Best Albums of 2020 (3-1)
My three favorite albums of the year. So much so I had more to say about them than any other album thus far.
3. Elisabeth by Zach Bryan
Country music has always kind of struggled with this idea of “authenticity”. One of the things country fans love about the genre is how it’s meant to be about real-life people, real-life experiences, and be grounded in some sort of reality that isn’t staged or played up for populist reasons. If you look into the comments of this video, in particular, you’re going to find a lot of people praising this song for being “real” country music. It doesn’t have the glitz and glam of the pop influence of Nashville artists and it’s “about something”. Specifically, Zach Bryan’s experience of the music industry and his rejection of it as he prefers to be true to himself than be a pawn of some corporate power. Zach Bryan is in a very odd position where he never meant for his music career to take off. It’s literally just a hobby he started while he was in the Navy. And yet, he ended up going viral enough to become a quietly big indie country star in his own right. It’s weird that he has too. On the surface, there isn’t anything all that standout about him. He’s just a guy with a guitar singing about his life. Why would be of all people develop such a big, dedicated fanbase?
My theory is that Zach Bryan is about as bare-bones as you can get. I wasn’t kidding when I said he’s just a guy with a guitar singing about his life. He’ll tell many different stories, maybe things he himself hasn’t directly experienced, but for the most part, it’s all him. He barely even has a backing band with him, only some people to add backing vocals or one other instrument. The percussion is straight-up nonexistent. It has no choice but to be the most authentic music it can be. Obviously, purely acoustic albums aren’t always knockouts, but that’s why the songwriting has to be at its best. Someone like Adrianne Lenker was able to succeed because she knew how much she needed to reveal and how much she allowed to stay buried in her heart. So what does Zach Bryan do? His strength is very obvious: He’s unbearably honest.
There’s no bullshit, there’s no overcompensation. Adrianne Lenker did something similar, but the worst she did was be a clingy girlfriend. Zach Bryan’s demons are a lot more pronounced, in the form of his depression and anti-social personality. He may find value in the people he keeps close, but everyone else he treats with coldness. Almost resentment in some areas. It’s not flattering, but as you learn more and more about this guy, his relationships, and how truly difficult it is to parse through life under the depressing haze he goes through, the more you grow to understand him. Yet, he doesn’t ask you to sympathize. He knows who he is, and whether or not that person is your speed is up to you. There’s something admirable about that. It puts Zach Bryan at the center of all his songs, even when they’re about other people. And that inherent ugliness makes him all the more interesting. But it also makes the moments when he does experience happiness or comfort in where he is all the more rewarding. It reminds you that for as many frustrations as you may have with him, he’s human. He has his own goals and aspirations, and those aspirations happen to be very lowkey and personal.
I almost relate to him in a way. Not really trying to be the best or the biggest in anything, I just want the people I trust to trust me back. I have my uglier moments, but I’m not so far gone I can’t have moments of humbleness or relief. I don’t know if this is weird to say, but I get a strange amount of gender euphoria from this album. I don’t identify as male, I much prefer leaning toward female, but there’s still that softness and reflectiveness that I feel comes across best from men willing to knock their masculinity down a peg. The way Zach Bryan does it, he connects with some of the deeper parts of me that I’ve always had a strained relationship with. It’s comforting in a twisted way.
