Guest Lists: The Best of 2020

Nick Cvijovic of Butchered

The year end guest lists keep rollin' on in! Nick Cvijovic of Butchered delivers his favorite albums, EPs and more of 2020. Butchered released the catchy, riffy Wax Pathetic last month and it is one of this site's favorite albums of the year. Look for more guest lists this week and our annual album of the year bracket results next week. Without further ado, I'll let Nick take it away:

Nick Cvijovic's Top Albums of 2020

I love year end lists so much. Show me your favorite albums, songs, recipes, movies and I'll read every word you wrote. Hearing about or seeing what other people are listening to is awesome since I only listened to Power Trip and Run the Jewels all year.

I don't need to restate the fact that this year was a bummer and pandemics are awful and the whole state of the world is in disarray, etc etc. That's for real writers and publications and I am just a guy who wants to tell you about the music I listened to and the things I watched while roaming through alleyways drinking whiskey during quarantine/lockdown/whatever you'd like to call it. So, with that being said, I compiled , through rigorous listening and drinking, a PERFECT list of the best LPs, EPs, and other nonsense for you to roll your eyes at. How many guitar-forward rock bands are on this list? Too many. Are both Taylor Swift albums on here? You fucking bet.

*disclaimer: there were like 45 albums and eps on my original list but I HAD to omit stuff. Ask me about those later*

Top Albums (LPs) of 2020 in Reverse Order:

Ultra Mono - IDLES

UK's IDLES yell, talk, and scream about BREXIT, toxic masculinity, racism, nationalism, and all other -isms through a rainbow of emotionally charged songs. Some are funny (Model Village), some are dark (War), but always danceable. Neighbors Anger Index puts this at a 8.
Favorite Song: "Mr. Motivator"

Alfredo - Freddie Gibbs + The Alchemist

This was one of my go-to albums to listen to during the sweet point of 2020 when I kept breaking spokes on my bike and walked to very far away neighborhoods in Chicago. Alfredo features laid back beats with phenomenal word play from Gibbs and a handful of featured artists like Benny the Butcher, Rick Ross, Tyler, the Creator, and Conway the Machine; many lyrics finding their way onto handmade signs of protesters throughout the world this summer.
Favorite song: "Frank Lucas"

Fetch the Bolt Cutters - Fiona Apple

This record was number one on like 90% of the lists that I read this year and with good reason. Apple recorded this record over the course of four or five years all at her home, using these songs to better herself at being a songwriter and recording artist. It's an incredible display of bouncy (? sure why not), jazzy (I'm using that as a term to describe odd time and chord changes because I only play in 4/4), and catchy songs that even the most stubborn of music dorks will love. At least they better.
Favorite Song: "Shameika"

folklore/evermore - Taylor Swift

If you know me, then you know I love Taylor Swift a lot. Obviously the pop jams and country bangers are where her real talent lies, but during a time where a lot of us spent alone and idle, folklore really nailed the mood. And even better, she brings back the old Taylor country vibes on certain songs; albeit in a more stripped down fashion. evermore keeps the theme going too. Dropping two albums out of almost nowhere without any singles to hype up the releases was also cool as hell; even for someone of her notoriety.
Favorite Song(s): "the last great american dynasty"/"willow"

Melee - Dogleg

My drummer showed me this band and from first listen I fell in love with it. Even the coldest of hearts need a good sing along every once in a while and this album is chock full of songs to satisfy that need.. Dogleg embrace Spraynard and PUP style punk, but do it in a way that doesn't sound played out. It's one of the few things I enjoy from Michigan.
Favorite Songs: "Bueno" and "Fox"

5 Years Behind - THICK

As someone who always feels like they're behind in their music-making career (hobby? yeah), this album hit hard. The title track screams about not being in the right place at the right time and feeling down about it even though time is a bastard and there's nothing we can do about that. It's not envy, but that's the word I 'd use to describe the theme of most of this record. The girls take up plenty of other topics on this record, like being in an all-girl band. "Mansplain" begins with actual statements said at the band or their friends: "Girl bands are really in right now", "Are those your boyfriend’s drums?" Every song is an anthem for sure.
Favorite Song: "Bumming Me Out"

Brave Faces Everyone - Spanish Love Songs

Spanish Love Songs know how to write a catchy song but upon listening closer to the melody do you immediately break down. There's always a positive light shining through each song on Brave Faces Everyone (aka album title of the decade) which makes the album feel more honest. Singer Dylan Slocum said, "There's comfort in knowing we're on the same sinking ship..." Everything might suck, but it sucks for most of us; let's have a drink to that, I guess.
Favorite Song: "Routine Pain"

Everything is A-OK - Violent Soho

Violent Soho has been one of my favorite bands for years now. I felt their previous album, 2016's WACO, was very lackluster. So when I first heard the singles to this record (thanks, Tom), I flipped. Every song (save for the title track) is a loud anthem, reminiscent of their earlier work. "Sleep Year" into "Vacation Forever" is the perfect one-two punch leadoff and the album doesn't really slow down from there. "Lying on the Floor" was my most listened to song this year according to Spotify (haha I wonder why...) and each song could definitely use multiple listens in a row just to make sure you get all the lyrics correct before screaming along the next time around. The music video for "Pick It Up Again" is also great.
Favorite Song: "Lying on the Floor"

Heaven To A Tortured Mind - Yves Tumor

My buddy Palmer showed me the "Kerosene!" single sometime in the early summer and it immediately became Song of the Year for me. I'm not super versed in Yves Tumor's previous music but when I first heard "Kerosene!" I was hooked. If that song was any indication about the way the rest of the album was going to play out, then I was sold. Sure enough this was one of my most played albums of the year. Heaven... is a sweet amalgamation of modern pop, psych pop, and Prince style guitar work and yes, kids, it slaps or bops or whatever.
Favorite Songs: "Kerosene!" and "Medicine Burn"

