2020
Best of 2020 (The Albums)
I’ve done some sort of year end, “best of” list as long as I can remember. This probably hasn’t been the “best” year of music over that span, but it certainly has been the most important, to me. We’ve all had a trying year, to put it mildly. These are the albums that helped get me through it.
The Albums
10. No Thank You: Embroidered Foliage
A delightfully tight, punk-adjacent indie rock record. Would have fit perfectly on Kill Rock Stars' mid-90s roster.
9. Fiona Apple: Fetch The Bolt Cutters
It takes a lot of work to make something so meticulously crafted sound so loose and “messy.”
8. Laura Marling: Song For Our Daughter
A near-perfect singer/songwriter record.
7. Ellen Siberian Tiger: Cinderblock Cindy
As I noted on Twitter, this record stopped me in my tracks and lit my hair on fire.
6. Lianne La Havas (S/T)
The cover of “Weird Fishes” is perfect, and somehow better than the original, but this record deserves way more than to be remembered as “the one with Weird Fishes on it.”
5. Snarls: Burst
This seems like it was grown in a lab specifically to check my boxes: dreamy, almost-shoegazy mid-90s indie vibes with wonderful female lead vocals.
4. Waxahatchee: Saint Cloud
This was a slow burn for me, but really worth the time… just a perfect record for Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, or almost any other time.
3. Empty Country (S/T)
Was never a huge Cymbals Eat Guitars fan, but this gem from former CEG frontman Joseph D’Agostino’s new project is a pastoral masterpiece. It’s made waiting for that new Wrens record a liiiiiitle bit easier.
2. HAIM: Women In Music Pt. III
The Fleetwood Mac comparisons work for me, not not necessarily because of the sound (although there are plenty of late-70s Laurel Canyon vibes here); it’s more the sheer relentlessness of the quality of the hooks in every. single. song.
1. Hum: Inlet
Dropped out of nowhere in the middle of summer and swallowed me whole. I can’t do justice to describe this perfect soundscape of a record, but Sebastian Sterling can.
Also great
- The Beths: Jump Rope Gazers
- Phoebe Bridgers: Punisher
- Dogleg: Melee
- Fleet Foxes: Shore
- Frances Quinlan: Likewise
- Run The Jewels: RTJ4
- Soccer Mommy: color theory
- Spanish Love Songs: Brave Faces Everyone
- Taylor Swift: folklore
- Touché Amoré: Lament
The Playlists
- Listen on Apple Music
- Listen on Spotify
- Watch on YouTube
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Vanity Fair:
I used to, frankly, abuse myself mentally about how I’m nothing. I realized that I need to choose myself because if I don’t, I’m just going to waste away. I’m just going to give up.
This one really landed for me.
I knew nothing at all about Ellen Siberian Tiger as of two days ago, but this record got mentioned on The Key and honestly, it’s lighting my hair on fire.
Currently reading: The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner 📚
Hard not to read this quote about AT&T’s testing of the Picturephone (an early telephone with video features) in the context of Zoom fatigue in 2020:
When the AT&T market researchers asked Picturephone users whether it was important to see the person they were speaking to during a conversation, a vast majority said it was either “very important” or “important.” To phone company executives, this must have been deeply encouraging. Apparently the market researchers never asked users their opinion about whether it was important, or even pleasurable, that the person they were speaking with could see them, too.
Some people baked bread, some people cut bangs, some people took up knitting. Maybe my pandemic coping hobby can be “needlessly replacing every tool in my productivity tool chain.”
If you think installing tracking software to spy on your reports would make you more comfortable with extended remote work, you have failed as a manager.
Now that I’ve had a chance to rewatch The Rise of Skywalker a couple times, I feel comfortable ranking the films. Posting it here for posterity:
- The Empire Strikes Back
- Rogue One
- The Force Awakens
- Return Of The Jedi
- A New Hope
- Solo
- The Rise Of Skywalker
- The Last Jedi
- Attack Of The Clones
- Revenge Of The Sith
- The Phantom Menace
Thank you for your time.
I’ve consumed a lot of “how to lead remotely" content lately (for obvious reasons) and so much of it boils down to:
- acknowledging humanity
- meeting your reports where they are
- demonstrating empathy
- active listening
So, like… what were leaders doing before last week?
Finished reading: Horror Stories: A Memoir by Liz Phair 📚
If you were expecting a linear memoir Liz Phair, or “here’s what happened the night I wrote ‘Flower,’ you’re going to be a bit disappointed. Phair abandons the linear format that plagues many otherwise interesting memoirs and instead presents a series of stories that seek to answer the question “why are you like this?”
She’s always direct, never pulling punches, even when she’s shining a light on her own behavior. She never apologizes, but rather presents her truth and leaves interpretation up to the reader.
Being a huge fan of her discography isn’t required to enjoy this book; in fact, she devotes vanishingly few pages to it. Most of the musical discussion that is present in the book focuses on the aftermath of her 2003 self-titled record, and how exhausting and uncomfortable her brush with pop stardom felt for her. It never comes off as pity-seeking, but rather “these were the consequences of choices I made.”
<img src=“https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5194/2025/a2f264d495.jpg" alt=“Wolf Parade’s “Appologies to the Queen Mary” on reissued vinyl”>
Bought myself a belated Christmas gift: the 3LP reissue of Wolf Parade’s “Apologies to the Queen Mary.” Sub Pop knocked it out of the park on this package: the remastered album on 2 LPs, a third that collects the EPs that led up to the record’s release, plus a heartfelt essay from Sean Michaels (of Said The Gramophone fame).
At a time when every new indie band either seemed to be from Canada or have “Wolf” in their name, these guys stood out and created a record that aged better than any of the other Blog Rock records of the early 2000s (yes, that includes “Funeral”). Simultaneously urgent and timeless, it’s a minor classic.
If sea levels increase a little under 2 feet by 2100, Delaware (the nation’s lowest-lying state) will lose roughly 8% of its land area, including nearly all of the state’s protected wetlands.