Top 10
1. Loom
2. Come As You Are
3. Hopefully
4. Boy Like You
5. Washington Lilacs
6. Elisabeth
7. Anita (Part Two)
8. Mine
9. Messed Up Kid
10. From A Lover’s Point of View
2. folklore by Taylor Swift
When folklore came out to critical acclaim from fans and critics alike, I remember seeing a concern that this album’s use of folk-like imagery and instrumentation was appropriating the work of artists who only barely get by making the music they love, essentially commodifying it to try to bring an otherwise massive artist like Taylor Swift down to a “real” level. Aside from the fact that this kind of obnoxious concern trolling always seems to target Taylor Swift no matter what she does, it’s not like I don’t understand or even sympathize with what they’re saying. After all, I was notably annoyed seeing music publications shower certain city folk albums with praise, including folklore, while ignoring certain factions of indie country and more town-focused folk unless it had some left-wing political angle that can be framed as “fighting against the system” instead of expressing basic human decency. If you’ve gone through this list from beginning to end, you know I have plenty of folk and country albums on this list. You may have even skimmed past some of them out of disinterest. Nothing wrong with that of course, we all have our own interests and tastes, I take no offense. Still, my point is that there are plenty of folk and indie country artists who I’ve given attention to and have supported through my own money. They’re all talented and deserve just as much acclaim and attention as this album did. It just so happens that, even with all these incredible albums, folklore is still my favorite.
Taylor has always been a great songwriter, but a lot of it has been focused on her own experiences and relationships. All of it seems to have been in some way concluded on Lover. She found a dedicated partner and is moving at her own pace with him. It was as if everything she’s gone through, from her first heartbreak with Drew to enduring the lowest point of her life on reputation, for once Taylor found peace in the relationship she has now. I wondered what that meant for her career since a lot of Taylor’s music up until now has been centered around her own life. Guess I should have figured that she’d move on to stories about other people. Folk tales, if you will, of characters and relationships with their own woes and emotions that Taylor may not directly relate to, but understands with all her heart. That’s always been her greatest strength as a songwriter. Her language of music strikes the perfect balance between personal and universal. Where her experiences are her own, but it still has the appeal and relatability that makes it easy for others to connect with her angst. folklore is the best showcase of that because now Taylor is the observer along with the listener. There’s a bit of wisdom in the way she sings about the teenage love triangle shared between “cardigan”, “august” and “betty”. She knows what each character is going through, and she takes it as seriously as they’re taking it. On a similar note, she understands the sadness that coats a lot of this album. Whether that’d be from loneliness, alcoholism, or the anxiety of everyone talking about you. It’s not a depressing album, but it’s not particularly euphoric either. It’s quiet, understated. Very heavy on the melancholy, especially thanks to Aaron Dessner and Jack Antanoff’s incredible production work.
This is EXACTLY the kind of folk/country sound that works wonders for me. One where the swells are subtle and the sounds are soft and patient. Enough to impress you as you hear the beautiful piano and guitar tones in each song, but not so much that it overshadows Taylor’s writing, which should be the forefront of folklore. Both work in harmony perfectly. There isn’t a single song I would cut here. Even some of the songs I’m not as wild about like “invisible string” and “hoax” are phenomenal in their own unique ways. It earns its length, because not once do I ever feel like it drags or stumbles into a less flattering part of the woods. It’s perfect, from start to finish.
There were a lot of great multiple song runs this year. “The Day I Learned To Lie To You” to “The Long Haul” on Lamentations, “Georgia” to “It’s Always Been You” on Expectations, “God Is Perfect” to “Something To Rap About” on Alfredo (sans “Look At Me” tbh), “Heartless” to “Save Your Tears” on After Hours, and plenty of others. But the one that genuinely blew me away was “mirrorball” to “this is me trying” on folklore. Not only are they all among the best on the album, but the different shades of longing, loneliness, and melancholy that all those songs in a row shared immersed me so deeply into the words Taylor had created that I genuinely started getting emotional. “august” ended up being my second favorite song of the year, but some days, like today, I would consider it my favorite. It’s an immaculate song, one that I’m still floored by to this day. The best instrumental Jack Antanoff has ever created, the most deeply cutting and beautiful lyrics Taylor Swift has ever written, and it struck a personal core with me that so few songs have in recent memory.
So, yes. folklore really is that good, and evermore isn’t far behind. I don’t know how long she’s going to stay within this style, and she’ll unfortunately never be able to capture the same magic she did with this one, but it doesn’t matter. I’m still eagerly anticipating what comes next.
