Swim Into The Sound’s 15 Favorite Albums of 2024

This year frightened me. Too often, it felt like things could turn on a dime at any moment. I’m talking about that sudden, drop-in-your-stomach type of worsening that is both abrupt and disorienting. There were also moments where it felt like everything was gliding along effortlessly: complete bliss, total contentment, and unadulterated happiness, if only for a short bit. 2024 was a year of bouncing around, saying “yes,” and trying to follow my gut. Quite often, it led me to some beautiful moments. 

This year contained some of my greatest personal strides, painful lows, and profound revelations. I experienced strife in my career (both internal and external) for the first time in like a half-decade. Over the course of 2024, this job wound up contorting my heart and warping my brain in really painful ways. It was uniquely distressing, but I’m free now and on to better things, which is all that matters. On a more light-hearted note, I also kept a mustache all year, so that felt like a real marker in my life. This year, I saw Sufjan on Broadway and got to take in Niagra Falls with my own two eyes. I saw 36 immaculate concerts and listened to a ton of incredible music. Oh, I also made a documentary with my buddy about a sick-ass band. That was pretty rad. 

I don’t want to blather too much, but I do want to speak genuinely. I have felt more love and support this year than ever before in my life. Love from people who follow or write for this blog, love from friends and colleagues, love from people out on the street just passing by. I think it’s important to feel that love, recognize it, and spread it around as much as you can. I got fatter and happier and hairier and sillier and closer to who I want to be as a person. In those moments where I fell catastrophically short, I tried to take them as lessons of who not to be. I’ve felt an immense amount of appreciation, growth, and progress this year, and that’s only because I’ve allowed myself to open up and feel it. It’s really scary, but I swear it’s worth it. 

Anyway, let’s talk about music. 

This year, more than any other, the title of this article feels like a misnomer. In previous iterations, I’ve questioned what this publication’s “album of the year” truly means, but now that we have a sizeable team of writers, each with their own favorites, it’s evident that “Swim Into The Sound’s 15 Favorite Albums of 2024” is really just “Taylor’s 15 Favorite Albums of 2024.” In other words, this is a hyper-subjective list because it’s all from one point of view. 

As I sat down to list out my favorite albums of the year, there was a clear tendency to lean toward the genres that seem to be my “beat,” meaning emo, punk, shoegaze, and indie rock. I listened to a ton of music this year, but I won’t pretend I listened to everything. As such, this won’t be the most diverse AOTY list you’ve seen all season (it contains albums from Gleemer, Gulfer, and Glitterer), but it will be the most singular because it’s all from the mind of one weird guy typing this into his soon-to-be-revoked work laptop from his childhood bedroom. These are the albums that stuck with me all year and made a difference. In some cases, they’re weeks-old releases that have already connected to something deeper. Regardless of how long they’ve been in my life, these are pieces of art that I’ve found refuge and understanding in–collections of songs that make me feel seen and heard; it only makes sense to hold them up so others can hear them as well.  

To circle back to the beginning of this intro, it feels like we (collectively) have experienced several Events™ this year that have acted as drop-of-the-hat paradigm shifts. From presidential elections and assassination attempts to an avalanche of regressive policies, “natural” disasters, and forever wars that turn into forever genocides, there’s a lot to be upset about. With the rise in fascism, racism, and every type of phobia in the book, I think there’s been a lot of forced introspection, admission, and reconciliation over what’s happened in the last 360-some-odd days. I’m sure you had a few moments like that in your own life, and I’m sure that we’ll have many more in the coming year. To that end, at the onset of 2025, I’d love to be more explicit about where we stand: trans rights, free Palestine, healthcare + clean water for all, and defund the fucking police. 

I want Swim to be a safe space for writers, artists, fans, and people to discuss things they love. To that end, let’s get the fuck into it and talk about the music that has soundtracked my year. As always, I hope you find something here to love because, at the end of the day, that’s all we got. 

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⭐️ | Carpool – My Life In Subtitles

SideOneDummy Records

I want to start this off with an album that feels like it’s on a secret third plane of AOTY existence: My Life in Subtitles by Carpool. This is a loud-ass, real-ass rock album. I’m talking guitar solos, vocal acrobatics, infectious moshpit choruses, piano balladry, the whole package. This album has shaped my year more than any other after spending all of 2024 with it and spending three days on the road with the band in an attempt to capture their amazing live show. It resulted in a 17-minute documentary and accompanying two-part essay. It’s all very DIY and scrappy from my heart, and it was infinitely fulfilling to create. I want to do more stuff like it. 

If you want to know what record was truly indispensable for me this year, it was My Life in Subtitles. The rest of this is a numbered list, but Carpool had to start it off. In my Google Doc, it’s actually denoted with a “★” bullet point rather than a number, so if those 8k words linked above aren’t enough, I hope that star tells the rest of the story. 

Read our full review of My Life In Subtitles here.

15 | Gleemer – End of the Nail

Other People Records

Even though it’s only a couple of weeks old, the new record from Gleemer has utterly floored me. The band has been iterating on a particular strain of shoegaze for three albums, plus a couple of EPs and adjacent projects, but pivot to something with distinct character here. On End of the Nail, the Denver group sound nothing but authentic. As you would expect from a cover like this, these are dark and frustrated songs that openly grapple with feelings of dissatisfaction and pain. There are still moments of dreamy shoegaze distortion, but there’s also a grungy emo edge that pairs well with Nick Manske’s cool-guy deliveries. This record sounds like your brain throwing itself against the walls of your skull, thrashing around until it either reaches a conclusion or tires itself out. There are individual phrases and riffs that land like punches in a back alley fight, but it all coalesces into an immensely satisfying listen. 

14 | Glitterer – Rationale

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How much can a band realistically fit into 21 minutes? When it comes to Glitterer, it turns out quite a lot. Rationale takes the once-solo project of Ned Russin and transforms it into a collaborative full-band effort where all the pieces gel together in a swirl of bass, keys, and disaffected bellows. Just like his tenure in Title Fight, Russin utilizes his signature shout and melancholy strum to evoke a powerful reaction from his audience, but this time, his creations are honed into finely pointed tracks that often hover around the one-minute mark. From the reclusive abandon of “I Want To Be Invisible” to the synthy strut of “Plastic” and the utterly heartbroken “No One There,” it’s astounding how much catchy relatability Glitterer is able to fit into these one-minute slices. Occasionally, they might leave you wanting more or waiting for a resolution, but after a while, you realize that’s preferable to overstaying your welcome. 

13 | see through person – every way of living

Klepto Phase

For a good few years, see through person had exactly six songs to their name. Throughout chariot and sun, the trio fleshed out their own thrashy brand of emo punk built on jittery guitar slashing and Robin Mikan’s passionate wail. The songs were immediate, electrifying, and constantly circling around some deeper truth. On every way of living, that truth comes to bear with a record about self-discovery and trying to experience every way of living you possibly can.

While this process includes everything from moving across the country to experiencing fallout in your old friend groups, the most interesting moments on the record are the ones where Mikan writes openly about her exploration of gender identity and subsequent transition. We’re placed right there alongside her as family members use dead names and awkward small talk devolves into feeling out of place. This is all scored with jagged, ever-shifting instrumentals. Between Robin’s Fall of Troy-level heroics, you’ll hear Nikolas Kulpanowski’s bodyslamming bass and the bouncy dodgeball snare of Ethan Thomas. These are restless songs that exude an awkward, compelling, anxious energy. While see through person are tied to the emo music scene, their debut leans far more into mathy post-hardcore than anything else, an apt way to capture the frustration and elation that comes when you look inward and honestly ask yourself who you are. There’s a lot of feeling unheard, silencing yourself, and lonely reflection, but the band harnesses everything into these outpourings that are pure catharsis to hear. The inscription, written in emphatic all-caps, at the bottom of the album’s Bandcamp page summarizes things far better than I ever could, reading: “IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE AND YOU WERE FULL OF JOY. EVERY WAY OF LIVING.” 

12 | Heart to Gold – Free Help

Memory Music

With soaring vocals, glimmering guitars, and a beefy rhythm section, Free Help is a pitch-perfect punk rock album. Press play on any of these ten songs, and you’re guaranteed to hear something hard-hitting, fist-balling, and filled with forward momentum. Outside the sturdy instrumental work, there’s an impressive economy of writing at play here: choruses where seven words are stretched across two bars, and it all works beautifully. There’s frustration and anguish, commitment and confidence, powerful strides, and meager progress. This is music for when you’re surrounded, overwhelmed, and backed into a corner. Shout it out.

