Album Of The Year 2020

I don’t really think anybody should care about my opinion on music, but still, there’s been a lot of it I’ve enjoyed this year. The pandemic has changed how people make and consume music, and has provided powerful source material to a lot of artists. It’s weird to think that there are pre-covid albums that could be included as a favourite for the year (most ironically, Bombay Bicycle Club’s Everything Else Has Gone Wrong which came out in January. How wrong they were…), but really there is only one contender for my favourite album of 2020, which is Phoebe Bridgers' Punisher.

Punisher is the only album that I’ve laid on the floor in a dark room and listened to all the way through. It’s the album I’ve put on whenever I’ve wanted to cry. I haven’t listened to it on repeat hundreds of times, I’ve saved it for moments when I’ve needed some kind of comfort. It’s felt like an expression of something I’m unable to express myself, something that is bleak and painful in the moment, but that I know will get better with time; I just have to bear it now. It’s been the friend who asks you “no, but are you really ok?” after you tell them you’re fine, the warm blanket and binge TV when the world feels like too much, the feeling of sleeping in your own bed after a long trip a way. If you haven’t listened to it, then I cannot recommend it highly enough.