Top 10
1. august
2. exile ft. Bon Iver
3. cardigan
4. seven
5. betty
6. mirrorball
7. this is me trying
8. peace
9. the last great american dynasty
10. the 1
1. Brave Faces, Everyone by Spanish Love Songs
Content Warning: Themes of depression and suicide, discussion of 2020 events including police brutality
What a twist. The three albums whose songs were the highest on my best songs list are also the three best albums of the year.
It’s weird. This album got next to no recognition from many of the major music outlets on their best albums list. Hop on to Youtube, however, and there are multiple critics in that sphere who have hailed this as their favorite album of the year, regardless of if they specialize in rock music or not. I guess I can’t be all that surprised. Outlets like Pitchfork never pay attention to pop-punk or emo in the first place. Why would this be any different? But I dunno. I feel like this should have been a bigger deal than it was. After all, it was released in February of 2020. The month before the pandemic hit and we started REALLY feeling the dread and uncertainty of the year. It resonated then for sure, but once March hit and a lot of us were filled with that early quarantine depression, then the album REALLY started to hit. Because now it’s not just an album about aging punks feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders and being pushed to the brink of a mental collapse. Now it involves everyone. Now everyone is having financial issues that threaten their homes and their lives, now everyone is one step away from death, now everyone feels the drain of losing a lot of the social luxuries they took for granted and might not experience for another year, or worse. But even without the pandemic, it’s not like what Spanish Love Songs are singing about solely applies to 2020 and the stress that year brought upon us. Because it wasn’t recorded or written with 2020 in mind. Maybe the reality is that too many of us are living through what Dylan Slocum is living through. The pandemic just escalated it. I know I was certainly feeling it as a college student. The critics I cited earlier are all within their late 20s and early-mid 30s. Pop-punk has always preferred their audiences within teenage and young adult range, but this is the first time I’ve heard a punk album that deliberately aims a lot older. Where before their biggest problems were broken relationships, feelings of anxiety and depression, and begging for someone to tell them things will be okay, now… Well, things haven’t really changed. It’s just that the situation has become a lot more dire.
Brave Faces, Everyone opens with the line, “On any given day, I’m a six of ten”. That sets the scene for the entire album. The best days of their lives right now consist of a fine day. Nothing bad happens, but nothing good happens either. It just happens. Watching the days blur by as they do their best just to stay alive. That in itself is devastating. What does it say about you that you’re living what should be your “golden years” feeling depressed and exhausted all the time? Is it your fault? Is it your depression fucking you day in and day out? Or is the world just that cruel, and never gives you the break you need to break the cycle and find something to be happy about for once. There are many different factors as to why this album feels stuck in its own routine. And these themes aren’t as simple as a bad breakup, they’re stuff like homelessness, dead-end jobs, passions that are the only things keeping you alive, suicidal thoughts, even parental pressure where they expect you to have everything figured out when in reality you’re completely in the dark without a map. It’s all too much, and every step you make feels like you take another three steps backward.
It sounds like this album is all doom and gloom from how I’m describing it, but that’s where this album unveils its secret weapon. Yes, nothing on here is remotely okay and there’s no reason to assume things are going to get better so long as you’re stuck in this constant cycle… so why do they still hold on to hope? When the universe tells you no, why are there still moments where Slocum stops himself from falling down the deepest hole and joining his friends in making the pain stop? This album is optimistic, even if it has no reason to. And its optimism isn’t even the cheerful, “things will be okay” kind of message. It’s the “we’ll make it through this” kind of optimism. Is it naive and based on nothing? Who cares? Fuck the nihilism. The reason we’re so depressed is that we care. We want to see things get better, for ourselves and for others. When Slocum thinks back to the friends who have taken their lives on “Generation Loss”, he wishes they could be alive to see life turn around for them, even if he understood why they reached such drastic measures. Giving up on his dad at the end of “Kick” is heartwrenching because, for a while, he did have that faith in his dad that maybe he will turn his life around. And losing that faith because he knows when a man is so broken that they refuse to help themselves is a hard decision that no one wants to reach, but may be necessary if they want to see him truly be the person he used to be. Optimism is a radical life choice, not because it’s better to live in misery, but because when everything in your life feels broken and unfixable, still moving on as if things will get better feels fruitless, even if it’s the only thing keeping you at bay. “It won’t be this way forever”? Can you truly believe that? Is there really a chance that this will all be over soon?
