1/ Throughout this very taxing and very bullshit year, I found solace in some incredible music.

I listened to 130 albums in 2020. Here are a few that’ll forever be burned into my memory + some cute animations. In a v bitter year, these albums made life a whole lot sweeter:

2/ I’ve been a @MosesSumney fan since 2015 when I first heard “Seeds.” He’s able to transfigure just about anything into something transcendent/otherworldly. græ is genreless + consistently mind-blowing. IMO, he’s music's best current vocalist, too.

3/ It's corny but I’ll always appreciate how @perfumegenius’ music makes me feel I can be gay (happy) and gay (homosexual) at the same time. SMHOFI is cinematic Americana turned on its head, equal parts Kafkaesque and uplifting. I literally pray to be 1/10th as cool.

4/ An instant classic. Zeitgeisty as fuck. A masterpiece drenched in sharp wit+melancholy. Poetry in motion for a world falling apart. @phoebe_bridgers is fodder for my depression but totally healing at the same time. I love 2 just black out and stare at the ceiling with this :)

5/ I was doing laundry when I first heard Miss Anthropocene and I remember physically ripping up a pair of older underwear into shreds for no apparent reason. This album ignites my crypto-meets-AI-meets-pyromaniac heart. I am a total loser who would die for @Grimezsz

6/ For like two months, I almost exclusively paraded around Hollywood Hills alone and Zillow’d homes I couldn’t afford (still can’t). 'Suddenly' by @caribouband soundtracked my adventures searching for the physical address numbers to punch into Zillow...daydreaming at sunset.

7/ Hey queen, you’ve done it again. Constantly raising the bar for us all and doing it flawlessly, I’d say I’m surprised but I know who you are, I’ve seen it up close and personal. You've created an exhilarating collection of siren songs for homosexuals. @DUALIPA

8/ I never tried Ketamine until quar. I was bored + out of my fucking mind, so I gave it a shot. Little did I know that it would work better than any other antidepressant I’ve ever tried. @liannelahavas album is inextricably linked to my K experience+was one big healing vibe 4 me

9/ My fav @heyamine album. He’s so fucking charming and confident and I can’t help my shit-eating grin every time “Compensating” or “Woodlawn” comes on. For like 2 months I'd listen to this while baking overpriced keto brownies. Shit-eating grin was actually just brownie batter

10/ @remiwolf is incapable of releasing a bad song. I am obsessed with her. It’s only a matter of time until dancing teens on TikTok catch wind of her music and take off their shirts in exchange for 3 million likes and a crippling dopamine deficiency. She's gonna be huge.

11/ Is Fleet Foxes technically dad rock now? Regardless, this album is so joyful, and while I’ve yet to understand what real joy means...I think this album is that *in theory*

12/ I was 15 minutes late to an outdoor haircut once bc of Shamir's new album. My hairstylist brought up @ShamirBailey. I explained that’s why I was late. We bonded. My haircut was terrible but this album is not. Shamir @ his most confident and actualized. Beautiful stuff

13/ I built a standing desk for like 3 hours one day and fell in love with this album. @Bartees_Strange sounds like a reinvention of 2000s indie rock, TV on the Radio blended with some punk and modern rap. Feels like he's injecting well-needed livelihood into indie which I love

14/ Dread. Doom. Destruction. If you could scratch a cello on a chalkboard and have it somehow be achingly beautiful. Oliver Coates is a master of the cello and true innovator of ambient/electronic/experimental.

15/ @AdrianneLenker is much like Thom Yorke—her songwriting is so corporeal and soulful + her melodies sound like something you would taste in an organic blackberry farm on Mars. Nature-bathed psychedelic bliss. She's a once in a lifetime songwriter to me.

16/ @chloexhalle are pure talent all around. Self-assured, so detailed and layered. No bad vocal performances. This album looks at itself in the mirror and just goes “fuck I’m hot” over and over again without getting stale or any less sexy.

17/ @kacyhill is a superstar. One of the best albums of the year. It’s tight, close to the ear, and comforting as hell. It’s underwater trip-hop-synth-pop that perfectly captures the isolating life of quarantine. Don't u dare miss it.

18/ This is the most LA album I’ve ever heard and I mean that in the best way possible. Easily @HAIMtheband 's best. It’s a textured, mosaic style of production that completely fucks. Every song is a hit. I <3 my Jewish sisters. Props to @matsoR and @arielrechtshaid, too for this

19/ @rinasawayama is the first pop artist in a while who I feel has actually taken a big risk with genre, which is v exciting. It’s a 90s-2000s, nu-metal, prog rock, EDM, avant-pop tour-de-force. It’s the sounds of burning a house down but looking rly fucking hot while doing it

20/ I was jobless for a good chunk of 2020 + when I was applying for jobs, writing cold emails etc… I got rly into @emyspraguemusic as a way to focus. This is video game meets an anesthesiologist with a synth obsession. It’s at once totally dissociative and totally human.

21/ “In A Dream” is one of the best songs @troyesivan has ever written. Album is bedroom pop with a bit of low-fi underground 80s nostalgia mixed in. Indie rock bounced around funhouse mirrors. ‘How To Be Gay and Yearn Out Your Bedroom Window: a Memoir.”

22/ I would truly just bump @charli_xcx 's new album while waiting to do COVID drive thru tests every damn time...and somehow I always got to the front by the time this album ended. I looked like a fucking idiot but it made time fly by.

23/ Absolutely wild album that’s basically ambient a cappella. No drums, no synths, just vocals. @lyra_pramuk is such a genius. Her vocal performances completely blur the line between voice and instrument. Sounds like a symphony but feels like an electronic album.

ok phewph that's it. for those who've made it this far, here's the full list of every album I listened to + their release dates for reference.

This is just my opinion so don't "WELL ACTUALLY" me. I literally don't care.

Thanks for reading and Happy Hanukah!