Here are the 50 best albums of a year unlike any we can remember. (Read the review. Beyond it no longer being 2020, next year has some other big things going for it, including Music's Biggest Night, a.k.a. Whispers suggested the big names were back: A new AC/DC album, perhaps. What follows, on “Folklore,” is a lyrical exploration of that culturally denigrated commodity that is young-girl wisdom, this time viewed through the artful distance of Swift’s adulthood. (Read the profile; watch the Diary of a Song.). (Read the feature.). Charli XCX was one of the first pop musicians to make an album entirely in quarantine. After winning the 2020 Album of the Year Award, Roddy Ricch thanks the team who helped him create "Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial." Katie Crutchfield, who records as Waxahatchee, released an album featuring some of her most evocative lyrics. Check out the full list of winners from the 2020 BET Awards, updating live. Singer Amaarae has made Ghana proud after featuring on The 2020 BET Soul Train Awards Cypher. The songs avenge and exorcise all sorts of slights and traumas, distant and recent, mixing spite with amusement. (Read the feature. ), The alien-abduction skits are redundant: From the opening notes of the bouncing “Baby Pluto” we’ve been transported directly to Uzi’s universe. 20 essential albums from 2020 so far ... here are our 20 must-hear albums from the year so far. The diligent duo that never rests. ), The third album by the English songwriter Lianne La Havas cycles through a failed romance — starting and ending with a break — in songs brimming with poised musicality. (Read the feature.). Music reviews, ratings, news and more. She remakes Charles Mingus, the earthiest jazz avant-gardist, on a few tracks, nodding toward an inspiration. Some 2020 albums were already well underway before the pandemic; others were made under quarantine, with long-distance collaborations or none. Think of that album that rocked your world this year, now tell us who you think should win Album of The Year!! “Picture me in the trees, before I learned civility,” she invites on the memory-scape “Seven,” a sophisticated piano bringing gravitas to the childlike playfulness of her lyrics. Genre: Pop Rock. ... VIDEO OF THE YEAR. Chris Brown was the big winner at the 2020 BET Soul Train Awards. The 50 Best Albums of 2020 So Far Including Bob Dylan, Lil Uzi Vert, Bad Bunny, Dua Lipa, and more Victory is not assured. The 2020 Soul Train Music Awards took place on November 29, 2020, to recognize the best in soul, R&B and Hip-Hop music.The ceremony will be aired on BET, BET Her, VH1 and MTV2 with actors Tisha Campbell & Tichina Arnold hosting the ceremony for the third time. And it’s a welcome and frankly astonishing bonus that Jay-Z is riding shotgun on most of these songs, invigorating his 1990s flows with 2020 perspective. The best and the brightest from this tough year, anchored by Haim, Phoebe Bridgers, Dogleg, and more. It’s regal, an announcement of an alpha figure asserting his primacy. The massive success of Eilish's debut record continues on into 2020 as it has sold 194,000 units in 2020. “WIMP III” has freed them up to experiment, embrace imperfection and discover promising new corners of their evolving sound. (Read the review; hear the Popcast.). Featuring winning collaborations with such avant-trash producers as A.G. Cook of PC Music and Dylan Brady of 100 gecs, “How I’m Feeling Now” is hyper-carbonated pop of the highest order — like a can of seltzer that’s so stingingly fizzy it makes you tear up a little on the way down. The best of the best in music, film, television, and more will be honored at the 2020 BET Awards on June 28, and we have the full list of nominations here! The 50 Best Albums Of 2020: 50-41 / 40-31 / 30-21 / 20-11 / 10-1 The 50 Best Albums of 2020 By Paste Staff November 30, 2020 Paste Studio on the Road: Nashville 11/30 - Lera Lynn, Birds of Chicago, Lilly Hiatt, Aaron Lee Tasjan By Josh Jackson November 29, 2020 Clockwise from bottom left: BC Camplight, Fiona Apple, Jay Electronica, Carla Bley, KeiyaA. The agitators. The debut novel by Douglas Stuart draws on his own childhood in 1980s Glasgow, and is the winner of the 2020 Booker prize. Isolation was unavoidable this year: Some albums embraced it, some raged against it, some tried to imagine a world without it. ), “Someday, I’m gonna look up from my phone and see my life,” Phoebe Bridgers vows wryly on “Garden Song.” A few tracks later, she tries it out and remains unimpressed: “I want to believe, instead I look to the sky and feel nothing.” But oh, the miracles she’s able to mine from the vast space between those two extremes: a memory of sneaking behind a truck’s wheel as a child; a heartfelt hallucination of a conversation with her musical hero Elliott Smith; a final, fearless stare into the face of the apocalypse. 