ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2020

In a year of near continuous quarantine, many of us had to find our pleasures in increasingly solitary fashion. There was unfortunate ample opportunity to be swept up in the long form: binge-watching replaced single episodes, albums became our singles. Most of us on ILM are creatures of the club and the live music scene; albums provided the methadone of immersive release from concert withdrawal. It wasn't the same but it was better than nothing.

Artists relying on concerts to survive found themselves forced to release projects without a tour and support their work by streaming into the vacuum. A lot of this year's LPs predated the plague, plenty of others were reactions to it. Taken as a whole, 2020's avalanche of new music is a document of two eras: one a dimly remembered time where the biggest danger of sharing a vape with a stranger was popcorn lung and the other an ongoing nightmare of anger, fear, prejudice, sickness, claustrophobia and paranoia. More than ever, art and life required us to interrogate our sense of humanity by way of empathy. But how do you begin to compare SAULT's reality with Taylor Swift's? Bob Dylan to Wizkid? Charli XCX to clipping? We're about to find out.

Here’s the Top 77 Albums of 2020 Spotify Playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/76m1OSG2OzW0Kgzx4RAxN2
For the few albums that are not available on Spotify, we'll provide Bandcamp/YouTube links for listening.

If anyone wants to build a matching YouTube / Tidal / Apple Music / Amazon Music / Future Times Neural Net Music Service We Don't Know About Yet Playlist, it would be welcome. Please post those here.

In case you’d like to listen to the total talent pool, here’s the nominee playlist, which includes some 6200+ tracks from the 1000+ nominated albums:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2bgWh3JqBlruDUwip7zp3S

For reference:
ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2020
ILM Top 77 Tracks of 2020 Poll Afterparty: Ballots, Statistics and Pastiche

Your poll runners are Moka (posting / graphics), myself (posting / playlisting), and Seandalai (organization / vote tabulation).

With each winning album, wherever possible, we will be posting a link to the album's appropriate ILM artist / song / album / genre threads for further reading, along with a quote and a link to a published critical review.

This year's #78 missed placing by a mere four points. Bragging rights if you can name that ill-fated artist and album before we get to the end of the poll.

77 albums, 900 tracks and over 60 hours of music ahead. We’ll get it started tomorrow.

lovely intro once again forks

Didn't vote in this, because I just didn't listen to that many albums this year, but now sort of regretting it -- there are three or four albums I really did care about, several of which will place in this, and maybe I should have filled out a short ballot! Anyway, looking forward to the rollout and learning about all the great records I missed in 2020! Thanks, runners!

Thank you for the intro forks!

Excited!

Excited for this! I loved so so many albums last year - first year since, like, 2014 that I felt able to keep up with releases for obvious reasons

No ties on our top 77 albums btw!

only ascots

^but Vampire Weekend was 2019(!)

Is it OK if I imagined forks' intro being recited by Don LaFontaine?

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/1a/e3/8f/1ae38f2a45c5f1ec81bdc501c144e333.jpg

...and no strings attached


way to go, pollrunners! this is going to be fun

The last decade in poll winners.

2010 Big Boi — Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty 1252 40 2
2011 Destroyer — Kaputt 1355 36 12
2012 Miguel - Kaleidoscope Dream 1909 51 7
2013 Haim - Days Are Gone 1792 56 3
2014 D'Angelo and the Vanguard - Black Messiah 2105 58 8
2015 Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly 2204 62 6
2016 KING - We Are KING 1860 58 4
2017 Kendrick Lamar - DAMN 1253 37 8
2018 Low - Double Negative 1440 45 6
2019 Weyes Blood -Titanic Rising 1158 33 4

Weyes Blood won this last year? Not in a million years would I have been able to answer that question correctly. Itgehane...

I'm going to do a potentially out-there suggestion for #78, based on my own ballot and the fact that four people voted for the track - Special Interest?

kaleidoscope dream best album of 2012... good choice

IN A YEAR

has anyone listened to that big boi album since 2010

lol vmic but I am much, much more on board with the second half of the decade's winners

i don't know if i ever heard the big boi but it's better than destroyer i'm sure

14-18 is a nice run

14-19 you mean!

i'm putting sir lucious on now

i never got into the weyes blood, keep meaning to give it another try

Miguel, KING, and the Kendricks are the ones I'd still listen to.