Read our full review of Free Help here.

11 | Ben Quad – Ephemera

Pure Noise Records

Sometimes, I question where else there is to go for Ben Quad. The Oklahoma group’s debut was my favorite emo album of 2022 in a way that seems hard to top, yet they’ve seemingly spent every moment since then on the fast track toward world domination. The band spent 2024 ripping sold-out gigs on multiple nationwide tours, all while covering peers and fourth-wave forefathers alike. By the fall, Ben Quad signed to Pure Noise Records and released Ephemera, venturing into the world of screamo with effortless mastery. It’s not like this post-hardcore pivot was too much of a surprise. It turns out 2022’s “You’re Part of It” wasn’t just a Piebald-referencing one-off; it was merely the first entry in a larger vent session that appears to have been a long time coming. With a list of influences that range from Underoath and Norma Jean to Youth Novel and William Bonney, there’s no question that these four know their shit, synthesizing two decades of metalcore and skramz into a cathartic five-song collection to help listeners air out every ounce of anger and frustration they feel towards the people that hold us down. There’s no more waiting for things to fall apart; it’s time for action, and Ben Quad is ready to soundtrack every motion. 

10 | Bedbug – pack your bags the sun is growing

Disposable America

Anyone who has driven across the country can attest to how monotonous it can be. Hours upon hours of shooting straight down the highway with expanses on either side punctuated by gas stations and rest stops. While that’s often a repetitive experience, it can also be meditative and downright sublime. There are grandiose moments of beauty where the highway seems to stretch out to infinity and you feel connected to everything. That sense of wanderlust is precisely what the first full-band album from Bedbug aims to capture. Pivoting from their humble bedroom pop origins to something that more resembles Modest Mouse with midwest emo riffs, pack your bags the sun is growing is a sprawling release that looks off into the horizon, ever-searching for that glint of heaven. The crazy part is they actually manage to embody it on at least a few occasions.  

Read our full review of pack your bags the sun is growing here.

9 | This Is Lorelei – Box for Buddy, Box for Star

Double Double Whammy

Box for Buddy, Box for Star twangs to life with “Angel’s Eye,” a saloon-ready duet between an alien and a cowboy who fall in love in which bandleader Nate Amos sings both parts. An ambitious concept, but merely the opening salvo for a project like This Is Lorelei. Throughout the rest of the record, there are alarm clock wake-up noises, autotuned Steely Dan namedrops, music box breakups, and earnest Elliott Smith homage, all amounting to one of the most inventive, fun, and free-wheeling records I’ve heard all year. Despite the impressively diverse range of instrumentation and ideas, these are pop songs designed to be immediately enjoyed and endlessly returned to. After a string of numbered EPs and one-off singles, Box for Buddy, Box for Star arrives fully formed with a spirit of boundless exploration. This one’s for the losers, for the reformed stoners and ex-burnouts who realize there’s still more life to live. It’s affirming in the way all great music should be.

Read our interview with Nate Amos here.

8 | Ben Seretan – Allora

Tiny Engines

Just to establish the backstory: Allora was recorded in Italy back in 2019. Ben Seretan, flanked by Nico Hedley and Dan Knishkowy, ripped through the LP in three sweaty summer days, creating a piece that’s endlessly reaching out for the divine. The whole thing starts with “New Air,” an 8-minute expedition that opens with a guitar solo before a lyrical refrain that repeats and circulates until it takes on a meditative quality. It prattles forward like a song by Wilco or Yo La Tengo, settling into a groove and gradually building to something hypnotic and transcendental. Beyond that, there’s post-rock ramble, synthy spirals, dust-caked exaltations, and modern hymnwork. The whole thing is explosive and expansive, with one powerful movement after another. 

In the excellent album bio by Caleb Cordes of Sinai Vessel, he explains that there was a period of time when Allora was simply known as Ben Seretan’s “insane Italy record.” While that’s a funny way to pitch an album, the more apt articulation is found in its name: Allora being an expressive Venetian catchall that translates to “at that time.” While Cordes lays out what “that time” meant to the people creating this album, it’s impossible not to think about the infinite times that lay ahead: all of the people who will pick this record up and discover it in the coming years, all the times over the past months I’ve ventured into Allora and found something different within its walls. No matter when or where you come to this record, I can assure you that it’s ready to meet you in the present until ‘this time’ becomes ‘that time.’

Read our full review of Allora here.
Bonus points for having one of the sickest tie-dye shirts I’ve seen all year. 

7 | Merce Lemon – Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild

Darling records

After an eventful summer zipping from the West Coast to New York, Chicago, and Rochester, I spent a month at my parent’s house back in Oregon. Just about every day, I’d get off my aforementioned soul-contorting job, sit in the backyard, and stare at the sky while listening to Merce Lemon. Some days, I would read a book or indulge in a backyard beer; other times, I would just sit and listen and breathe. It became a centering ritual for me, guided by songs like “Backyard Lover” and “Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild,” which proved to be wellsprings of empathy and beauty at a time when I needed them most. As a full-length experience, Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild is naturalistic and gorgeous, penned during a period when Merce Lemon was living off the grid gardening, farming, and sleeping outside as she looked inward to ask herself what she really wanted. The resulting album approaches the world with a sort of folksy reverence that makes you appreciate every atom of your surroundings. There are lyrics of birds and blueberries and mountains that tickle the sky’s belly. It’s a big, beautiful world, fleshed out even further by a standalone single and split of Will Oldham covers, all of which collectively prove that wonder is an infinitely renewable resource and beauty is always there, hiding in plain sight, so long as you’re willing to look for it. 

Read our full review of Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild here.

6 | Oso Oso – life till bones

Yunahon Entertainment LLC

The fifth full-length from Oso Oso is a compact and unfussy indie rock album about how life continues even after the unthinkable. It’s littered with truths from the very first line, “I love you, but life is a gun,” acknowledging the soaring highs and painful lows of day-to-day existence. Whether he’s relaying charming dirtbag anecdotes, meditating on the passage of time, or memorializing the loss of a loved one, Jade Lilitri manages to make everything sound buoyant, with an unshakable brightness shot through every beat. There are anti-love love songs going toe-to-toe with actual love songs, because you can’t have one without the other. After nine tracks of these naturally occurring rises and falls, album closer “other people’s stories” questions exactly what it is we’re all doing here: “other people's stories got me feeling bored / yea, other people's stories aren't like yours / look at all the people, looking at their phones / with how much time left? life till bones.” It’s a series of lines that directly address the uncomfortable truth lingering at the center of it all. Like every other Oso Oso track, Lilitri delivers it with a smirk and a riff before jettisoning off to whatever’s next, acknowledging the bad and holding onto the good while knowing that neither are permanent. 

Read our full review of life till bones here.

5 | Charli xcx – BRAT

Atlantic

2024 was the year Charli xcx became inescapable. A fair bit of that is internet echo chamber, but as someone who’s followed the pop star since she was on the periphery of the charts a decade ago, it’s been surreal to watch her ascend the ranks of Spotify’s top 500 and fully establish herself as a household name. BRAT is more than just a collection of really good pop songs; it’s a genuine event-level album seeded by feverish singles, bolstered by hot girl music videos, and chased with a remix album that brought new definition to every track. There was a sold-out tour, countless magazine covers and interviews, plus a whole damn season shaped by the vernacular and attitude of Charli. There was a bottomless supply of hot looks, silly dances, and sleazy parties, each with their own dizzying ripples of discourse, but I suppose that’s how you know you’ve made it. This resulted in seven Grammy noms, a #1 album in the UK, and unparalleled cultural impact–one that feels increasingly remarkable in the ever-splitering landscape of 2024. The impressive part is that, despite how vast and multi-faceted its impact, BRAT still felt true to Charli. The record is catchy, dancy, exhilarating, cunty, fun, raw, tender, and honest. I guess that’s the true magic of pop stars: living an existence that’s larger than life which normal-ass people can still relate and aspire to, then make their own. 

