Playlist 2020

Here is a list of awesome music I assembled over the past year. It spans a multitude of genres and moods. Each song has within it, at it's very center some indescribable magnetic draw. I'm not always certain what the exact source of that spirit is but in short, here is why the following songs made the cut. 

The format is very condensed. In short, all of these songs are worth a listen (at least once). These selections span everything from the deepest center of commercial pop music to the furthest fringes of disparate niche genres. 

CLICK HERE FOR THE 2020 PLAYLIST

I say just click it and let it play in the background. But if you are curious as to why a certain song made the cut, below I provide the artist name, a short description of the type of music they play, or I think they play. Then in bold is the song title with a short description of why it's on the list.  I didn't do a deep dive into all of these artists, so for some of them I am only familiar with the track(s) on this list, so I might have just guessed at the genre/style. 

What is your favorite? 

• Hiromi - Jazz Piano
• Spectrum; Endlessly creative and relentlessly confident throughout.
• Jacob Collier - Alien
• Home Is; Achingly precise. Sanctified tension. Absolute resolution. 
• The Avett Brothers - Bittersweet, Self-Aware Folk Legends
• Bang Bang; It is difficult to discuss current political/moral stances through popular music. Nice effort. 
• Brass Against - Big gnarly brass band, covers rock songs
• Laterlus; Tool cover that is way too fun!
• Soil & "Pimp" Sessions - Deceptive Japanese(?) Lounge Bebop
• Shapeshifter; Infectious groove. Surprise subversive solos.
• Architects - Alternative Rock(?)
• Change; Really solid Deftones cover with nice orchestral backing.
• Louis Cole - Hard Edge Slant Funk
• My Buick; Some riffs can't not be listened to.
• No BS! Brass Band
• Ain't Even Gonna Call Ya; Gang vocals singing a great hook!
• The Mountain Goats
• Cadaver Sniffing Dog; Innovative story-telling, deceptive content/mood juxtaposition. 
• Doom Side Of The Moon - Pink Floyd tribute band
• Time; Excellent tribute. Added drums, guitar and more. Same flavor, double the mood. 
• Bon Iver - Cryptic Pop Folk
• iMi; Amazing production, reminiscent of the best of Dirty Projectors. HQLo-Fi.
• Marilyn Manson - Sacrilegious Pantomime Rock
• God's Gonna Cut You Down; Haha, Devil man do God song. wow much irony. Good song though. 
•  Nina Nesbitt - Sultry throat warbles
• Toxic; Brittany Cover. Completely indulgent. I dare you not to sing along. 
• Tides of Man - Instrumental Evolution
• Static Hymn; Solid Indie vocabulary throughout. Supremely satisfying transition at the end. 
• Their Dogs Were Astronauts - Djent adjacent Indie-Metal Instrumental
• Contortionist; Meditative and fluorescent. Polyrhythmic foundations. Scorching Synth Solo.
• Save Us from the Archon - Progressive Jazz Metal
• I. You Don't Recall Our House Near the Ocean; Challenging, glitchy & unafraid. Long Static Bridge.
• 福居良 - Relatively Unknown Japanese Jazz Pianist
• Early Summer; Sublime, sophisticated, surprising, calm to wildly adventurous and back again. 
• Scenery; Slightly out of tune piano? Gorgeous voicings and forever haunting melody. 
• Mellow Dream; Technical Magic. Meditative Momentum.
• Tumoric - Fuck you and your whole world
• Frontierer; Get rekt.
• Bent Knee - spacious indie diva
• Holy Ghost; She leaves it all in the booth. 
• Land Animal; This lady's voice. Huge production with a lot of space and direction. 
• Beck - Beck
• Chemical; Love is a chemical, I'm so high. Production, Lyrics, Everything. Beck is Beck. 
• Moses Sumney - Indie Soul(?)
• Call-to-Arms; Smooth and sexy. Easy to listen to meandering into chaos jazz glory at the end. 
• The Westerlies - Instrumental Horn Music
• Robert Henry; Classically fundamental construction. Wonderful use of practical composition effects. 
• The Physics House Band - Progressive Indie Jazz Metal Rock
• Death Sequence I; Amazing Journey. Colossal shift of moods throughout. 
• Injury Rerserve, et. al. - Rappers
• Jawbreaker; It's a pop-rap thing. Super catchy hook and fun verses. 
• IDLES - Dark Rock
• Colossus; Builds to a wonderful frenzy. It goes and it goes and it goes. 
• Magne Furuholmen, et. al - Loungey High-brow Jazz 
• Take on Me; 80's cover that almost completely obscured by the arrangement. And it works!
• The Lumineers - Alt Country
• Classy Girls (B Vers.); LoFi demo vibe. Great song, early Obserst vibes. 
• La Dispute - Emo Cult Rock
• Footsteps at the pond; Glitchy Hook Goodness, Temper Tantrum music featuring delicate production
• Jordan Klassen - Easy Fun Nostalgic pop
• I Want To Move In To Your House; Lyrics, vibe, melody. Triple Check. 
