Might be reacting this way in part due to the recent Britney Spears docuseries, but it would be nice if people could just get these things right the first time rather than with mournful "we failed them" statements years later. All it would take is not being an asshole and thinking for yourself.
Since he's releasing a new album this week, I'd like to announce that I recently caught up with John Carpenter's The Fog and am not sure why it's not more celebrated in his filmography. Great movie, definitely his prettiest visually.
This is almost too on-the-nose as a follow-up to Jackie (which I loved) but I want it anyway haha. There's an interesting amount of overlap between that movie's focus on public figure mythmaking, the life/death of Princess Diana and Kristen Stewart's IRL tabloid experience circa Twilight and her break-up with Robert Pattinson. Can't wait!
Also hope more people can see Pablo Larraín's last movie Ema at some point, which was available for exactly one day on MUBI last year. Equally fantastic movie, and featuring a Nicolas Jaar score to boot.
I'm not a health professional and dunno if this was a 100% safe alternative to pre-COVID concerts, but I think it's incredibly sweet and reminds me of why I used to love Flaming Lips so much in the first place. Helps that they're (presumably) playing in support of their best album in ages too.
Love Haxan Cloak and am excited to check this out, but...I wonder if he has something cooler in the works than the soundtrack to TNT's The Alienist.
Excavation and his Midsommar soundtrack still hit though, this one especially:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHtN960pw5U
[Don Jr., through gritted teeth] Worn Copy is an underrated gem and lost masterpiece that the fake news media doesn't you want you to know about, they hate our culture and our proud tape hiss warriors
This is good on more or less the same level and in more or less the same ways as Honeymoon or Norman Fucking Rockwell, I think - whether or not you're still willing to engage with her as open-mindedly as on those works is really up to the individual listener.
Really loving this, would've been in my 2020 top 10 had it dropped earlier. Definitely lives up to its event album status, and kinda strikes me as the isolationist/embittered yin to the maximalist group-hang yang of Eternal Atake (deluxe).
All my diseased young millennial brain has been able to think about during this cursed "bean dad" saga is the villain from the 2000s WB Kids' show Xiaolin Showdown who was a literal bean:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/villainstournament/images/3/3e/Hannibal_Roy_Bean.jpg
Really really liking the new Avalanches record, I don't know why I went in with such low expectations. They basically made their version of a DJ Koze album with higher profile features and more straightforward moments of beauty; you can practically hear the knobs turning on alotta these songs. Definitely would've been in my top 20 had we not decided the year ended on December 1st.
Also - though maybe not as miraculous an achievement as Since I Left You - there's something really special about how this album creates a space for so many artists of different stripes to coexist in, especially during this time where we can't coexist in physical spaces. It seems like the record was somewhat made with that context in mind, and I can see it serving as a loneliness tonic in the months to come.
LIst szn feels premature every year, but between this, the new Avalanches and the news that Playboi Carti is apparently dropping his album on Christmas, it feels especially premature this year.
I never end up doing songs lists any more - to me, they just end up being a best singles list padded out with a handful of deep cuts with consensus approval. I dunno, it just rings hollow when the best songs are consistently the ones that receive a targeted release with long-term marketing objectives.
Not sure what happened to Shrines amidst list discussions - it seemed like it garnered a lot of respectful reviews when it dropped, but has somewhat disappeared from "year's best" territory. Maybe they're just the kind of group destined to be overlooked by mainstream consensus. Still think it's more or less a masterpiece, though; certainly better than other rap duos that have been elevated to "year's best" status, in my opinion...
For me it's:
1) Eternal Atake (deluxe) // Lil Uzi Vert
2) Shrines // Armand Hammer
3) Descendants of Cain // Ka
4) Aesop Rock // Spirit World Field Guide
5) Purple Moonlight Pages // R.A.P. Ferreira
6) Ho, Why Is You Here? // Flo Milli
7) The Price of Tea in China // Boldy James & The Alchemist
8) God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It // Backxwash
9) Miles // Blu & Exile
10 Àdá Irin // Navy Blue
Ugh, you're a villain for hearing the new Avalanches before the rest of us.
Love your list! I thought the new Tame Impala was super slept-on, it did such a good job of navigating more emotionally complex situations than the heartbreak of Currents, while also sounding like several different eras of pop music blended together on like every song. And the Against All Logic album was a fittingly jagged soundtrack for this roughshod year, "If You Can't Do It Good Do It Hard" is SOTY IMO.
Top 10 2020:
1) Microphones in 2020 // The Microphones
2) 2017-2019 // Against All Logic
3) Eternal Atake (Deluxe) // Lil Uzi Vert
4) The Ascension // Sufjan Stevens
5) Shrines // Armand Hammer
6) Notes on a Conditional Form // The 1975
7) What's Your Pleasure? // Jessie Ware
8) Inlet // Hum
9) 1000 gecs and The Tree of Clues // 100 gecs
10) SIGN // Autechre
The next 10:
11) No Dream // Jeff Rosenstock
12) PLUS // Autechre
13) Fetch the Bolt Cutters // Fiona Apple
14) Telas // Nicolas Jaar
15) Descendants of Cain // Ka
16) Punisher // Phoebe Bridgers
17) The Slow Rush // Tame Impala
18) Spirit World Field Guide // Aesop Rock
19) Magic Oneohtrix Point Never // Oneohtrix Point Never
20) Roisin Machine // Roisin Murphy
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