but still loves too much and has too much sympathy for to hate; like a mother telling a child a hard truth she soothingly croons, "Hell is a state of mind / And I can't be held accountable for your demise / But I know you'll be just fine / I'm still here for you / I just can't take what isn't mine." 

The final song, "Bones of Abandoned Futures," feels like Warren's entire purpose for the album: a purging of the darkness of her past, and a purification. On the last two verses, she sings, "The time is ripe for offerings / To the spirits I've disappointed / Lay myself bare / Confess I was fully aware / And humbly ask to be anointed / The time has come for stillness / And mindful cultivation of light / Soothing the sting / And the sorrows of losing / By singing with all my might." These final lines help to give meaning to her album cover as well, which I think is one of the most symbolic on the list. The bareness of the room, the light shining on her as she's tucked into a fetal position, like a re-birth. Across Chaotic Good Warren often describes herself during her relationship as a shadow, and the distorted reflection on the wooden floor appears to be that self. On the cover we see that she's finally separated from the shadow self, but it seems to communicate that it's a darkness that will still always be with her. It's something she needs to recognize, and sing about with all her might, in order to heal.

14. Fleet Foxes - Shore

While the previous entry Johanna Warren might be new to some people, I'm sure everyone who likes indie folk is familiar with Fleet Foxes, one of the most celebrated genre bands of the past decade. The acclaimed Fleet Foxes continue their unbroken string of stellar albums with their fourth studio release, Shore. I always feel like I'd get even more from their music  if I had a better understanding of time signatures, song structure, and composition, because their instrumentation always feels so layered and complex, but it's easy to appreciate frontman Robin Pecknold's emotive lyrics and passionate performances regardless of understanding, as well as the stirring soundscapes the band creates. Pecknold sums up Shore as a feeling of intense relief after a long, arduous struggle. A place we land or wash up on after a harrowing journey on an unpredictable sea, a place of safety and comfort on the edge of the unknown. And though it's a nice place to be, we can't stay there forever. At some point we need to get back into the water, voyage into the vast blue world, intimidating but full of wonder, with the comforting knowledge that the shore will always be there on our return.

13. Gil Scott-Heron & Makaya McCraven - We're New Again

We're New Again was one of the first albums of 2020 that I truly enjoyed, and I'm happy to say it's stuck around. It's a posthumous remix by drummer Makaya McCraven of the legendary poet/author/activist/musician Gil Scott-Heron's final album, I'm New Here. The title playfully references both Scott-Heron's original piece, as well as the 2011 remix album, We're New Here, by electronic musician Jamie xx - although both subsequent albums feel more like evolutions of the original concept, building on each other into something that's enduring and unique, a reflection of Scott-Heron's artistry and impact, rather than simple remixes. We're New Again sees McCraven using fresh spins on classic sounds, creating evocative soundscapes that mirror Scott-Heron's ruminations on love, parenting, motherhood, "non-traditional" families, and finding a place in the world. "Running" employs a menacing beat that feels like it's right on the heels of the spoken-word poet; "New York is Killing Me" floods the track with a frazzling hustle and bustle; the surreal and quasi-Lynchian "Where Did the Night Go?" showcases one of the most unnerving uses of a flute in history, and an ominous beat change; the deeply emotional "I'll Take Care of You" sounds like a cascade of tears; and while it's not necessarily a "song," "Guided" feels like two of the year's most essential minutes in music.

12. Adrianne Lenker - songs

The Big Thief frontwoman set off by herself again this year to release two solo acoustic folk records: songs and instrumentals. The titles of these two albums, as well as the content and writing style makes me think that Lenker might be the folk equivalent of hip hop artist Earl Sweatshirt. Although Lenker's introspections feel much more gentle and explore love in a way that Earl rarely does, her poetic lyrics are a fragmented labyrinth of intricate memories, surreal impressions, and disturbing imagery that toes the line between beauty and horror, not to mention both artists are submissive to the idea of death in a way that I don't know if I should admire or be worried about. 

