Three pieces that I kept coming back to in the (first) year of Covid-19.

Nine Inch Nails: The Worriment Waltz

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross said “the current [pandemic] crisis was the reason they completed the two records in the first place, ‘as a means of staying somewhat sane'” (Pitchfork). While my neighbourhood was boarded up in the spring, this track in particular seemed the pitch-perfect soundtrack; but both albums — Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts — helped get me through that initial strange, disconnected time.

Apple Music · Spotify

Kelly Lee Owens: On

A Hopkins– like perfect balance of melody and electronics; her second appearance on these lists of mine (see 2017). The outtro, hinted at through the verses, is crowning. “And so / Let go of the hope / That it could / That it could be.”

Apple Music · Spotify

Phoebe Bridgers: Garden Song

That processed guitar sound on the classic changes! “No, I’m not afraid of hard work / I get everything I want / I have everything I wanted.”

Apple Music · Spotify

Other

No real honourable mentions this year; I am starting an equivalent “Three Albums” list that mostly takes care of that. My Jazz list also moves there this year.

See also 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023.

I’ve posted a “Three Tracks” list for a number of years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020), but have always run into a bit of a problem: single cuts versus album tracks. A lot of the listening I’ve done has always been album-oriented; this has only increased for me in the era of Apple Music and HomePod (“Hey Siri, play the latest album by …”). So this list represents full-length works from which I have found it difficult to pull a single song — though I’ve done so for the videos below, largely randomly.

Fiona Apple: Fetch the Bolt Cutters

A masterpiece. The album that convinced me that I needed a separate list for complete works, not just songs, every year.

Apple Music · Spotify

Waxahatchee: Saint Cloud

A pleasure from beginning to end, over and over.

Apple Music · Spotify

Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts

These two ambient albums got me through the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Apple Music (Ghosts V, Ghosts VI) · Spotify (Ghosts V, Ghosts VI)

Honourable Mention

Live Forever, Bartees Strange (Apple Music, Spotify) — must get back to this one; it’s really struck me the few times I’ve put it on.

Jazz

I’m not as much of a knowledgeable or dedicated or focused jazz fan, though I listen to it a lot; here are a few albums I played many times in 2020.

SOURCE, Nubya Garcia (Apple Music, Spotify); Suite: April 2020, Brad Mehldau (Apple Music, Spotify); Blue Note Re:imagined, Various Artists (Apple Music, Spotify); Gogo Penguin, Gogo Penguin (Apple Music, Spotify); Rythme De Passage, Emie R. Roussel Trio (Apple Music, Spotify); Life Goes On, Carla Bley, Andy Shepperd & Steve Swallow (Apple Music, Spotify); Essais, Volume 4, Pierre de Bethmann Trio (Apple Music, Spotify); Dance, Tingvall Trio (Apple Music, Spotify).

See also: 2021, 2022, 2023.