The 50 best albums of 2020: 50-41
This list is drawn from votes by Guardian music critics – each critic votes for their top 20 albums, with points allocated for each placing, and those points tallied to create this order. Check in every weekday to see our next picks, and please share your own favourite albums of 2020 in the comments below.
50 Clipping. – Visions of Bodies Being Burned
Rapper Daveed Diggs is best known for playing Jefferson and Lafayette in Hamilton, surveying the violent chaos at the outset of the US – here, he seems to survey the same thing at its end. This is horrorcore hip-hop, but deadly serious rather than cartoonish, an apocalyptic world filled with blood, petrol, drugs and rust where “core snap like yolk, floor crack like joke / More cat eye opens, sky racked like coat”. Producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes use “electronic voice phenomenon” ghost recordings, corroded signals and electroshock bursts of bass and noise to keep you constantly choosing fight or flight. BBT
49 Destroyer – Have We Met
Soft rock’s poet laureate returned with one of his strongest sets yet, with the coldwave chill that arrived on Ken (2017) now getting right into his bones. His lyrics are surrealism of the kind André Breton originally intended for the movement back in 1924, “an absolute reality, a super-reality”: bizarre imagery that nevertheless feels true to life, and in thrall to it. Humanity, for example, is “a room of pit ponies / Drowning forever in a sea of love”. BBTRead the full review.
48
Soccer Mommy – Color Theory
The recent craze for bedroom pop had a further boost this year as so many of us were increasingly confined to our bedrooms, although there’s a sneaking suspicion this term can undersell the ambition of these (often female) artists. Like Beabadoobee, Clairo and other recent breakthroughs, Soccer Mommy actually makes full-bodied, melodically strong indie rock – at times you can draw lines towards Real Estate or Deerhunter, but the drowsy yet determined vocals are inimitably hers. BBTRead the full review.
47 Teyana Taylor – The Album
Across 23 tracks, the American R&B star builds a deep, rounded portrait of the highs and lows of a romantic relationship. There are frequent pleas for better communication and reciprocity, likely to comfort anyone gaslighted into thinking, “Is it just me?” But when the connection works, it really works, as evinced by the numerous rapturous slow jams. Taylor shows how sex itself is communication, adding up to one of the hottest, most emotionally astute albums of the year. BBTRead the review.
46 The Necks – Three
The bustle of pre-Covid life seems to be evoked by Tony Buck’s drumming in the latest release by the veteran Australian avant-jazz trio, particularly on the opening track Bloom, which clatters and rustles with ferrety industry. The second of these 20-plus-minute pieces, Lovelock, turns anxious and distracted, before Further closes the set out with one of their most purely gorgeous compositions, a lush rainmaking groove anchored around a two-note organ motif. BBTRead the review.
45 Selena Gomez – Rare
Considering the dramatic origins of her third album – lupus, a kidney transplant, splitting from Justin Bieber and the Weeknd, rehab for her mental health – Gomez could justifiably have released an hour of equally high-intensity bloodletting, but Rare abides by the maxim “when it’s hot, write it cold”. Aside from the wrecking ballad Lose You to Love Me, it’s confidently unruffled, taking the Talking Headsaided oddness of her 2017 single Bad Liar as her template. The often very funny Gomez excels at nimble vocal kiss-offs, which she layers into satisfyingly percussive patterns: the chorus of People You Know seems to fold in on itself like origami; you’d expect Vulnerable to burst into gaudy EDM, but it pares back to Gomez caressing every syllable of the word, as if putting her own seams on show. LS
44 Jessy Lanza – All the Time
It is testament to the allure of her sweet club-pop visions that Jessy Lanza’s breakout stemmed from her most insular work yet. When she sings, the effect is of catching someone unwittingly mumbling along to Janet Jackson through their headphones; her quicksilver vocal intimacy allows for flirtation and hurt to flicker through like electrical surges. The tenderness of Jam and Lewis, west coast hip-hop at its sugariest and the innocence of Japanese city pop are fractured by shivering dubstep and even the exuberant chatter of UK garage. Like a sky laced with pastel cirrus, it is effervescent and aweinspiring. LSRead the full review.
43 Wizkid – Made in Lagos
Nigerian pop continued to establish itself more firmly on the international stage in 2020 with successful albums by Burna Boy, Davido, Tiwa Savage, Tems and more. The best of them all was this lilting, versatile record by Wizkid. Guest stars from across the Black Atlantic – Skepta and Ella Mai from the UK, HER from the US, Damian Marley and Projexx from Jamaica – create the sense of a diasporic dialogue, where reggae, dancehall, rap and Afro-swing seamlessly and sensually intertwine. BBTRead the full review.
42 Kylie Minogue – Disco
The uber-Kylie album thunders through the genre’s history, from the Voulez-Vous-ing of Last Chance and sly references to Gloria Gaynor and Earth, Wind & Fire to its stylish 90s French touch reincarnation. More than simply disco literate, it is also a wonderfully meta exposition of Kylie’s pop identity, how she has embodied hope and joy and lived in service of the perfect pop song – its own bid for immortality. She had spent a few years off the pulse with try-hard Kiss Me Once (2014) and Nashvilleinspired, retirement-tempting Golden (2018). But Disco didn’t just compete with this year’s surprisingly widespread revival of the genre; Kylie’s fantastical dancefloor, one of catharsis and community, resonated precisely with these weird times. LSRead the full review.
41 Actress – Karma & Desire
Darren Cunningham cements his place as one of the great poets of club culture, spanning glacial ambient, UK garage, Larry Heard-ish deep house, bumping techno and high-speed rave, all rendered in monochrome, dirtied watercolours. Guest vocals can be either gnomic (“destiny is stuck in heaven blowing nitro”, Zsela intones) or collapsing (Sampha’s corrupted cries), though Loveless’s chorus of “don’t you want to know me better?” makes for his best earworm since 2010’s Maze.
• This article was amended on 1 December 2020 to correct the name of Destroyer’s album. It is Have We Met, not How We Met as previously stated