2020s Album Reviews

Less than two years into the new decade, it’s already been eventful. A global pandemic and BlackLivesMatter protests have already created ten years’ worth of chaos.

  • Arooj Aftab was born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents. She taught herself guitar and became a viral sensation inโ€ฆ

  • The members of Black Midi met at the BRIT School in London, a performing art college whose other alumni includeโ€ฆ

  • Sabrina Teitelbaum flirted with musical success in a different guise. Between 2017 and 2019, she released singles as the popโ€ฆ

  • Female solo artists Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker, and Phoebe Bridgers had never all been in the same room together whenโ€ฆ

  • Indie singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers was born in Los Angeles and studied vocal jazz at the Los Angeles County High Schoolโ€ฆ

  • Smooth R&B artist Erika de Casier was born in Portugal to a Belgian mother and a Cape Verdean father. She’sโ€ฆ

  • Dijon’s music sounds like Prince, if the Purple One were forced out of Paisley Park and into his bedroom. Hisโ€ฆ

  • Dina ร–gon are a smooth Swedish supergroup. Lead vocalist Anna Ahnlund, drummer Christopher Cantillo, guitarist/keyboardist Daniel Ogren, and bassist Loveโ€ฆ

  • The duo of Tom McGreevy and Evan Lewis met on the Toronto scene, bonding over their shared love of vintageโ€ฆ

  • Billie Eilish Pirate Baird Oโ€™Connell was the first musician born in the 21st century to score a number-one single inโ€ฆ

  • San Franciscoโ€™s Avalon Emerson made her reputation as a DJ. But she used the advice of Jeff Tweedyโ€™s book How Toโ€ฆ

  • Guatemalan cellist and vocalist Mabe Fratti grew up only listening to Christian and classical music. Discovering Limewire, her musical horizonsโ€ฆ

  • Natalie Hemby was born in Illinois, the daughter of a Nashville studio guitarist. She almost signed a record deal withโ€ฆ

  • New Yorkโ€™s Cassandra Jenkins comes from a musical family. Her parents worked on cruise ships as musicians, and her brotherโ€ฆ

  • The Last Dinner Party were the breakout UK stars of 2023, with the release of the single ‘Nothing Matters’. They’dโ€ฆ

  • Mark Jacob Lenderman was born in Asheville, North Carolina. He’s a busy fellowโ€”in addition to his solo career, he’s aโ€ฆ

  • Pop music has become a much more respected art form in the past decade. Records like Taylor Swiftโ€™sย 1989, Carly Raeโ€ฆ

  • Miami synth-pop duo Magdalena Bay consists of songwriter/vocalist Mica Tenenbaum and musician/producer Matthew Lewin. The pair met as high schoolโ€ฆ

  • Gabriela Jimeno Caldas was born in 1990 in Bogotรก, Colombia. She spent her teens as the drummer for Colombian hardcoreโ€ฆ

  • Michael Gordon grew up in New Jersey, where he played in bands but gravitated to making solo music in hisโ€ฆ

  • Producer and musician Kelly Lee Owens grew up in a small Welsh village. She sang in her school choir andโ€ฆ

  • Caroline Polachek grew up in Connecticut and was formerly the vocalist for the indie-pop duo Chairlift. Chairlift enjoyed a surpriseโ€ฆ

  • Katie Pruitt grew up in Atlanta and was raised Catholic. She attended Catholic school and mass. She got into musicโ€ฆ

  • Olivia Isabel Rodrigo first came to prominence as an actor. She appeared in Bizaardvark and High School Musical. In 2020, sheโ€ฆ

  • Margaret Debay Rogers grew up in Maryland, the daughter of a Ford salesman and a nurse. She began learning theโ€ฆ

  • British collective Sault have eschewed all the usual rules of music-making in their brief and eventful career. Theyโ€™ve veiled theirโ€ฆ

  • There hasnโ€™t been a new Radiohead album since 2016โ€™s A Moon Shaped Pool. The Smile might be the next best thing.โ€ฆ

  • Lindsey Jordan grew up in Baltimore, which is also home to Beach House and Wye Oak, and at one pointโ€ฆ

  • Sophie Allison was born in Switzerland and grew up in Nashville. She self-released guitar-pop as a teenager on Bandcamp, beforeโ€ฆ

  • Born in London, Cleopatra Nikolic’s parents met in a jazz band – her Jamaican dad plays bass and piano, whileโ€ฆ

  • A crop of young, critically acclaimed post-punk bands emerged in the UK around 2020. It’s tough to keep up –โ€ฆ

  • Isle of Wight’s Wet Leg were breakout stars in 2021, when their innuendo-laden hit โ€˜Chaise Longueโ€™ went viral. Their nameโ€ฆ

  • Hayley Williams is best known as the lead vocalist of Paramore. However, she has also released three solo albums, twoโ€ฆ

  • Indie artist Nilรผfer Yanya was born in Chelsea, West London. She’s the daughter of two visual artistsmwith Turkish, Irish andโ€ฆ

  • This page collects album reviews for 2020s artists of whom Iโ€™ve only reviewed one or two albums. This page becameโ€ฆ

  • The consequence of reviewing new releases each week is that I already have too many records for one page. Here’sโ€ฆ

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