Top 10 albums of 2020? Here’s mine:

1. Diana Jones – Song To A Refugee

Diana Jones has written compellingly about salt of the earth Appalachians for years, and her friend Emma Thompson (yes, that one) suggested she expand her family of adopted strangers by inviting in some refugees from Trump’s America. The result is a mix of Mary Gauthier and Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. Pass the tissue box.

 

2. Bonny Light Horseman – Bonny Light Horseman

Anais ‘Midas Touch’ Mitchell has done it again, scouring centuries-old libraries for folklore she can make contemporary. Child Ballads, Greek mythology (Hadestown), and now accounts from Napoleon-era Britain. This is a ‘supergroup’ that started as social media banter with Josh Kaufman and then Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson, who has never sounded better. Good mentoring there, Josh.

 

3,4,5.  Laura Marling – Song For Our Daughter

          The Chicks – Gaslighter

          Kathleen Edwards – Total Freedom

These three strong, resilient women co-incidentally found themselves in different post-relationship places this year and share their new normal with us.

    Bittersweet and wistful, Laura pulls the plug on a stalled relationship, thankful there was no real daughter to hurt. It is a timeless masterpiece.

     Few have vented with such fiery eloquence as Natalie Maines does after catching her man cheating (and more). It’s not just lashing out though; there’s a necessary drawing of a line. Jilted women will be belting out these songs for years to come.

     Kathleen has been single for several years but only recently embraced a freedom she’d never felt before. Her last album was huge but she’d been browbeaten in the studio and it wasn’t her.  She grew to hate touring those songs, but fans wanted to hear them. So she quit and opened a successful coffee shop. The album celebrates a rebirth that Laura and Natalie will find too, someday.

 

6. Martyn Joseph – Days Of Decision: A Tribute To Phil Ochs

A covers album this high up a year-end list has to be outstanding and this is. Ochs was a political/humanitarian activist in ’60s America and Joseph, an activist himself, masterfully opens Ochs’ unique gifts to a whole new audience. Good timing.

 

7. Megan Thee Stallion – Suga
Megan is shockingly good. I’m reminded of a young Eminem bursting on the scene, out to shock, out to get noticed, determined to be independent. And she should be. She’s the same age he was then, 24, and might prove his equal if she doesn’t read her own press too much. #NSFW: This is raw sugar. Not the refined kind.

 

8. Shemekia Copeland – Uncivil War

With her voice, presence and lineage Shemekia had a career remaking Koko Taylor records if she wanted. She did not want. Like Taylor, she is the best blues singer of her era. Uniquely, though, she increasingly uses her platform to sing about inconvenient topics: date rape, racism, domestic violence… and the rest. And like her Mama taught her, she does it with more honey than vinegar.

 

9. Ghostpoet – I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep
The London poet/musician is usually out of step with the crowd, so it’s no surprise that while the American rappers were, quite understandably, focussed on #BLM and street action, he was tucked up in London musing about his circumstances. That droll, self-deprecating manner of his builds tension through repetition, a technique pioneered by Lou Reed and John Cale.

 

10.  Drakeo the Ruler & JoogSzn – Thank You For Using GTL
JoogSzn’s technical wizardly connects us with a rapper locked up in legal limbo. Drakeo is no angel, but neither is he an animal. This is his story, rapped out in two-minute phone calls at GTL’s predatory rates and stitched together by JoogSzn. It’s no gimmick; more performance art. #NSFW: