THE TOP TEN WORST ALBUMS OF 2020

Hey.  Long time no see.

So this is The Top Ten Worst Albums of 2020.  That title, right off the bat, is misleading, but I went with it because S.E.O.  I don't consider myself any kind of authority on...well, anything, but I enjoy sharing my thoughts and opinions for those that wanna hear.  If I'm into stuff, I want to talk about it, y'know?  So the title is not meant to brand this as definitive.

The second misdirect comes from the albums part: I included EPs in here (and in the Best Of list too) because I've never really had much distinction between the two, and albums are getting shorter, so what the hell?  The third misdirect comes from the ten part.  There are eleven, because there's a tie.  It's still ten positions on the list though, so we're stickin' with it.

So, to qualify for this list (and the Best Of list), a project had to be released between December 1st, 2019 and December 1st 2020.  Because I usually do a comprehensive list each year, if something doesn't appear in this or the next one, it means I haven't listened to it.  So to head off any inquiries of "Why isn't X on the Worst List?!?  That album is objectively terrible!" or "Y Album was the best thing to come out in 20 years?!?  How is it not on your best list?!?", that's why.  I'll be going into more detail in the next one, because God knows, this is gonna be long enough.  

With that in mind, let's get this over with:

10. Father John Misty "Anthem +3" 

Anthem+3 has two reasonably okay songs sandwiched between two that fought for a spot on my Worst Songs of the Year list, so the average is shit.

9. Pig Destroyer "The Octagonal Stairway"

First three songs were oppressively okay, but the production was flat and...off.  Then the last tracks just turned into a disaster.  What the fuck was that 11 minute closer?  It has Igor Cavalera on it and it sucks.  I liked Head Cage quite a bit, but this was nowhere near as good, even when it was listenable.

8. Cloudkicker "Solitude"

I was ready to give this a two star review and call it a day.   The songs are all technically proficient and they all work on paper; I just wasn't getting anything out of them.  I can walk away from an album saying "It's not for me" and still respect it.  But then it just kept going, and as the songs kept happening, they kept getting samier and samier to the point where I actively started getting annoyed.  Dance Gavin Dance's Afterburner from this year was another one that I could hear what they were going for and didn't hate it, but it also did nothing for me, but Cloudkicker here just drove itself into the ground and out of my good graces.

7. Jacob Collier "Djesse Vol. 3"

I've always been meaning to check out Jacob Collier, because I definitely fuck with the YouTube music nerd-a-sphere: The Adam Neelys, the Andrew Huangs, the Rick Beatos, etc.  So when I heard this album was nominated by the Grammys for Album Of The Year, I decided to give it a shot.  

On paper, you've got some good elements: Jazz Fusion?  I love that shit.  Soul?  Like it more every year.  Glitchy electronics?  When used right, they can be amazing.  But that's not what happened here.  There's technical music shit happening all over the place, sure, but there is absolutely NO soul in this soul music.  It sounds so unbelievably sterile to me.  And then there's the vocals.  Good God, the vocals.

I can already tell I am going to have to white knuckle it through the next decade, because I'm really starting to hate hyperpop.  Vocal manipulation has never been my bag; I never liked autotune, but I've finally learned to tolerate it after two decades of gritting my teeth.  Now the new electric guitar has reached its psychedelic phase, and autotune has given way to full on vocal warping.  

And I can tell after listening to the intro track and the first real song "Count The People"...every sound on this album is the exact opposite production choice that I would make.  Everything is too close, everything is extremely cluttered and claustrophobic, and everything feels like...it's trying as hard as any human in history has tried to be cool and perfect at the same time.  The results wind up being neither; it sounds like a commercial from the 80's mixed with the Glee version of Weather Report.

And the songs are just...A LOT.  A Lot a lot.  All the time.  Even on the laid back tracks like "Butterflies", which winds up being kind of a horror movie with the line "I wanna feel your Butterflies" being accompanied by a tearing sound, like the singer is about to morph into their true form and stab you with a mandible.  It's all A Lot, And it's a Lot of things I don't like listening to, so it winds up on my year end worst list.