5 … Clockwise from left: Rina Sawayama, Fiona Apple, Moses Sumney and Sufjan Stevens. The Best Jazz Albums of 2020. On release, they were heard privately. I hope you’re enjoying this adventure as much… Chris Brown & Young Thug – Slime & B. Jhené Aiko – Chilombo **WINNER — Summer Walker – Over It. But today, we’re ranking the best albums of 2020 as we internalized them over the past 12 months. “If I could love you unconditionally,” she sings to herself in her charred Alabama twang, “I could iron out the edges of the darkest sky.” Written after Crutchfield decided to quit drinking, the songs of “Saint Cloud” are unflinchingly cleareyed, their arrangements as loose and broken-in as an old favorite shirt. (Read the profile; hear the Popcast.). But he has never been the thing he is in fact best suited to, which is a singer of dewy R&B. The weirdo-pop futurist Charli XCX got to the quarantine album before it became a cliché, and elevated it to something far more expansive and searching than thematic gimmickry. If you enjoy this feature and are currently OK for money, can you consider sparing us the price of … ), That howl heard ’round quarantine was the return of Fiona Apple, making a righteous, rowdy rumble right when the world was holding its breath. Big Sean, Detroit 2 (Read the profile; hear the Popcast. On their previous albums, Este, Danielle and Alana Haim could sometimes feel hemmed in by their pristine, showy chops. Full List of 2020 BET Soul Train Award Winners. Ware revels in the textures of the producer James Ferraro’s showroom of vintage synths, conjuring the no-wave cool of ESG as deftly as the glimmer of Minneapolis funk. Deftones, Code Orange, Run the Jewels and more. On Sunday (June 28), Roddy won Album of the Year for his debut album, Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial . @RoddyRicch takes home the award for Album of the Year. However, some are arguing that many of those songs weren’t actually from 2020 and shouldn’t have been taken into consideration for the 2020 BET Awards. Self-acclaimed Starboy is a recipient of the 2020 BET Soul Train Award. The nominations were announced on November 11, 2020 with H.E.R. It was a good year for the most personal, idiosyncratic statements. Has 2020 already seen its best album? The Weeknd – After Hours. Song of the Year: Beyoncé – “Black Parade” Chloe X Halle – “Do It” WINNER — Chris Brown & Young Thug – “Go Crazy” H.E.R. The 2020 BET Hip Hop Awards premiered Tuesday, Oct. 27—and what a night it was. (Read the review.). Cardi B performs onstage at the 2019 BET Awards at Microsoft Theater on June 23, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. Our editorial content is not influenced by any commissions we receive. The BET Hip Hop Awards are an annual awards show, airing on BET, showcasing hip hop performers, producers and music video directors. … Shuggie is the youngest of three children, and Agnes is his alcoholic mother. These are the 50 best albums of 2020 (so far). ), Mortality looms on “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” but it only makes Bob Dylan, 79, more ornery. (Read the review. View reviews, ratings, news & more regarding your favorite band. “It’s not a dream, it’s not a dream!” he hollers at himself with increasing ferocity on the title track, screaming guitars and unrelenting drumming providing the sonic equivalent of cold water to the face. Her unexpected quarantine-era alliance with Aaron Dessner of the National deliberately and gorgeously blurs the crisp contours of her past songwriting. These are Complex’s picks for … (Read the feature. The music touches down in slow-motion R&B, but moves toward abstractions — orchestral, jazzy, electronic — as Sumney ponders solitude and connection, masculinity and identity, self-doubt and self-realization, existence and transcendence. “Folklore” isn’t a perfect album (though to be fair, neither was “Red”), nor is it Swift’s best (which is “Red”), but its focus on craft and emotional world-building feels like a perfect move for her right now — an eternally sharp songwriter returning to the whetstone. That it’s also his career capstone is enraging. What if the guy who wrote great, smart party songs also excelled at devastating heartbreak anthems? Song of the Year: Beyoncé – “Black Parade” Chloe X Halle – “Do It” WINNER — Chris Brown & Young Thug – “Go Crazy” H.E.R. She fronts Beach Bunny, a Chicago band that toys with flickers of garage rock, pop-punk and indie rock. 21 Savage and Metro Boomin, “Savage Mode II”; Benny the Butcher, “Burden of Proof”; Natanael Cano, “Trap Tumbado”; The Chicks, “Gaslighter”; City Girls, “City on Lock”; Code Orange, “Underneath”; Conway the Machine, “From King to a God”; Drake, “Dark Lane Demo Tapes”; Freddie Gibbs and the Alchemist, “Alfredo”; Ariana Grande, “Positions”; Hardy, “A Rock”; Haux, “Violence in a Quiet Mind”; Ian Isiah, “Auntie”; Junior H, “Atrapado en un Sueño”; King Von, “Levon James”; Lil Durk, “Just Cause Y’all Waited 2”; Lauren Mascitti, “God Made a Woman”; John Moreland, “LP5”; Jessie Reyez, “Before Love Came to Kill Us”; Dua Saleh, “Rosetta”; Sunday Service Choir, “Jesus Is Born”; Myke Towers, “Easy Money Baby”; Jessie Ware, “What’s Your Pleasure?”; Waxahatchee, “Saint Cloud”; The Weeknd, “After Hours”; Hailey Whitters, “The Dream”; YoungBoy Never Broke Again, “Top”. The harpsichord-kissed “Jason” is a gently heartbreaking tale of a man’s hesitant exploration and ultimate rejection of his own desires (“clumsy, shakily, he ran his hands up me”), while the melody to the upbeat, yearning “On the Floor” has a retro-60s feel. What if careful, syllable-by-syllable songwriting held hands with clever concepts and intuitive, sticky melodies? Drew Anthony Smith for The New York Times. See which albums are sitting at the top of this year's charts. The BET Awards were presented on Sunday night. ... What we said: “The best album of the year so far.” Plus a plethora of releases from rock's rising stars. (Read the review; hear the Popcast. Share This Story ... Like almost every awards show, the BET Hip Hop Awards broadcast was full of twists and surprises. (Read the review. Her listeners will understand. “Heaven to a Tortured Mind,” the most straightforwardly tuneful album from the Knoxville, Tenn.