2020: Albums & Conclusions

Originally posted August 2025

Albums

Marking key at bottom

Pop Smoke “Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon”

I think the popularity of this has a lot to do with their death (victim of murder) a few months beforehand. Its OK but that’s about it for me. Its sort of ‘easy listening’ -  all fairly simple and standard for this genre. I wouldn’t say it particularly stands out or offers anything different enough to be noteworthy. I do really like “Get It On Me”. 5

Nubya Garcia “SOURCE”

Great stuff – a jazz-based album, fused with other styles including reggae and salsa, with some out-of-this-world piano playing. Jazz albums can be difficult - unless there are particularly diverse aspects, you kind of ‘get it’ after 3 or 4 tracks, and your experience is not enhanced by listening to the remainder. It that sense, this is borderline – there’s just about enough to keep that sense of interest, but not quite enough for you to hit ‘play’ again immediately after. That said, the final short track is very interesting with an unusual melody that is 1^st sung but then played by a solo bass to finish the album. I have to say that was intriguing and left me wanting more. So good job there. I really like the tracks “Stand With Each Other” and “La Cumbia Me Está Llamando”. 7

Eminem “Music To Be Murdered By”

Well, although a little long at always, this was a darn sight better than the 2024 album about the death of Slim Shady. This is more about death in general. More specifically murder. Even more specifically how humans seem obsessed with physically harming each other, even those closest to them, up to and including murder. Almost every track has interesting musical elements (probably down to the numerous collaborations) and there’s a number of styles/genres being delved into while always sounding like Eminem. Eminem is always theatrical but I particularly like the presentation here – like an evening of drama on stage presented (sort of literally) by Alfred Hitchcock. 7

Sault “untitled (Black Is......)”

Although this act released 5 albums in just over a few years, the 2 released in 2020 just a few months apart feel like a ‘couplet’ as they are both ‘untitled’...... except with titles. Given this, I thought it was only right to listen to both, although it was the 2^nd one, “untitled (Rise)” that had made it to my 2020 album playlist as a particularly acclaimed album. Lyrically, it explores a number Black issues including stereotypes, discrimination, and other day-to-day experiences. Musically it draws on Black music and genres including R&B, gospel, soul as well as religious/political chants, working songs, and spirituals. The music twists and turns around these various elements and it makes for incredibly interesting listening. My main criticism would be that, like much ‘popular music’, there is a large amount of repetition. The problem is that the record is over an hour long. So given a bit of editing (that I don’t believe would have made anything less impactful) we could have had an album that wasn’t just brilliant, but a masterpiece. I’m guessing the follow-up “Rise” focuses on civil rights and uprisings. Let’s see. 7

Sault “untitled (Rise)”

Yep. So this carries on very much in the same vain although there is more emphasis on percussion and complex rhythmic patterns. Like the 1^st, there are no ‘songs’ as such until the closing track “Little Boy”. This offers quite a nice summary and emotional finale to the pair of albums. It juxtaposes warnings about ‘boys in blue’ with positive spiritual affirmations ‘Heaven's angels shining down on us........... God has chosen us’ before a sudden abrupt ending that leaves us wondering exactly what the conclusion is. I’d say it is the slightly better of the 2 albums. 7

Juice WRLD “Legends Never Die”

I was expecting more from an album so acclaimed. To be fair, the influences are fairly eclectic, from Billy Idol to Eminem to Blink-182 to Kanye West, which is a plus point. But despite that, I didn’t feel like I was listening to something that majorly stood out in this genre. 6

Lady Gaga “Chromatica”

I’ve talked about my view on Lady Gaga elsewhere.. I believe she has always been an artist with potential to be one of the greats. A Bowie. However, the industry has ensured that ever since the “The Fame (/Monster)”/“Born This Way” days, she has been stuck. Its like the creative train belted out the station in 2008/9 but came to a grinding halt in 2011/12 and we’ve been listening to the ‘sorry for the delay’ notices ever since. There have been hints of great artistry since then (particularly just after that time) but it never shines through in the music. This is particularly evident to me on this album because the 1^st 3 quarters is 2008-12. Then just at the very end there is a collection of short tracks that dart all over the place in all sorts of direction like an ‘Innovation Monster’ (see what I did there?) trying to break free. I believe that may even be the deliberate massage being presented to those who care to listen properly. It fits nicely with my theory that the industry’s incessant chasing of streaming statistics, and using them to pan to algorithms, means that creativity has to come late in an album. Why? Because otherwise you run the risk of audiences switching off too early in the stream if they’re just not into it. You’ve got to play it safe and keep them there to the point where the algorithm doesn’t care if they listen to the end or not anymore. Only then do you have the freedom to be an artist again. 6

Georgia “Seeking Thrills”

I was drawn in by this and it held my attention well. Its very well produced 80s synth sounding pop with sprinkles of creativity and innovation here and there. There’s some lyrical depth with some dark and cynical themes that also calls back the 80s music it mimics. Although I wouldn’t call it ‘bland’ by any means I didn’t feel there were any ‘peaks’ of the album and it needed just a little something extra (always hard to put your finger on what) to lift it off the ground. 6

The Weeknd “After Hours”

For me, this just confirms my thoughts on this artist. Although the very latest album may be either a step up or an exception, overall, for every brilliant track they produce, there are ten mediocre to poor ones. “Save Your Tears” is one of the examples of a great track on this album and it will probably be among my top singles of 2020. There’s one or two more. But the rest are basically ‘non-plusses’ or ‘thumbs down’. 4

