Wiretap Records bands list their favorite albums of 2020
Wiretap Records have shared their album of the year lists, including
Talk Show Host, American Television, Mercy Music, LOVEBREAKERS, Catholic Guilt, Answering Machine, and
In Parallel (who share a member with Hopesfall, who also made us a list). See their lists below.
The Casket Lottery, who put out a record on Wiretap this year.
photo via Bandcamp
We ve always described our band with the beginning to a lame joke (“two recovering punks and an indie rocker walk into a bar.”) so our list is divided accordingly and, otherwise, in no particular order.
Courtesy of the artists
I don t think it s a coincidence that you, our listeners, chose a list of music filled with well-established artists this year. It was a year when the discovery of new music was tough. The absence of music festivals and live concerts, in general, kept me from discovering those remarkable opening acts, those second stage acts. Most of us had less listening time, whether it was the lack of a commute or the houses full of families. That s not to say great music didn t come out in 2020, but only Rina Sawayama and Hayley Williams had debuts dent your top 50, and Hayley is already an established artist with her band Paramore and Rina put out a 24-minute mini album in 2017.
NC punks Dollar Signs sign to Pure Noise, release anthemic, horn-fueled “Negative Blood”
Charlotte, North Carolina s
Dollar Signs have been around for a few years, making a quirky mix of punk, emo, power pop, folk, ska-style horns, and more that kind of sounds like a cross between Jeff Rosenstock and The Front Bottoms. Following releases on Anti-Flag s A-F Records, they ve now signed to
Pure Noise and released their first single for the label, Negative Blood. Negative Blood is the most brutal sounding song title we’ve ever had, says vocalist/bassist Dylan Wachman, which is sick, but the song itself is an ode to endless charge through the storm of shit in everyone’s lives. Not everything is an omen! Things can actually turn out BETTER than you planned! They probably won’t though. Negative blood and all. The song is a fun, catchy, upbeat offering of horn-fueled punk, and the anthemicism is balanced out by the negativity and self-deprecation in the lyrics (in a P
Jeff Rosenstock tells us about his favorite albums of 2020
2020 saw Jeff Rosenstock release his excellent new album
2020 DUMP on Bandcamp (including Collapse! , which we included in our 2020 ska year-end list. To cap off the year, he made us a list of his own favorite albums of 2020, and it s full of entertaining, unique commentary that couldn t have come from anyone else. Take it away, Jeff.
THIS LIST IS TOUGH TO MAKE!!!!! I felt like there was so much nonstop good music coming out that I haven t even had the chance to listen to it all. IT S NOT ALL GONNA FIT ONTO THIS LIST. Friends in
The 20 best albums of 2020
Clockwise from top left: Rina Sawayama (Photo: Greg Lin Jiajie), Moses Sumney (Photo: Alexander Black), Run The Jewels (Photo: Timothy Saccenti), Jeff Rosenstock (Photo: Christine Mackie), Soccer Mommy (Photo: Brian Ziff)
Graphic: Natalie Peeples
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Yes, it’s been a hard year, and yes, we’re also tired of confronting that fact. But the bizarrely repetitive and numbing hermetic existence most of us have endured this past year has made for a strange experience, one thankfully made more tolerable by all the art and pop culture streamed, downloaded, mailed, and delivered into our homes. A lot of the music that ended up on our list of the 20 best albums of the year already made an appearance at 2020’s halfway point, showing up on the list of our favorite music thus far. Most of those records were made before lockdown began, but there’s more than a couple here Charli XCX, Taylor Swift that drew inspiration from the same wellspring of hardship that crea