The first song of the album, "two reverse," has a description of the sun that I can honestly say I don't think I've ever heard before, as she says it's "Flat as a knife / Cold and white," and the deceptively calming "indygar" is a straight up fever dream about life and death feeding off of each other, beginning with the verse "Fragilely, gradually and surrounding / The horse lies naked in the shed / Evergreen anodyne decompounding / Flies draw sugar from his head." Balancing out the low-key nightmare lyrics of songs though, we also get two deeply endearing love songs in "anything" and "zombie girl." Similar to Lenker's original description of the sun, she has to be the first person to ever turn the terrifying hallucinations that accompany sleep paralysis into a winsome ballad about the need for understanding and empathy, which she does on "zombie girl." It's a song about using compassion to fill the emptiness inside of ourselves and the voids between people. It's the antidote to demonization. It's horror revisionism, when the monster isn't truly a monster. It's the line between horror and beauty that Lenker navigates with quiet grace.

11. Ka - Descendants of Cain

It's not without competition, but I sincerely believe that Descendants of Cain, the latest release from underground hip hop artist Ka, contains the best songwriting the genre has to offer in 2020, and easily some of the best in music. Period. His penmanship is insane, and he very well might be one of the most underappreciated music artists out there. This is an album that grows on me more and more with each listen because it's like a puzzle where you only start with a fraction of the pieces, and it takes repeated listens in order to understand enough to put the picture together. It takes multiple listens to start unpacking all of the clever one-liners, dense rhyme schemes, symbolism, wordplay, and double (triple? quadruple?) entendres, and even then it still feels like you're only catching half of it. He dispatches his grim poetry with a world-weary delivery that seems to have a real-life weight that you can feel. It's immediate. It's uncomfortable. It's haunting. It doesn't always feel like music, but rather an audio lesson filled with dire omens, or a grave news report spoken from a cemetery. It's about violence. It's about survival. 

Ka reflects on the irony of his childhood on "Patron Saints," where the criminals were the providers and role models, and the law was the villains, rapping, "Our peacekeepers bust they gun repeated / Our caregivers stole everything we needed," and ending the track with, "Our senseis spent day peddlin' / Our heroes sold heroin." One of the most impressive multiple-entendre one-liners comes on "My Brother's Keeper" with Ka proclaiming, "Whoever held a hammer, had the hand of God." In one line Ka compares Jesus (a carpenter who in Christian belief was God's son, messenger, and right hand), an executioner (hammer is slang for a gun and whoever wields it could play God by ending a life), and a judge (who uses a hammer-like gavel to hand down sentences that can irrevocably change lives). Similar to Special Interest's A Passion Of, Ka closes his album about racism, systemic oppression, and surviving through hell, with a song about love. Dedicated to the three people that matter most to Ka, the aptly titled "I Love" is a beautiful sentiment and a radiant beam of light piercing through the claustrophobic gloom of the album, ending with Ka softly singing, barely audible over the soothing production, "We have so much more than they see."

10. Perfume Genius - Set My Heart On Fire Immediately

Like his stage name Perfume Genius, many of the songs of chamber pop artist Mike Hadreas seem to disperse, leaving behind a lingering scent that slowly fades away. The songs are vaporous, but their imprints are easily recognizable when you encounter them again. The title and content of the singer-songwriter's fifth studio album, Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, feels like a reaction to that intangibility. A reaction to the fleetingness of memory, of the outline of an experience, and a desire for the physicality of the here-and-now, striving to live in the moment rather than the memory: this album reflects his struggle to achieve that. Hadreas's lyrics waver between poetic recollection and physical sensation, and the production from musician Blake Mills matches this internal battle, oscillating between wispy impressionism and tangible, resonating instrumentals that you can feel in your body. 

Set My Heart On Fire Immediately begins with Hadreas likening his past to a dream, and asking someone to describe sensations to him, as he compares love to ribbons and an echo in the canyon. "Jason" intimately recalls a night when Hadreas was the first queer sexual experience of an ostensibly "straight" man. Over baroque and airy instrumentation, Hadreas fondly remembers the tender patience he showed "Jason" during the young man's anxious and daunted first time. It feels like a warm and silky love song: until the end that is. The next morning "Jason" asks Mike to leave, and on his way out, with a wry crescendo Mike sings, "I stole twenty from his blue jeans / I'm pretty sure he saw me." It brings home the reality of the experience, contrasting the production and earlier parts of the song, as if to say love and sex are rarely as pristine and perfect as we like to imagine it. Hadreas juxtaposes the physical and the abstract again on "Your Body Changes Everything," telling a lover that his body makes him solid, relating it to the direct metaphor of an anchor, before abstractly asking, "Can you feel my love? / Can you feel the sun, like honey?" 

