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Joanna Bz writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2020: Joanna Bz
Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2020. Our next list is from volunteer Joanna Bz.
What a messed up year. There was a period between March and June when I could barely listen to music at all. When I had the capacity to enjoy listening again, I had a lot of catching up to do.
I don't know that these are the best albums of 2020, but these are the ones I listened to the most, played the most on my show, and was most happy to see when they were released. There's so much great music from 2020. I'm sure I'll be discovering even more as we move into 2021.
Wildewoman writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2020: Allison Parssi
Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2020. Our next list is from Assistant Music Director Allison Parssi.
My music listening this year was atypical. I listened to a number of mixes and playlists, very few full albums, and often wasn’t listening to music at all. All of these patterns offer a different set of challenges when compiling end of year lists. These are some of the albums and EPs that stood out for me in the chaos.
Steven Grady writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2020: Steven Grady
Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2020. Our next list is from DJ Steven Grady.
2020 can't come to an end too soon, but it certainly did not disappoint when it came to new music. Once again the Windy City (and elsewhere) proved how much quality it can generate sonically in a 52-week time frame.
Sarah Spencer writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2020: Sarah Spencer
Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2020. Our next list is from DJ (Saturdays 6-9am) Sarah Spencer.
2020 may have been a rotten year in many ways, but it was a great year for music. These year-end top ten lists always give me a little anxiety. I mean, what if there's someone I missed? With the volume of music that came my way this year, I have had no option but to leave some very worthy albums off my list. The albums in my top ten are all albums I've spent a lot of time with, and that have been medicine for me in one way or another during this year in lockdown.
Tyler Clark presents: Local Mythologies writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2020: Tyler Clark
Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2020. Our next list is from DJ and Programming Committee member Tyler Clark.
On January 1st, I set myself a single New Year's Resolution: over the course of the year, I would listen to an average of one 2020 album a day, for a total of 366 records by the next New Year's Day. Currently, my total sits at 373. Even taking into account slight errors in counting, I did it.
Hooray.
We didn't have much to celebrate in 2020. I won't belabor that point, mainly because I don't want to reread said belaboring in years to come. Looking back on my year-end lists for CHIRP since 2014, I've spent most of every introductory essay doom-and-glooming my way to a justification for putting so much thought into these half-arbitrary and wholly changeable lists, as if nodding to the "real world" might make up for all the hours spent under headphones.
Anyway, 2020 makes those years look like your best-remembered childhood birthday party, so you probably get my meaning. Music in 2020 provided a balm, a mirror, a reason to get up in the morning. It got us through quarantine and helped us rage at injustice, made the loneliness seem a little less lonely and the Zoom dance parties seem a little less pathetic.
Some of the best was produced by artists living through the same lockdowns we were, at home with nothing more than a Tascam and a guitar and a few obsessive thoughts. So anyway. Here are my favorite albums of 2020, the year I listened to enough albums to kill a horse and lived to tell the tale. I hope you'll find a new favorite, too.