Music Your musical journey of 2020

Hey y'all!

So as we start stepping away from 2020 and into 2021, I think we can all safely chalk 2020 up as an extremely shit year, right? Between the natural disasters, humanitarian crises and pandemic, I don't know about anyone else but this really just sums up my mood of 2020:


However with this has come some new opportunities, a lot more time to be spent on things you normally wouldn't and the such. For example, being out of work for around 6 months meant that I could dive a lot deeper into my passion for music than I have ever been able to! Every cloud has a silver lining, albeit a small one in this case. As a result, I managed to put together a list of 2020 albums I've listened to, along with ratings and the such, something I've always wanted to do but not been able to!

So with that in mind, was it a similar situation for you and music in 2020? Did you get to expand your horizons at all? Or simply did you just have more time to be able to sit down and appreciate music just that whole lot more?

I don't think I changed my own music taste or ways of listening, perhaps because my job situation didn't change much.

I mostly listened to rap music in 2020.

i think i mostly listened to pop, but i also listened to a lot of old rock and rap too. rediscovered how amazing mcr is, listened to a lot of ccr as well. but i found a lot of new (to me) artists that i really enjoyed, like joji, dorian electra, coven, chloe x halle, megan thee stallion... and 2020 was the year i finally just shut the fuck up and listened to taylor swift without...whatever bizarre preconceived notions that were shoved into a lot of peoples heads in the early 2010's. also happened to be the year that she put out not one but two of her, in my opinion, best albums. but yeah i really jumped back into music more than i had done in 2018 and 2019 and also found amazing albums from those years that i just. skated past for some reason lol. but yeah 2020 for me was a great musical journey. looking forward to see what i find in 2021.

Thanks for that list you linked, I'll listen to them!

For me the I mostly returned to video game music, and found a gem in Falcom's music. This caused me to explore a lot of video game music from games I haven't even heard of. August Burns Red were my non-video game go to band. That's pretty much it.

i believe i opened myself up to more mainstream music and stopped the edgy mindset of "being too cool for that" and all. i think it was in 2020 where i started truly appreciating well known artists like ariana grande, lady gaga, dua lipa, beyonce, etc, other than that, nothing has really changed. i still prefer alt rock as a default because i can never get away from chimey guitars and moody vibes.

I mostly listened to 2000's emo, post-hardcore, and metalcore stuff. Though in the beginning, it was nu-metal and pop punk. It was a fun ride.

An odd mix of Classic Soul/R&B, Early Music, British Folk/Rock, Baroque, and Progressive Rock. Otherwise, I would say the biggest changes were a resurgence of interest for me in Baroque Pop and Brass Rock, genres I had last mainly been interested at the very beginning of the 2010s.

I fell down the rabbit hole of rhythm games in the summer of 2020 and a large portion of what I listen to now is music from rhythm games (and other songs by the artists). Some of my favorites are Team Grimoire, Camellia, Frums, and t+pazolite.

I guess this is a good thing, considering my previous "taste" was predominantly video game (especially Pokémon) OST and remixes. Now I have some "actual" songs to listen to.

Nothing changed, but right now I'm leaning towards louder and heavier songs.

I uh, got into Loona ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I especially like Loona 1/3's discography, with Sonatine being my favourite.

Nothing really changed, except for getting into more K-Pop groups. That's about it.

My year started with post-hardcore and ended with slightly more progressive/experimental post-hardcore. Overall not much change, but I did start growing on some bands that I had kinda dismissed in the past, like Hail the Sun and Sianvar, while also discovering some new bands like I Met A Yeti and Dwellings.

I'm sure this year'll be more of the same, although I've noticed my music taste getting less and less heavy over the years, so who knows.

Honestly through most of the year my playlist stayed relatively the same, only that I actually listened to more albums by the bands I liked xD. Only real developments was listening to Firepower & Sonic Firestorm for the first time and realising they're arguably the best albums by their respective bands (I'm still yet dto decide). There was also the introduction of the first song on my playlist that didn't fall under the Rock & Metal spectrum, so that was interesting but most likely won't change for a while.

This year is absolutely gonna be a dead year in terms of music, considering I've listened to music less and less and the releases are basically non existent. The re-appearance of System of a Down at the end of last year was awesome (with two pretty outstanding songs) and I know that another DragonForce album is currently in production (I have a feeling Sam & Herman have finished writing but I cannot remember exactly) so that's always something to be excited for.

Who knows, maybe I'll uncover another Unlucky Morpheus or we'll here something from one of the big dogs (patiently waiting for what Metallica does next since Hardwired was so good). But most of my music will be reduced to soundtracks and whatever they decide to play at the Cricket so we'll see.

early in january of 2020 my mental state took a nosedive and I spent weeks on end absolutely furious, just waking up every morning feeling like I couldn't breathe; the only tune I knew of at the time that I could actually enjoy thanks to my mood was prokofiev sonata 6, probably the angriest sounding thing I had heard of at the time



since then all the music I used to listen to basically went out the window and I haven't touched any of it since, in large part because I can't emotionally connect with any of it anymore. it doesn't feel like a conscious decision but on some level I just felt like I couldn't go back and had to reinvent how I experienced the world. all the king crimson, new order, radiohead, talking heads, beach house etc. that I used to love have been swapped out, I mainly listen to Shostakovich, Messiaen, Mahler etc. Shostakovich Symphony 5 and Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time are my favourite works of music and both helped me through some of my lowest points.

Messiaen's quartet I think is something worth recommending to anyone who goes through an especially low point in their lives; he wrote it while being held captive as a prisoner of war during WW2, and being a devout catholic, he felt the need to express his love for the world even amidst all the horrors he had experienced. it's uttely inspiring. mvt 5 (link) is the most well known section, but my personal favourite moment occurs at the climax of mvt 7 (link), the piano plays arpeggiated 7th chords while the violin, cello and clarinet come together to create this ghostly, elegaic wailing that's absolutely haunting

Messiaen's later work draws on what he called the "modes of limited transposition" to create a fascinatingly unique harmonic sound, turanglila symphony is a great example of this, throughout the second half of mvt 1 (link) you can hear the trumpets making a bunch of downward runs, playing F, E, D, D flat, C, B flat, A, A flat, which is his 3rd mode (G flat also occurs in the passage). it's such a bizarre, completely unique sound that nobody has ever come close to (except maybe Thomas Ades?)

overall I'm happy with how much my music tastes and mental state changed in 2020, it's somewhat encouraging for me to look at how much I've grown and changed individually. I think one of the most drastic examples is Oiseaux Exotiques, a favourite which happens to be atonal, I never thought I'd get into that kind of stuff

Hmmm nlg 2020 for me was mostly J-rock :P

I think in January I was really into Brazilian rock, but after that it was mostly J-rock with an occasional Dragonforce, Marmozets, Dua Lipa and some more random stuff in the middle.