The tracks "Just a Touch" and "One More Try" give us some insight into why this battle between the physicality of a moment and the intangibility of memory is so important to Hadreas. Both songs are queer love stories about the past when gay men had to hide their relationships, and unable to continue them long-term, were left with only the memories of each other, and abstract metaphors of love. It's about not having to keep it secret anymore. "Just a Touch" even circles back to the first song of the album "Whole Life," contrasting the inconspicuous and private nature of humming, with the open expressiveness of whistling. "Just a Touch" sees the narrator telling his partner to "Take my song in hiding / Hum the melody," and on "Whole Life" Hadreas tells us, "I once hummed the seasons / Now I'm whistling."

9. The Weeknd - After Hours

The GRAMMYs are dumb and have always been dumb. Long live The Weeknd. Canadian superstar Abel Tesfaye released one of the biggest (and definitely the most exciting) mainstream pop albums of the year with After Hours, one in a flurry of records this year with throwback production to the new wave synth pop of the 1980s. Tesfaye puts his signature darkness and self-loathing on the glitzy beats to create some of the most majestic, catchy songs I've ever heard about drug abuse. Maybe he's been taking notes from all those indie bands who like to hide their unsettling lyrics behind wildly infectious instrumentals and sing-along choruses that after you pay attention to them are like "Why have I been playing this song at parties?" (Also, shout out Kendrick Lamar again). 

After Hours tells the cyclical story of an unbearably lonely, self-destructive dude who gets into a messy relationship with a girl where neither of them can find the capacity to trust each other,  or even effectively communicate with each other, at which point the dude finds comfort in drugs, goes on a chaotic bender, loses his mind in the city of sin, comes crashing back down to Earth like a star cast from the heavens, and suffers an existential reckoning when forced to finally confront his self-annihilating habits. That being said, I'll still play the fuck out of this album anywhere and everywhere. The production is mesmerizing, expressive, and detailed, with gorgeous builds and an infectious energy that make you feel like you're going to explode if you don't dance around or sing along with the same resolve as Sandra Bullock driving a bus (at a speed continuously above 50mph). 

"Heartless" is a straight banger and I love the bridge when The Weeknd sounds like he's trapped in the shadow realm; "Faith" might be the most underrated song on the album with it's pumping techno bassline, fire progressions, emotional performance, and dimension-bending vocal melody on the post-chorus; and even though "Blinding Lights" is obviously a 21st century pop masterpiece, it's not even the best song on the album! After Hours should have been nominated for Album Of The Year just for the seamless interpolation of Elton John's "Your Song" on "Scared To Live," alone. The song is utterly enchanting, After Hours is an enthralling and fully realized artistic progression in The Weeknd's career, and this album will be remembered as a pop classic.

 

8. Porridge Radio - Every Bad

Porridge Radio delivered one of the more heart-rending albums of the year with Every Bad, an achingly vulnerable project expressing frontwoman Dana Margolin's struggles with mental illness. It can be bleak, like watching Melancholia bleak, but the performances are electrifying. This is an album that communicates a tidal wave of emotion while only saying a little. Nearly every song on the album features at least one section where Margolin repeats the same line over and over again, suggesting the cyclical thoughts of someone suffering from anxiety and depression. At times it feels like her own brain bludgeoning her with despair, other times like she's trying to convince herself of something she doesn't know if she believes, and others like she's sarcastically repeating self-help mantras that have a façade of positivity but are hollow and meaningless inside. Oftentimes she seems to be doing all of them at once in a frustrating tangle of contradicting emotions, which largely sums up the lyrics in general, and is an apt portrayal of the effects of someone having to constantly battle their own brain. 

When the songs aren't numbed out, the post-punk band's cathartic performances take the form of a series of building thunderstorms, volcanic eruptions, violent earthquakes, and aftershocks, and it's frankly quite astonishing how so much power and aggression is able to emanate from what seems like such a fragile core. It's like in sci-fi/fantasy movies when the characters come across a small, frightened child who's able to tear the world apart whenever they feel an extreme emotion. 

"Lilac" also might be my favorite song of the year (no matter what Spotify Wrapped says). The instrumental features melancholic, weeping strings with bursts of grinding guitars that build to an incredible, earth-shaking outro. The repeated lyrics on "Lilac" also seem like a reversal on past repetitions. Instead of sounding more unsure or numb with each cycle of the line, Margolin exudes more and more confidence and certainty in what she's saying on this track. The torrential outro features a repeated line that I think most people can probably relate to considering the current sociopolitical climate and the emotionally exhausting year that was 2020: "I don't want to get bitter / I want us to get better / I want us to be kinder / To ourselves and to each other." When she begins chanting the four lines it sounds like a quiet, desperate plea, but by the time the song ends, it's a soaring battle cry ready to sweep across the world like a storm, the emphatic declaration becoming so powerful it seems to melt the track itself.

