With 2020 inbound, it seemed as if artists all over were trying to send off the decade with a bang, releasing their most thought-provoking music yet. Whether it be independently emerging acts like Weatherday and JPEGMAFIA, or already established veterans like Tyler, the Creator or David Berman, new music was always landing within a few mere touches of user-bases prone to simple consumption of music with our streaming-based musical culture.
Power Chords is Mike Krol’s fourth studio album, and the first that is about a normal album’s length at 34 minutes. Krol comes with the same flare, energy, and ideas from his previous records, but continues to expand and polish them. He has perfected the amount of fuzz needed to give his songs a certain charm, and the production is smooth but still gives off the same lo-fi vibes as his previous work.
Brooklyn indie-pop band Charly Bliss released a contagiously fun and infectious sophomore album titled Young Enough, which highlights the band’s catchy songwriting and mature instrumentation as they experiment with synth sounds and electronic drum beats. The sparkling guitar sounds and bubbly vocals from lead singer Eva Hendricks as she sings about her struggles in a relationship over dancy choruses on “Capacity” and “Chatroom” create an honest connection between the band and its listeners.
After years of building itself from the ground, PC Music has finally hit the musical mainstream with its relentless attitude and style. Pioneered by the likes of Carly Rae Jepsen and Charli XCX, this new brand of electro-pop is promising. Dylan Brandy’s and Laura Les’s 1000 Gecs, a jittery joyride of an album that blends many genres into one indistinguishable product, became an indie darling, emerging from music forums and websites whilst grabbing the attention of all that came its way. The album’s overbearing hilarity and sporadic, chip-tuned choruses mold a sudden infectiousness, sneaking into the listener’s body and making them play the 24-minute adrenaline rush over-and-over again. 1000 Gecs is a true underdog; it’s ironically fueled nature and oddball inanity somehow managed to gain the pair a dedicated cult following, turning them and their genre from complete nobodys to the next big thing in popular music.
By the looks of it, hip-hop seems to be heading in a new, innovative direction. ECCO2k, MIKE, and JPEGMAFIA made strides this year with their somber, stripped-back releases. The bluntly titled E was a highly anticipated and highly rewarding project from Swedish rapper ECCO2k. Hazy synth swells and repetitive vocal lines layer spiraling arpeggiated leads, forming a dense cloud of blissful sweetness. The minimalist nature of the record is lackadaisical, frolicing aimlessly in its dreamy soundscapes. E feels like a perfect piece for this current artistic renaissance; the record is bold in its simplicity, containing the essence of art in our digital age.
MIKE’s Tears of Joy displayed the now accomplished rapper’s ability to forge a melded connection between his rapping and his production. MIKE’s pillowy tone lies atop beats of scattered nostalgia with ease. His usage of jazz, soul and funk samples isn’t quite common. Instead of searching for an alternative melody buried in the song, he chops his samples into fragments of comfortable, loungy sporadics. Tears of Joy has the qualities of a soft embrace: accepting, warm and occasionally melancholic.
JPEGMAFIA, one of the most interesting and flamboyant faces in hip-hop, toned down his usual rioty attitude in exchange for more focused and mature songs coated with deep polish and care. The rapper stated he was trying to capture a more raw side of himself, taking less time to second-guess what he was making and let his inner artistry shine. All My Heroes are Cornballs is an exhibition in creativity. JPEGMAFIA does front-flips over each genre in the musical spectrum. From his ambitious take on 90s alternative Rr&B on “Free the Frail” to his usual chaotically fueled rap on “PRONE!”, JPEGMAFIA proved he wasn’t a one-trick-pony, unexpectedly changing his motif and style and in the act of doing so, becoming a new beast.
Nothing Great About Britain, a solid debut by the UK-rapper Slowthai, is filled with passion and fervor. Slowthai quickly gained lots of positive press with the release of his album as he brings a new energy to the UK-bred grime rap scene. Through his lyrics, Slowthai released his rage towards the establishment, dealing with classism and other sociopolitical issues Britain suffers from. “I will treat you with the utmost respect / only if you respect me a little bit, Elizabeth,” he says at the end of the album opener “Nothing Great About Britain.” Slowthai continues to flaunt his reckless energy on “Doorman” and “Drug Dealer.”
