Forget about masks. (But please keep wearing them!) In 2020, I think I spent more time underneath headphones than in any year since the mid- to late ’70s, when I first discovered Rush.
Sometimes the world — not to mention about 74 million of my fellow Americans — just needs to be tuned out. Noise-cancelling, indeed.
Unlike back in junior high days, I played virtually no air instruments this year, although I’m pretty sure I enjoyed 2020's sonic highlights just as much as I did “Fly By Night” and “Working Man” all those years ago.
Despite (or perhaps because of) an utterly corrupt, inept, and corrosive president and an out-of-control global pandemic, music continued to provide me with catharsis, escape, and raw pleasure. This year, my Spotify playlist ranged from hip-hop to EDM, jazz to hardcore metal, and even a few gospel tracks, once again totaling well over 200 songs.
But when it came time to sit down and pick some of my favorite songs of 2020, here are the 20 that rose to the fore. Like all musical compendiums, the list is far from complete, born of a moment and subject to endless revisions and reconsideration. They are, as noted in the title of this piece, in no particular order.
Nonetheless, maybe put on your best headphones and have a listen.
(If you’re a Spotify user, my favorite 2020 songs are collected here. And if you’re interested in my favorite songs from 2019, that article can be found here.)
#20
“Roger Ebert,” Clem Snide
At some early point in 2020, before the world had begun unraveling in earnest, I watched LIFE ITSELF, the documentary chronicling the life and death of the legendary film critic Roger Ebert.
As a much younger man, I remember preferring Gene Siskel to Roger on their breakout show AT THE MOVIES. Then, as I got older and moved to Chicago, the show’s home, I began to appreciate Roger more fully, through anecdotes shared by local friends, by learning his life story, and then through reading his luminous blog posts as he came to appreciate the nascent Internet.
In LIFE ITSELF, I saw how over time each man made the other better; delighted in how their friendship evolved and matured; gained insight into Roger’s development as a man and a critic. By the documentary’s close, as Roger passes on to the next realm, I found myself grateful for how courageously he and his wife, Chaz, had shared their lives, and Roger’s death, with the rest of us.
This song, by the artist Eef Barzelay under his Clem Snide moniker, seems a perfect complement and coda to the movie. It’s a concise, yet magical elegy that somehow, in just under three minutes, captures the glory and wonder of the dearly departed film critic, husband, friend, and human. And it’s part of an album, FOREVER JUST BEYOND, that doesn’t have a weak track on it.
#19
“For the First Time,” Best Coast
For more than a decade, vocalist Bethany Cosentino and guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno have been making records as Best Coast. Cosentino is the smoky-eyed, pure-voiced storyteller out front of Bruno’s crouched, wizard-like wall-of-guitar. The result could perhaps be described as the Go-Gos channeling the Ramones, with a scoop of J. Mascis plopped on top.
“For the First Time,” the first single from 2020's ALWAYS TOMORROW, has Cosentino describing the early days of her newly sober lifestyle, over a relatively restrained, albeit charming pop soundscape:
On Friday nights I don’t spend too much time
Lying on the bathroom floor (like I used to)
The demons deep inside of me
They might have finally been set free
#18
“Ms. California,” Beach Bunny
If Best Coast’s Consentino is an actual “California girl,” Chicago’’s Lili Trifilio (the songwriter behind Beach Bunny) is more of a wanna-be, or at least that’s the conceit that underlies “Ms. California,” the kind of song Trifilio might write if Cosentino had swooped in and stolen her man.
#17
“Starting Over,” Chris Stapleton
A friend of mine who knows I don’t like country music — unless I do — suggested this one to me, thinking it might slip in under my bias. And: He was right. I like pretty much everything about this tune, from the warm, spare production to the lyrics to Stapleton’s subdued twang, which is almost like a decaffeinated, declawed Steve Earle.
#16
“you!” LANY
At some point a few years ago I stumbled across the song “ILYSB” by a band called LANY. The song’s name and the band’s name in combo had me feeling all “whatever” about it: and then I clicked play. The fat synths, layered handclaps, and massive processed vocals instantly had me hearing Thompson Twins and other echoes of my beloved ’80s.
A few months later I saw that the band would be playing my local HOB, so I grabbed a ticket. It’s an understatement to say that I stood out among the crowd of 15–year-old girls and their moms, all of whom, moms included, seemed to know every word to every song. Frontman Paul Klein worked the crowd like a pro, tossing his long hair from side to side, emoting to the point of near-tears. “These guys are going to be big,” I thought. In the ensuing years Klein and his bandmates have played the mainstage at Coachella and other large festivals, and they’ve danced around the Billboard charts, even as they’ve veered into even more mainstreamy pop tinged with, yikes, Christian overtones. As the songs, in my opinion, have gotten weaker, some of the bloom seems to have come off the rose. That’s why, on an otherwise limp record, I was so happy to hear “you!,” which returns the band to some of its overproduced, unabashedly anthemic glory.
#15
“Tying Airplanes to the Ground,” Maxwell Stern w/Ratboys
Here’s your pandemic theme song, the product of a collaboration between Chicago artists Maxwell Stern and Ratboys that has Stern and Ratboys’s Steiner trading verses and harmonizing to gorgeous effect atop a gentle musical cushion.
Seven windows in the living room
They say that this could last til May or June
The days all run together, take forever but they disappear so soon
#14
“What Did You Do,” Amos the Kid
This sounds like the best Ian McCulloch solo song of all time. Alas, it’s actually Winnipeg’s Amos Nadlersmith, recording under his Amos the Kid moniker and delivering this jaunty, ominous ode to youthful abandon that would have infected my 16-year-old self with the same joy it brings to the 54-year-old version.
