Best Music of 2020

[gaporter]

To give you an idea of how I feel about What's Your Pleasure?, I'm considering having this album upend Dua's.
I need one more week with it to confirm. Regardless, it is Tier I worthy.

I'm not sure when Rough Trade will ship my copy but I'm waiting until it comes in to give it a full listen and hoping it lives up to the hype. I don't want to have to be the one on the outside looking in, not "getting it" as I often tend to be on the albums everyone praises on here.

 

[whatwhatsaywhat]

You'd file Thundercat as a hip hop album?

hip-hop, yes

rap, no

if that makes sense?

 

[NathanRicaud]

To give you an idea of how I feel about What's Your Pleasure?, I'm considering having this album upend Dua's.
I need one more week with it to confirm. Regardless, it is Tier I worthy.

Future Nostalgia is great but What’s Your Pleasure? is easily better in my opinion! It’s more confident, saucy, exquisite, sexy, fun and the production is more sophisticated and quirky too on What’s Your Pleasure?! Also, I feel like the last two tracks on Future Nostalgia weigh the album down a bit as they’re average. What’s Your Pleasure? however is consistent throughout and finishes on a real high!!!

 

[gaporter]

Future Nostalgia is great but What’s Your Pleasure? is easily better in my opinion! It’s more confident, saucy, exquisite, sexy, fun and the production is more sophisticated and quirky too on What’s Your Pleasure?! Also, I feel like the last two tracks on Future Nostalgia weigh the album down a bit as they’re average. What’s Your Pleasure? however is consistent throughout and finishes on a real high!!!

"Good in Bed" and "Boys Will Be Boys" are average?

I'm doubting I will like this more than Future Nostalgia (again, that's a high bar to clear even if FN isn't my favorite album of the year so far) but I'm willing to be proven wrong. I guess we'll see when it shows up in the mail

 

[Rip_City]

I feel like the last two tracks on Future Nostalgia weigh the album down a bit as they’re average.

No argument there whatsoever. Glad to see we are on the same page in that regard. The primary reason why I think Future Nostalgia will be felled with further consideration.

It's a good thing she's, at some point, dropping the deluxe edition CD at Target. I'm curious to see what tracks weren't deemed good enough to replace the aforementioned ones.

 

[gaporter]

No argument there whatsoever. Glad to see we are on the same page in that regard. The primary reason why I think Future Nostalgia will be felled with further consideration.

TIL I'm in the minority with my love of "Good in Bed"

 

[NathanRicaud]

TIL I'm in the minority with my love of "Good in Bed"

That’s all good though if most of us don’t care for “Good in Bed”! We all have our hot takes and unique music tastes!

The reason why I don’t like “Good In Bed” is because it sounds stiff, and has a flat yet simultaneously whiny chorus. The bridge leading up to the chorus feels a bit out of place too, like the verse starts off cheeky, tongue in cheek and cool, and then the bridge feels lost in the mix. I can see what Dua Lip was trying to do in the song, and it’s a cheeky, fun song which I think does encapsulate that ‘Future Nostalgia’ element well, but it’s a bit of a mediocre track because it feels laboured, and doesn’t have sex appeal when it should with those cheeky lyrics...

Boys Will Be Boys also starts really well, and I love the refrain - boys will be boys, but girls will be woman - but then after the pre-chorus, we get a generic, anthemic, over-the-top chorus that doesn’t play to the fluidity to the tone set in the verse. It’s just such an overpowering, rigid chorus - and it’s just dominates the song unfortunately. The bridge/pre-chorus is stunning with the piano and strings and Dua’s vocals but when that chorus comes in, I’m like “nah, the fluidity and build and emotion has just been squashed”. Again, I love the concept of the track, but

 

[NathanRicaud]

TIL I'm in the minority with my love of "Good in Bed"

Still, we all do love Future Nostalgia and the vinyl sounds excellent! The bass is big and loud and everything sounds hot in a really good way!

PS - I got the pink and the blue UO variant and the blue variant looks better than the pink Gap! Like I know pink is a better colour than blue for vinyl, but the blue is like a unique, galactic, spacey, metallic blue which is just

 

[debianlinux]

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen critical Nathan but I do like critical Nathan.

 

[NathanRicaud]

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen critical Nathan but I do like critical Nathan.

I always critique Deb! I give most of the music I talk about on this forum a positive critical reception though!

I think we’re all very critical about albums but I just voice mine more on this forum compared to most people. I go into a bit of detail and am just opinionated in general

I might seem cheeky, playful and dumb but I’m really serious and analytical when it comes to albums! And I consider myself a really good music critic too!

 

[debianlinux]

I always critique Deb! I give most of the music I talk about on this forum a positive critical reception though!

I think we’re all very critical about albums but I just voice mine more on this forum compared to most people. I go into a bit of detail and am just opinionated in general

I might seem cheeky, playful and dumb but I’m really serious and analytical when it comes to albums! And I consider myself a really good music critic too!

Yeah, I’ve seen bubbly, happy, shiny people reviews but this is a first for a I still love you but you let me down review.

