Top 10 Best Albums of 2020
These are my personal Top 10 Best Albums of the Year. The rankings of these records only reflect my personal enjoyment of each album.10. R.A.P Ferreira – Purple Moonlight Pages
Genre: Hip Hop
This year was one of the best years for jazz rap in hip hop. There is no shortage of groundbreaking and innovative rap albums that came with ambitious & large jazz compositions. Rory Ferreira (fka Milo nka R.A.P Ferreira) solidifies himself as one of the most idiosyncratic rappers of the past decade, with a jazz rap album filled with really great live jazz performances. If you’re into hip hop that makes you pull out your dictionary and contemplate the depths of the universe like a modern-day philosopher, Rory’s album is the perfect soundtrack to those existential ponderings.
9. Open Mike Eagle – Anime, Trauma, and Divorce
Genre: Hip Hop
This album was an emotional listen. Mike tears himself apart and attempts to process the very raw and intense emotions as a result of the end of his marriage. The songs are incredibly vulnerable, harrowing, and sometimes hilarious. But his jokes clearly translate as a coping mechanism of the pain that Mike conveys on this record. Throughout the record, I enjoyed the cinematic beats and his consistent references to anime. His son has great contributions to the record as well. He did a great job helping Mike process his grief with the features he had on the record. This album, while built on a devastating premise, grows into a really beautiful ode to himself and his son, and a really rewarding exercise of grief that I’m glad that he was willing to share to the world.
8. Dorian Electra – My Agenda
Genre: Pop
If you’re unfamiliar with Dorian Electra, you’re unfamiliar with the future of pop music. This hyperpop album is so bold and daring, yet I know that it won’t be for everyone. But the fusion of electronic music and pop as well as glitch and industrial serve as a chaotic and grand backdrop to their incredibly unapologetic and insane vocal performances. The songs are consistently fun and wild. This character dissection of the sword-wielding neckbearded edge-lord is instantly captured in my brain. Dorian uses this aesthetic to poke fun and portray the awkwardly dominating behavior and regressive views towards women and the LGBTQ community in a really forward thinking way. It’s a short but satisfying listen that makes me look forward to anything that Dorian drops in the future.
7. Kahlil Blu - Dog
Genre: Hip Hop
I can’t get this album out of my head ever since I first listened to it this year. It’s so goddamn catchy, despite his understated delivery and the psychedelic trap production all over this record. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like Kahlil Blu is saying or doing much, but the songs continue to reinforce this intoxicating vibe that I find myself coming back to repeatedly. I love the beats on this album. They are so detailed and loaded with great edits and samples. There’s not a single point in the album where Kahlil doesn’t come with either a catchy flow or an earworm of a hook. Check this album out if you’re looking for a catchy psychedelic lo-fi hip hop album to vibe out to.
6. HMLTD – West of Eden
Genre: Post Punk
I am so excited for the rest of the world to get hip to HMLTD. This debut album from this London based band is easily some of the best post punk & rock music I’ve heard this year. The band’s performances are explosive, and their songs are incredibly sharp. Theatre kids, take note. There are so many influences of classic post punk and glam rock artists such as David Bowie, Queen, and New Order. HMLTD does such a great job repackaging these creative ideas into a fresh sound that incorporates a lot of modern production techniques and ideas. If you literally have no idea what the genre post punk is, I can confidently recommend you this album.
5. KeiyaA – Forever, Ya Girl
Genre: R&B, Neo-Soul
This album is the perfect soundtrack to Curlfest. It pushes the envelope in how abstract and vibe centric Neo Soul and R&B can get. The beats and loops are consistently warm and jazzy and filled with great samples that help to capture the incredibly warm energy that KeiyaA displays on this record with her very soulful voice. Listening to this is like strolling through the happiest midsummer block party that the neighborhood has to offer: the fire hydrants are open, the concert speakers are blaring, the kids are getting face paintings by the school, and the park has uncles grilling 10 feet away from each other. If you’re looking for a comforting Neo Soul album with unusual song structures and an intoxicating vibe, then don’t let this pass you by.
