Top 10 Worst Albums of 2020
I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy tearing into the music I dislike, but there's always a relief that comes with reaching the final negative list, knowing I won't have to think about this awful, awful music again, and you can bet I'm already excited for the music that 2021 has to offer, both good and bad. Now though is the time to celebrate the very worst of what this year had to offer, the bottom of the barrel, last-rate scraps and mishaps, the biggest disappointments and greatest failures, with a range of artists and genres that may surprise you. Anyway, without further a-do, let's dive right into this thing...
10
"Rough and Rowdy Ways"
Bob Dylan
Columbia Records
That's right, we're starting off with what's sure to be a controversial selection, Bob Dylan returning in 2020 with one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the year and of his career, and all I hear is Dylan attempting to experiment with more droning tones that, combined with some of his worst vocals to date, creates a soundscape that is yes, unique, but is also a slog to listen to, particularly with song lengths usually topping out over six minutes. Even the catchier melody of "My Own Version of You" is exclusive to this track, and becomes incredibly repetitive and unsatisfying as the song enters its fifth minute, another two still to go. Elsewhere, Dylan's trademark lyrics vary between pretentious and just unfortunate, with headscratchers like "no stars in the sky shine brighter than you /
you girls mean business, and I do too" achieving one thing only, and that's turning me off from this album.
9
"Healer"
Grouplove
Atlantic
I can't lie, I'm still incredibly proud of the way I described this album in the full review I did back in October, so to paraphrase myself, the tracks on Healer are "utterly squandered by bad production and worse writing, the one-two sucker punch of underperforming that this album keeps indulging in". For me, this album (and by extension, this band) had potential a long time ago, and it just so happens that they've utterly squandered it time and time again, persistently shooting for the stars with brash, contrasting instrumentation but consistently failing to reach those stars, exploding spectacularly at launch and failing to even leave the atmosphere.
It doesn't help that the pronunciation and vocals are are distinctly off across this album, and the fact that so many bands and artists are doing this better and succeeding in moving the sound forward past the early 2010s influence that Grouplove have stubbornly clung too, the tension and increasingly mature themes juxtaposed by lyrics trying way too hard to be cutesy and ending up falling into the realm of generic indie pop tropes. It's a shame too, without those vocals and lyrics the track "Expectations" is easily the most interesting of their career, not suffering like the majority of tracks with their tendency for overbearing synths compressed to an absurd level, a sound that hasn't exactly aged like fine wine.
8
"Shadow Work"
Trapt
Crash Collide
Who else was excited for the release of this 25-year-old band to return with their brand new album Shadow Work? No one? No one? Huh. Well, neither was I, and yet I listened to it anyway, al 45 minutes of this incredibly boring, formulaic album, yet another helping of post-grunge, nu metal goodness... except something here was different. Outside of the usual influences, the band went out of their way here to delve into more atmospheric, alternative rock sounds, the verses and bridges often residing in a place far less shouty and bluntly bombastic, taking a more reserved approach to the music. In other words, they've phoned it in, opting to lean heavily on on their poppier side to numb, uninteresting results. Somehow though it manages to do this and still be entirely hateable, which is a special quality that Trapt has done well to retain throughout their career. Good job boys, keep up the bad work!
7
"TattleTales"
6ix9ine
Create Music Group
The fact that this album was allowed to happen is something of a disgrace. Post an unfortunately short incarceration, 6ix9ine is now back out into the world and of course his first action was to release an album that with the very first song tries to sweep the crimes he's committed under the rug, beginning with an apology that consists only of him saying "got me wishing I could take it all back" before going on to try and make the audience sympathise with his situation because he's got a daughter he wants to see and how it's so unfair to lock him up because he feels regret.
He's not exactly the first unlikeable public figure to come out with an apology this insincere, and my distaste for the album based on all these factors in tandem with his atrocious, aggressive rap style would ordinarily be enough for this album to appear higher up on a list like this, but in truth the production is too slick, the beats too forgettable and ultimately unremarkable for me to do that, so it's ended here at number 7.
