Madonna has had exactly fifty Top 40 songs in her Hot 100 career. “Live To Tell” is my very favorite of all of them. What an excellent way to end this week!

tbh the Strokes were tied with Charli XCX and Taylor Swift and we decided we’d throw the comments section a bone with the tiebreaker 🙂

Bringing it all full circle, in 2018 I was in Dallas for the NHL Draft. A friend of mine is an NHL scout, and we were checking off some of my Dallas goals. We saw the Texas Book Repository and the grass knoll from JFK’s assassination which shook me to the core. Then we balanced things off by going to Neiman Marcus. After Neiman Marcus, we found a bar that advertised margaritas, so we sat at the bar, ordered two margaritas and nachos. The bartender who didn’t look like Lulu was rooting for Mexico in the world cup. I mentioned that my friend used to play in the NHL and was in town for the NHL Draft. The Non-Lulu-look-a-like bartender Wiki’d my friend’s name, and from that point on the margaritas were on the house.

I was wearing the same yellow tropical floral print shirt that I wore in Philly in 1986. Earlier in the day we had breakfast at a local spot everyone was raving about. I noticed the similarities between my shirt, and the restaurant’s wallpaper.

Like good friends, music and food, tropical prints and free margaritas are timeless, and priceless.

This is a song that exists.

Easily the best of Madge’s number ones so far, she delivers her most tasteful performance yet. A sophisticated piece of synth pop, it’s another example of Madonna going against type. The synths are moody, introverted, and even a little brooding. I love the chorus and the simple melody. Many critics derided her singing as subpar, but on this track she sings with sadness, determination, and even a bit of hope. To me it’s her best vocal performance to date. One of my favorite songs by her. 8.

I accept downvotes with arms wide open. Movies about Reagan should be dumb.

As a music listener and artist I’m very very glad that the work of straight white dudes isn’t as much “on the menu” by default in this world of discourse as, say, a decade ago. It makes for a much richer musical landscape both on an artistic and a personality level, and it makes me just want to make the best thing I possibly can! So in a way, you can thank the climate for that run of songs between Sunblind and Gioia, as I knew it would have to be that good to be worth people’s time and attention, when there is so much else that’s so great being made by so many kinds of artists right now.

and Dear Tommy 😉

I was reading this article during my daily morning staff meeting on Google Classroom (for which I was supposed to be paying attention) and I totally busted a gut when I got to this part: “McDonald, meanwhile, sounds like a big passionate Labrador”. Unfortunately, it was right when my principal was talking about something serious and I looked like a giant a-hole.

All that for a song that’s a total snooze-fest.

We’re three weeks away from being able to say we survived 2020. Who knows what those three weeks will hold? Maybe a coup. Maybe a third Taylor Swift album. I won’t try to guess. But I’m glad you’ve all made it through the year safely and sense of taste intact (those of you who lost it lost it too long ago for this to be a COVID-related thing).

I’ve been doing the ‘Gummers Poll informally since 2014 when I wanted to prove scientifically that the Stereogum staff snubbed St. Vincent’s self-titled album (pettiness is very much at the heart of this endeavor). Since 2018, I’ve gotten a critical assist from chazpod, who has helped me make the whole thing much more rigorous and accurate. We still don’t have AI scrubbing the comments or anything, but we run a pretty good operation.

For those who need a refresher, we round up all of your lists from the official AOTY post, and assign points based on your Top 10 rankings (1st = 5 pts, 2nd = 4 pts, 3rd = 3 pts, 4th-5th = 2 pts, 6th-10th = 1 pt). This year, chaz suggested we include unranked lists, giving 2 pts to each of the first ten albums one each of those lists. In the end, we tabbed 138 “ballots” and tallied votes for something like 400 unique albums. Once we had a clear top tier of albums, we ran our numbers over and over until we both had the same results for every single one.

