Terrible times, great art.
Terrible times, great art. The cliche sadly and wonderfully lived up to its promise on these 10 albums that dominated my speakers in 2020. “Giver Taker,” Anjimile A set of songs melted and molded together in a crucible, Boston-via-Texas artist Anjimile wrote much of this record during recovery after struggles with alcohol and while coming to terms with identifying as a trans, nonbinary person. The results range from deeply dark to shot through with joy on tracks that sometimes stand alone as introspective folk and sometimes layer that folk with electronica washes or snaking guitar lines. “Haunted Painting,” Sad13 Sadie Dupuis loves pop. The singer-songwriter-guitarist who records as Sad13 when not working with her Northampton-based band Speedy Ortiz also knows life is a hellscape of chaos and cruelty. These two things — sweet-as-candy bits and the madness of our modern moment — come together with purpose here: menace mixed with bits of discotheque dance music, power pop, twee indie and just the right amount of noise rock. “Jump Rope Gazers,” the Beths This album from the New Zealand heroes has all the hooks and pop of “Haunted Painting” but skips noise rock in favor of double the power pop. Imagine if a young Cheap Trick got fuzzed out and had some legit pain to write about. “Gigaton,” Pearl Jam How about a Pearl Jam & Beths & Sad13 tour in 2021? Saying an artist’s new record is “a return to form” and “boundary pushing” is generally meaningless music critic frabba jabba.