• Fucked Up - That is the name of the band
• Dose Your Dreams; Production is glitchy and clever. Outro is worth the listen. 
• Glass Beach - Reminds me of JPop Jazz, but it's not. 
• Classic J Dies And Goes To Hell Part 1; Melody and lyrics lead the listener into surprising transitions.
• Mount Eerie, Julie Doiron - Sleepy Contemplative Folk
• Belief; Empty Space filed with casually sung epiphanies. Sparse and thoughtful. 
• Ohmme - Indie Pop Alternative
• Water; Patient, Fuzzy Distortion. Fun drums. Satisfying Build.
• Car Seat Headrest - Some kind of Indie 
• The Ending of Dramamine; Long Song. Worth every minute. Enjoy the Journey. 
• Frances Quinlan - Solo Female Vocals with Rhodes
• Piltdown Man; A story of nostalgic youth and energy. Vulnerable and excited.
• Swamp Dogg - I honestly have no idea what this is. Sampled Electronic Remix?
• Answer Me, My Love; Bizarre and disruptive production setting vocals apart in unfamiliar territory. 
• Thee Oh Sees - Indie Rock with a Classic Rock backbone
• Sentient Oona; Why have many lyrics when few lyrics do? Aggressive Organ Hits. Solid Outro. 
• Eddie Hazel - Lofi Blues Guitar
• California Dreaming; Unrecognizable. Taking production out of equation entirely. Only the performance remains. A sacred space. 
• Chili Gonzales - Virtuosic Novelty
• Weezer Medley; An answer to Meldauh's Radiohead? Expertly arranged. Beautiful. 
• Dirty Projectors - Pop Rocks
• Isolation; Innovative production. 'Isolation' is repeated over and over. 2020. 
• Sheena Ringo - Japanese Cinematic Pop?
• 宗教; Enigmatic and compelling. Super Gritty Drums and lush textures. Powerful rising cadences. 
• The Taxpayers - Urban Stomp-Punk
• As the Sun Beat Down; Unbridled and cryptic. Ranting and Raving by a very angry saxophone. 
• Big Thief - Mellow Indie Pop
• Contact; Patient and calm through the end. Then.. a scream! 
• Deerhunter - Unpredictable Modern Rock
• Timebends; A meandering journey into disparate emotions, circling back to eclipsed foundations.
• Tropical Fuck Storm - Rough Edge Alt-Pop
• You Let My Tyres Down; I am constantly humming this chorus to myself. Powerful and Moving. 
• Paradise; Charismatic Vocalist. Beautiful dissident arrangement. Glorious build up and release. 
• Theo Katzman - preachy pop folk
• 100 Years From Now; Catchy song with good wisdom that it's nice to be reminded of often.
• Like a Woman Scorned; Great build. A bit on the nose but great music, performance and message. 
• Good Tiger - Unpredictable Indie Poprockmetal?
• If You Weren't My Son I'd Hug You; Incredible transition and mutation occurs.
• Bad Religion - Pop Punk. Legends. 
• Faith Alone 2020; Familiar arrangement, surprising production. 
• Kamasi Washington - Next Level Improvisational Saxophone.
• Clair de Lune; Beautiful Melody, Adventurous arrangement. Brilliant and soothing manipulation. 
• The Dear Hunter - Operatic Rock
• The Lake and the River; A production of epic scope and ambition. Manifested with a perfect ease. 
• Weatherday - Lo-fi Gritcore
• My Sputnik Sweetheart; Infinite energy. Broken microphones. Psychedelic nostalgic memory punk. 
•  Saintseneca - Folk Rock
• Pillar of Na; Catchy hooks. Echos of Neutral Milk. 
• Harry Styles - International Pop Superstar
• Falling; Just a damn good song. 
• Lights Up; That Dirty Projectors Vibe. I could get behind a larger aesthetic movement in this direction. 
• FINNEAS - Derivative Indie Pop
• Die Alone; A direct clone of something from Manchester Orchestra. Gorgeous hook though and it goes it's own way after that. Beautiful and Haunting. 
• Halsey - Emotive Female Pop
• Finally // beautiful stranger; Right in the pocket. Everything about this hits in a very satisfying way. 
• Mestís - Progressive Rock
• El Mestizo; Fun Grooves  and thoughtful transitions. jazz metal. 
• Little Tybee - Some kind of progressive gypsy rock
• More Like Jason; A satisfying groove that gives way a crunchy bridge and polyrhythmic outro that widens the space between ones ears. 
• PUP - Indie Rock
• Scorpio Hill; Lo-fi folk turns to focused 90's alt punk ethos. Vulnerable and honest lyrics. 
• Anderson .Paak - Rock/Hip-Hop fusion
• CUT EM IN; Infectious. 
• Dawes - Retro Soft Rock
• St. Augustine At Night; A beautiful sung song. poignant lyrics. sweet but far from saccharine. 
• Busdriver - kooky, philosophical, technical hip-hop
• the big think; Spastic flow. Gymnastic articulation. Nuggets of things we need to hear. 
• Deftones - Alt Rock Powerhouse
• Ohms; So happy to have new Deftones. Classic sound only matured by time. Chino on his A-game. 
• Lukas Graham - Swedish Pop Band
• Share That Love; Ear Candy. Tiny bit of auto-tune spice. Wonderful hook. Authentic performance. 
  