The fact that he has appeared on all three of my worst lists should also say a lot.
6
"Notes On A Conditional Form"
The 1975
Dirty Hit
Ah yes, The 1975's long-delayed fourth album, the record that singlehandedly caused me to detest this band, and the frontman Matty Healy in particular. Why you ask? Oh, only due to the sprawling, utterly disconnected tracklist, forays into genres ranging from two-step and UK garage to orchestral arrangements, as well as country rock and a boyband ballad. In 2020, it isn't particularly unusual to hop between several genres, and for a band like The 1975 this inconsistency is something of a given, but the lack of care or effort that went into these songs is just unforgiveable, each "exploration" into different genres essentially the blandest, least compelling, cover-band level of commitment given to each style.
Perhaps the best example of this is "Roadkill", far from the worst song here but among the most hateable with its bumbling melody, some of Matty's most nasal vocals and lyrics that I wish I could describe as faceplant worthy, but are unfortunately one of many instances in this record that finds Matty rambling about many topics, essentially providing a whiny freestyle that sees a lack of any topical consistency, let alone the kind of cohesive narrative that make the band's best songs work. No, across this almost hour-and-a-half album, the driving force is not a concept, not the themes, nor any kind of musical idea, the driving force is Matty's pretentiousness, a factor that's grown more prominent with each album but has finally swallowed the few merits this record had, inconsequential interludes, poor imitations, cringy writing and all.
5
"Music To Be Murdered By"
Eminem
Aftermath / Interscope
I don't need to spend long on this entry as my issues were pretty much summed up on my Worst Hit Songs list.
Ah yes, the Eminem album where the beats he's rapping over and the guest features have become more interesting than him, some genuinely interesting production on the earlier songs setting up an album that would at least be tolerable to listen through... right until Em hits us with some cringy lyrics about "where has Osama Bin, I've been Laden lately", proving once and for all that his current bars are indeed his dad joke phase, filling his songs with references to previous works as a way to reaffirm his greatness, a tactic that doesn't work when none of his new music matches that quality.
4
"Everything Changes in the End"
Vistas
Retrospect Records
For many people, the biggest obstacle to getting into an artist is the vocals. For me, well I'd say I typically have a bias more towards the music itself, the instrumentals being the part of a song I will gravitate to first, usually followed by the lyrics before I even think about the vocals. This album is an exception to that. I've often heard it said that vocals don't matter, that with enough confidence people will be happy to listen, but with Vistas I can assure you that isn't the case, with vocalist Prentice Robertson placed front and centre with his... let's call it a distinctive wail, and one that shouts in a Fratellis-like fashion, only without the same charisma of that band's frontman and less of the immediate annoyances that come with their song "Chelsea Dagger". That said, sitting through an entire album's worth of this vocal style is tiring at best, and by the third track I've grown to despise it.
The question I have to ask myself when listening to modern indie rock is what it's actually achieving - with such an oversaturated landscape and new bands emerging on what feels like a daily basis, you've got to be selective or you'll find yourself drowning in a genre long past its heyday, and often without anything new or interesting to offer. Usually this results in an abundance of mediocre releases, and a handful of excellent ones that do manage to inject some originality into the mix, but what Vistas achieves is something different. They manage to make generic indie rock that's intolerably annoying.
3
"TRANSLATION"
Black Eyed Peas
Epic Records
As pointless and forgettable as 2018's Masters of the Sun Vol. 1 was, I would have given anything for this record to be the second volume of that, an album that escaped the group's usual flaws by being boring and ignorable, qualities I don't usually associate with the Black Eyed Peas, but a welcome change of pace for sure. The album we got instead? Well, whilst far from their most obnoxious, this is every bit the vapid, lazy and unengaging as usual from a vocal perspective, and if getting into the instrumentals is something you want to do...