6. Bring Me The Horizon "Music to listen to~dance to~blaze to~pray to~feed to~sleep to~talk to~grind to~trip to~breathe to~help to~hurt to~scroll to~roll to~love to~hate to~learn Too~plot to~play to~be to~feel to~breed to~sweat to~dream to~hide to~live to~die to~GO TO"

I didn't want to put this in the worst necessarily, because I guess I respect the ambition.  According to Wikipedia, this is both "the band's longest release" (clocking in at over 74 minutes) and "an EP".  Most articles go "Album Title XY" is an album by Band Z.  This said "Music To etc. etc." is a 'commercial release' by Bring Me The Horizon.  And the fact that no one can figure out what this even is is kind of in keeping with the project itself, because this thing is a GIANT mess.

It's only eight tracks and yes, like I said, 74 minutes.  Most of it is experimental trap?  I think?  And of course, a lot of vocal warping and hyperpop tinge, so yay for that.  There's a 24 minute track in the middle where there's a dreadful guest rapper who's interrupted four minutes in by some deathcore breakdown that comes out of fucking nowhere, and then the singer gets stoned and rambles over an accidental music loop for the rest of the 19 minute runtime.  It's the only part of the album I really remember, so...hey?  Thing is, they're trying something pretty out there and I give them credit for the effort.  But WOW are the results not worth the headache.

5. Jimmy Urine & Serj Tankian "Fuktronic"

This album is supposed to be an audiodrama, but all it really is is the most thinly-veiled excuse to say the word "cunt" of all time.  Obnoxious and absolutely pointless.

 

4. RMR "Drug Dealing Is A Lost Art"

I've never liked the angel-voiced R&B singer singing about gangster shit unless it's played for a joke.  When it's played straight (like this is) I can't take it seriously.  It sounds like R. Kelly with autotune trying to make a late-career comeback.

The first song is a verse from Westside Gunn, then the hook six or seven times.  He changes the lyrics slightly, but that's basically how they string together a three minute song.  All hook, put the guest verse is at the beginning so it doesn't even break up the monotony.

"Dealer" is much better, and even manages to pull off the R&B gangsta thing he fails at in the opener.  But the problem is, it's on this EP twice.  No, I don't mean there's another song that does the exact same thing, the actual song is on two tracks of this eight track, 23 minute project.  Now I can hear people defending it on a few fronts: "The second one is a remix featuring Future and Lil Baby" and "Didn't Lil Nas X do that last year with "Old Town Road" and you put that in your top ten?"

First of all, thank you for reading my blog!  There's not that many of you, and I value your patronage.  (Not enough to get my shit together and post on a consistent schedule, but eh, we're all going through it at the moment.)  Ahem.

Anyway, Lil Nas X could get away with it because "Old Town Road" fucking rules and this song is...okay at best?  The guest verses take away from it honestly, with Lil Baby saying absolutely nothing in the most blatheringly inane way possible and Future getting off my good side again by talking about spiking a girl's drink with lean.  It's also not really framed as a bonus track, there's another song after it, and there's not much flow to this project anyway so, if they don't care then more points off for it.

As the album goes along, the effort goes right out the fucking window.  By the time we get to "I'm Not Over You", this guy can't even sing with pitch correction.  His voice just slides out of the realm of melody into a cracked, haggard slump.  Some might say this plays into the sadness of the track, but I counter with: I don't want to hear a guy who doesn't have it together enough to sing try to do it over a tired sounding beat on a project where I'm already not on their side.

The song "Silence" is surprisingly competent.  If I'd heard it in isolation I might have been a little impressed, but it's too little too late.

"Best Friend" says this girl's pussy's wet because she's from L.A., so that's a first.  Quite the way to rep your city.