Fontaines D.C., a new band from Dublin, Ireland, released its debut album Dogrel on Rough Trade. The album sticks to traditional post-punk sounds and focuses on lyrics about the experiences attached to growing up and living in Dublin. It comes after many other albums from the likes of IDLES and Shame that have gone on to revitalize the genre into a necessary response to modern-day discord. Over driving tangy bell-like ride hits, lead vocalist Grian Chatten sings in his thick Irish accent with a stern delivery, “Dublin in the rain is mine, a pregnant city with a catholic mind,” on the album opener “Big.” The guitars are heavy, the percussion is loud and driving, and the vocals are idiosyncratic, adding to the uniqueness of Dogrel.
Lurking from the shadows, sheltered from the larger scope of the music landscape, Swedish solo-artist Weatherday was silently gaining immense praise from nerdiest of music fans. Their fuzzy and abrasive, yet overbearingly cutesy, debut Come In follows in the footsteps of emo band The Brave Little Abacus–except without the somewhat intolerable whiny vocals. Its multi-layered guitar melodies shriek with the force of a Californian earthquake. The singer and multi-instrumentalist, known to fans as Sputnik, sings poetic lyrics of self-acceptance with such passion: an electric shock of sorts. Come In was recorded and performed by one person. The album is thematically and tonally cohesive as a result. It even reworks melodies into other songs, creating a singular, fully realized piece.
David Berman released his last album before passing away under the new name Purple Mountains. While the music consists of brighter arrangements, the lyrics are raw, honest and depressing. On one of the saddest songs, “Darkness and Cold,” Berman sings about his recent divorce with his wife singing, “The light of my life is going out tonight, without a flicker of regret.” Listeners may be bobbing their heads to the songs, forgetting Berman is singing about heavy topics such as his depression, drinking alone and the passing of his mother. The album is equally touching, funny, disturbing, painful and playful, and the lyrics are an incredibly brilliant look into the mind of someone who is defeated as a person complemented by music that is bright and masterfully arranged to make something so difficult, so appealing and even catchy.
Country music’s newest outlaw, Orville Peck, released his debut album on Sub Pup titled Pony. As a gay country artist, Peck’s entry into the genre is an important step towards more diversity in country music. Peck takes traditional country ideas and adds his own unique sound. Peck’s voice has a maturity to it reminiscent of an old-time crooner. His smooth, deep vocals are the highlight of this album and certainly add to its gothic country vibe. The abstract pacing on songs like “Big Sky” and “Queen of the Rodeo” has more in common with Joy Division’s slowest ventures into sadness. The western atmosphere is built upon glossy guitar effects and vocal filters with traditional instrumentation making sparse appearances.
The cover for Weyes Blood’s new album Titanic Rising depicts Natalie Mering in a bedroom entirely submerged in water. According to Mering, the bedroom is a safe space for one’s subconscious to roam free. Rather than a place of mortal peril, the flooded bedroom is an incubator of innermost thoughts, fresh ideas and entire galaxies of the mind. Consequently, Titanic Rising is anything but a bedroom pop album. It is symphonic, sprawling and immensely spacious. It has such a calm and dreamy atmosphere for the music on the album. The lyrics on the album seem to be obsessed with meaning as Mering navigates through failed relationships, her faith in figures such as god and the suicide of a friend, there is an aspect of existentialism as she sings about the meaning of life.
A rambunctious, teenage rapper turned neo-soul superstar, Tyler, the Creator has certainly had a transformative year. With his new persona and album IGOR, the once dark rapper took a sharp tonal turn without seeming too out of character. IGOR is much softer; its quaint touches of delicacy painting a pastel-colored portrait of a failed relationship. In recent years, Tyler Okonama has come out of his shell both artistically and personally. His newest works contain themes of LGBT love, a bold statement for one of the largest artists who earlier in his career was accused of being homophobic, his harsh language making him appear as such. Songs like “A BOY IS A GUN*” and “I THINK” are funkier ventures with sounds that feel nostalgic for the neo-soul that dominated the early 1970s but fresh with its own flare. Even with its plethora of minor features–Lil Uzi Vert, Solange, Santigold, Slowthai, and Kanye West–the album feels personal to Tyler, never becoming a convoluted mess of popular names. IGOR is defiant, the start of something new. Although Tyler is masked with pitch-shifted vocals, his performance is in no ways artificial; his character on the record is touching, charming, and most importantly relatable. Tyler is leading the pack of new artists with IGOR, showing that personal expression and ambition are still adored by large audiences across the world.
