It is no secret that 2020 has not been anyone's year, least of all for those in the music industry. But no matter the circumstances this year threw, artists were still releasing material. They just merely had to adapt for a while. With that being said, here are 10 memorable albums released in 2020.
Wake Up, Sunshine - All Time Low
Wake Up, Sunshine, All Time Low's eighth studio album, released April 3rd, 2020. The album is comprised of, Number 1 single for 12 weeks on the ALTPress Alternative Charts; Monsters, Some Kind of Disaster, Getaway Green and finally Sleeping In. It was the album, that welcomed the throwback sound back with open arms, leaving behind the experimental phases of the previous album Last Young Renegades. It has a little bit for every fan, sombre and mellow tracks like Summer Daze, to a random interlude track, Pretty Venom. Fancy that nostalgic feeling of who All Time Low were at the beginning, Basement Noise, does that for you.
CALM - 5 Seconds of Summer
CALM, amply named with the initials of each band member, is 5 Seconds of Summer's fourth studio LP and is an intimate, raw insight into their world. It was an album that shone a matured sound and that bridge between every teen girl's heart-throb to young men living their life in America. By no means whatsoever can this album be classed as perfect but, it can be remembered as the album that allowed them to express a new sound, one that refreshingly shows their mature outlook on their music and a growth; we may never have seen, if they hadn't taken a break to explore what life had to offer them. Tracks like teeth, easier and no shame, are the standout tracks on the album and have quirky memorabilia about them.
Father of all motherfuckers - Green Day
Although not hardcore fans favourite album, Father of All Motherfuckers, Green Day's thirteenth album, is arguably the most fun of them yet. The band known for their politics, this time took the opposing route and in many ways left their political heads at home, and decided to go down to the club and party. This album has not got a single stench of politics on this album, which is a strong potential why people aren't lovers of this album...well fans anyway, as it seems critics loved it. With garage-rock anthem Fire, Ready, Aim to take the rebel-esque imagery and heightening it 1000 percent, before mixing up-tempos to slower and more mellow songs like Oh Yeah, and seemingly transporting us back decades to the 50s with classic diner vibes of Sugar Youth. This lighthearted, fun, and in many ways bold LP has created that sense of confusion between Green Day's most iconic album American Idiot to modern day, politics-free Father of All Motherfuckers. It is confusing, and a brain twister so instead of trying to understand it or rationalize with it, let's do a Billy Joe Armstrong and say 'fuck it', let's have fun.
Ordinary Man - Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy Osbourne's twelfth studio album, Ordinary Man, released February 21st, 2020. Osbourne's first solo album in a decade, and most likely his finest in at least two maybe even three. It dabbles with a little bit of it all, mighty metal riffs, dark and brooding sounds, even a hint of gospel here and there. It has enough doom and bleakness to go around everyone. Offering a vast amount of ultimatums in your mind, Under The Graveyard will have you torn between which road to travel, and is the pure shadow and classic sounds of Osbourne himself. Rich in spirit, and dark in sound. But refreshingly, unlike many albums this takes away from the life Ozzy lived, full of alcohol, sex, and drugs, and surprisingly takes away from his age like, he is not a man in his early 70s battling for his life, but a young man on his early trails.
Use Me - PVRIS
Use Me, PVRIS' third album, released August 28th, 2020, and features 3 songs that were on the bands' previous EP Hallucinations. For the first time, we finally know who Lynn Gunn truly is, and unapologetically so. It was a brave leap from hiding behind her defenses to being solely responsible for it all, no longer can she hide her true self. Everything you hear on this album is hers, there is no hiding between the lines, or writing in a nostalgic sense, from start to finish the album is a testament to moving forward, never looking back, and using the name she has built over the years to still make it mean something. Lead single Dead Weight is the track that describes it all, coming out of a "band culture" sort of situation to a solo creator, there is no turning back.
Nothing is True, and Everything is Possible - Enter Shikari
Nothing is True & Everything is Possible is Enter Shikari's sixth LP, collectively brings everything they have done in the past, and collated it into a 15 track album of them all, essentially a greatest hits of all their sounds, and tricks from over the years; neatly wrapped up into an LP. The overall messiness of the albums is a depiction of a creator's mind. Trying to embody a multitude of ideas, in a wonderful and yet questionable way. From cinematic explosion to dystopian sound effects, like flooded streams of colour.
Cannibal - Bury Tomorrow
Cannibal, Bury Tomorrow's sixth studio album opens with single Choke, which hits hard straight from the get-go, for an opener; it set the course for the remaining parts of the LP. The rest of the album is a set of crispy dirty vocals by lead Daniel Winter-Bates, that graciously befriends the clean angelic vocals of James Cameron. It's like a vocal dance-off between Bates and Cameron, like usual but it feels as though there is less spotlight on Cameron through this album, mainly on tracks like Choke and Imposter, even on title track Cannibal. However, quite literally under a microscope, Bates does an outstanding job of talking about his relationship with mental health, and the battles he faces. His violent calls become increasingly visible on Imposter, which shows no sign of weakness or fragility.
Post Human: Survival Horror - Bring Me The Horizon
Post Human: Survival Horror, Bring Me The Horizon is still up for debate on if it is an album or an EP. However, the band themselves have said it is the first part of four EPs to be released. Written amid a pandemic, it explores sounds we have heard from them before and sounds that have been less in the spotlight but influences for many years like EDM. Features from Yungblud and Amy Lee shine through as the tracks on the album that are in many ways different than we've heard before. You expect from the title of the album, it isn't going to be cheery and One Day The Only Butterflies Left Will Be In Your Chest As You March Towards Your Death is no different. It is a mellow, balladesque song that lets Lee's vocals shine through.
Evermore - Taylor Swift
Evermore was the gift that keeps on giving. Taylor Swift secretly worked on her ninth album during lockdown, after confessing that she couldn't stop writing. With fingerpicked acoustic guitar and sombre piano throughout the album, this album is not a hitch-on-the-back of folklore but an album that merely accompanies it in a sister-like state and feels overall more experimental than Folklore. In true Swift fashion, Dorothea is the love ballad we all know the album would have. Champagne Problems is almost the opposing story to 2008 hit Love Story, which seemed to resonate with the fans a lot, now that along with Taylor, the audience has or is maturing.
GLUE - Boston Manor
Boston Manor's third album GLUE is dark, misanthropic yet creatively witty in its own way. As an album, it seemingly recognises that life in general can be testing and can be just as deceiving to the eye as songs can be. On the outside, songs on this album are talking about one thing, yet there is a constant deeper meaning within them, creating a never-ending dodecahedron, with more and more layers as it persists. On A High Ledge, is the melancholic tune, that resonates with the listeners that have been through traumatic experiences, many similar to those that lead singer Henry Cox did, whilst Terrible Love speaks to an audience who know how it feels to have themselves as their own worst enemy.