7. Nation of Language - Introduction, Presence

This attention-grabbing debut from the three-piece synth pop band Nation of Language features more nostalgic 80s production and affects me in a similar way as The Beths's debut did in 2018: it fills me with an overwhelming sense of joy and love whenever I listen to it. It makes me want to march around smiling, and it make-a me wanna dance. Whenever I need a rush of dopamine, I know I can throw Introduction, Presence on and feel like I'm floating, or flying through outer space with my arms outstretched like I'm a little cosmic airplane boy. Above all, it's an extremely visual album for me, and feels like a cinematic experience. The lyrics are a blur of melodramatic imagery and vague observations, but the shadowy noir-ish mood and flashing sci-fi soundscapes conjure all sorts of vibrant visions in my brain. There's a passage on the song "The Motorist" that sums up the album for me: "The sun is low, I watch them move / Drifting scene to scene / The basic plot is lost on me / But all the shots are clean."

The bridge on "On Division St," a song that seems to be about a haunted house, sounds like a slow-motion interstellar ballet where the dancers are having a shootout with laser guns. "Indignities" is like a jaunty street fight in which a bunch of put-upon schoolchildren finally confront the big bully (who obviously ends up joining their friend group in the end, he was just jealous that he didn't have anyone), although it's definitely about the 24/7 news cycle and outrage culture. And the production on "Sacred Tongues" is like a shape-shifting alien, while the final track "The Wall & I" can't be described as anything but "breathtaking meteor shower." I have no idea where Nation of Language can go with the sort of new wave revivalism that they've given themselves over to, especially since their version of it seems so indebted to being an authentic reproduction of the 80s aesthetic (it's not a modern twist on 80s synth pop like most other releases like this), but as long as those synths stay on point, like tractor beams from an alien starship, I'm on board.

6. HAIM - Women In Music, Pt. III

Shove over, Fleetwood Mac, the sisterly trio HAIM have dropped their aloof indie rock ways and are ready to climb the pedestal of pop rock stardom, no matter what their detractors think. On their third studio album, Women In Music, Pt. III, the Haim sisters sound looser and more comfortable than they've ever been. Their diverse instrumental palette, which seems to change genres with everyone song, somehow manages to sound completely organic and cohesive throughout the record. The music goes where it wants, and the reason I think it works is because every track is brimming with the band members' personalities. There's a confidence that they have nothing to prove anymore; they've established themselves, and are simply making the music they want to make, an open and honest expression of themselves. 

Women In Music opens with a shiny west coast surf bop dedicated to their home city of Los Angeles, gears up some country-tinged flavorings on the middle finger that is "The Steps" and the sexual engine that is "Gasoline," blankets itself in a melancholy cocoon of bedroom pop on "I Know Alone," takes us to the backwoods for a good ol' Appalachian folk jamboree on "Leaning On You," and flashes posh sensibilities with the art rock of "All That Ever Mattered," a track that wouldn't feel out of place on a St. Vincent project. I don't have much else to say about the new HAIM, it just works.

5. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher

The truth-seeking void-peaker; the connoisseur of melancholy beauty; the skyrocketing indie icon; the beloved singer-songwriter who oscillates between horny and sad with reckless abandon; the indomitable Phoebe Bridgers. On her second solo full-length album, Punisher, folk artist Phoebe Bridgers continues to prove why she may very well become the greatest songwriter of our generation. Her lyrics read like they came straight off the pages of her diary, and she seamlessly blends catchy pop hooks, darkly humorous one-liners, brutally honest explorations of her past and her psyche, and deeply vulnerable introspections on identity, in a way that doesn't feel like it can be a learned skill. Her talent is innate, and between her writing, vocals, charisma, performances, originality, production choices, and overall memorability, Bridgers is unbelievably well-rounded. 