 

[supahypeag]

Now that I’m a little more awake and listened to Dua Lipa and Jessie Ware back-to-back, I know what I was thinking about in terms of similarities: they both employ throwback synths and have funky beats. But whereas Dua Lipa has a charli xcx-esque delivery, Jessie Ware is more of a...Neo-Disco?...sound

 

[Hollywood]

My favorite albums of 2020 (so far):

Perfume Genius - Set My Heart on Fire Immediately
Run The Jewels - RTJ4
Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher
I Break Horses - Warnings
Yves Tumor - Heaven To A Tortured Mind
Caribou - Suddenly
Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud
Myrkur - Folkensange
Owen Pallett - Island
Moses Boyd - Dark Matter
Porridge Radio - Every Bad
U.S. Girls - Heavy Light
Grimes - Miss Anthropocene
Yaeji - What We Drew
Tame Impala - The Slow Rush
Gordi - Our Two Skins
Soccer Mommy - Color Theory
TOPS - I Feel Alive
Nation of Language - Introduction, Presence
Caroline Rose - Superstar

I need to add HAIM, Klô Pelgag and Lido Pimienta to my list

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

Future Nostalgia is great but What’s Your Pleasure? is easily better in my opinion! It’s more confident, saucy, exquisite, sexy, fun and the production is more sophisticated and quirky too on What’s Your Pleasure?! Also, I feel like the last two tracks on Future Nostalgia weigh the album down a bit as they’re average. What’s Your Pleasure? however is consistent throughout and finishes on a real high!!!

Devotion (Ware's 2012 release) is one of the albums that got me into pop music while I was in graduate school (with Grimes' Visions being the primary catalyst) and landed in my top 50 of last decade.

I really like What's Your Pleasure and would call it her best since that release... but I don't think I can put it in the same breath as Future Nostalgia (or Devotion). The second half of the album starts to bleed together to me. Now, that could change much like it did with the new Soccer Mommy-- but Future Nostalgia would be near the top of my end of the decade list if the end point was considered 2020 instead of 2019.

 

[NathanRicaud]

Devotion (Ware's 2012 release) is one of the albums that got me into pop music while I was in graduate school (with Grimes' Visions being the primary catalyst) and landed in my top 50 of last decade.

I really like What's Your Pleasure and would call it her best since that release... but I don't think I can put it in the same breath as Future Nostalgia (or Devotion). The second half of the album starts to bleed together to me. Now, that could change much like it did with the new Soccer Mommy-- but Future Nostalgia would be near the top of my end of the decade list if the end point was considered 2020 instead of 2019.

Mmmmm fair enough! Future Nostalgia is a great album, and I can understand why it would be one of your favourite albums of the 2010’s if it was released last year!

What are the tracks in the second half of What’s Your Pleasure? that you aren’t feeling as much?!?

 

[Hollywood]

You guys all talk about Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, and Jessie Ware's albums like they are the second coming of Christ or something, but no one is praising the likes of Rina Sawayama's debut album. Sawayama is the best thing to happen to pop music ❤ since FKA Twigs.

 

[gaporter]

You guys all talk about Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, and Jessie Ware's albums like they are the second coming of Christ or something, but no one is praising the likes of Rina Sawayama's debut album. Sawayama is the best thing to happen to pop music ❤ since FKA Twigs.

 

[Hollywood]

View attachment 55599

Well everyone but you of course Gap

EDIT: Sorry Rip too

 

[NathanRicaud]

You guys all talk about Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, and Jessie Ware's albums like they are the second coming of Christ or something, but no one is praising the likes of Rina Sawayama's debut album. Sawayama is the best thing to happen to pop music ❤ since FKA Twigs.

I really like Rina Sawayama’s “SAWAYAMA“ but Jessie Ware’s “What’s Your Pleasure?” Is definitely better in my opinion! And yes, that album is the second coming of Christ because the production is sublime and you have tracks that are reminiscent of Sadé (Yes, Sadé), Prince, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Kashif, Donna Summer, Michael Jackson, Luther Vandross, Robyn, Giorgio Moroder, Rick James, Teena Marie, Janet Jackson etc

“What’s Your Pleasure?” Is a disco paradise that is immersive and truly transports you back in time! It’s the real nostalgia trip!

“SAWAYAMA” is great but there’s around 3-4 tracks that are disappointing; the shaky opener ‘Dynasty’, the almost lifeless “Who’s Gonna Save U Now” and the repetitive, safe almost unnecessary “Fuck This World (interlude)”. The rest is great, but 3 tracks is a bit too many for me!

Pop albums I think they have been extraordinary since FKA Twigs’ LP1 include Charli XCX “Vroom Vroom EP/Pop 2”, Billie Eilish’s “WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?”, Caroline Polachek’s “Pang”, Carly Rae Jepsen’s “E•MO•TION”, Kero Kero Bonito’s “Bonito Generation”, Beyoncé’s “Lemonade”, Kali Uchis’ “Isolation”, Lorde “Melodrama”, Clarence Clarity’s “No Now”, Neon Indian “Vega Intl, night school” etc

 

[NathanRicaud]

@gaporter will tell you that Clarence Clarity’s “No Now” is definitely better then SAWAYAMA, and that came out after FKA Twigs’ LP1! No Now is a pop masterpiece!