The 2020s, so far I think it is fair to state this has been another decade of note. It would be easy to get side tracked and wax lyrical about how things have been this decade so far, both generally and for me personally, but it would feel like that would be shoehorned into a post about music and specifically, music released in this decade. As this paragraph is being written, we’re about to head into 2024 (this post is being written over a number of months), the 5th year of the 2020s. I don’t wish to surprise you with the following revelation, but that means when 2024 has finished, the decade will be half done. When 2024 has finished, there will be the chance of determining what is my favourite album of the decade…so far.
How I have approached this is by reviewing my end of year lists and seeing if I still agree with the order that I posted the albums in, and if not then reordering them. This approach hit an initial problem in that I didn’t post an ordered list for 2020, just a list of 16 albums I liked. To sort this out, I’ve resolved to listen to the 16 albums I did post (plus another 11 I remember liking but didn’t post about) and then work from that as an order. This series of posts will be written over several months, with the penultimate post being the 2024 Year in Albums post. That post and the final half decade list can obviously only be written at the end of 2024 (or at least, when I’ve committed to listening to enough new music for the year, which for 2023 was right before Christmas).
Part one is about 2020, the first year of the decade. As above, because there isn’t an album list to reappraise, below is an alphabetical list of the 16 albums I posted about, plus another 11 I very much liked:
- Beans on Toast - Knee Deep In Nostalgia
- Beans on Toast - The Unforeseeable Future
- Biffy Clyro - A Celebration of Endings
- Bleed From Within - Fracture
- Bring Me The Horizon - Post Human: Survival Horror
- Bruce Springsteen - A Letter To You
- Bury Tomorrow - Cannibal
- clipping. - Visions of Bodies Being Burned
- Code Orange - Underneath
- Creeper - Sex, Death and the Infinite Void
- Deftones - Ohms
- Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia
- Fiona Apple - Fetch The Bolt Cutters
- Haggard Cat - Common Sense Holiday
- HAIM - Women in Music Part 3
- IDLES - Ultra Mono
- Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything
- Napalm Death - Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism
- Palm Reader - Sleepless
- Run The Jewels - RTJ4
- Sharptooth - Transitional Forms
- Spanish Love Songs - Brave Faces Everyone
- Svalbard - When I Die, Will I Get Better?
- Taylor Swift - Evermore
- Taylor Swift - Folklore
- Trivium - What The Dead Men Say
The shrewd amongst you might notice that list is 26 albums, not 27. The simple truth is that since 2020, some fairly unsavoury allegations have been made about Marilyn Manson and since then I’ve barely listened to any of his music. Faced with the choice of doing so for this, I decided not to. Anyway, with that aside, the list of the 26 albums looks something like this:
- Biffy Clyro - A Celebration of Endings
- Run The Jewels - RTJ4
- Code Orange - Underneath
- Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia
- Idles - Ultra Mono
- Svalbard - When I Die, Will I Get Better?
- Creeper - Sex Death and The Infinite Void
- Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything
- Trivium - What The Dead Men Say
- Palm Reader - Sleepless
- Taylor Swift - Folklore
- Spanish Love Songs - Brave Faces Everyone
- Bury Tomorrow – Cannibal
- Taylor Swift - Evermore
- Bruce Springsteen - A Letter to You
- Napalm Death - Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism
- Sharptooth - Transitional Forms
- Bleed From Within - Fracture
- Beans on Toast - Knee Deep In Nostalgia
- clipping. - Visions of Bodies Being Burned
Following the format of the other posts, this would make these the honourable mentions:
- Bring Me The Horizon - Post Human: Survival Horror
- Beans on Toast - The Unforseeable Future
- Deftones - Ohms
- Fiona Apple - Fetch The Bolt Cutters
- Haggard Cat - Common Sense Holiday
- HAIM - Women In Music Part 3
And with that, the hunt towards finding my favourite album of this decade so far has begun in earnest. The next post will involve me looking back over my albums of 2021 list and seeing if I still agree with the order (and, if we’re being honest, working out where Wolf Alice should go in, as that was a shocking omission on my part!)