This is essentially an attempt at a reggaetón record, heavily indulging in Spanish words and phrasing seemingly only for the aesthetic, actual reggaetón artists coming and going and consistently showing up the actual members of the Peas, whilst the beats that will.i.am crafted are about as catchy as ever, and just as annoying, with more cohesion than I'm used to hearing but the same ego dripping from the music as his basic use of effects like pitch shifting and stuttering of the samples are shown off as if they're some kind of genius technique that will.i.am is unique in utilising. As per usual though, it's the lyrics where this album shows its biggest flaws, and I'm shamelessly going to point to my review where I discussed it in detail.
2
"Father of All..."
Green Day
Reprise Records
The marketing for this album says it all really, "no features, no Swedish songwriters, no trap beats, 100% pure uncut rock", offering what I'm sure the band and their fans think is some idealised, utopian version of music in 2020, but ironically points out the exact reasons why this band and this album fail. I even used it instead of the actual album cover. You see, when every prior album from the band fits this exact "pure uncut rock" descriptor, you start to realise that its not the band's reluctance to change with the times that fails them, but their reluctance to change at all. Sure the sound has varied from album to album, but everything they've done is pop punk and done of it is original, and none of it has a place in this new decade, however determined they are to continue their long run of success within the genre. And how do they do this?
Well, rather than mature to meet their ageing fans, the band have seemingly directed their focus even harder at their young, teenaged demographic, attempting to resonate with those angsty fourteen year olds who "listen to REAL music, you wouldn't understand". Now, whilst their writing hasn't exactly been a strongpoint of the band, it's certainly the focus to their music, and doubling down on the wannabe-emo clichés results in an unbearable amount of cringe that for me climaxes with the track "I Was A Teenage Teenager", a song that does in fact feature the lyric "school is for suckers". Come on, this is a band in their late forties! At least leave the songs for teenagers TO the teenagers, not a band that submits themselves to this level of embarrassing cringe. Please, stop.
1
"LP1"
Liam Payne
Hampton Records / Universal
Firstly, this list's title is a bit of a misnomer. Of course, each and every list I make, in fact everything I post on this blog, is all just my subjective opinion, but even within a subjective opinion I draw a line between "Worst" and "least favourite", and in truth this list is the latter, the albums that liked the least by order of my hatred towards them. The last two albums are, I think, worse than this one, but it's LP1 that I harbour the most hatred towards. Yes, this came out in December 2019. I count December releases towards the following year. Now, let's get into why this is my least favourite album of the year.
Firstly and most significantly, this is perhaps the laziest, least compelling, most offensively low-effort album I have ever heard, certainly from a popstar. Across its 17 songs, Liam has writing credits on 4. On those songs he does has a writing credit for, he is one of several writers. The album as a whole has 54 writers, and 13 producers, and it just raises the question - who does this album belong to?
There's nothing personal here, nothing genuine or worthy of any kind of pride from the people involved, which is clearly the ideal when the majority of songs are attempting to be R&B, a genre so fundamentally reliant on the kind of passion that Liam Payne's detachment from the project and indistinctive vocals are the absolute least suited for, the same exact problem Justin Bieber has on "Yummy" but amplified over more tracks with less cringe but more awkward sensual moments that fail to be fun or sexy, instead being about as cold and unpleasant as the overall vibe the record secretes.
Even having established this record's lack of integrity, there are yet more instances where it proves itself to be hollow, shamelessly commercial and nothing more. The instrumentals for instance offer a simplified pastiche of contemporary pop trap, R&B and reggaetón trends with the same lack of commitment that plagued The 1975's album mixed with the insipid trend pandering that I really should have seen coming considering the slew of singles before this thing, each one holding a grubby mirror up to the pop charts and using a tainted, two-dimensional view of a trend or style to build the songs, resulting in tracks that UTTERLY lack in flavour, just another piece in the puzzle that forms what I view to be the most apathetic, ingenuine, tactless and waste-of-space album of 2020, and one I hope I never have to think about ever again.
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Thank you so much for reading, I'm happy to now have all of the worst lists done and dusted, and I'm excited to move onto my favourites of 2020 over the next week or so, before I can launch myself into 2021 with an updated schedule for my blog that I hope you enjoy!
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