best of 2020

Missed Connections: Looking Back on 2020 One Last Time

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Best of 2020

You want more?  You got more.  Not that I exactly want to look back on 2020, but there was so much killer music this past year that I decided to take a page out of Chris’ book and talk about the ones that got away from me, regardless of how great they might be.  I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about why these albums didn’t make the cut the first time around.  It’s the same story for each one, a story about time and energy and brainpower.  This year was draining, both from being alive in the world and from having quite a bit to keep up with in the way of reviews and podcasts for a certain illustrious publication, and while I am proud of the list I put out and I’m not going to go back and amend it, I do think there needs to be more room for discussing what I feel like I missed out on.  Albums that, for whatever reason, needed more than the time I had for me to fully realize them in my mind’s eye, but now I can unquestionably say they belong among the great ones that we got in the last calendar year.

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Best of 2020: Angela’s List

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Best of 2020

We all know that 2020 was a very unpleasant year (to say the least).  You don’t need me to list all the ways it was awful.  We are all painfully aware of the details, and even more so as we look back at our 2020 new year’s resolutions we had made (travel more, drink less; you know).  So enough of that, let’s focus on a bit of positivity and good that emerged from the past 12 months.  For instance, there were so many new and wonderful musical releases that I could not even keep up.  Every new album I listened to brought some joy, some goosebumps, and some pain—but in a good, cathartic way.  As usual, my super indecisive self had a difficult time narrowing down the list of favorites.  I managed to finally settle(ish) on a list.  These selections are different (with the exception of my number one pick) from when I weighed in on the group list and different on the EOY Podcast episode—apologies for the inconsistency but, again, I’m indecisive (and also anxious).

Here are my top 13 as of this moment (because I love all things spooky, and c’mon, we’ve already had all the bad luck brought upon us) and a little list of some nonmetal favorites.

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Best of 2020: Vincent’s List

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Best of 2020

Well that sure was one whole, entire year, wasn’t it?

Like many on this website, 2020 changed a lot of the ways in which I consume new music, and not for the better on my part. The constant thrum of anxiety coursing through my body and mind made critical music listening often difficult, and yet the albums I found this year that I love are some of the best and most affecting music I’ve heard in several years worth of doing this. I went over all of these picks in the end of year episode of our Audio Thing, which I would highly encourage you to listen to here, or wherever you consume podcasts; fair warning that it is a rather long episode, but we worked hard on it and had a lot of fun, so I’d appreciate it if you took the time to check it out. You can consider this main list a companion piece of sorts to the podcast episode. You can listen to me go into detail about the how’s and why’s of my main picks there, but I thought it would be fun to catalog them still, and I threw in some honorable mentions for good measure. Read along after the cut, and a very sincere thank you for another year of readership. I don’t do this for clout and I certainly don’t do this for money, so it means all the more that people take an interest in the things I am passionate about.

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The Nine Circles Audio Thing: Chris and Dan count down their Non-Metal Favorites of 2020!

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With #BestOf2020 coverage having been fully underway here at Nine Circles for a couple of weeks, it’s time for a bit of a breather. Time to crank down the volume, switch off the HM-2 pedal, and talk some non-metal for a change. If you read Ian’s end-of-year Rainbows in the Dark post and thought to yourself, “boy, I sure would like a two-and-a-half-hour audio version of THAT,” well, reader, have I got the post for you!

A little while back — okay, basically a month back now, because I work in a hospital and doing anything productive when I’m not at work has been a tall order this year — fellow non-metal aficionado Chris Voss and I sat down to talk about our favorite stuff from all the other genres that dropped this year. There’s some shoegaze and some folk, some powerful hip-hop and some super-catchy synth pop. We covered as many bases as we could, for a near Buke-sized amount of time.

So if you, too, need a break from all the heavy stuff, jump on in and check it out. If anything strikes your interest, our full lists are included below the episode audio. Maybe some of the stuff that floated our boats will float yours too!

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BEST OF 2020: Dan’s still here, and [GASP] actually liked some stuff?

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Best of 2020

Goddammit.

I wasn’t supposed to be doing any more writing. As I mentioned in last year’s wrap-up post, I don’t particularly care for this medium anymore. But, in case y’all missed it, 2020 was pretty garbage. For roughly 3/4 of the year, I’ve been spending inordinate amounts of energy just to stay afloat — to exist. So even though I vastly prefer the video medium, that shit takes about 3x longer to put together than your garden variety written post, and that’s a 3x increase in energy and effort that I do not have right now, and probably won’t for the foreseeable future.

Still… FUCK. I still don’t really like writing. Or, maybe…

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