Track 7, as I've mentioned is the "Dealer" remix, then the closer is "Rascal", a jarring shift from Trap R&B into a piano ballad, but the lyrics of this Richard Marx-ass ham fest are the most generic rap clichés possible: about the come-up, haters, bitches, and then an inspired twist, he says "Fuck the boys in blue; Fuck 12 Fuck 12" apropos of nothing.  That's at least funny.  And packed with foresight, since this came out before...the summer...

3. Metrixx "TikTok Hits 2020"

Bargain basement covers of songs popular on TikTok as part of some wider streaming scam.  That's what I heard when I listened to this and you can't tell me otherwise.

2. Warmth "Life"

     Yo La Tengo "We Have Amnesia Sometimes"

These two albums have the same problem, and it's this: They're both a little one note.

Literally.

I was in line for the bank when listening to "Amnesia", and after the first song failed to get started or change in the first three minutes, I hit fast-forward (since I knew it was 11 minutes or whatever).  I can say one thing for that: Fast-forwarding it at least gave it a rhythm; the song got a smidge more interesting, but you could tell it was the same tone for the entire length.  Second song was at least a different key, but same problem.  Warmth was the same thing, so I gave them both the number two slot.

Now, number one I did NOT expect to see on this list.  Just four years ago, this artist was a few hairs away from my album of the year, and two years ago I considered their follow-up project for the same.  But my opinion on that last album cooled a little, so even though this came out in January and came highly recommended from a critical perspective, I waited until November to finally check it out.

And oh God, I wish I hadn't.

1. Royce Da 5'9 "The Allegory"

This album.  Fucking.  SUUUUUCKED.

Where do I even start?

The first thing this album did to piss me off was take forEVER to get started.  The first track is Royce rambling about shit in a spoken word cypher, which was fine for about a minute, but it goes on for three, then Cedric The Entertainer's giving us a weather report or something, and the first verse of the project decides to show up seven minutes in.  "Dope Man" is passable, but not a worthwhile payoff for all that buildup.

"I Don't Age" has a pretty ramshackle flow, a mid-tier beat, but by this point I'm already tired of hearing about dope and cocaine and...uh, dope.  Even if this is a concept album about the dope game, those words have been used way too many times for me to care anymore, on this project alone.  Royce's flow and the beat never really cohese into a reasonable whole and I'm already starting to check out.

"Pendulum" is a better song, but I notice two recurring themes by this point besides the dope talk: a) Talking shit about social media usage and b) Taking subtle but noticeable swipes at "the gays".  Lines like "Too narcissistic to be licking carpet" and "Y'all coming out the closet just to market y'all new garbage" really don't feel necessary.  If he was trying to make a point instead of just bragging about how he doesn't have to do things like that cuz he's super rap man or something, maybe he'd have a leg to stand on.  Instead they just seem wrong and out of place.

"I Play Forever" is a languid turd in a punchbowl.  The part where he says he's clever for putting this together right after some random line about playing Drake at a wedding really has me wondering what the hell happened to Royce Da 5'9" here.  Because this guy used to be really good.  Listen to Layers.  Listen to Success Is Certain.  Listen to The Book Of Ryan.  Listen to what he did on Bad Meets Evil.  Royce is better than this.

After an informative skit about the racist history behind the song the Ice Cream Man plays out of his truck, we get "On The Block", which is the first song on this album I'll give credit to.  The beat sets the scene a hell of a lot better than anything up to this point.  The concerning thing is guest rapper Oswin Benjamin steals the show here.  Royce then takes another swipe at the Gram, which seems beneath him honestly.

And wasn't this supposed to be about the Allegory of the Cave?

After a brief interlude, "Overcomer" skips trying to reset the bar and just throws it on the floor.  I'm just gonna say it: Westside Gunn is my least favorite rapper out right now.  Honestly, they give Blueface shit for not rapping on beat?  And maybe that's why he's not rapping over drums, just talking about the only thing he ever does: slanging dope.