4 | MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks 

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At this point, I think even MJ Lenderman is sick of hearing about MJ Lenderman. I alone wrote like 3k words about his breakthrough Manning Fireworks, and this year was home to a bit of oversaturation for the Asheville rocker as he was subject to countless interviews, think pieces, magazine covers, profiles, and general writing. I’m reticent to add even another paragraph onto that tally with this blurb because sometimes it’s just not that deep. Lenderman makes hazy, funny, groovy indie rock that pulls inspiration from slacker greats of the 90s while simultaneously nodding to classic rock mainstays of the decades before that. MJ modernizes these influences and puts his own spin on things as he weaves tales of pathetic fuck-ups, dead-end wasters, and people who are too scared to try. It’s all delivered with a surprising amount of empathy and humor that makes these cautionary tales go down easier, plus a number of knockout riffs that make you want to hoot, holler, yelp, and wail. “She’s Leaving You”? Generational. “Joker Lips”? That’s a tasty lick. “Wristwatch”? I’ll never look at houseboats the same again. If I had one hot take to level at Manning Fireworks, it’s that the back half ventures into territory that doesn’t always land as hard for me, but even then, we have the masterful “Pianos” as a consolation. Despite all the hay that’s been made of Lenderman’s output this year, Manning Fireworks just plain rocks, and I’ve never had a bad time when I throw this record on. Lenderman is an artist who makes me hopeful for the future (both of music and in general) because I think his best work is still ahead of him.

Read our full review of Manning Fireworks here.

3 | Wild Pink – Dulling The Horns

Fire Talk

Dulling The Horns is a disorienting album about the impermanence and beauty of life. Its lyrics are a beautiful Rorschach Test of observations, phrases, and memories filtered through the eyes of bandleader John Ross. Recorded live in-studio, the album still retains the wide-set heartland rock lens found on previous Wild Pink releases, but cakes on layers of dirt and distortion that gives everything a much more compact, classic rock feel. The lyrics are abstract and difficult to parse, but that makes them all the more alluring as you attempt to peer into the album’s inner workings. 

Everything buzzes and crackles with an excitable energy that shakes off the darker expanses found throughout 2022’s ILYSM. Instead, Ross and co. opt to bask in the light that comes from a million miles away because, as he explains, “we get a little every day.” Whether they’re recounting sports esoterica or retelling the story of “Lefty” Ruggiero before throwing to a crunchy shoegaze riff, everything flows with a sort of dreamlike logic with its own internal reasoning. All the while, there are folksy truisms strewn throughout, helping ground things between incendiary guitar solos, pedal steel weeps, and disintegrating fuzz. Dulling The Horns feels like a car console CD destined to be sandwiched between Tom Petty and The War On Drugs as it sits primed for cross-country road trips and short jaunts all the same. As Ross poses questions like “How can there be / Really nothing in between / That big-ass moon and me?” he places the listener alongside him, prompting them to ask the same questions as they wait to get swept up in the next riff.

Read our full review of Dulling The Horns here.

2 | Gulfer – Third Wind

Topshelf Records

Given their decade-plus discography of mathy punk, midwest mastery, and monumental splits, it’s tempting to call Gulfer an emo band, yet everything on their fourth LP points elsewhere. Aptly titled, Third Wind sees the band set off from a fresh crossroads as guitarist/vocalist Joseph Therriault takes on principal songwriting duty. There are still glimpses of the band’s previous stylings strewn throughout, but for the most part, these are poppy indie rock songs with Rube Goldberg-like math-rock guitar riffs. It’s proggy but simple, with choruses that still manage to stick in your head despite the ornate instrumentation. There are left-field decisions that make each song feel distinct, like the winding whammy bar riff on “Cherry Seed” or the pummeling breakdown of “Too Slow” that expends all of its energy halfway through the song. 

On tracks like “No Brainer,” the band hammers the same phrase over and over again as the instrumental rages around them, meanwhile, they take the exact opposite approach on songs like “Prove,” stretching the song’s title into an elongated “prooOOooOOooOOoo-ve” over some intricate guitar tapping that does my midwest emo heart good. There are love songs alongside reckonings of climate change and tales of exacting burnout-fueled revenge on an uncaring boss. It’s all assembled in a bleeding highlighter package of turquoise, yellow, green, and blue–an expired film strip that still manages to capture snapshots of absolute awe. 

A few months after the release of Third Wind, Gulfer announced they were calling it quits, but not before dropping LIGHTS OUT, a five-song collection that only serves to further emphasize how high of a level they were operating at. While they’ll be forever missed, there’s no denying thst Gulfer went out on a high note. Bands should be so lucky to have a last album as good as this.

Read our full review of Third Wind here.

1 | Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood 

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I’m not sure what Tigers Blood is about, but it’s stunning. The sixth record from Waxahatchee captures the beauty of life in sun-dappled snapshots like a shoebox full of old polaroids or a night spent reminiscing with a long-lost friend. This is all run through with an undercurrent of delight and despair that feels true to life, a reminder that, while these events have passed, we can still appreciate and honor them for what they were. The songs are lush and elaborate, framed by sturdy drums and bass, splotches of banjo and slide guitar, plus additional guitarwork and occasional background vocals courtesy of MJ Lenderman. Pretty as it all sounds, the album is about people whose fire burns out at midnight. It’s about people who are beaten down, broken up, and bored. It’s about modest ways of life and individuals who are perpetually “Right Back to It” in the most Sisyphean sense. 

Details come from allusions to the Bama heat and locks on doors that cost more than the beater parked out front. Much like 2020’s Saint Cloud, everything is still centered around Katie Crutchfield’s ironclad voice and poetic observations, but on this record, they take on a slightly more ragged alt-country tinge. Through the smoldering twang, a picture emerges of a humble, attainable lifestyle of living within your means, counting your blessings, and being thankful for what you have.

While the cover for Saint Cloud saw Crutchfield in a flowing blue dress perched atop a Ford with a truckbed full of roses, the cover for Tigers Blood sees her standing underneath a rusted-out neon sign. She’s wearing blue jeans and flannel over a red bikini top, plus a “KC” trucker hat that obscures her face as she stares down at the grass beneath her feet. The back cover of the vinyl focuses in on a snow cone, flush red with Tigers Blood dye–a simple pleasure in the final act of the good old days. A small consolation, but one we ought to indulge and find comfort in all the same.

The 2020 Diamond Platters: Swim Into The Sound’s Ancillary End of the Year Awards

Welp, it’s that time of the year again. Not the holidays, not Christmas, not Hanukkah, but List Season. Yes folks, it’s that wonderful time of the year where every other mainstream music publication stumbles over themselves to write compelling one-paragraph write-ups on the same 50 albums as every other blog.

Vindictive as I sound, I do have a strange affinity for List Season. I’m always curious to see what the critical consensus is and where my favorites rank among the lists (if at all), yet there’s something so off about the whole thing. A 3-page listicle of 50 different one-paragraph album write-ups has never felt indicative of the year. Sure, you can revisit the big hits, the 10 out of 10s, and the cultural touchstones, but the format itself is limited. A simple countdown doesn’t do the year justice. Where are the EPs and splits? Where are the weird headlines? Where are the cover songs? Where are the other formative musical events of the year that don’t fit into the album format? That’s why I created The Diamond Platters. 

Intentionally named to be as gaudy and opulent as possible, these awards are the highest honor that I, a music blog with impeccable taste, can possibly bestow upon an artist. Music sales, popularity, playing to swaths of adoring fans, those should all come second, because if you made it on this list, then you made it baby. 

Tongue-in-cheek sarcasm aside, this tradition began four years ago and was so well-received that I just had to do it again in 2018. That second iteration was less-well-received, but I thought ‘analytics be damned!’ and did it again in 2019 to relative success. These awards began as a way for me to circumvent publishing “just another” end of the year list. This is a look at the past 365 days in music through a unique (and sometimes hyper-specific) lens. These awards allow me to draw attention to the creations that may not get discussed on a typical publication’s end of the year list. Most importantly, it’s a way to celebrate the year in music without pitting artists against each other. Unique categories for the unique music listener, because not everything fits into a list of 50.