Below, you’ll see each album’s score and its vote total, which gives you a sense of which placements were powered by broad consensus vs. deep enthusiasm (though the higher ranking albums always need some of both). The vote total is our first tie-breaker, after that we look at the better performance in terms of 1st place votes, then 2nd, etc.

In the end, we had a clear winner, closely trailed by three other albums that separated themselves from the rest of the pack by some distance. From place seven on down, it was nothing but hair-splitters, which means that, as always, ever vote mattered.

So here it is to read, relive, and relitigate: YOUR 2020 Album of the Year Rankings:

50. Adrianne Lenker – songs (11, 9)
49.Oranssi Pazuzu – Mestaryn kynsi (12, 6)
48. Helena Deland – Someone New (12, 6)
47. Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou – May Our Chambers Be Full (13, 4)
46. Armand Hammer – Shrines (13, 4)
45. Ka – Descendants of Cain (13, 5)
44. Against All Logic – 2017 – 2019 (14, 7)
43. Arca – KiCk i (14, 7)
42. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – Sideways to New Italy (15, 8)
41. Young Jesus – Welcome to Conceptual Beach (16, 5)
40. The Microphones – Microphones in 2020 (16, 5)
39. Boldy James – The Price of Tea in China (16, 7)
38. Kelly Lee Owens – Inner Song (16, 10)
37. Empty Country – Empty Country (17, 6)
36. Roisin Murphy – Roisin Machine (17, 7)
35. Soccer Mommy – color theory (17, 9)
34. Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist – Alfredo (17, 12)
33. Laura Marling – Song For Our Daughter (18, 9)
32. Nap Eyes – Snapshot of a Beginner (19, 8)
31. The 1975 – Notes on a Conditional Form (21, 9)
30. Grimes – Miss Anthropocene (21, 12)
29. Sufjan Stevens – The Ascension (21, 13)
28. The Strokes – The New Abnormal (22, 10)
27. Hum – Inlet (22, 12)
26. Nation of Language – Introduction, Presence (23, 10)
25. Mare Cognitum & Spectral Lore – Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine (24, 8)
24. Fontaines D.C. – A Hero’s Death (24, 12)
23. SAULT – Untitled (Rise) (26, 10.5)
22. Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia (28, 12)
21. SAULT – Untitled (Black Is) (29, 8.5)
20. Protomartyr – Ultimate Success Today (30, 9)
19. Taylor Swift – folklore (30, 11)
18. Andy Shauf – The Neon Skyline (33, 15)
17. Moses Sumney – grae (34, 17)
16. Tame Impala – The Slow Rush (34, 18)
15. Dogleg – Melee (36, 13)
14. HAIM – Women in Music Pt. III (36, 15)
13. Charli XCX – how I’m feeling now (37, 11)
12. Porridge Radio – Every Bad (39, 18)
11. Caribou – Suddenly (40, 19)
10. Destroyer – Have We Met (41, 16)
09. Jeff Rosenstock – NO DREAM (42, 20)
08. Jessie Ware – What’s Your Pleasure? (43, 19)
07. Perfume Genius – Set My Heart on Fire Immediately (44, 16)
06. Yves Tumor – Heaven to a Tortured Mind (52, 22)
05. Run the Jewels – RTJ4 (68, 32)
04. Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher (103, 42)
03. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud (105, 37)
02. Fleet Foxes – Shore (109, 40)
01. Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters (127, 42)

Ugh, Sia is the worst. Imagine seeing the horrible stuff FKATwigs posted about, which I totally believe, and then jumping in like “same, he lied to me about being single”.
Yeah… that’s the same Sia.

Can’t wait to see how much critical praise she gets for releasing an album that sounds like a collection of Paula Cole B-sides.

I feel sorry for the women who know you.

I’m guessing Phoebe is popular with the white incel crowd. Her music does absolutely nothing for me. People, I’ve been disappointed in these lists.

Stereogum readers have pedestrian taste. Also, the G in the new Stereogum logo looks wrong.

Finally stopped lurking and made an account just so I could post this: