NOW Magazine
The best Toronto albums of 2020
We weren't able to see many of them live, but local artists still gave us a lot to listen to this year
By Richard Trapunski
Dec 15, 2020
From hip-hop beatscapes to celestial R&B gong punk, local artists didn’t let their creativity dip despite all the challenges they faced during this pandemic year. It’s a shame we couldn’t support the music live and in person, but here are the Toronto albums that were filling our ears while we stayed home this year.
1.
U.S. Girls: Heavy Light
Heavy Light came out just weeks before the COVID-19 shutdown, and now it feels like a time capsule. It’s simultaneously Meg Remy’s most personal album and her most collective. Her first-person form gets unusually high usage as she sings about her teen years. The music is lush and joyful as ever, and she’s still a clear-eyed critic of American exceptionalism. She leans on a hugely talented group of musicians crammed into a studio together, including some of Toronto’s unheralded powerhouse singers (Kritty Uranowski, James Baley, Basia Bulat, Dorothea Paas, etc.). It’s the musical feeling of personal trauma worked out through community support. It’ll be a while before we can show up for each other like that again, at least in person.