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Best Acoustic Reimagining

Winner: The Wonder Years “Hoodie Weather”
Over the course of the last decade, The Wonder Years have become a stalwart of the pop-punk scene. The band has aged gracefully into each iteration of their career, gradually shifting from energetic teenage goofiness to post-college listlessness and, more recently, morbid pathos. This year, the band released the second iteration in their Burst & Decay series, allowing them to revisit their old songs and update them in a way that feels more true to where the band members are today. The group’s acoustic reimagining of 2011’s “Hoodie Weather” merges these worlds together, taking a song about the restless touring of their early 20’s and rendering it in a pensive, more idyllic light. This rendition of the track retains the sentiment at the core of the original and feels like an update that looks back on the events with reverence provided by the distance of time. It’s a revisitation, but also an update. In a way, this feels like the way the song was always meant to be heard. It’s proof that the band still has more to say, even if it’s just saying it differently.

Runner-up: Future Teens “Swiped Out”
Future teens have always straddled the line between “emo band” and something more profound. They have achieved success by using many of the same struggles and stylistic choices as your average emo group but have managed to present them in a more mature way. With their Sensitive Sessions EP, the group revisited four songs from last year’s Breakup Season and somehow managed to make them even sadder. Hell, the band even managed to make Smash Mouth sound sad, so at this point, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing they can’t do. 

Best Album Art

Winner: Vile Creature - Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!
For an album that I’ve only listened to one time, the cover to Vile Creature’s Glory, Glory! Has stuck with me more than any other release this year. Capturing the heaviness and beauty at the heart of this sludgy release, this album art is simultaneously gorgeous and disturbing to look at. The cover both sticks with you and accurately indicates the exact kind of songs you’re about to take in. When flipping through vinyl at a record store, this cover is enough to stop any music fan in their tracks, and that means it’s a success on every level. 

Runner-up: Niiice. - Internet Friends
Looking at the cover for Internet Friends, you might wonder who some of these people are, but if you’re a part of the emo DIY circuit on Twitter, then you’d quickly recognize a majority of these faces. From Origami Angel to Stars Hollow and Short Fictions, this cover is a veritable Avengers Endgame of 5th wave emo. This means you can spend a majority of the album’s runtime combing over the front and back of the vinyl scanning for easter eggs while taking in songs about weed and depression, essentially the ideal way to spend an evening in 2020. 

I Miss Shows: Award For Best Live Album

Winner: Aaron West & The Roaring Twenties - Live From Asbury Park
It probably goes without saying, but concerts were fucked this year, and that meant we had to rely on livestreams and live albums to fill that void. I was fortunate enough to catch a grand total of 6 shows in the two and a half months of 2020 that things were still open. Halfway through the year, Dan Campbell (aka Aaron West) released Live From Asbury Park, a one-hour album capturing two sold-out nights of energetic, folksy, Springsteen-inspired performances from the tail end of 2019. This record is everything a live album should be. There’s crowd interaction, jaw-dropping high notes, and gorgeous brass instrumentation. On top of all this, the live rendition of “Divorce and the American South” is one of the only songs to make me cry outright this year, so this record is worth checking out for that fact alone. 

Runner-up: Bon Iver - Blood Bank (10th Anniversary Edition)
I’m a longtime Bon Iver guy and seeing Justin Vernon treat the tenth anniversary of Blood Bank with such reverence warmed my heart. It’s not exactly a sizable release in the band’s discography, but still a memorable stopgap after the breakthrough success of For Emma, Forever Ago. Even though the EP’s tenth-anniversary release is essentially just the original EP plus a collection of four live tracks, the selection of songs taken from different locations across their 2018 tour makes it feel like a lot of time and thought was put into its presentation. Having (finally) seen the group in concert back in 2019, I can say that the selections on this release do an excellent job of bottling up the raw emotional power of these songs when rendered live on-stage. 

Best Sequenced Album

Winner: Ratboys - Printer’s Devil
Longtime readers know that I’m a diehard supporter of short albums. I’m already a big believer in ‘less is more,’ but the longer an album is, the more opportunities there are for lulls and rough patches. While it may or may not end up on my album of the year list in a few weeks, there’s no denying that Ratboy’s third album is an immaculately-crafted work. It’s perfectly paced with peppy, upbeat tracks opening each side, long wistful passages right when they’re needed, and a wonderfully pensive closing track. In other words, this is a masterfully-structured release that hits all the right beats at all the right times. 

Runner-up: 100 Gecs - 100 Gecs and the Tree of Clues
Nine times out of ten, you could hand me a remix album and I’d throw it straight in the trash. Even for bands that I love, all a remix typically makes me want to do is stop listening to it and go turn on the original. There are some rare examples where a remix can elevate the original or cast it in a new light, but on 100 Gecs and the Tree of Clues, pretty much everything and the kitchen sink is included, yet somehow everything works. Essentially an album-length victory lap for the breakthrough hyperpop act, Tree of Clues sees the duo turning their eclectic 2019 album over to a host of collaborators and conspirators. These guests create ecstasy-fueled EDM bangers, hash noise rock assaults, and everything in between. Every song is different from the ones that came before it, which means there’s never a dull moment.

Remix of the Year

Winner: 100 gecs “ringtone remix featuring Charli XCX, Kero Kero Bonito, and Rico Nasty”
When 100 gecs dropped their ringtone remix at the beginning of the year, I’d never experienced anything quite like it. The mix of Charli XCX’s PC Music pop, the brash bars provided by Rico Nasty, and the kawaii interlude courtesy of Kero Kero Bonito proved to be an intoxicating mixture that felt like falling in love. This remix takes an already great track and re-infuses it with that feeling of meeting someone you’ve fallen head over heels for. A powerful emotion to have bottled up in a three-and-a-half-minute song.

Runner-up: Origami Angel - Origami Angel Broke Minecraft
Once we all collectively realized that gigs weren’t happening this year, Origami Angel did the only logical thing and released a Minecraft-themed remix of their greatest hits for a livestreamed concert taking place in the same game. Despite the complicated and meme-like origins surrounding its release, I’ll never say no to new Gami, much less Gami with Lil John drops.

Best Hiking Album

Winner: Cory Wong - Trail Songs Dusk/Dawn 
On top of releasing one album with Vulfpeck and an album with the Fearless Flyers, Cory Wong also somehow found time to release a solo album in January, a live album, a jazzy piano record, a second two-part live album, and another solo album. On top of all this, he also managed to release a conceptual double EP at the peak of summer that (literally) walks the listener through two different halves of a hiking trip. The first release focuses on the sunny hike up the trail, while the second release captures the starry night spent around the campfire. As someone who got into hiking this year, I can’t articulate how beautifully Wong manages to capture the feeling of boundless exploration and wonder that one experiences on their way up a trail, as well as the sense of satisfied triumph you feel on your way back down. It’s a beautiful breath of fresh air that I can’t wait to revisit all winter long.

Runner-up: Empty Country - Empty Country
Empty Country’s self-titled release is an arid, jangly album that walks the line between emo, indie rock, and even a touch of heartland Americana. Much like Wild Pink, this is a band that fuses all of these sounds together into something fresh and accessible. Listening to Empty Country feels comparable to a lackadaisical stroll through a field, or the view from the top of a hill. 

Best Interpolation

Winner: Dance Gavin Dance “Born To Fail” (Interpolating Tides of Man)
When I first heard “Born To Fail,” I was digging it. Then, when I heard Tilian quoting my favorite Tides of Man song a full decade after he first sang it, the song officially blew my mind. It never even occurred to me that a band was even ALLOWED to do this, but like everything else that Dance Gavin Dance does, they made it sound great.

Runner-up: Gleemer “TTX” (Interpolating Lesley Gore)
While the interpolation on “Born To Fail” is fantastic because of the reference track's mind-bending context, Gleemer's “TTX” is noteworthy for an entirely different reason. Here, the band interpolates Lesley Gore's “It’s My Party” and integrates it so seamlessly that the lyrics sound completely organic.

Best Music Video

Winner: Rico Nasty “Own It”
Every frame of this video is art. From the bikini-clad Hellraiser look to the babushka-adorned champagne tea party, “Own It” truly feels like Rico Nasty in her element. There are bright colors, triple-take costume designs, and animated in-your-face movements that come across as equal parts boisterous and calculated—a perfect, disorienting crash course into the world of Rico Nasty. 

Runner-up: Dogleg “Wartortle”
This seems like a safe place to admit that Clerks blew my mind when I first saw it in college. Not even a casual “blew my mind and liked it,” but an “I need to go sit by myself and think about that movie because it spoke to something that deep within me.” I’m a little embarrassed by that fact six-ish years down the line, but seeing Dogleg’s faithful recreation of the Kevin Smith classic in the music video for “Wartortle” made me feel a little bit better about my regrettably deep-rooted connection.