Well, it’s April 2020. A little over a year since the pandemic forced the world into lockdown. Back then, a lot of us lived in fear. Not just because of the killer virus that forbids us from enjoying life as we used to, but also the exhausting political debates of that year, preparing for another election where we could be stuck with the same monster of a president we’ve had for the next four years, or someone else who may not be the ideal person for the job. In fact, some people thought we were definitely going to get Trump again. How the hell can anyone trust Biden to get enough votes to defeat Trump and his cult of followers? How can we trust the ever-growing divide between not just conservatives and liberals, but liberals and themselves? Hell, even conservatives are having trouble with their own team, slowly turning into “party over everything” drones while the ones who actually have dignity feel like they’re fighting a losing battle. Later that year, we saw the murder of George Floyd, bringing attention to other victims like Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, and countless others who have died at the hands of people who swore to protect and serve but have instead upheld racist, fascist ideals for centuries. So much so that protests turned to riots, and the world was split on whether or not the rioting was the right thing to do or not, glancing over the point of the injustice that has plagued our nation for years, and will continue to do so without action. It felt like everything was building all at once in 2020, and with ever-increasing cases of COVID-19, growing tensions in political circles, and the lack of action from our government to protect minorities, it sucked. It sucked a lot.
So where are we now?
Well… things are better… kind of. As of now, vaccine rollouts in the United States have been doing really well. I myself will be fully vaccinated at the end of the month, which is making this summer look very promising! Though other countries seem to be struggling with vaccine rollouts, so it’s not like COVID-19 is ending worldwide any time soon. But hey, maybe I can comfortably eat at restaurants again. So that’s cool. Biden did in fact get elected, and he’s certainly better than Trump will ever be. But it’s not like Biden is the progressive change we’ve needed for years. If anything, he’s become very wishy-washy on certain policies that he promised in his campaign, which is probably going to look pretty bad once his four years are up. But at least it’s not Trump? I guess? And as for the Black Lives Matter movement… fuck, we’re still here.
So maybe things aren’t ideal yet, but you know what? We’re getting somewhere. I’m sure the vaccine rollout and losing Trump has made a lot of people breathe easier. We still have a lot of work to do. That said, as Spanish Love Songs say at the end of the title track, “We don’t have to fix everything at once”. We’ve got long lives ahead of us, and if we can fix things one at a time so that someday we can at least feel a little better than we did at our lowest point, that has to mean something, doesn’t it?
That’s what lies at the core of Brave Faces, Everyone. It’s not looking for a solution or an answer. As desperate as they are for one, all they can really do is move one step at a time. Find the little moments that bring us that second of happiness, whether it comes from our friends or our passions, and hold on to it for dear fucking life. And there’s a comfort in that idea that no other album has ever been able to capture. That sense of dread connects you with the art while not feeling like you’re drowning in your own sorrow. Nor does it give you so much bullshit that you give yourself false hope. Still, that optimism is what keeps you alive, and that promise that it won’t be this way forever is why you look forward to the next day, whatever it may bring. I know I ended the songs list with this mantra, but it bears repeating. Because it’s a mantra that has kept me going over the past year. It was true then, and it’s true now.
Brave faces, everyone.
Top 10
1. Brave Faces, Everyone
2. Kick
3. Beach Front Property
4. Routine Pain
5. Generation Loss
6. Self-Destruction (as a sensible career choice)
7. Losers
8. Optimism (as a radical life choice)
9. Losers 2
10. Dolores
TL;DR