Long Violent History - Tyler Childers

Bold of any artist, especially one who's as prolific in country, folk, and bluegrass music as Tyler Childers, AND has one of the best voices in those styles, to make an almost entirely instrumental record. Long Violent History plays out over 8 wordless songs to set the vibe of a small, rural Appalachian town; each song envisioning the town square, families picnicking in the park, catching fireflies in the woods. Rural America is peaceful and unbothered. The title track, also the very last track on the record, is the only song to have singing, and it's one of the most powerful songs in folk/country/whatever music. Tyler asks the listener to think of the history of the US in our treatment of BIPOC and to empathize with the causes they are fighting for AND to offer some self-examination about our own prejudices (as a white person.) Tyler describes it better and I don't want to mince words: Watch the video.
Favorite Song: "Long Violent History"

Oh look, we've made it to the "TOP 3". Big Whoop.

Fake It Flowers - beabadoobee

Bea Kristi is making some of the best grungy bedroom pop around. Rather than keeping the lofi approach to songwriting, beabadoobee comes out swinging with a louder production and big fucking choruses. I love a big fucking chorus. Fake It Flowers almost seems like a throwback to the pop-rock hits of the 90s, which makes sense because the first song Bea learned on guitar was 1997's "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer. The album is part Smashing Pumpkins, part Mazzy Star, part Avril Lavigne. And even though beabadoobee wears her influences on her sleeve, her music couldn't be more original and refreshing in sound.
Favorite Songs: "Charlie Brown" and "Together"

Atlas Vending - METZ

This and the next album are interchangeable in my hierarchy of favorites but I'll explain more later. METZ is consistently the best band of the 21st century and every record they put out is literally flawless. METZ makes noisy, screeching, dirty rock music. Nothing is really sang unless it's droned out; no instrument is soft unless there's miles of reverb layered over it - and all with the intention of slamming everything to 10 a few seconds later. On Atlas Vending, METZ continues to stay true to their sound, but not being completely repetitive of albums prior. From first track to last it doesn't stop; feeling like a constantly swelling abscess that's about to pop gross goo all over. Ok, yeah that was gross but whatever.
Favorite Song: listen to this whole record; every song is perfect

RTJ4 - Run The Jewels

RTJ AOTY FTW. This is another absolutely perfect album from the duo and beats METZ out because I literally did not stop listening to this all summer. I probably put it on three to four times a day. It's an album that was perfect for the moment when it dropped, keeping RTJ's sociopolitical lyricism all the more relevant with the sociopolitical climate of 2020. The insane features on this record makes it incredibly appealing as well: Josh Homme AND Mavis Staples on "pulling the pin", 2 Chainz, Pharrell and Zack de la Rocha. Killer Mike and El-P offer one of the hardest hitting combos in hip-hop (I'm going to get a lot of shit for that from the old heads and I'm probably wrong but this is my list so get out.) Every song jumps from hard as fuck rhymes to hysterical braggadocio to commentary on politicians, cops, capitalism, and the power of the people. It's not old or new school, RTJ are their own school.
Favorite Songs: "goonies vs. E.T." and "the ground below"

Top EPs of 2020 (in absolutely no order)

Kat Hasty - Drowning in Dreams pt. 1+2

Both parts were recorded on a 4 track in her bathroom! Country music rules, ya'll.
Favorite Song: "The Highway Song"

Orville Peck - Show Pony

Like I said above, country music rules, ya'll. This EP also has a duet with Shania Twain and hoo boy is it a slammer.
Favorite Song: "No Glory in the West"

PUP - This Place Sucks Ass

Them PUP boys are at it again. It's literally just classic PUP, which is great.
Favorite Song: "Edmonton"

Mrs. Piss - Self Surgery

Chelsea Wolfe and Jess Gowrie make heavy music better. This has 8 songs but I'm calling it an EP. Also, don't listen when hungover.
Favorite Song: "Nobody Wants to Party with Us"

Zeal & Ardor - Wake of a Nation

Manuel Gagneux is the best pop singer making sorta pop, sorta black metal, sorta gospel goodness. Every time he makes new music under Zeal & Ardor it is immaculate.
Favorite Song: "Vigil"

Soul Glo - Songs to Yeet at the Sun

Political, frantic, spazzy, twitchy hardcore and a rap song and some Little Richard piano and a hefty nosebleed from slamming my head into a chair during the first listen.
Favorite Song: "Mathed Up"

Greatest Sports Moment of 2020:

The Tampa Bay fucking Rays went to the World Series and that was so cool, but Alec Mills' no hitter on Sept. 13th against the Brewers was the best.

Best Osee's Record of 2020 and also Best GBV Record of 2020:

Each band put out three records this year so... Protean Threat (Osees) and Styles We Paid For (Guided By Voices).

Greatest TV Show That I Watched in 2020:

Money Heist (Netflix) Watch it in Spanish with subs, unless you can understand Spanish then obviously watch it in Spanish. Fuck a dub. Yeah it came out years ago but I finally watched it in 2020 so I'm counting it.

Songs To Blast Into 2021 Listening To:

"Ricky" - Denzel Curry

I am missing many great releases by amazing artists but science isn't always perfect, ya know? Any complaints can be addressed by my HR department. You can reach them at hrdepartment@nickcvijovicfinestbbq.gov.

RIP RILEY GALE - POWER TRIP FOREVER