Best Music-Related Game of the Year

Winner: Dikembe: The Video Game
I’ll admit this category was not entirely my idea but came from Dikembe themselves jokingly suggesting it on Twitter. Despite the artificial creation of this award, this is precisely what the Diamond Platters were made for. After all, how many other DIY bands have the brains big enough to promote their upcoming record with a platformer? Just one, and it was Dikembe.

Runner-up: Get To The Gig: The Chillwavve Records Video Game
In a similar vein, Get To The Gig from Chillwavve Records is a throwback RPG that finds its hero fulfilling the title’s promise and meeting a roster of DIY emo icons along the way. If that wasn’t enough, the “leaked” song at the end of the game made the entire journey feel worth it. Eat your heart out, Travis Scott Fortnite performance. 

Best Guest Feature

Winner: Uwade Akhere on Shore
I may not have liked Fleet Foxes’ fourth studio album, but Uwade Akhere’s contributions are undeniably the record’s high points. In fact, the band places a lot of weight on her shoulders for an unknown talent. From opening and closing the album to contributing gorgeous melodies to the album’s best cut, it’s painful to imagine what Shore would have been without her.

Runner-up: Morgan Freeman on Savage Mode II
Morgan Freeman’s dulcet tones are pretty much the last thing you’d expect to hear when clicking play on the newest 21 Savage mixtape, yet on the sequel to 2017’s Savage Mode, they somehow manage to fit perfectly. From welcoming the listener to the album, giving a detailed explanation on the difference between ‘snitches’ and ‘rats,’ to closing the tape out with a reminder to “stay in savage mode,” it’s fair to say this release wouldn’t have been the same without him.

Best Cover Song

Winner: Phoebe Bridgers & Maggie Rogers “Iris”
2020 was a banner year for Phoebe Bridgers; she released her sophomore album to critical acclaim and (relative) enthusiasm from long-time fans. She earned a slew of Grammy nominations, performed at Red Rocks, released her annual Christmas song, and had a seemingly never-ending barrage of attention-grabbing interviews. The arguable peak of Phoebe-dom happened when, during a particularly bleak moment on Election Day, she tweeted, “if trump loses I will cover iris by the goo goo dolls.” Not only did Trump end up losing, but Phoebe stuck to her word, releasing the song for only 24 hours on Bandcamp with all proceeds going to Fair Fight, an organization dedicated to fighting for free and fair elections. On top of all this, both Bridgers and Rogers earned their first Billboard Hot 100 with this cover based solely off of Bandcamp Purchases alone. The song itself is an absolutely gorgeous and heartfelt rendition of the late-90s radio banger, a genre of music I’ve found myself increasingly unironically drawn to over the course of quarantine. If anything, Phoebe’s version of the song only further solidified my belief in the earnest beauty that lies at the heart of corny songs from my childhood. 

Runner-up: Pelafina “Cardigan”
I’ll be honest. I have no idea how I stumbled across Pelafina, let alone became a follower of theirs on Bandcamp, but when I got an email announcing their Taylor Swift covers, I bought them without hesitation. TS finds the band revisiting two recent Swift hits, “Cardigan” and “Cruel Summer,” both of which the band casts in a new and loving light that’s both faithful to the source material while retaining their style as a band, exactly what a good cover should be. 

Headline of the Year

Winner: “Scooby-Doo Is Going on Tour With Björk's Costume Designer”
The fact that 2020 robbed us of this experience is nothing short of a national tragedy. 

Runner-up: “Sex Pistols star Johnny Rotten bitten by a flea on his penis after rescuing squirrels”
Look, if I had to read this, y’all do too.

Porch Beer Album of the Year

Winner: Routine - And Other Things
Porch Beers, a term coined by me and popularized with my two-follower Spotify playlist, is a subgenre of music characterized by jangly guitars, lackadaisical lyricism, and relaxed rhythm sections. It’s country-tinged indie rock that pairs flawlessly with a porch and a pink sky on a summer evening, and there wasn’t a release this year that captured that feeling better than And Other Things. Surprise announced in the last quarter of the year, this 17-minute EP brings together partners Melina Duterte of Jay Som and Annie Truscott of Chastity Belt for a collection of songs that feels as fulfilling as a full-length. As you’d expect from such a short release, the two waste no time jumping straight into it with “Candy Road” which sparkles like desert sand in the midday sun. The titular “And Other Things” is a masterwork of revelatory reverb. Meanwhile, “Calm and Collected” sends things off perfectly with an extended instrumental stretch that leaves just enough room for reflection while you queue the record up again and grab another beer. 

Runner-up: Kevin Morby - Sundowner
With songs like “Valley,” “Campfire,” and of course the titular “Sundowner,” Kevin Morby’s sixth studio album feels tailor-made for porch beers or long, reflective drives home. It’s laid-back, countrified, fresh air music that practically begs you to crack open a cold one, inhale some fresh air, and appreciate your surroundings.

Best Gothic Country Album

Winner: Holy Motors - Horse
If someone were to ask me what Gothic Country is, I would simply show them the cover art for songs like Holy Motors’ “Country Church” and “Endless Night,” then I’d hit play on the band’s excellent sophomore album. 

Runner-up: BAMBARA - Stray
Swirling together a mesmerizing blend of gothic country and post-punk, Bambara’s Shadow On Everything was a dark horse entry in my 2018 Album of the Year list. Two years later, they’ve continued to develop that sound into a new release that’s haunting, unsettling, groovy, and even singable at times. 

Favorite Longform Piece I Wrote This Year

Winner: The Stark Maximalism of Sufjan Stevens
Spoiler alert: sometimes I use these awards to re-promote some of my old articles. While it may seem like insular self-promotion, what better time than the end of the year to look back on some of my favorite pieces of writing? Literally the first article I published this calendar year, my retrospective on Sufjan’s Carrie & Lowell was a long time coming. Bringing together years of listening history, a live album, and a B-sides collection, I felt like I finally said everything I’d spent five years ruminating on. Not only that, I feel like I was able to articulate myself completely and beautifully, which is one of the most satisfying experiences as a writer. 

Runner-up: An Introduction To Post-Rock
Post-rock is a genre that’s gotten me through a lot of tough times. It’s scored countless hours of reading, writing, and creating for me. It’s a pretty specific but deep genre, which means it’s infinitely rewarding to get into. In this piece, I did my best to put the wordless power of the genre into several paragraphs, a task that proved to be both rewarding and herculean. Intended to serve as an entry point for someone new to post-rock, this post takes nine of genre’s best records and explains the differences between each so someone can jump in with an album that’s up their alley stylistically then (ideally) journey in deeper from there. 

Y’all Sleep: Most Overlooked and Underappreciated Release of the Year 

Winner: Marble Teeth - Park
Do you like Slaughter Beach, Dog? What about Oso Oso? How Do you feel about Field Medic? If you responded positively to any of the above questions, then what are you waiting for? Press play on Marble Teeth’s Park immediately. While Cars weaved minute-long stories of high school football players, paranoid Pop-Tart connoisseurs, and lifelong love, Park ventures into more polished and personable territory. While Cars centered around acoustic guitar licks and simplistic electronic beats, Park favors a full(er) band approach that strikes at the heart of midwest mediocrity. Still centered around Caleb Jefson’s astute observations of the human condition, these songs sway forward in the most approachable and unexpected ways. There’s nothing quite like reveling in the world of awkward relationships, midnight dances, and Connecticut rest stops depicted in Park. This is a superb and lived-in release that is more creative, wondrous, and well-observed than almost anything I’ve listened to this year.

Runner-up: Fixer - Married
Portland, Oregon doesn't have much of a music scene because if there was any justice in this world, then Fixer’s sophomore album would have roughly one million streams by now. A lowkey indie rock release from the beginning of quarantine, this record is catchy, groovy, and immaculately produced. A literal shame that more people haven’t dug into these songs because this 25-minute release is worth its weight in gold. 

Best “Making Of” Documentary

Winner: Glass Beach - the making of the first glass beach album
Have 90 minutes to kill and don’t feel like watching a movie? Well, it’s hard to beat the making of the first glass beach album. The perfect introduction to the emo-ish prog-ish indie-ish band, this feature-length documentary is up for free on Youtube and details (as you would expect) the creation of the band’s titular first album. It’s fun, it’s funky, it’s a journey. 