• Where I'm From; Wiz Khalifa on the chorus. Inspirational. Easy groove. 
• Otoboke Beaver - The best punk band you've never heard of
• Bakuro book; Pre-chorus is a gravity-well of magnetism. Chorus is to fun. 
• anata watashi daita ato yome no meshi; Everything you know about punk rock is wrong. 
• What do you mean you have to talk to me at this late date?; Relentless and constantly surprising. 
• Anata Ga Falling Love Shita No Ha Watashi Ga Kirai na Onnanoko; Long song titles.
• Guster - Indie Alt Jammy Pop? 
• Ruby Falls; Kind of Pink Floyd vibe. Beach boys bridge.  Meandering and relaxed muted trumpet outro.
• Bicurious - Weird Rock
  
• I Don't Do Drugs, I Just Sweat a Lot; A direct export from some past experience of mine. 
• Black Country, New Road - Spoken Word Free-Form Jazz Rock
• Sunglasses; One of my absolute favorites of the bunch. Chaos channeled into focused meaningful absurdity. 
• jizue - Technical minimist Jazz (Japanese?) 
  
• Rain Dog; Has that cool JavaJazz groove mixed with a Phillip Glass philosophy allowed to go off the rails every now and then. 
• 錯乱前戦 - Chinese(?) alt-country roadhouse indie punk
• TAXIMAN; Further proof that lyrics are secondary to groove. I don't know what they are saying but I understand this music. 
• Daniil Trifonov - Classical Piano
  
• L'oiseau de Feu. Suite pour piano: III. Finale; Gorgeous 20th century composition, wonderfully performed. 
• Pinegrove - Meditative Zen Frequencies
  
• Marigold; Vibrations that hit the spot. You know the one. Patience through end for completion. 
• Christian Soctt aTunde Adjuah - Creative Improvised Music
  
• X. Adjuah (I Own the Night); Great tune followed by a short lecture on the reevaluation of performer, audience, instrument and music. 
• The Bad Plus - Jazz
  
• Avail; Some spicy voicing and rhythmic concepts I wanted to be reminded of. 
• Dogleg - Thicc, greasy punk rock
• Fox; Perfect gang vocals on chorus, relentless vocals. non-stop cymbals. They lean in. 
• György Ligeti, Khatia Buniatishvili - Minimilist Dueling Pianos
• Musica ricercata No. 7 in B-Flat major; Constant Energy from the start. Can't tell if it's improvised. Don't care.
• The Smoking Flowers - Sloppy Folk Rock
• Carry The Torch; Reckless abandon with harmonies at the end. 
• Eastern Youth - Japanese Driving Pop Punk
• 沸点36℃; I want to learn Japanese just to understand this. Emotive and soul piercing. 
• Lighting Bolt - Heavy Overwhelming Whitenoise Rock
  
• Blow To The Head; Really cool "quiet loud" production. A slight SOAD influence but solidly in their own aesthetic space. Very original and fun to listen to. 
• Death - Jammy Progressive Folk
• Let The World Turn; Unpredictable to the end. 

I hope these tracks inspire you and lead to great discoveries of your own through the next year. If you are interested in following along with the journey for 2021. Check out my 2021 Dig List. This is a list of songs that are damn good, but don't quite hit the spot. It will grow throughout 2021 as I use these tracks as jumping off points for deeper exploration throughout the year.

Be safe out there!