Lanterns On The Lake “Spook The Herd”

I DO like this but there’s a ‘but’. Its very good indie – better than you average ‘middle of the road’ indie. Its basically standard indie music with little bits of interest thrown in whether it be a piano at the forefront, a drum beat that throws you off the rhythmic scent, or vocals that lean towards the baroque-pop genre that’s fairly prevalent at present. The ‘but’ is that this is all I have to say about it and Im in no rush to listen to it again. I don’t think its worth more that the mark I’ve given. 6

Laura Marling “Song For Our Daughter”

Considering how critically acclaimed this is I was a little disappointed. That said, it’s good. Well written songs with a folk-like leaning. Fairly good melodies and pretty strong lyrics. There’s nothing massively outstanding or particularly noteworthy, however. 6

Sarah Mary Chadwick “Please Daddy”

To be honest my mini-review of this is almost identical to the Laura Marling one. So read that and replace ‘folk-like’ with ‘indie’. 6

Little Mix “Confetti”

This is their 6^th of 7 studio album (I think) and the last as a four-piece act (and the group are now on a ‘hiatus’ concentrating on solo projects). Its a fairly decent pop album. However, I’ve heard a lot of Little Mix over the years and would be surprised if this was their best album. There’s some fine examples of great pop, “Sweet Melody” being the most obvious, but it has the feeling of a group who have been going for a while and are tiring a little. I’m not familiar with Little Mix albums, but I know them to have a great mix of fun, serious, edgy, sass, quirky etc., that’s just not coming across here. 5

Wrekmeister Harmonies “We Love To Look At The Carnage”

Here we go. This is very me. Now, being ‘experimental’ can be problematic. Experiments either work or fail, right? I still struggle to work out after over 50 years (well..... not literally for me) if Captain Beefheart’s stuff is genius or just a load of noise we would all be capable of producing if we just did anything at all for 40 minutes......... or if, maybe, that’s the point. Here is an example of it working. Probably because there is some ‘root’ that it is build from. That is to say that the rock band format, usual song compositional structures, and standard western tonality – are all evident. The music drifts subtly in and out of those traditional elements. The band is there but then other elements are added, the band is reduced or drops out etc. Western tonality is there, but there is also a lot of dissonance. There is evidence of song structures, but they are a loose starting point only. The whole work has an ‘ambient but dark’ tone to it which I like. But, be prepared for that if you give it a listen – you’re heart will not race with excitement. Towards the end, this all builds to a crescendo in which all those traditional elements are almost entirely let go. The band is almost entirely drowned out by various other instruments. The final sound they create is completely dissonant thus letting go of any tonal organisation. And, any song-like element gives way to poetic spoken word. This album may have saved my view of 2020 single-handedly. 8

Taylor Swift “folklore”

The opening track sums up Taylor Swift for me (which is strange given my statement at the end of this mini-review). The musical arrangement is very good, interesting, and the ‘sound’ created is superb. The lyrics are good – drawing on relatable human experiences. The melody is lacking – based very much around notes 1-2-3 of the root scale with many monotonic lines. So, there’s positives and negatives. On the whole – good but not incredible. And the album very much continues in that vein. There’s some interesting vocal work like passages that sound like they were intended for an instrument originasavedbut replaced by vocal quirks like a sudden vocal slide up that lands on an indefinite note at the end of lines in “epiphany”. Incidentally, I really like that track, I give Swift a very high score for that track in isolation. I do also really like “cardigan” “madwoman” & “peace”. But there are others like “mirrorball” that are complete throw aways. That’s a bit of a problem given that the album is over an hour long.

I do like the fact that most of the music is quite scarcely arranged. This is quite different from much of Swifts output. The vocal have a slightly different quality to them too. Its like they’ve been turned up and cleaned up slightly so she’s not just part of the music but really up close and person – right in your earhole. There’s a more subtle but poignant use of percussion here than I usually find with Swift too. I fact, despite what I said in the outset, curiously this album doesn’t sound particularly like Taylor Swift. 6

Albums I already knew

Paul McCartney “McCartney III” 6

Dua Lipa “Future Nostalgia” 6

ANY CONCLUSIONS?

It would be a big job to fully demonstrate, but I believe there’s something in my theory that there was a correlation between the Covid pandemic and poor quality in popular music. We need to go back 2 or 3 years from 2020 to make that conclusion more solidly. There was certainly a lot of DJ/Producer music during these years. There was also a surge of lyrics that referenced death in some way. I think both these are the results of the pandemic. The very sad lyrics probably reflect people’s anxieties at the time. Of course, Dua Lipa was knocking them dead (excuse the dreadful pun) this year so that saved it a bit for me. Albums were slightly below par this year. But, only slightly. There was an 8 in there. I AM hoping my theory is correct because the years 2022/21/20 were not a great listening experience so that’s been 5 months of not particularly enjoying this project. So things need to pick up in 2019 or I will have to consider abandoning it, which would be a shame really.

Marking key (in a nutshell)

10 – Perfect (only 3 albums in history)

9 – Basically 10/10 (I just don’t quite view them in the same way as the 3 albums)

8 – Outstanding (possible nit-picking criticisms)

7 – Brilliant

6 – Good

5 – Average

4 – Has potential but below average

3 – Some good points but not very good overall

2 – Poor (possibly a few good points)

1 – Abysmal