Runner-up: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Ratty
Have another 30 minutes to kill? Well, Ratty is a documentary from genre-agnostic Aussie rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. This mini-movie details the creation of their thrash metal masterpiece Infest The Rats Nest, which wound up on our 2019 Album of the Year List. For a band as entertaining and musically diverse as King Gizz, this doc is a great peek behind the curtain into the psych rocker’s creative process. 

Best Cover Song Part II: Electric Boogaloo

Winner: The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die “In Circles”
The World Is A Beautiful Place are emo legends. Sunny Day Real Estate are emo legends. It would only make sense that the two should meet at some point, and this cover bridges the gap between emo generations like nothing before. It shouldn’t be surprising that TWIABP does “In Circles” such justice, but they also manage to put their own spin on it that feels distinctly modern. It’s gorgeous and honestly just makes me want a full album of Sunny Day Real Estate covers. 

Runner-up: Dogleg & Worst Party Ever - go ep
It started, as many things do, with a tweet. Late November, Michigan punk band Dogleg pitted a fight against Florida emo rockers Worst Party Ever. Accusations were made, shots were fired, the gauntlet was thrown. This jokingly playful beef culminated in the two bands exchanging covers, all of which were collected in a split that warms my emo heart.

Most Triggering High School Metalcore Phase Flashbacks

Winner: Mikau - Phantoma
This year I stumbled across a vinyl copy of The Word Alive’s debut EP Empire at a local record shop. I’m pretty sure I audibly gasped and quickly threw down however much money allowed me to leave the store with the record in-hand. If that reaction makes sense to you, then Mikau’s Phantoma is likely to spark that same corner of your latent 2010’s Hot Topic brain as it did me. There are chuggy riffs, crabcore breakdowns, and synthy interludes. In short, this is the type of band who would have signed to Rise Records in 2011 and raked in money by the thousands every summer at Warped Tour. Instead, we’re lucky enough to have them in 2020, where they can be appreciated for the nostalgic, lost art form that they really are. 

Runner-up: If I Die First - My Poison Arms
When I first stumbled across If I Die First on Spotify, I didn’t even know what genre they were. When I clicked play on My Poison Arms and was greeted electronicore in the vein of This Romantic Tragedy, I was immediately smitten. This EP would have fit in perfectly on my iPod Classic circa 2009, so I am legally obligated to love it with every molecule in my latent metalcore-loving heart.

Song of the Summer

Winner: Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion “WAP”
Let’s just get it out of the way; “WAP” is a great song. The track is catchy, dirty, and sexually-liberating, which is all well and good, but what strikes me most about this cartoonishly horny hip-hop cut is the fact that it managed to be so pervasive despite a nationwide shutdown. I know there were (unfortunately) still people out partying this summer, but this song’s ability to spread through TikTok, Twitter, and various other social media is what really cemented it as an artistic achievement in the face of a distinctly non-WAP summer. 

Runner-up: Dababy & Roddy Ricch “Rockstar”
I know it was a quarantined summer, and having a hit song during this time feels like it comes with a giant asterisk. However, if your song managed to make its way to me (an uncool white guy in his late-20s), I can only assume it’s reached a level of cultural pervasiveness that is worthy of praise. 

Favorite Review I Wrote This Year

Winner: Young Jesus - Welcome To Conceptual Beach
More shameless self-promo, this time in review form! While those earlier articles were longer-form pieces, my review for Young Jesus’ phenomenal fifth album is short, pointed, and poured out of me in one writing session. Sometimes the most challenging part of writing a review is just figuring out your way in. Young Jesus provided so many different ways in on their latest record, the problem became figuring out which one to pursue. Luckily, I feel like I did the album justice and spoke articulately to the statement that it’s making. 

Runner-up: Sinai Vessel - Ground Aswim
Much like my Young Jesus review, my review for Ground Aswim poured out of me over the course of one impassioned afternoon that I spent with the record. Also, much like the Young Jesus album, Sinai Vessel’s sophomore effort is a measured, precious, and relaxing album with a statement to make coming at a prescient time. 

Best Cover Song Part III: Return of the King

Winner: Lucy Dacus “Lips of an Angel”
Apologies for three identical categories, but we got lots of great covers this year, and I want to talk about “Lips of an Angel.” Originally by the American rock band Hinder, “Lips of an Angel” arrived upon our earth in 2005 and is arguably the toxic masculinity anthem. There’s cheating, gaslighting, pleading, and everything else you’d expect to hear while listening to a shitty dude talk to his ex on the phone. Lucy Dacus takes the band’s cringy lyricism and re-frames it from a distinctly femme perspective that de-fangs the negativity and replaces it with a layer of deeply-felt beauty. 

Runner-up: SASAMI “Toxicity”
If you were to sit me down and just start connecting random artists to songs they’ve covered, I would never, ever, in a million years, have connected indie rocker SASAMI to System of A Down. I suppose given the band’s semi-ubiquitous prevalence throughout the early to mid-2000s, it’s unsurprising that an artist currently in her late-20s would have an intimate familiarity with the nu-metal group. What’s impressive is not only how incredible her cover sounds, but how drastically different it is from the original. Proof that a good song is a good song no matter what, and a good artist can always take a good song and make it sound even better. 

Greatest Addition to the Christmas Canon

Winner: 100 gecs “sympathy 4 the grinch”
Back at the beginning of December, I mindlessly liked this tweet from 100 gecs and never gave it a second thought. It had never occurred to me that the hyperpop duo even could release a Christmas song. That was simply too awesome a combination of my tastes and interests to exist in 2020. We didn’t deserve it as a society. When the gecs dropped “sympathy 4 the grinch” less than 24 hours later, I was shook to my core. The perfect Christmas song. Finally. 

Runner-up: girl in red “two queens in a king sized bed”
As a man, I feel unilaterally unqualified to speak on the queerness of “two queens in a king sized bed.” What I will speak on however, is how beautiful, soft, and caring this song is. Pairing a piano with faint jingle bells and a pulsating drum build, this song is as loving, caring, and gorgeous as you’d want your lover to be. It’s gay as hell and Christmassy as fuck; what’s not to like? 

Most Impactful Beat Drop

Winner: Beach Bunny “Rearview”
Complete candor: this song was neck-and-neck in the running for my song of the year, but just barely got overtaken in the homestretch. That said, it’s still one of my favorites of the year, and this list would have felt utterly incomplete without its inclusion. “Rearview” is a mid-album cut off Beach Bunny’s fantastic debut album. It begins simply enough; a gentle guitar paired with Lili Trifilio’s confessional vocals. As she pines for her unrequited love over the guitar, her strums gradually pick up energy, morphing into a more-pointed riff. In the last minute of the song, she lands on the track’s namesake and pauses for a moment, then proceeds to sing a simple rhyme over a cool bassline. “You love me, I love you / You don't love me anymore, I still do. I'm sorry, I'm trying / I hate it when you catch me crying” As these words emerge from her lips, a whirl of feedback tears through the track along with two drum hits that make way for the rest of the band. From there, the group introduces a towering riff that makes the listener feel like a speck of dust in their all-encompassing emotional oasis. It’s goosebump-inducing and possibly my single favorite moment in any song this entire year. 

Runner-up: Soccer Mommy “Gray Light”
Sophie Allison knows how to end an album. From the quiet “Switzerland” to the confessional and forlorn “Waiting For Cars,” this fact has been clear from the very outset of her career. But two is a coincidence, three is a pattern. Allison ends Clean with the soul-decimating “Wildflowers” which works its way up from a solitary acoustic guitar to an ascending electronic whir that feels like every emotion you’ve ever had lifting you up into the air like an alien tractor beam. “gray light” accomplishes a similar effect, winding up from a slow soul-crushing spacey electronic bed into a weird reversed electronic “snap” that commands all attention then sends the listener off on a dreamy Mazzy Star guitar slide. It’s bliss. 

Most Hypnotizing Bassline 

Winner: Seahaven “Moon”
Seahaven made us wait seven years for this record, and honestly, the bassline on “Moon” alone makes that wait worth it. Placed in the skillful hands of Mike DeBartolo, this song sounds like it was made with the express purpose of winding around his knotty basswork. It’s dark, witchy, and downright spooky yet utterly captivating. I swear I could listen to just the bass on this song for the album’s full runtime. 