But let's skip ahead to "FUBU".  That's where this whole thing falls apart.  Conway's passable on this, but Royce dropped a verse that made me stop listening to this album on the first playthrough.  I figured I'd do the research and see if he was trying to prove some deeper points, but nope: it's exactly what it says on the tin.

Royce Da 5'9" is an anti-vaxxer.

I've made no secret that I can't really separate art and artist.  If you can, cool, I don't hold that against you, I kinda envy it in a way, but when a rapper who's as noted for being intelligent as Royce is buys into this conspiracy shit and promotes it on his albums, I can't help but feel disappointed.

That's to say nothing about the use of the word "sissy" after this line and the completely unexplained non-sequitor "Half these n***z is rhyming transgendered"...like ...what the fuck does that even mean?  I feel insulted, but I think that's because it insults my intelligence.  It's supposed to be this metaphor but...it has nothing to do with the lines around it, the rest of the verse or anything else.  It's just there.

The next song "Upside Down" starts with Royce rambling about...let me check Genius to get the direct quote here: Um...there are way too many n-words for that, so let me paraphrase: Royce says gay men want to fuck straight men, who in turn want to fuck lesbians who look like straight men, while said straight men are trying to look like the gay men that want to fuck them in the first place.

...Fucking WHAT???!?!?

On what parallel Earth does that make sense?  And more importantly, why do you care, Royce?  What's in it for you to figure out this puzzle that...honestly doesn't seem like it exists?  Even if this isn't meant as homophobic...it's a bad look.  And you've gotta know that, which means you don't care, which is also a bad look.

So.  Put your moral stance aside for a moment.  Put what you think about LGBTQ+ or homophobia, or cancel culture, whatever side you're on, put that to the side for a moment.  Royce Da 5'9" is a braggadocios rapper.  That's one of the things I like about him.  It's one of the things that makes him cool.  Royce attempts swagger on this album and whether that connects with you, your mileage may vary, but the point is: If you're trying to be cool in 2020, you've gotta know by now even seeming to be associated with homophobia or anti-vaxxers is deeply uncool.  That's not what the kids are lookin' for, chief.  Fuck morality: this shit makes you look LAME.  And you don't want to be lame, do you Royce?

Anyway, this whole thing, this whole rant he goes off on?  Doesn't follow up on it.  He just goes off and raps about how rappers with hot singles aren't as dangerous as him, brings up how he's better than people on Twitter again, but I will give him points for shitting on Bill Maher and Louis CK in this verse though; fuck those guys.

Then he mentions Sara Bartmaan, in reference to how women want to look.  Yes, women have been taught to seek unattainable, "cartoonish" standards of beauty, that word is even in the lyric.  But the way he frames it, he's shitting on the women for trying to look that way, not the system that tells them to think that.  The Genius annotation even brings up Instagram models and OH NOW I GET WHY HE THINKS THIS IS THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE.

He thinks social media are the shadows.  That's honestly not a bad metaphor but holy FUCK is it poorly told.  No, it doesn't need to be spelled out, but like most concept albums, the plot gets lost real quick and never comes together.  And the times it does cut through the non-sequitors, the questionable content, the guest verses that largely have nothing to do with what Royce's verses are talking about and the frankly shitty beat selection, all we're left with is a 43 year old man yelling at Twitter.

And another song where he brings up the anti-vaxxer thing again on track 16.  

This album is confused, it's jumbled, it reeks of old man yelling at cloud, it promotes dangerous conspiracy theories and the beats and lyrics are a giant step down from his last decade of work.  All in all, a perfect storm of suck to draw the most of my ire.


And that'll do it for The Worst Albums Of 2020.  This is the first writing project of any length I've attempted in about four months.  I wasn't sure if I could do it.  But here were are.  What albums did you think sucked the taint this year?  Drop 'em down below in the comments!  I wanna hear about 'em.  

Next up is the Top 20 Albums Of 2020, so stick around for that.  Hopefully before March, but we'll see.  Until then, stay safe, listen to some good music, and Love Over Fear.