4. IDLES – Ultra Mono
Genre: Rock, Post Punk
This album kicks ass. It’s one of the heaviest rock albums I’ve heard all year, and easily IDLES’s most straightforward release yet. The performances are so fiery & relentless, that by the time that the one single slow burner on the entire album comes on, I’m absolutely winded. This album has incredibly explosive and enraged highs and very harrowing and compelling lows. I personally find IDLES’s lyrics to be as on point as ever topically, and while they’ve been criticized by their detractors for reducing nuanced social and economic issues into straight sloganeering, I think it’s to the album’s benefit that it’s so instant and to the point, as it left an incredible impression on me this year.
3. Lianne La Havas – Lianne La Havas
Genre: R&B, Neo-Soul
This album is the softest cloud that I’ve floated on this year. Sometimes good music just boils down to great performances and simple songs, and Lianne captures lightning with exactly that. Each song is so dynamic and well written. Her cover of Radiohead’s Weird Fishes has grown to be one of my favorite song covers in a very long time. The live performances on each track sound so warm and gentle, and her guitar playing is consistently skilled. Why she isn’t one of the biggest artists out right now completely eludes me. Please do not let this record pass you by.
2. Freddie Gibbs & the Alchemist - Alfredo
Genre: Hip Hop
The Cocaine Cowboy Strikes Again. Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist come through with what I believe to be the best hip hop album of the year. This album was Freddie Gibbs’s big Victory Lap, as this album has grown to be his tightest and his most commercially successful release yet. The beats are consistently cinematic, jazzy, soulful, and full of great samples and details. The Alchemist reinforced his legendary status as a producer, creating some of his best beats in his very long & incredibly prolific career. Freddie as a rapper continues to prove himself to be one of the most skilled rappers in a generation, creating an exceptionally charismatic mafia like drug dealing character portrait celebrating the fruits of his consistent labor. His writing and performances captured over these instrumentals paint an incredible vibe: I feel like I’m in a 3 Michelin Star restaurant and I just sat down at the table with Freddie, the Alchemist, Tyler the Creator, Rick Ross, & all of Griselda as their respective entourages. Everyone is collectively enjoying their cigars; the waiter has just come out with trays full of Gold garnished Japanese Wagyu Chãteubriand over an Alfredo (ha!) Linguine, we’re all cheering on the waiters as they’re pouring more tax bracket defying glasses of wine, scotch, Bourbon, Henny, even sparkling water that was directly imported from the snowcaps of the Himalayas. With this album being as incredibly hedonistic and lavish as it is, Freddie once again proves that this degree of celebration is warranted, and only continues to solidify his legacy as one of the best rappers out right now.
1. Keleketla! – Keleketla!
Genre: Afrobeat
Keleketla! is a South African musical collective spearheaded by London based electronic duo Coldcut. After being contacted by the Keleketla arts initiative in Johannesburg for a charity release, Coldcut just decides to up and orchestrate one of the greatest afrobeat records in a generation like that’s just a thing that just casually happens every day. The second that you press play, I dare you to find a single note out of place, a single groove out of step, a single musical passage that drags, or a single harmony that doesn’t give you chills. Coldcut’s sound design on this album is absolutely immaculate and so meticulously crafted. It’s really clear that they took really good care of making every musician’s contributions stand on their own merits as they build on the unshakable grooves found throughout the record.
The performances of each musician featured on this record are consistently passionate and exceptional. The late & great afrobeat drummer Tony Allen’s drumming performances are really a marvel to behold and a true testament to one of the greatest drummers in modern music. Modern jazz icon Shabaka Hutchings’ incredible saxophone contributions are incredibly dramatic. Yugen Blakrok’s rapping is passionate and hard-hitting. Rising South African stars DJ Mabheko and Soundz of the South as well as countless others help to make the record into a very large and organic musical experience in which each artist is feeding off each other’s energy of their own performances, turning each song into something greater than the sum of its parts. This album has the musical appetite of an ambitious jazz fusion record, despite having very strong afrobeat roots. Listening to this record, you can tell that everyone had so much fun collaborating and putting this incredibly ambitious album together, and they really wanted the listener to share that joy with them. Check this record out if you want to hear great musical performances from front to back.