Runner-up: Thank You, I’m Sorry “Follow Unfollow”
Admittedly more energetic than “Moon,” “Follow Unfollow” from midwest emo outfit Thank You, I’m Sorry features a dynamic, bouncy bass that drives the song forward. As the bass, courtesy of Bethunni Schreiner, bounces back and forth, the listener is left to watch in awe, taking the track in like a tennis match, merely trying to keep up.

Find Your Throne: Award For Most Positive Song of the Year

Winner: Cliffdiver “Gas City”
Positivity felt in short supply this year. Maybe that’s why songs like “Gas City” stuck out so much from the crowd. Cosmically affirming and infinitely singable, this single from the Oklahoma-based emo group also introduced the group’s new co-lead singer Briana Wright who brings a soaring quality to the song that makes it all the more uplifting. Also featuring the group’s usual mix of tappy emo, honest lyricism, and soulful saxophone, this song has become my go-to whenever I need a pick-me-up.

Runner-up: Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly “My Friends Are My Power (Spoiler Alert!)”
Any song that opens with a Kingdom Hearts sample and throws directly into a moshpit volley of drums is a winner in my book. I won’t give away the “spoiler” here, but it’s well worth the 1:39-second listen.

Lose Your Throne: Award For Most Self-Deprecating Song of the Year

Winner: Cheem “Smooth Brain”
I feel that “Smooth Brain” really captures the essence of this year well. Between quarantine, the election, and everything in between, I think I could have scraped my brain into a blender and turned it on high for 360 days straight, and I still would have kept it in better shape than whatever I ended up doing. Blending a Patrick Stump-like chorus with pained bars and a glittery instrumental, “Smooth Brain” is the real song of the summer. 

Runner-up: I Love Your Lifestyle “Stupid”
Sometimes everything just plain sucks. You are stupid, I am stupid, he is stupid, she is stupid, this whole thing is stupid. That’s almost literally the sentiment captured in “Stupid” by I Love Your Lifestyle. Built around a repetitive, building, earworm of a chorus, this is a song that sounds more like the things you mutter under your breath while working your retail job dealing with abject nonsense day-in, day-out. Truly an anthem for these stupid ages.

Best Posthumous Album

Winner: Pop Smoke - Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon
Posthumous albums are inherently an uphill battle. You never know how much was created before the artist’s passing and how much was studio fuckery. While Pop Smoke’s death at the beginning of 2020 was an outright tragedy, Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon is nothing short of a triumph. From star-studded features, teeth-gritting bangers, and career-affirming assists, this record does everything right. There’s a diverse wealth of sounds, and Pop Smoke rarely feels overshadowed on his own release, which is an all-too-common pratfall of the posthumous album. Shoot For The Stars is already one of the best trap albums of the decade, it’s just a shame we never got to see Pop Smoke’s career flourish the way he deserved. 

Runner-up: Mac Miller - Circles
Mac Miller’s death at the end of 2018 came as a shock to pretty much everyone. Having spent a decade developing his sound from frat rap mixtapes as a teen to the jazzy poetry he released just a week before his death, Mac was a poster boy for artistic development on top of being an all-around great dude. Circles continues the sound that Mac was fleshing out on Swimming and ends his story in a satisfying place that offered fans some semblance of closure. 

Record Label of the Year

Winner: Acrobat Unstable Records
At nearly every step of the way this year, I was amazed by the North Carolina upstart indie label Acrobat Unstable. Initially conceived as a way for labelmates Eric Smeal and Martin Hacker-Mullin to make tapes and merch for bands that they liked, this quickly ballooned from local acts to bands like Short Fictions and the Callous Daoboys. This year, the label helped release projects from the likes of Carpool, Charm, Acne, Ultimate Frisbee, and Thirty Cent Fare, none of whom I’d heard of before this year, but all of which blew me away. The label also released hundreds of vinyl records and helped bands like Hospital Bracelet, Jail Socks, Stars Hollow, and Origami Angel release merch and vinyl. If next year bears even a semblance of the label’s success in 2020, then we are in for a wild ride. 

Runner-up: Moon Physics
While Acrobat Unstable wins for turning me on to a constant stream of new music throughout 2020, Moon Physics earns their runner-up spot for positing a new way that a label can operate in this capitalist hellscape. Centered around monthly “drops,” this Tony-Hawk-inspired entity describes themselves as a “zero-profit, anti-capitalist” springboard for artists. In between dropping tapes, vinyl, and fingerboards, the label acts as an educational resource that also splits the profit of sales between the artists and local community organizations. An aspirational model that I hope sets the tone for a new decade of labels. I cannot wait to see what’s in store for the organization in 2021.

Honorable mentions to Good Luck Charm Records, Chillwavve Records, and Take This To Heart Records because each of these labels consistently dropped fire releases all throughout the year.

Came Out Swinging: Best New Band of 2020

Winner: It Doesn’t Bother Me
You can say a lot of bad things about 2020, but at least it gave us It Doesn’t Bother Me. This Midwest emo project may have had the misfortunate timing of dropping their debut EP at the height of a quarantined spring, but the way I see it, that just gives them more time to rack up fans who will soon be screaming along to these songs in a sweaty Michigan basement. Alternating between catchy Mom Jeans choruses and You, Me, And Everyone We Know-esque vocal stylings, the band is more than equipped to create a string of iconic emo songs ready for Spotify playlists, emo mixtapes, and infinitely-bigger stages. Get hip now before they blow up. 

Runner-up: Blue Deputy
Blue Deputy didn’t exist before 2020, and now they do. That alone makes this year worth it. A creative (and romantic) partnership between Andy Bunting and Brody Hamilton, Blue Deputy explores the tender spaces of relationships that can only be observed as you’re living them. Look no further than the gorgeous double New Jersey / I Hate Steven Singer for two catchy emo-flavored bedroom pop songs that sparkle and glisten like the glitter on a freshly-uncapped gel pen. These two will do amazing things, and we’re lucky that 2020 allowed such beautiful songs as these into existence. 

Biggest Come-up

Winner: Roddy Ricch
Roddy Ricch began the year with a chart-topping #1 song that fended off singles from both Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez. He contributed to the (*secondary) Song of the Summer with Dababy and tossed out features to the likes of Gunna, Pop Smoke, and Ty Dolla Sign. In short, it was Roddy Ricch’s year, unfortunately, the stars just happened to align for him on a really shitty year. 

Runner-up: Redveil
Within the space of one calendar year, Maryland-based Redveil went from an unknown Twitter rapper to one of the internet’s hottest upcoming artists. A baby-faced 16, Redveil created a mixtape that single-handedly made waves all over Twitter and garnered millions of streams, all before he was legally allowed to drive.

Best Revisitation

Winner: Into It. Over It. - Canada Sessions
I respect Evan Thomas Weiss as the face of Fourth Wave emo. I respect his output, I cherish his voice, and I love his dynamic autumnal album from this year. While I love and appreciate his body of work, nothing sits quite as close to my heart as 52 Weeks. That record was formative in my emo upbringing, and it makes me sad he’s “moved on” with albums that have had bigger hit songs. Nothing speaks to me quite the way “Basto” does. Nothing gets me singing quite like “A Song About Your Party.” Nothing feels quite as bile-filled as “Bullied Becomes the Bully,” and honestly, that’s a bummer. I had these songs all but written off until 2020 when Weiss released Canada Sessions, a short EP that saw him revisiting two different decade-old tracks off his breakthrough year of music. Obviously better produced than the original tracks, both “Embracing Facts” and “22 Syllables” absolutely shine in this new context, slightly updated to reflect Weiss’ more recent artistic leanings but still tapping into the same younger soul that created them. An affirmation and a celebration. 

Runner-up: The Fearless Flyers “Adrienne and Adrianne”
The Venn diagram of members between Vulfpeck and Fearless Flyers is almost a circle, and with four iterations of one song under their belt, Vulfpeck are no stranger to revisiting a tune. While I admittedly have a propensity for the band’s earlier instrumental EPs, I have grown to love the Fearless Flyers for the very same reason as Vulf; an abundance of proficient, funky, fun instrumentals. When I heard the sounds of an eight-year-old Vulfpeck deep cut coming out of my 2020 Fearless Flyers record, I just about lost my shit. It’s like putting on an old winter coat; fits like a charm. 