She expresses the complexity of human emotion, and the overlooked tendency of us to routinely hold multiple, conflicting, ever-shifting emotions at once (because this shit ain't black and white, baby*), with the casual ease and levity of Bill Nye teaching science to children, or a dumpy little anthropomorphic bill explaining how it becomes a law. This can be seen on the track "Kyoto" when on the chorus she sings to her absentee father with substance abuse issues, "I'm gonna kill you / If you don't beat me to it," before changing it the second time around to, "I don't forgive you / But please don't hold me to it." If not entirely because of, it seems likely that this unstable parental relationship has at least influenced the manifestation of Phoebe's self-diagnosed "Savior Complex." Similar to Johanna Warren, one of the motifs Bridgers confronts in her music is her inclination to wind up in relationships with self-destructive partners, burying her own struggles with depression and trauma in an attempt to "save" these people, no matter the cost to her own well-being. 

Another recurring theme across Punisher is the singer's desire to find something bigger than herself, whether aliens or deities, constantly looking to the sky for answers (as evidenced by the phenomenal album cover). And on the final track of the album, in a joke that's as cruel as it is funny, Bridgers does find something bigger than herself: the apocalypse. "I Know the End" is possibly my favorite album closer of all time. The vast majority of albums die out the closer they get to the end, typically climaxing in the first half of the album where all the singles are clumped together, but Bridgers keeps great pacing throughout this project, ending with two of the best songs, saving the best for last, and closing with an absolute show-stopper. Every time those red curtains sweep shut on Punisher, you can be damn sure that I'm on my feet cheering for an encore.

4. Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure?

[Can you believe I basically compare Phoebe Bridgers to the second-coming of Jesus if he were a music artist and we're only at number 4?! In all honesty though, if I was trying to be more objective, Punisher might be number one. But you know what, I still get more enjoyment out of these final four.]

Okay, so take everything I said about the cinematic quality of the Nation of Language album and multiply it by ten for English artist Jessie Ware's sexy-ass epic: What's Your Pleasure? This dewy honeysuckle spreads its petals and invites everyone inside for the dance party of the year. The 80's nostalgia jams are on fleek, but rather than the new wave synth pop aesthetics of Introduction, Please, Ware's newest project features production that's a lot closer to the disco and funk of the era. And it's out with the despair and self-loathing of After Hours, and in with a pulsing, radiant, reciprocal love that could even have the Grinch feeling like a James Brown sex machine. 

One of the major advantages of What's Your Pleasure? is the length of the tracks; Ware and her producers allow the songs to fully extend rather than editing them down to the rushed three and a half minutes or under of radio pop. Instead of two people clumsily fumbling their way out their clothes in the dark, jamming this into that as quickly as they can, and both feeling like it finishes before it ever really even began, the songs on What's Your Pleasure? have mood lighting, zesty foreplay, a swelling climax, and a warm, satisfied afterglow. And before you say, "Luke, you're crazy, how can a song have afterglow?" go and listen to a song like "Soul Control" and tell me the moaning guitars followed by gleaming synths that sound like heavenly chimes isn't some afterglow, you fool! Oh man, I've been so busy yelling at people about how sexy these songs are that I haven't even begun to discuss the vivid imagery they project onto the backs of my eyelids. Let's! Get! Weird(er)! With it! Mind-movie lightning round! 

The title track "What's Your Pleasure?" has two tiny people getting tossed into a big bubbling sex cauldron and we can see their silhouettes inside getting their freak on as they both get bigger and bigger, and as the song progresses and the couple grows, colorful beams of light start shooting out of the cauldron until the people reach full-size, wet and dripping, in a naked embrace. 

"Adore You" does away with the sexiness for a bit because it's just a really beautiful song that Ware wrote to the child growing inside her while she was pregnant. It's the magic of a mother's love, and the whole song feels like when you're watching an Instagram live video and all of the heart emojis go flying up into the air. It also feels like being rocked to sleep in some futuristic electronic cradle. 

"In Your Eyes" clearly features Galactus falling in love with an Earth woman with the mutant ability to split herself into two identical people, so he abducts her by shooting pulsating pink and purple tractor-beams out of his eyes that slowly draw the double-woman up towards him, but at some point she splits into her multiple selves so each of Galactus's mutli-colored, undulating eye-beams takes a different self, until finally both are enveloped inside his retinas, and his pupils become dancing silhouttes of the woman. Like I said, that visual is just obvious, I don't even know why I'm even taking the time to explain because I'm sure everyone sees the same thing. 

"Read My Lips" just sounds like a sticky, melting Candyland. 

"Mirage (Don't Stop)" is sort of like the Arctic Monkey's music video for "Do I Wanna Know?" except instead of a sound wave it's a heart wave. 

