2020 was a year to remember, and a year to forget! While each passing month felt like days and weeks and months and years, the music continued to pour out, album after album.
Here are a few of my favs from the year gone by in alphabetical order:
The Avett Brothers – The Third Gleam
Bahamas – Sad Hunk
Blitzen Trapper – Holy Smokes Future Joke
Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways
Brendan Benson – Dear Life
Bright Eyes – Down in the Weeds, Where there World Once Was
Bruce Springsteen – Letter to You
Bully – SUGAREEG
Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard – The Non-Stop EP
Caroline Rose – Superstar
Charley Crockett – Welcome to Hard Times
Chicano Batman – Invisible People
Chris Stapleton – Starting Over
Colony House – Leave What’s Lost Behind
Courtney Marie Andrews – Old Flowers
Creature Comfort – Home Team
Dawes – Good Luck With Whatever
Deep Sea Diver – Impossible Weight
Delta Spirit – What is There
Desert Noises – Everything Always
Devon Gilfillian – Black Hole Rainbow & What’s Going On
The Dirty Knobs – Wreckless Abandon
Drive-By Truckers – The Unraveling
Early James – Singing for My Supper
Elizabeth Cook – Aftermath
Emma Swift – Blonde on the Tracks
EOB – Earth
Fiona Apple – Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Fleet Foxes – Shore
Fruition – Broken at the Break of Day
Futurebirds – Teamwork
Future Islands – As Long as You Are
Gillian Welch – All The Good Times
Gorillaz – Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
HAIM – Women in Music Pt. III
Jamie Wyatt – Neon Cross
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Reunions
The Jayhawks – Xoxo
J.D. Simo – JD Simo
Jeff Tweedy – Love is the King
Jeremy Ivey – Waiting Out The Storm
Jill Andrews – Thirties
Kathleen Edwards – Total Freedom
Katie Pruitt – Expectations
Khruangbin – Mordechai
The Killers – Imploding the Mirage
K.S. Rhoads – Experts
Langhorne Slim – Strawberry Mansion – Side A
Laura Marling – Song for our Daughter
Lera Lynn – On My Own
Lianne La Havas – Lianne La Havas
Lilly Hiatt – Walking Proof
Liza Anne – Bad Vacation
Liz Longley – Funeral for my Past
The Lone Bellow – Half Moon Light
Marc Scibilia – Seed of Joy
Marcus King – El Dorado
Margaret Glaspy – DevotionÂ
Margo Price – That’s How Rumors Get Started
Matt Berninger – Serpentine Prison
The Mavericks – En Espanol
Mt. Joy – Rearrange Us
My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall II
Nathaniel Rateliff – And It’s Still Alright
Nicole Atkins – Italian Ice
Norah Jones – Pick Me Up Off The Floor
The Nude Party – Midnight Manor
Okey Dokey – Once Upon a Time
Old 97’s – Twelfth
Ozwald – Head Movies
Paul McCartney – McCartney III
Pearl Jam – Gigaton
Perfume Genius – Set My Heart on Fire Immediately
Phish – Sigma Oasis
Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
Pinegrove – Marigold
Pixies – Beneath the Eyrie
Pokey Lafarge – Rock Bottom Rhapsody
Pretenders – Hate for Sale
Ray Lamontagne – MONOVISION
Real Estate – The Main Thing
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – Sideways to New Italy
Ruston Kelly – Shape & Destroy
Sarah Jarosz – World on the Ground
The Secret Sisters – Saturn Return
Skyway Man – The World Only Ends When You Die
Soccer Mommy – color theory
Spencer Cullum – Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection
Stephen Malkmus – Traditional Techniques
The Strokes – The New Abnormal
Sturgill Simpson – Cuttin’ GrassÂ
Sufjan Stevens – The Ascension
Sylvan Esso – Free Love
Tame Impala – The Slow Rush
Taylor Swift – Folklore
Thad Cockrell – If In Case You Feel The Same
This is the Kit – OFF AND ON
Thunder Lily – Volume One
Toots and the Maytals – Got to be Tough
Tyler Childers – Long Violent History
Vulfpeck – The Joy of Music, The Job of Real Estate
Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud
The Weeks – Twisted Rivers
White Denim – World as a Waiting Room
The Wood Brothers – Kingdom in my Mind
2020 was the worst year, certainly for live music, but an excellent one for recorded music! I have a feeling there will be a baby boom (both literally and figuratively) after this year, and 2021 will give us even more great music. Happy New Year and I’ll see you on the radio.