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.
Waxahatchee: Saint Cloud
A pleasure from beginning to end, over and over.
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).