This year was a journey. It is January 2021 and I feel like I have not synthesized the music of 2020. I fell back on a lot of comfort music, much of it from previous years. My most listened to album was
Designer by Aldous Harding, which is excellent, but was released in March 2019. That being said, my top ten wasn't too difficult to put together. But I'm not as sure about it as I have been previous years. And the malaise that has been the hallmark of my work during quarantine extends to my thoughts about music from 2020. The entire year was a giant sociological experiment, and the music that was released in 2020 fits that. Experimental, introspective, lonely and disaffected music is what made my top fifty.
Some numbers: I listened to 151 albums and EPs, had 81 standout favorites that were whittled down to 50 (which means you shouldn't sleep on anything that didn't make the Top 50). I marked these favorites with a star ★. According to Spotify, I listened to over 92,000 minutes and my favorite genre was Art Pop (for the 3rd year in a row).
I rated these albums before reading any top 10 lists. See how my selections match up to the
NYTimes,
Pitchfork,
NPR,
Consequence Of Sound,
Stereogum,
The Guardian, and
The Needle Drop.