2020 Best Of Playlist – Songs

I tried to break out this year’s playlist into a few zones to make them a little less unwieldy. What’s fun about this is it lets me make room for songs I played constantly, even if I didn’t love the whole record. Also putting these in different posts so it’s not too much to bite off.

Songs features tunes that lean a little more pop-oriented, usually with lyrics or dance beats. 

Spaces deals in compositions and improvisations that are a little more abstract and usually instrumental. 

Obviously, more than a few things could have fit on either.

Parting Gifts features people who’ve passed this year – heavier on jazz because it feels like COVID took a bigger bite out of living legends in that category, but obviously loss doesn’t miss any of us.

Here’s the first batch, mostly “songs.” For notes, basically, what I’d blather at you when I queued it up on a jukebox, continue reading below.

Merch Table Link courtesy Hype Machine: https://hypem.com/merch-table/3ENpeOuJ31RoF6c6CKkdjm

1. Don Bryant, “Your Love Is To Blame” – Don Bryant’s place in the canon of American music would be assured if he never wrote or sang another note. His writing for Al Green, Otis Clay, and especially the collaborations with his wife Ann Peebles stands as one of the finest catalogs of the 20th century. That he still puts out records of this astonishing quality is a gift to all of us. This mix of brand new songs – if you don’t get chills when that flames-of-love horn riff kicks in on “Your Love Is To Blame” I’ve got nothing for you – and revisiting a few of his classics was the adrenaline and joy I needed all year. 
2. Lilly Hiatt, “Walking Proof” – Easily the record I played most this year. Hiatt followed up her breakthrough Temple Lane with a confident, subtler, more nuanced record, and this glowing tribute to redemption and recovery lit everything up like the lantern looking for the last honest man.
3. Sharon Shannon featuring Linton Kwesi Johnson, “Off to Californee (Mursheen Durkin Revisited)” – I got into Celtic accordion player Sharon Shannon when her band appeared on a few of the best tracks of Steve Earle’s 2000 Transcendental Blues and, within a year or two, saw them blow the roof off Little Brothers. I came to Linton Kwesi Johnson through his poetry and found a compilation of his 70s collaborations with Dennis Bovell not long after. This sly revision of the Dubliners classic “Muirsheen Durkin” landed squarely in a sweet spot of travel and exchange of ideas for me.
4. Jerry David DeCicca, “West Texas Trilogy” – Following on the wide-open spaces of that last track, DeCicca’s best album yet featured a fistful of songs I couldn’t get out of my head and I kept coming back to this. He and his crack band of Columbus and Texas players craft a tribute to the writer’s heroes and his friends, a country-folk equivalent to Kenneth Koch’s “The Circus.”
5. Brandy Clark, “Pawn Shop” – The brand of country song I grew up with doesn’t have a better champion than Brandy Clark and this luminous series of snapshots made me deeply nostalgic for riding in the car with my Mom as a kid and a radio format I’m sure my brain filtered out to a large degree but I miss nonetheless.
6. Todd May, “Every Time Is The Last Time” – Perpetual contender for best songwriter in Columbus hits hard on maybe his most consistent record. This tune puts May square in the lower-key pocket that’s a little less celebrated but always magical. The kind of medicine and torture that starts with a spinal tap, abetted by Starker’s aching saxophone wafting through that ingratiating melody line.
7. Resistance Revival Chorus, “Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed On Freedom” – This record was a balm to me during the election season, riveting classic songs of freedom, protest, and hope with many of my favorite singers in this awe-inspiring chorus.
8. Nubya Garcia, “Source” – The wide-ranging London jazz scene is having a moment and this record by sax player Nubya Garcia threaded the needle of being immediately gripping and engaging while revealing layer after layer as I drilled down. A sweltering party and an introspective journey – a record no one else could have made right now.
9. Busta Rhymes featuring Vybz Kartel, “The Don & The Boss” – I’m still high on Busta being back at this high a level and this duet with Vybz Kartel stresses Rhymes’ respect for the Jamaican tradition that helped give birth to hip-hop and doesn’t always get spoken of when his catalog is getting discussed.
10. Nicole Atkins, “Mind Eraser” – Atkins, long one of my favorite singers, took the clarity and soulful quality of her breakthrough and brought in the more expansive genre appetites that made her so hard to pin down earlier for her masterpiece (so far), Domino. In a better year, when we could have had parties, the sticky sonic party of “Mind Eraser” with its slinky groove and woozy strings, would have made every one of those playlists.
11. Sa-Roc, “Goddess Gang” – Sa-Roc rides the punchy horns and snaps of this anthemic track straight into space.
12. Bette Smith, “I’m a Sinner” – Brooklyn’s Bette Smith made one of my favorite classic soul records this year with DBT bassist Matt Patton behind the boards and Jimbo Mathus band leading. This blood-pumping raver sums up everything that makes The Good, The Bad, The Bette so infectious.
13. Jaime Wyatt, “Rattlesnake Girl” – Neon Cross came along at exactly the right moment, a record about messy connection and self-improvement set to a snarling Saturday night groove. I can’t wait to play this on jukebox at a bar, blasting out like half-remembered memories, and watch how the crowd that doesn’t already know it reacts. 