The gorgeous, celestial melodrama of "The Kill" features a lonely planetary wanderer searching every comet, meteor, asteroid, planet, and space rock in the universe for the gem that an evil space sorcerer locked her lover's soul inside. 

And finally, we get more apocalyptic insanity with "Remember Where You Are," which is like the ending of The 40-Year-Old Virgin mixed with a post-credits sequences for Fight Club where Edward Norton's character and Marla, wearing all white, dance through the city they just bombed in a joyous and dreamy slow-motion ballet as buildings collapse around them and the members of the fight club have deadly shootouts with the military, and the sun glimmeringly rises on all the death and destruction. Is it real? Is it Norton and Marla's shared madness? Is it their fantasy? No, it's Jessie Ware's triumphant What's Your Pleasure? Fade to black. Roll credits.

3. Charli XCX - how i'm feeling now

Whether you want to classify her as experimental, bubblegum bass, electropop, dance pop or hyperpop, there's no denying that Charli XCX is one of the most forward-thinking and adventurous pop artists in the world. Her unconventional production choices and creative vision have made her one of the most exciting musicians of the past three years, and based on her current trajectory I don't see that changing anytime soon. Similar to Phoebe Bridgers, and despite her sugar-coated production, when she's not singing about shaking her ass or how bomb.com she is, Charli often shows deep introspection across her songs, and seems to be creating music in order to get a better understanding of herself and her thought processes. Whereas Bridgers finds herself questioning why she's always in relationships with self-destructive people, Charli questions why she's always the self-destructive one in hers. This continuing identity crisis along with the overwhelming feelings of isolation caused by the COVID lockdown(s) led Charli to create how i'm feeling now, a quick follow-up to her self-titled 2019 masterpiece (it's no secret that it was my favorite album of last year). 

how i'm feeling now is a DIY time capsule of the pandemic - and the emotions it brought about - that Charli created while in quarantine, sharing the process over social media, and interacting with her fans to make decisions on lyrics and track titles, and getting them to contribute to videos and artwork. It sounds like something that would typically be a fancy shmancy post-modern art project that takes itself overly seriously as a comment on the digital age, but Charli executes a collaboration with tens of thousands of her fans that she whipped out in a matter of six weeks like it's the most natural thing in the world. Charli opens the album with the very industrial and demented "pink diamond" which she says she chose because she enjoys starting her albums off antagonistically with whatever track she believes will be the most divisive; that is both an April Ludgate vibe I can get down with, and an ironic concept for someone who regularly confesses that they hate how much they push people away. 

"claws," produced by hyperpop phenom Dylan Brady (of 100 gecs), is an absurdly adorable song about the honeymoon period of a new relationship that seems like it captures those overwhelming feelings that accompany love that almost drives people insane. Brady's production on the last 30 seconds or so also seems to communicate that weird instinct that people get where we want to destroy the things we love. Not that we want them to die, we just want to squeeze them so hard they become melded to us forever. It's the near-manic feeling of wanting to bear hug the fuck out of a tiny, cute animal, or when two friends who haven't seen each other for a long time or two lovers wrap each other in a suffocating, rib-crushing embrace as if the person might disappear into a void if they don't hold onto them with enough pressure to turn coal into a diamond. It's the Lennie Small effect. 

The way Charli and her producers communicate overwhelming emotions throughout how i'm feeling now fascinates me in general. It's actually something that I've noticed throughout her work, and you can hear it at the end of "7 years" - a song about the tumultuous journey between Charli and her long-term, long-distance boyfriend as they finally settle into a place of comfort together - but whenever the singer can't seem to properly express what she wants to say with words, her vocals become digitized and merge into the production. Maybe I'm overthinking it and she just thinks it's cool, but it often seems to me like there's a sense of sadness or frustration when it happens, like she's upset at an inability to communicate her full feelings to the extent she wants, and I find it such a unique detail in the way Charli expresses herself as an artist. This woman is a gem, and now that Kanye West sucks farts, she is my new Kanye: the visionary we need to keep pushing music forward.