-raised art-rocker, combines the glam sneer of Marc Bolan with the forward-thinking shape-shifting of Tricky, plus a bit of Yves Tumor’s own special sparkle. Find the best music on Album of the Year. The award is only given to the headlining artist(s) or group of the album. ), A triumph of willfulness, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” is Fiona Apple proclaiming she “won’t shut up” amid a percussive clatter she created at her home: banging on pots and pans, pushing her voice to extremes, letting her dog bark. This album delves into the sounds of reggaeton’s past but doesn’t feel dry — rather, it underscores the legacy of his outré approach, marking him just as much a historian as a history-maker. COMPLEX participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means COMPLEX gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. Things begin to get even more serious now, even though as I have mentioned many times, the placings between 16 and 30 are in no fixed order. the 63rd GRAMMY Awards, taking place on Jan. 31, 2021 and recognizing excellence in music released in late 2019 and 2020.Hopefully you're as excited about the show as we are! The year’s most audacious pop statement is ecstatic, knowing, wry and arch, an album that is somehow both a sendup of excess and also a commitment to the most excessive approach imaginable. Powfu’s debut major-label EP pulses with hopelessness. Check out the nominees from the Album of the Year category. At the year's half-way mark, all of tQ's editorial staff and columnists have voted for their essential 2020 albums (as well as some EPs) Before you read on, we have a favour to ask of you. The bitter, furious single he released soon after nonviolent anti-corruption protesters were killed by soldiers, “20 10 20,” made a compelling postscript. ), For a decade, Justin Bieber has been a heartthrob, a bad boy, a reluctant pop superstar, a megacelebrity without much of a musical mandate. Suzanne Cordeiro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, Mike Hadreas, who records as Perfume Genius, explores a complex spectrum of queer desire on “Set My Heart on Fire Immediately.”, Jessie Reyez, “Before Love Came to Kill Us”. According to BET, this is the first time an artist has had two nominations for hip hop album of the year in the same year. On Sunday (June 28), Roddy won Album of the Year for his debut album, Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial . (Read the review. Roddy Ricch continues his winning streak in 2020 after dropping a masterclass debut album “Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial” in 2019. Pop Smoke’s posthumous “Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon” was a consistent hit this year. photograph by Nick Sayers. (Read the review. “No Dream” is a frayed manual for how to be an independently thinking and not-completely-jaded person in a world of faceless sans-serif corporations (exemplary song title: “***BNB”), anesthetizing bad news and all manner of everyday late-capitalist insanity. The 2020 Soul Train Awards honor the best in Soul, R&B and Hip Hop, and it airs tonight, Sunday, Nov. 29 at 9 p.m. His full-length debut album nailed the transition — it’s mischievous, sinister and loose. The most sumptuous offering from a year accidentally obsessed with disco (Dua Lipa’s sleek “Future Nostalgia,” Róisín Murphy’s bold “Róisín Machine,” and Lady Gaga’s otherworldly “Chromatica” being the runners-up), the British singer and songwriter Jessie Ware’s “What’s Your Pleasure?” is a lusty feat of dance-floor escapism — an affable podcaster and happily married mother of two Cinderella-ing herself into a club vixen for a night. YG – “Slide” Summer Walker & Usher – “Come Thru” Usher Feat. The BET Award for Album of the Year is given to the most popular album released the same or previous year of the year the awards are handed out. Sometimes Hadreas and his producer Blake Mills seem to be updating the earthy rumbles of ’80s goth rock; at other times, their layered arrangements queer the Wall of Sound. The best Christmas albums of 2020 offer a mix of updated classics … “I knew everything when I was young,” Swift sings. The 2020 BET Awards nominations have been announced and Drake leads the pack with six nods. © Complex Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. In recent years the default manner of rapping has become very much like singing, but what Rod Wave does is one step beyond: He is a potent R&B crooner working with familiar hip-hop subject matter, but his blend is closer to mournful blues. And less than two weeks after “SIGN” appeared, Autechre suddenly released another hour of music on the more aggressively disorienting “PLUS.” (Read the interview.). Feat. The puffed chests. The BET Awards 2020 saw Ricch pick up the award for Album of the Year for his debut LP ‘Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial’, while Lizzo won Best Female R&B/Pop Artist. Feat. Music Reviews: Sex Death & the Infinite Void by Creeper released in 2020 via Roadrunner. Megan Thee Stallion was the big winner at the 2020 BET Hip Hop Awards. (Read the round table; hear the Popcast. 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