I preferred the previous Weyes Blood, which I only listened to because imago and tangenttangent yelled at me for dismissing it. I've liked Low in the past but didn't remotely get the fuss with DN

My unjust kneejerk reaction is that Low and Weyes Blood in a row bodes very ill

The existence of laboratory-grown ILXbait Jessie Ware bodes iller imo

imo Low are the closest thing to an outlier on that list, the rest were totally predictable consensus picks for better or worse

anyway for me it's

pimp > low > d'angelo > damn > destroyer > miguel > king > weyes blood > big boi > haim

some of those arrows doing more work than others surely

I don't hate any of, haim didn't do much for me till album 3 though. big boi hampered by some of the worst unskippable skits ever

This year's #78 missed placing by a mere four points. Bragging rights if you can name that ill-fated artist and album before we get to the end of the poll.

Annie - Dark Hearts?

Only place online where two of my favorite albums of the year also were #1 here.

without revealing my votes, as I've had two or three #78s for my number one pick in the last decade i will go for that as my guess

I'm much more in step with ilx albums than singles, typically - that list of winners matches a lot of my favorites of the last decade

imo Low are the closest thing to an outlier on that list, the rest were totally predictable consensus picks for better or worse

Do you mean predictable for ilm specifically or predictable for music in general? Like there are definitely years where ilm went with the very-ilm choice (KING), but I would say that 2015 & 2017 (the two Kendrick albums) are the only years where ilm was exactly in line with the broader critical consensus.

kaleidoscope dream best album of 2012... good choice

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson)

Probably the best winner of the bunch. Not a bad album on that list although I still wish Susanne had won in 2015. As great as Kendrick is, I kind of like it when we go for things that other lists sleep on. KING being the best example of that.

I’m gonna say the 78’d album was....uhhh Squarepusher

Only place online where two of my favorite albums of the year also were #1 here.

― meticulously crafted, socially responsible, morally upsta (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

Which two Alfred? I didn't have them as my number ones at the time, but now I'd say Miguel, Destroyer, D'angelo and maybe Weyes Blood were all the right choices. I was looking back at some of my votes over the last 10 years and I don't even know that person anymore. 2010 and 11 in particular had some really weird choices.

Miguel and Weyes Blood were my choices at at the time, but if I were to revote I'd put Billie Eilish at #1 for 2019.

👍🏽

I remember being really excited that I finally had a #1 on my ballot go to #1 in our poll, but then I realized I'd put 'Double Negative' at #2. So I'm still batting .000

my guess for 78’d album is burna boy - twice as tall

I remember being really excited that I finally had a #1 on my ballot go to #1 in our poll, but then I realized I'd put 'Double Negative' at #2. So I'm still batting .000

― Johnny Fever

Yeah, I've never had the number one as my number one either. Since 2014 my number ones have either come 10th (Todd Terje, Shura, Paramore & The Beths) or 2nd (Susanne & Lana). I'm fully expecting my number one to be the runner up again this week.

Sorry, this is probably of no interest to anyone. I'm just bored.

Just going off memory, I probably had Susanne #1 in 2015 and Kendrick #2.

I think I had the 2015 top three as my own top three but in a different order. Great year.

my guess for 78 is PLUS

My wild guess for 78 is Plone.

(no right guesses on 78 yet)

Just checked what was on Pitchfork's list, having become fixated on the Fu&&or Quotient. Modest overlap, it turns out, lol

I feel like I'm out of step with everybody I talk to, so it's very lonely in general but also kind of thrilling to see something I like make the list. Small wins. We'll see.

I'm going to guess number 78 is either Freeze Melt by Cut Copy or the Empress Of album. Both albums I could see receiving four or five votes and getting that close.

Evan OTM

As for Horse Lords, they're routinely described as 'math rock' (among other subgenres).

― pomenitul, Saturday, February 6, 2021 3:02 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

...by people who are wrong

i'm making my way through the list and didn't enjoy about 2 of the first 40 so far
what can i say i love music

Horse Lords.....rule

OTM

Are they lords of horses or horses that happen to be lords?

yes

Glad you went with that instead of 'neigh'.

I don't know if they sound like math rock, but certainly their heavy use of polyrhythms and microtonal tunings implies a different mathematical approach than your average rock band.

Yeah, usually I think of "math rock" as meaning knotty post-hardcore g/b/d rock with a lot of time changes and stops and starts like Shellac or Don Caballero. What Horse Lords do is not quite the same thing but it's not so remote that someone couldn't reasonably say "this leaves me cold in the same way that those other things also leave me cold".

Also tbh if someone asked me what genre they are, I'm not sure what I'd say so "math rock" is probably as good as any other.

