Favorite Rock* Albums, 2020
25 favorite rock albums not from Japan
My music-listening and music-searching drastically shifted focus to Japanese music this year because, well, that’s what happens when you run a biweekly newsletter about Japanese music. Priorities naturally changed, and one big casualty was rock music not from Japan. I kinda want to say certain types of records brought diminishing returns: singer-songwriter types, for one, either underwhelmed or just wholly lost me. But I also know I did not do that well of a job keeping up with singles and actually listening to new albums. This list is thinner than I would like, though it is what it is. If you’re looking for Japanese rock albums will be included in my overall best Japanese albums list.
Here are 25 rock albums of 2020 I enjoyed, plus Bandcamp links for the available titles:
- The Beths: Dying to Believe [Carpark]
- Bill Callahan: Gold Record [Drag City]
- Brandy Clark: Your Life Is a Record [Warner]
- Code Orange: Underneath [Roadrunner]
- Couch Slut: Take a Chance on Rock ’n’ Roll [Gilead Media]
- Dogleg: Melee [Triple Crown]
- Frail Hands: parted/departed/apart [Twelve Gauge]
- Gulch: Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress [Closed Casket Activities]
- Gulfer: Gulfer [Topshelf]
- Higher Power: 27 Miles Underwater [Roadrunner]
- Hum: Inlet [Earth Analog]
- I’m Glad It’s You: Every Sun, Every Moon[6131]
- Infant Island: Beneath [Dog Knights]
- Loathe: I Let It In and It Took Everything [SharpTones]
- No Thank You: Embroidered Foliage [Lame-O]
- Nothing: Say Less [Relapse]
- Nuvolascura: As We Suffer from Memory and Imagination [Zegema Beach / Dog Knights]
- Oransi Pazuzu: Mestarin kynsi [Nuclear Blast]
- Perfume Genius: Set My Heart on Fire Immediately [Matador]
- Sadness: Atna [self-released]
- Serpent Column: Endless Detainment [Mystiskaos]
- Stay Inside: Viewing [No Sleep]
- Stormlight: Natoma [Zegema Beach]
- Triangulo de Amor Bizarro: Triangulo de Amor Bizarro [Mushroom Pillow]
- Wednesday: I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone [Orindal]
