My year-end Spotify ‘wrap up’ told me that I listened to 3,507 musical artists in 2020, 1,549 of them new to me. I also apparently listened to 817 music genres, 238 new ones. That seems to be some very specific music categorization.
I’ll settle for what struck me as a little ‘good news’ from 2020... I listened to a lot of great music.
Brad Mehldau is one of my favorite artists. In June he released the album Suite: April 2020. It’s meant as a personal portrait of how he felt confronting the pandemic as it hit. It’s a wonderfully haunting album, a reflection of many of the emotions I found myself feeling throughout the year.
Mehldau’s Suite: April 2020 is an album I continue to go back and listen to frequently. The song “remembering before all this” is the song Spotify tells me I listened to most in 2020. It’s on this year’s playlist. If you haven’t heard it, start there. I wholeheartedly recommend spending time with the entire Mehldau Suite release.
I hope history looks back on 2020 as far more than a year of pandemic. That is truly saying something. I’d like to have it reflected on as a year we honestly and openly recognized structural racism. Also, the unsustainable wealth, health, education and diversity divisions we continue to see around us.
I’d like to believe 2020 is a year we came together to do something foundational to begin to promote lasting change. These aren’t issues to have moderate views on.
I had several repeat artists that released music this year as well as appeared in a ‘guest appearance’ role on someone else’s recording. John Prine, Waxahatchee, Brad Mehldau, Jeff Parker, Tame Impala and This Is The Kit each get a mention.
John Prine appears on his last original song recording “I remember everything.” It was released two months after Prine passed away this year, suffering complications from COVID-19.
Prine also appears with Kurt Vile on a rendition of “How Lucky.” There are several posthumous releases that made it onto this year’s playlist. I’ll mention a few.
“Got To Be Tough” from Toots and the Maytals is one. Frederick "Toots" Hibbert was the lead singer and songwriter of Toots and the Maytals, a legendary Jamaican reggae band. Toots passed away in September.
Singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston has two songs on this year’s Tunes. The first is a recording of “Life in Vain” by Built To Spill. My favorite, however, is Kid Indigo and In My Car’s take on “Like a Monkey in a Zoo” – a perfect response to living at work, I mean working from home.
Chicago 2017 is a live Daniel Johnston album from Chicago’s Vic Theatre, recorded in October of 2017. It would prove to be Johnston’s last tour. He was backed, amongst others, by Jeff Tweedy. Johnston passed away in September of 2019.
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings are featured in a rousing rendition of Dusty Springfield’s “Little by Little.” It comes from a compilation of covers: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In), released in late October.
In my heart, Jones and the Dap-Kings remain The Baddest Band In The Land. Jones passed away from cancer in 2016.
Makaya McCraven released an artful reinvention of an album I hold in extremely high regard, Gil Scott-Heron’s final release: “I’m New Here”. It was released in 2010.
McCraven reinterprets Scott-Heron on “We’re New Again” with samples and improvised backing by jazz talents including Jeff Parker. It’s an artful reimagination of a classic. Listen to the original, followed by McCraven’s reworking.
Laura Marling released “Alexandra” a rejoinder to Sharon Robinson and Leonard Cohen’s song “Alexandra Leaving.” Robinson shared song writing credits with Cohen on the album Ten New Songs, where “Alexandra Leaving” appeared. It’s an inspired album well worth revisiting.
The Magnetic Fields released a song that waggishly pokes fun at lawmakers, regardless of political leaning. “The Day the Politicians Died” reimagines a world where the political class suddenly ceases to be. “Even their own mothers/Their own husbands and wives/Said, now all men are brothers/Let's get on with our lives.”
Pink Martini went in a different direction in response to 2020, with their lighthearted ditty “The Lemonade Song.” It’s well worth a smile-filled listen.
The Rolling Stones went back into the studio early in the pandemic to rewrite and record a new song, “Living In a Ghost Town.” It’s their experiential take on the pandemic.
There were several artists that revisited older songs that could as easily have been written in 2020. It was that kind of year.
The Dirty Projectors’ take on John Lennon’s “Isolation” was one. So was Lianne La Havas’ brilliant rendition of Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes” from her self-titled third album – another track I find myself going back to listen to repeatedly.
La Havas also dopped an EP, Live at the Roundhouse, in December. It features five tracks from a concert she did from the Roundhouse in London, recorded without an audience in July. I was fortunate to have livestreamed that concert. It was remarkable. She is an astonishing talent.
Phoebe Bridgers’ “Garden Song” is one of the most beautiful songs I listened to in 2020. “Wildfires” by SAULT is one of the most poignantly unswerving. Bananagun’s “People Talk Too Much” had a bite to it that I hope isn’t lost behind its fun-filled vibe. Jeff Tweedy’s “Guess Again” is pure love.
My Spotify 2021 Tunes (so far) playlist is up and running, so you can see what cycles on-and-off as new music is released throughout the year ahead. Happy listening!
Please let me know of new tunes I may be missing. You can find me at: tunes4ourtimes@gmail.com.
Celebrate the resilience of humanity. Each of us has a role to play in bringing about change.
There is always incredible music being made... you just have to stop, look for it and listen.
“We all do ‘do, re, mi’… you’ve got to find the other notes yourself.” Louis Armstrong