I guess ‘experimental rock’ is the vaguer and safer bet.

trigonometry rock

maths rock

do u call steve reich math classical

Steve Reich = new math
Horse Lords = common core

Horse Lords is about as much math rock as Pruitt is "contemporary country"

i don't know why ppl seriously engage w/ opinions formed after one listen to half a song, quite honestly

i haven't listened to horse lords much, but my first impression was kind of unwound playing music from mali. or a bit like some later music by the ex?

i don't know why ppl seriously engage w/ opinions formed after one listen to half a song, quite honestly

do u call steve reich math classical

Anyway, 'country' does come up in pretty much every review of Expectations, so I'm not sure I get your point. Unless genres are all in your head maaaaaan.

Horse Lords are best thought of in the Harry Partch/just intonation continuum IMO, just filtered through polyrhythms

Didn't vote, but listening to this Azana album for the first time and wondering why this didn't win. Holy shit.

Questions that answer themselves :)

I think of "math rock" as meaning knotty post-hardcore g/b/d rock with a lot of time changes and stops and starts like Shellac or Don Caballero

ya exactly, that's what math rock is. horse lords is droney and repetitive, it has some interesting stuff going on rhythmically but mostly internal polyrhythm. i p much hate all math rock but love this band

listened to the Horse Lords album for the first time today. I liked the way the different instrumental components of it were jostling for dominance

also liked the bagpipes operating against type

Bagpipe bit rules

finally landed on the Ulla album; feels sort of like being various appliances? It's several vibes; nice find. Don't think anyone discussed this elsewhere on ILM; where did it get on people's radar?

it was hanging out in my fridge

I played the Jessie Ware album for my 10-year-old daughter and she loves it

xp idk probably browsing online record stores or just from checking new ambient releases on Discogs

for me I mean, I don’t remember how that’s why I said idk lol

I think read an intriguing Resident Advisor review or similar. (re Ulla)

Please have a look at the nominations and if there are any albums you like, vote for it/them. No minimum. You have up to 50 votes.

ALL WELCOME.

Please at least have a look at the nominations.

2020 Metal ’n’ Heavy Rock Poll: VOTING & FURTHER CAMPAIGNING thread (open until February 19)

this is good I liked this, but as I said before, Telefon was probably my least favourite track! yeah Plans is well nice

― imago, Friday, 5 February 2021 14:59 (three days ago) link

yes i would add that telefon is a bit of a contrast to the rest of the record

― nxd, Friday, 5 February 2021 15:00

I had never heard of her before the tracks poll. I liked that track but the rest of the record is leaving me cold

Sorry, I’m bringing disco back after this pandemic.

— Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) February 8, 2021

lol, just the Ware, Lipa, Murphy, Monet and Overlord in our 77, and I'm probably missing at least one (wasn't the Haim album part-disco too)

Well, definitely Annie and Moodymann and there are not unreasonable arguments to be made for parts or all of Azana, Ariana, Rina, Simmy and Selena. It's a trend!

I played the Jessie Ware album for my 10-year-old daughter and she loves it

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, February 7, 2021 11:11 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

aw this is heartwearming

Listened to the Charli XCX album this morning. Although it strongly features Autotune and brickwalled mastering, two things that turn me off a lot of 21st century pop production, it is actually pretty interesting sonically and has some nice melodies - the pretty/harsh juxtaposition is indeed quite present. I think I will come back to this one.

while autotune and extreme compression can be pretty cliched and overused, I look at them as the modern equivalent of popular effects pedals, they've been used to drive many interesting aesthetic choices over the years. I don't really see it as any different from distortion or wah pedals, everyone does it, some do it better than others. But I tend to bristle at the idea that the very presence of these effects is in and of itself a bad thing.

Yeah, absolutely true, I just tend to be biased against those sounds, not as an ironclad rule but as a tendency. Lots of people hate the sound of distorted guitars or wah-wah pedals.

I mean, my display name quotes Andrew WK, whose sound is fairly compressed so.

There were many years where music reviews would call out the presence of autotune or pro-tools (haha) in a derogatory manner as if those were not tools that are used across a massive span of different types of music, often in ways that are totally undetectable to the listener, and it just started to feel like a really lazy critical shortcut to me.

Ha, well, I also experienced several years of music tech students loading tracks with pitch correctors and sausage fatteners.

I thought vaguely of Bjork at moments in the Charli XCX album.

^ Co-sign--the glitch intro to Click2.0 in particular is one part on How I'm Feeling Now that's especially-on-the-nose Homogenish/Vesperteeny to my ears (which I love)

Yes, that was the one where it came to mind.

Brick walled mastering just hurts my ears now. It's not so much a sound I'm tired of, but more a treatment that colors the entire composition negatively. These types of releases I try and listen either to the vinyl versions or a vinyl rip as the limiting has to be pulled back in order for the music to function on the medium.

I mean, there's a difference between brickwalled mastering as a lazy default and using excessive compression in a mix for extreme effect.