Best Deployment of a Harmonica

Winner: Slow Pulp “Montana”
Essentially the end credits to Slow Pulp’s fantastic debut album, “Montana” is a laid-back and relaxing track that’s as easy as the rolling hills that the song seeks to depict. The song builds to a hypnotic repetition as lead singer Emily Massey pleads, “come on get out of my head,” and becomes fixated on the word “head,” singing it over and over until the song’s close. The deployment of harmonica midway through the track not only breaks the repetitive wave-like nature of the lyrics but feels like a stand-in for something larger than the piece itself, something spiritual I haven’t quite figured out yet. 

Runner-up: Field Medic “HEADCASE”
Kevin Patrick Sullivan (better known as Field Medic) has made his name as an outspoken and famously-mulleted poet, equal parts emo and horny. While the Bob Dylan comparisons can feel simultaneously on-the-nose and unfair, sometimes it’s a hard thing to avoid when one pairs acoustic guitar with harmonica this much. “HEADCASE” is a fast-moving Field Medic track where the harmonica comes in at just the right spot, punctuating a top-tapping chorus and capping off an array of confessional sentiments found in each verse.

Best Split of the Year 

Winner: Arcadia Grey, Oolong, Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly, dannythestreet - Fatal 4 Way Split
To some degree, many of the big bands from the 5th Wave Emo Movement have already revealed themselves to the world… However, if you were to ask me who some of the best, most promising upcoming bands in the scene are, I’d point you to this split. All harnessing the same jittery zoomer energy, this lineup features some of the best bands currently releasing music on the regular. From the moshpit-opening body dysmorphia found on Arcadia Grey’s “Braum” to the propulsive combo of tapping and screaming found on Oolong’s “Dippin Daniel,” I really believe there’s something for everything on this meeting of the emo minds. Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly kicks their contribution off with a fist-balling Mortal Kombat sample that makes me want to start swinging the same way “2nd Sucks” did way back in high school. dannythestreet closes the rumble royale off with a glimmering earworm of a melody that leaves me hopeful for the next generation of emo acts. 

Runner-up: Snarls, The Sonder Bombs - A Really Cool Split
As previously established above with the Dogleg x Worst Party Ever split, I’m a sucker for bands covering each other’s songs. It’s cute and sometimes just makes sense in some cosmic way. A Really Cool Split from Snarls and Sonder Bombs sees the two Cleveland bands swapping songs to great effect on top of an acoustic rendition and a long-awaited pre-album single. It’s a loving little pit stop for both bands, one coming hot off one of the most underrated indie pop records of the year and the other ramping up to drop one of the best of 2021. 

Best Release From 2019 That I Didn’t Give A Fair Shake

Winner: Hovvdy - Heavy Lifter
By the time fall rolled in, it was simultaneously jarring and calming. Precipitated by the changing of the leaves and sharp snaps of fall temperatures, the fall season still managed to take me by surprise, but I’ll admit that quarantine has thrown off all sense of time. As I mentally relegated myself to the frigid wintertime, I found Heavy Lifter to be a perfect reflection of my mental state. Somewhat inward, a little bit scattered, and wholly comforting, I did not give this album the time of day back in 2019. Aside from the warming blanket of comfort, what I find more artistically impressive about this record is the way that it can make banal things like falling asleep to YouTube and free parking practically romantic in melody. Never again will I sleep on Hovvdy.

Runner-up: Orville Peck - Pony
While I had seen Orville Peck back in 2019 (his half-mask, half-tassel cowboy hat is hard to miss after all), I realized I had never actually listened to him until this year. Within seconds of hitting play on “Dead of Night,” I realized I’d made a grave mistake. Pony is a dark, mysterious country record centered around Peck’s smoldering baritone, which lends an air of genre-based familiarity. Aside from the record’s immaculate production, what makes these familiar genre trappings fresh is how Peck updates the topics to feel more reflective of our society as it stands. He talks candidly about queerness, drug use, and his own emotions, three things the country of yesteryear would never touch with a ten-foot pole. In other words, Pony represents a long-needed update to an entire genre that everyone is quick to write off; I’m just glad I got here when I did. 

Song of the Year

Winner: Spanish Love Songs “Losers 2”
Seeing Spanish Love Songs live was one of the last concerts I went to this year, and (apparently) one of the last concerts I’ll go to for a while. I could focus on that lack of live music and dwell in a pit of despair, but instead, I’d rather focus on the freedom I felt that night screaming along to my favorite songs with a wall of sweaty fans. 

“Losers 2” is easily my favorite song of the year. Centered around sharp lyricism and a cathartic build, this track quickly became an outlet for me early in 2020. It represents something bigger, something I may not experience for a while, yet experience every day. 

For roughly two minutes, lead singer Dylan Slocum finds himself displaced, revisiting former homes, dead relatives, and economic inequalities. Destined to die poor and wake up forever tired, Slocum has no choice but to continue. Third jobs enter the picture, but the larger scene of mortality and capitalism never fades. It’s a life that many millennials can understand. A life where nothing bad can ever happen because a single accident, a single diagnosis, a single unplanned event can throw your entire future into disarray. Minimum wages aren’t fought for by our politicians, but by mothers, forced to rideshare to demonstrations because they don’t have vehicles of their own. The entire thing paints this richly-detailed picture of a deeply-failed country. Of a failed generation. Of the world in which we currently exist. 

About midway through, the song transitions to the bridge and here’s the part that gets me every. fucking. time. Just as Slocum self-deprecatingly describes himself as a “walking tragic ending,” something shifts inside him. The instrumental cuts out to a single warbling synth note which makes way for the most poignant sentiment of the entire record. The bridge, which I’ll paste here in-full, is a pitch-perfect depiction of this stalemate between economic and emotional devastation.

So I'm leaving the city / Maybe the country / Maybe the earth
Gonna find a place of my own

Where the fuckups aren't cops / Patrolling neighbourhoods they're afraid of / And the rest of us won't burn out / Displacing locals from neighbourhoods we're afraid of

Now if we weren't bailed out / Every time by our parents we'd be dead / What's gonna happen when they're dead?”

There’s really nothing else I can say.

Runner-up: Mandancing “Johnny Freshman”
Mandancing released one of the most underrated emo albums of 2020. The record is packed with gorgeous slice of life tales of love, loss, and friendship. There are stellar performances, jaw-dropping arrangements, and earnest emo deliveries aplenty. Amongst an album that’s so consistently great, my personal peak comes at the tail end with the closing track “Johnny Freshman.”

This enigmatic and slow-moving song is centered around a dual vocal and instrumental build that both peak in the same cathartic way before whisking the listener off on a shimmering emo outro that’s reminiscent of some of my favorite songs of all time. “Johnny Freshman” borrows the same pleading sentiment as Julien Baker’s “Go Home” as lead singer Stephen G. Kelly belts “would you please come home?” over a near-bear instrumental bed. These pleas repeat and eventually culminate in a goosebump-inducing cry of the same phrase as the instrumental grows in scope, eventually consuming the entire track. For 90 seconds the guitar reverberates, the drums roll, and the bass shakes as the band plays out the same ascending chord strum dozens of times, lending the track this meditative quality that gives the listener time to think and reflect on the entire record they had just taken in. Simple masterful. 

Most Anticipated Release of 2021

Winner: Jail Socks - Debut Album
Jail Socks had already created my 2019 Album of the Year, so it probably goes without saying that I’m feverishly anticipating the next moves from the fresh-faced No Sleep signees. Despite only having released a grand total of eight songs to the public, Jail Socks had become one of my favorite 5th Wave emo-ish bands by the end of last year. I still listen to It’s Not Forever on an (at least) weekly basis, so I cannot wait to see what the band does with their first full-length next year. 

Runner-up: Michelle Zauner - Crying In H Mart
My second most-anticipated release of 2020 isn’t an album, but a book. Crying In H Mart is the soon-to-be-released memoir by Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast. The book is based on, named after, and presumably in the style of her heartbreaking New Yorker article of the same name. Zauner, who was also the winner of our 2017 Album of the Year, has a beautiful way of navigating words and emotions in a manner that cuts directly to my soul. I’m sure Crying In H Mart will be nothing short of a crushing read, but that’s exactly what I want, and exactly what I need.