2. Run The Jewels - RTJ4

How are two dudes in their mid-40s making some of the freshest and most energetic music in hip hop? I sure as hell don't know, but Killer Mike and El-P of Run The Jewels are proving that the genre is anything but a young man's game, and in a series of albums that have been wildly celebrated by fans and critics alike, I think their latest collaboration together, RTJ4, is their best work to date. Their brand of braggadocio conscious rap builds off classic formulas to create something new and innovative. It reminds me of the architecture I saw on vacation in Amsterdam a few years ago. Instead of tearing old buildings down, they built modern designs on top of them. It seems like such a beautiful way of preserving the past while working towards the future, and that's exactly what Run The Jewels do. They honor hip hop's legacy while testing the boundaries of what it can become. While conscious hip hop is often jazzy and traditional, the politically minded music of Killer Mike and El-P could more accurately be described as "Fuck You" music. It's a call to action and a call for change. A call to break down the structures of racism and oppression. And thanks to their consistently impassioned performances and the walloping, unorthodox production from El-P and friends, they sound dope as fuck while doing it. It certainly doesn't hurt that their chemistry together is off the charts either. 

RTJ let you know their entire mantra at the end of the intro track, when over a blistering bass the duo exclaims, "We don't mean no harm / But we truly mean all the disrespect." On the second track "ooh la la" El-P raps about the powers that be, "Warmongers are dumpin', they'll point and click at your pumpkin / Your suffering is scrumptious, they'll put your kids in the oven," to which Mike replies, "Fuck a king and queen and all of they loyal subjects / I pull my penis out and piss on they shoes in public." El-P, who goes into beast mode on practically every verse of this album, also lets us know exactly how he feels about surveillance in the U.S. on "holy calamafuck," as he tells the listener, "Now aim for the drones in your zoning district / Hindenburg 'em, get 'em, burn 'em." 

Album standout "walking in the snow" is completely jaw-dropping, and the lyrics hit so damn hard I have to imagine everyone put it on repeat the first time they heard it. In the wake of the George Floyd murder, it's haunting that Mike recorded his verse in 2019, but then again, it's just our repulsive history repeating itself. On his sledgehammer-to-the-face verse, the Atlanta rapper venomously spits at white America, "And every day on the evening news, they feed you fear for free / And you so numb you watch the cops choke out a man like me / Until my voice goes from a shriek to whisper 'I can't breathe'." Revered soul artist Mavis Staples appears on the track "pulling the pin" to deliver a tormented chorus about the radical inequalities in this country, singing, "And at best, I'm just getting it wrong / And at worst, I've been right from the start." 

While I always expect Run The Jewels to bring the heat and speak truth to power, I never expect to be moved damn near to tears when I listen to them, which happens on the deeply personal and moving finale of RTJ4, "a few words for the firing squad." This is the most important album to come out of 2020. Protest, listen to this album, fight for equality, listen to this album, repeat.

1. Andy Shauf - The Neon Skyline

I called Phoebe Bridgers the greatest songwriter of our generation. I described how Jessie Ware hijacks my brain and sends me on a visual odyssey. I named Charli XCX a visionary. I rightly declared RTJ4 as the most important album of the year. Do I have a compliment anywhere near those levels for Andy Shauf? No, not really lmao. Is The Neon Skyline still my favorite album of the year? Oh, hell yeah, and it has been since the first time I heard it. I'd never listened to or even heard of the Canadian singer-songwriter Andy Shauf before this album, and truthfully, I'm not even sure what genre he is, but I'm just going to call it alternative folk. The Neon Skyline, the sixth studio album from monsieur Shauf (he's Canadian so I think I'm required to use that title), has the storytelling of country music but with wildly more vibrant and whimsical instrumentation, and by that I mean, he plays clarinet on nearly every song lmao. I swear to god I'm not joking with this album at my number one! 

I've listened to The Neon Skyline a couple dozen times since I first heard it and I don't think I've ever skipped a single song, and all 11 of them probably fall within my top 50 for the year. Throughout this list I've described the imagery that certain songs evoke in my mind, and the amazing thing about The Neon Skyline is that Andy Shauf does that work for me. This album is basically the pilot episode of a television show - or a condensed screenplay - set to music. There's a very clear narrative throughout the album with an unbelievable sense of everyday realism that you don't hear in most music, there's characters and a story that feel lived in, and there's relatable dialogue (it's not dialogue dialogue, but let's be real, it's fucking dialogue). 