#13
“Put Down What You Are Carrying,” Trevor Hall (feat. Brett Dennen)
I am a sucker for all of this. Trevor Hall’s smoky voice, Brett Dennen’s complementary warble, the uplifting lyrics, the big acoustic guitar sound. It’s like they took some of the bands I’m too ashamed to like, save for a surreptitious song or two — the Samples, Dave Matthews, David Grey, that ilk — and put an older, cooler veneer over the top. There’s no denying I played this song in the shower more than virtually any other in 2012.
#12
“Summer Sky,” asking for a friend, Lostboycrow, DYSN
As best I can discern, asking for a friend is the product of a collaboration between bedroom pop sensations Lostboycrow and DYSN. Together, the pair creates throwback pop that blends doo-wop, countrypolitan, and lo-fi guitar into brand new songs that suggest timeless classics. While Harry Styles and BTK sucked all the oxygen out of the pop universe in 2020, it’s these guys I’m keeping an eye and both ears on in 2021.
#11
“Gasoline,” I Prevail
Warning: This is screaming Michigan metalcore, suitable mostly for lifting weights and entering MMA rings. All I can say is: I can’t help it. Also: “Let’s burn it fucking down!” (Another warning: The video is pretty over-the-top, but it’s as solid a depiction of why this music matters to young men, and how it can enable catharsis and rebirth within the crucible of a mosh pit.) Recorded in 2019, but surfaced for me in 2020 by my brother Casey.
#10
“Manic Upswings,” Miniature Tigers
Although this song is part of Miniature Tigers’ 2019 release VAMPIRES IN THE DAYLIGHT, it didn’t reach my ears until 2020. While the whole record is worthy, it’s this song that just leaps off the vinyl and into my perpetually adolescent soul, making me want to write the movie that would precede its inevitable arrival over the closing credits.
#9
“Kids Again,” Sam Smith
Although I don’t believe in time travel, I’d love to be transported back to the ’70s so that I could ride around in the “way back” part of our wood-paneled station wagon while this song played at full volume. If you don’t have a part of your soul that vibrates between pain and joy when this song comes on, you’re missing out. Gorgeous and timeless.
#8
“Murder in the Cathedral,” Kiwi jr.
Calling Kiwi jr. “the Canadian Pavement” may be too easy, but it’s surely an evocative shortcut to their sound. Off their wonderfully catchy FOOTBALL MONEY album, “Murder in the Cathedral” is an excellent “way in” to the Kiwi aesthetic, which aligns them with contemporaries like Rolling Blackout Coastal Fever and Parquet Courts, as well as recent Stephen Malkmus solo outings.
#7
“Teenage Headache Dreams,” Mura Masa w/Ellie Rowsell (of Wolf Alice)
First off, you gotta watch the video. Really, just watch the video. And then put the song on heavy rotation. (This was my most-played song of 2020, according to Spotify. I just couldn’t get enough of it.)
#6
“Darling I Hug a Pillow,” Morrissey
For most lifelong Smiths fans like me, perhaps the best way to describe the band’s brooding singer, Morrissey, long since gone solo, is simply: problematic.
His nationalist politics; his racist remarks; his seeming lack of empathy for other humans, not to mention his boring autobiography and lackluster musical output has made old man “Moz” tougher than ever to tolerate, let alone love.
And then, alas, like a trumpet blast from the proverbial past, emerges this searing ode to loneliness and longing which is almost unquestionably the sour misanthrope’s best song in at least a decade. Replete with rollicking horns and heartbroken humor (“Loving you is a trauma no one else should face”), “Darling I Hug a Pillow” allows those of us who are still, despite our best judgment, Morrissey fans access to something worth cheering for, if only for a few glorious minutes.
#5
“When You’re Ready,” Brian Fallon
Gaslight Anthem frontman Brian Fallon goes solo here, offering rootsy, heartfelt encouragement to a son or daughter who, although young now, will someday have to venture out into the wide world alone:
Though I don’t want you to grow up,
Cause I don’t want you to leave.
When you’re ready to choose someone,
Make sure they love you half as much as me.
#4
“Take Yourself Home,” Troye Sivan
Recorded before the pandemic, this song seems to fit the city-weary ethos of our months of home confinement. A simple shuffle of a tune, “Take Yourself Home” is like a warm bowl of soup for our addled souls.
#3
“Relative Contentment,” Work Drugs
Philly synth-pop duo Work Drugs seem to be creating yacht rock for a new millennium, and I’m here for it. “Relative Contentment” sounds, to me, like a long lost Bee Gees/Christopher Cross collab, produced by Walter Becker. So nice.
#2
“South Somewhere Else,” Nana Grizol
Talk about cognitive dissonance. Imagine being a young, liberal gay man in Athens, GA in 2020. You just might sing something like this: “It was assumed that the South was a thing that took place somewhere else.” So sings Nana Grizol frontman Theo Hilton on this, the title track to the band’s 2020 release, their fourth album.
#1
“Berlin,” Adult Mom
Bedroom pop artist Stevie Knipe is the songwriter behind Adult Mom, which manages to sound like Rickie Lee Jones, Alanis Morissette, and something entirely new all at once. On “Berlin,” Knipe seems to address lost love, the kind which never makes sense and, as such, never completely fades:
You flee when it’s hard
And I stay put
You say you’re a bird
But you’re flying east for winter
And I won’t tell you not to go
You won’t hear it anyway
But what are you going towards?
Is it something you can’t say?
