My Top 5 Albums of 2020
These are the albums I’ve had on repeat all year (just ask my fiance!). Not all of them necessarily came out this year, but they’re the ones that pulled me through this madness…
5. Dear Happy by Gabrielle Aplin
Dear Happy is an absolute bop of an album but also includes some softer and more heartbreaking songs. The fact that Gabrielle Aplin wrote an album which contains the pop ballad ‘So Far So Good’, and then has the audacity to write and include ‘My Mistake’ blows my mind and shows her skills as an artist. My Spotify Wrapped really reminded me what a fan I was of this album at the beginning of the year, and since then it’s been on repeat again.
4. No One Else Can Wear Your Crown by Oh Wonder
Oh Wonder were the last band I went to see before lockdown. The last gig I went to this year, which seems crazy to say. On the 4th March, I saw them live and bought a t-shirt with tour dates on the back that never got to happen.
Their latest album, followed by a series of songs released during the first lockdown, titled ‘Hometapes’, are upbeat, sometimes haunting, and simply wonderful.
3. The Hamilton Soundtrack
I was one of those people that refused to listen to the soundtrack until I saw the show live, and I never got the chance. So when it became available on Disney+, I had no choice, like so many others, but to watch it. And, as expected, I fell in love and now listen to this soundtrack all the time.
2. evermore by Taylor Swift
Of course, the top two spots are dominated by Taylor Swift’s surprise drops this year, and how could they not be? I had no idea which order to put these two in, as I love them both so much, so I ordered them this way purely based on the amount of time I have had to fall in love with them.
‘evermore’ is a stunning collection of songs, and I’d love to highlight my favourites, but I’m still listening and learning and am in total awe of her songwriting prowess. I can only dream of writing a collection of songs as beautiful as the two albums she gave us this year. But hey, a girl can dream…
1. folklore by Taylor Swift
‘folklore’ was an album I think so many of us needed this year, and ‘evermore’ was just the icing on the cake. As she discussed in the Long Pond Studio Sessions, this was an album she felt had to be written this year, it was an album I think I needed to get me through. It felt warm and comforting, but also new and heartbreaking. It felt like a return to her original songwriting, but also like she was finally free to write whatever she wanted. In her Apple Music Awards interview, she described each album as having a different cohesive meaning, one of which being closure (which a track on the album is appropriately titled), and I really hope that as 2020 closes, that is what we get.
I don’t think for a second that 2021 will begin any better. The clock won’t strike midnight on New Year’s Eve and the world will be saved, but I hope it brings us closure on the year we’ve all had. And brings us hope, with the prospect of freedom and a new beginning.