The Neon Skyline is a pretty simple concept album about a lowly small-town barfly (our unnamed narrator for the album), his drinking buddy (Charlie), their favorite bar (can you guess what it's called?), the narrating barfly's lost love (Judy), and a few other supporting characters (a mutual friend of the trio named Claire, and Rose the bartender). The linear plot begins with the title track, setting up the story, main characters, and instrumental motifs (i.e., that godblessed clarinet), where the seemingly carefree narrator ["Oh, I'm just fine, I'm wasting time, sometimes there's no better feeling than that"] and possible functioning alcoholic ["But I got so tired of her calling this our disease"] meets up with Charlie at the eponymous bar for some drinks. 

Charlie informs the narrator that his ex-girlfriend Judy is back in town on the following song, and we learn that the narrator maybe isn't so carefree after all ["I only miss you when the skies are above"]. This sets off a series of flashbacks over the next three songs that give us insight into Judy, their turbulent relationship, and its ending. "Clove Cigarette" sees the narrator reminiscing about happy memories, before moving on to a troubling incident on "Thirteen Hours." After arriving back home after a long flight the couple took, the narrator shorts their cabbie on a tip, and when Judy goes to give him some more money, a drunk driver smashes into them sending Judy to the hospital where the couple get into an argument ["If you weren't such a cheap bastard I'd be at home / I'm not made of money, you should have left it alone / As soon as I say it, she looks at me so surprised / Of course it's your fault that I never got home"]. 

The final flashback "Things I Do" sees the couple spending some time apart. When the narrator goes to surprise Judy at her apartment, he discovers her hanging out with another guy (unclear if it's romantic or platonic) that leads to a confrontation ["You pushed me away from him / He said, "Buddy, calm down" / You were so embarrassed"] and our narrator reflecting, "Why do I do the things I do / When I know I am losing you?" Back in present time, over clarinets that sound like they're in mourning, Claire shows up at the bar on "Living Room" to describe a personal story about an upsetting experience she had as a child, and a parallel experience she had with her son before heading to the bar, that leaves our two bar buddies rather uncomfortable ["Claire walked away and Charlie looked at me with wide eyes / Like we had accidentally walked into some stranger's living room"]. 

After the previous few songs "Dust Kids" offers a moment of light-hearted respite detailing a drunken conversation between the narrator and Charlie about reincarnation, before we get to, "The Moon," where... DUN DUN DUUUUN!!!!!!! MOTHERFUCKING JUDY SHOWS UUUUUUUUUP!!!!!!

Their awkward reunion feels so true-to-life in detailing the emotions of encountering an ex for the first time after a breakup in which there wasn't any real closure. As the now foursome head to a new bar (goodbye Skyline, hello Moon), the narrator heartbreakingly discovers at the end of the song that any rekindling of he and Judy's relationship that he'd fantasized about will sadly not be coming true ["That old feeling pours over me / Reaches to the pit of my stomach, so I reach for her hand / She pulls it away from me / She says, 'You know it can't be like that'"]. "Try Again" is an album highlight. It is witty. It is delightful. It is zippy. And we learn that even though Judy and the narrator still have pretty solid chemistry, she meant it when she said it was over, and later our narrator reflects on how overbearing he was when they were together, and perhaps the relationship wasn't as good as he likes to remember it being ["And somewhere between drunkenness and honesty / I make a silent toast to all the things I do and don't miss"].

Goodnight Moon, good morning closure. The penultimate track "Fire Truck" sees our narrator finally getting some closure on the relationship and welcoming the comfort of that feeling even if it's negative. He compares his and Judy's relationship to a burned down house, only now he's finally seeing it for what it is, and in a bit of morbid optimism, describes himself dancing in the ashes of the house. It's gone, but after the time he's spent moping in a house that he was fooling himself into thinking was whole, he can build something new in it's place. 

The finale, "Changer," feels both melancholy and hopeful at the same time, and it's about how I wasn't planning on literally going song-by-song to give you the cliff notes version of this album but I fucking did it anyway and I've been writing for 12 hours straight to finish this stupid list and have lost my mind a little. I'm just kidding, it's about how we can learn from the past, and don't have to keep repeating our mistakes. Like I did by doing write-ups for my favorite 25 albums of the year again. I just listed them last year, no write-ups. That was smart. And at least in 2018, the majority of them were like 1-5 sentances. God, this took for fucking ever. But for real though, I absolutely love The Neon Skyline (and obviously most of the other albums on this last). I'm going to listen to it again as I go back and attempt to edit this monstrosity of a blog post.

THANKS FOR READING :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

*Anytime I use the word "baby" I'm writing it in the voice of Rick the Hormone Monster from Big Mouth, and the sentence should be read as such