14. Quintron and Miss Pussycat, “Teenagers Don’t Know Shit” – New Orleans’ treasures Quintron and Miss Pussycat returned with a three-dimensional, technicolor view of their handmade world. Greg Cartwright’s production enhanced that vibrancy, along with a set of their catchiest, hard-grooving songs (sacrificing none of the weirdness and digressions we all came for).
15. Jyoti, “Swing, Kirikou, Swing!” – Georgia Ann Muldrow’s Jyoti guise is full of magical detours, sharp edges, and surprises. The off-kilter groove of this instrumental and that jagged, sensual piano line made me want to make something whenever it came on.
16. Imperial Triumphant, “Alphaville” – There’s a staccato, surprising drive in this, one of my favorite tracks from one of my favorite metal albums this year, that felt like it clicked into place floating around this playlist when I put it alongside the Jyoti track. I don’t listen to a lot of metal anymore, but I keep up with a couple writers and this reminds me of the metal I found when I was a kid that felt like the world expanding instead of contracting.
17. Lowrider, “Red River” – There’s a heavy-bottomed classic rock thing in this song, and band executed so well I couldn’t get it out of my head. 
18. Rev. John Wilkins, “Trouble” – I’d been waiting for this Reverend John Wilkins song to come out on a record since I saw him at Gonerfest years ago. This son of the great Robert Wilkins (author of “Prodigal Son” best known by the Stones) at the vanguard of the Hill Country Gospel scene put down a couple records for the ages before he tragically passed this year, ending on a high point with this eponymous album.
19. Tiwa Savage, “Dangerous Love” – This Nigerian singer-songwriter put out her best album this year. This song killed me the first time I heard it and kills me still. I know there was some significant love for the remix, but the original sank under my skin.
20. Mourning [A] BLKstar, “4 Days” – It’s hard to think of anyone else as Cleveland’s best band after the last couple years took Mourning [A] BLKstar into a new level of the atmosphere. The looping, sinister groove with the horn fanfare here built a sculpture around the aching vocal.
21. Christian McBride Big Band, “Down By The Riverside” – Bassist McBride convened an exceptional big band around B-3 player Joey DeFrancesco for this delightful tribute to arranger Oliver Nelson, guitarist Wes Montgomery, and organist Jimmy Smith. Juicy horn arrangements and big beats on slices of the classic American songbook.
22. Drive-By Truckers, “Thoughts and Prayers” – DBT continued this exceptional third act in American music and life with two very good new records this year. This “fuck you” to thoughts and prayers in lieu of acting or even trying was one of the most moving songs I heard all year, in a year given more to crying than usual.
23. Taylor Swift, “The Last Great American Dynasty” – The two Taylor Swift records, folklore and evermore, brought me back to the things I loved circa Red (one of my favorite records of the last 10 years) but with everything she’s learned and developed since then. The two best story-song records this year and setting an incredibly high bar for anyone else.
24. KeiyaA, “Negus Poem 1 & 2” – One of my favorite R&B records of the year. The shadowy creep at the heart of this song floats through the stuttered drums and that haunting melody. A perfect modern example of the loneliness at the heart of any truly sexy song.
25. Phoebe Bridgers, “Graceland Too” – It feels like Phoebe Bridgers gets better, sharper, and stronger with every record. The clarity on these songs is as bracing as moonshine and as warm as the flame you can’t see.
26. Jacob Garchik, “Moebius and Mucha” – Garchik – also all over the great new Kronos Quartet record – followed up his trombone chorus classic The Heavens with this album inspired by the ligne claire art movement. This track, inspired by the bandes dessinees artist and patron saint of art nouveau, is dripping with the crystalline melody and infectious charm this record brings in droves.
27. Optic Sink, “Exhibitionist” – This side project of Natalie Hoffmann from Nots brings her sharp, apocalyptic songwriting to a dubbed-out poppy synth with enough grime to stick to.
28. Fireboy DML, “Lifestyle” – The glowing harmonies and easy bounce of this Nigerian singer-songwriter’s work felt like sunlight when I needed it most.
29. Teyana Taylor featuring DaVido, “Killa” – Another astonishing R&B record in a late-night mode. Every time I revisited The Album there was another layer, another twist, something new I missed last time, a new favorite track.
30. Waxahatchee, “Ruby Falls” – Waxahatchee blew me away early, but these last couple records sailed right past my expectations. The torchy melody melting the perfectly observed lyrics here created a record I wanted to live in.
31. Lori McKenna, “The Balladeer”- One of my favorite songwriters doing what almost everyone who picks up an acoustic wishes they could but better than 99% of them will ever come close to, and she does it with a warmth and affection for the world and the human condition it’s hard to compete with.
32. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, “Only Children” – Isbell continues to not fall off, his mix of the super clean tones of his childhood radio heroes with the same empathy he’s been refining for years was another beautiful record without a bad track anywhere in sight.