2020 has been rough. There’s no doubt about it. We needed music more than ever, cliche as it sounds, to get us through, and our favourite artists came through in a big way. Every corner of the indie world provided some gems, so here’s our top selection – 20 for 20.
20. Charli XCX – how i’m feeling now
Highlights: forever, claws, party 4 u
Last year’s release from Charli XCX was effervescent, lovely, bubbly pop music. Conversely, how i’m feeling now is a bit grittier and a bit weirder. Written and recorded during lockdown, this record is Charli’s world through her eyes: a little left-field, woozy, and intimate. Laden with glitchy noise, autotune, and glittering surrealisms, how I’m feeling now is the Picasso-ed twin to Charli: the sweetness of Official mirrored in gleaming lead single forever and party 4 u, the eccentric soundscapes of Next Level Charli and Shake It are turned up to max on pink diamond (and the whole album). If Charli was anthems to dance around to at a party, how i’m feeling now is the blurry late-night after-party.
19. Fontaines D.C. – A Hero’s Death
Highlights: I Don’t Belong, A Lucid Dream, Televised Mind
Fans wanting a carbon copy of 2019’s Dogrel will have found Fontaines D.C.’s follow up offering a disappointment. But as Grian Chatten intones at the album’s very opening, “I don’t belong to anyone.” Over a drone of post-punk bass, I Don’t Belong is a statement of intent (especially when weighed up against Dogrel’s monster of an opener, Big) – Fontaines D.C. did not set out to make A Hero’s Death with any expectations in mind. Urgency has turned to introspection, insistence has turned to a moody drawl, bright-eyed spirit has turned to darkness and desolate luxuriation. The vitality that was Fontaines’ lifeblood is missing, but they wanted to make an album that wasn’t just a rehash, and at that they’ve succeeded.
18. Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
Highlights: I Know The End, Kyoto, Chinese Satellite
Phoebe Bridgers certainly made 2020 her year with Punisher. It’s a dreamy listen for sure, forty minutes of iridescent yet somehow still dark instrumental soundscapes topped off by Bridgers’ gentle vocals and garden-bench poetic songwriting. It’s introspective, pretty, and vulnerable, and Bridgers aptly weaves metaphors amongst simplicity to make for a thread of relatability that runs through the whole of Punisher. Despite Bridgers’ thematic darkness, tackling heavy feelings often with a very woozily gloomy approach, Punisher is a pleasant listen, and sometimes brushes with sounding powerful too.
17. LANY – Mama’s Boy
Highlights: You!, (what i wish just one person would say to me), Cowboy in LA
Mama’s Boy, LANY’s third full-length offering, was full of surprises. After getting a reputation for being indie-pop’s quintessential sad boy, the male answer to Lana Del Rey types, LANY’s managed to both maintain that label and make sure everyone knows he’s bloody good at it. Mama’s Boy is a sprawling, hazy soundscape of a record, sonically laidback and gorgeous for it. You!, the album’s expansive opener, is total pop gold – so the opening credits of Mama’s Boy are promising. Lany goes on to merge storytelling bops (Cowboy in LA, when you’re drunk) with some moments of true, painstaking emotional depth (if this is the last time, what I wish just one person would say to me). Mama’s Boy is as confessional as a diary, yet as massive as a Los Angeles sunset – it glows.
16. Sea Girls – Open Up Your Head
Highlights: You Over Anyone, Violet, Weight In Gold
Sea Girls’ debut was always going to be a big moment – they’re some of the UK indie scene’s fastest rising stars, and much of Open Up Your Head goes to show why. Choice cuts from their back catalogue mean that the record has that intimate, tent-at-a-festival feel that characterises so much of Sea Girls’ appeal. The new songs, including feel-good lead single Do You Really Wanna Know?, show that Sea Girls are branching out too, polishing up their production, and gearing up to take the scene by absolute storm. Though some of the fresh adds don’t quite capture the glorious authenticity Sea Girls are known for, penultimate track You Over Anyone is one of Sea Girls’ most beautiful tracks to date, and proves that their hearts are still very much in the right place. Open Up Your Head is the sound of Sea Girls really taking it to the next level.
15. Ist Ist – Architecture
Highlights: You’re Mine, Discipline, Silence
Ist Ist’s debut album Architecture is something really truly formidable. A towering beast of post-punk, there’s no tentativeness here, no shying away from staking their claim on their sound, just growling bass, magnetically deep vocals, dizzy synths, and powerful songs. They go between slow burn and instant gratification so rapidly that you can hardly get your bearings in the labyrinth of sound they create, leaving you with no choice but to lose yourself completely.
14. Dream Wife – So When You Gonna…
Highlights: Homesick, U Do U, After The Rain
Dream Wife’s sophomore album shows their softer side, without sacrificing any of the intensity. Leaning more into indie-pop than indie-punk, they prove that whatever shade they try on suits them on their terms and their terms only. Tracks like Temporary and Hasta La Vista are sweet, and woozy, but just as you think you’ve got the vibe pinned down Dream Wife kick the doors in with the swagger of songs like Homesick, Sports, or the titular So When You Gonna… They’re explosive, however soft they are, but overall on So When You Gonna… they’re fiercely confident. They’re self-assured enough to dip into any genre style they feel like – even on stripped-back piano closer After The Rain, the courage and confidence taken to be so candid packs all the intensity of the loudest punk track.
13. beabadoobee – Fake It Flowers
Highlights: Care, Yoshimi, Forest, Magdalene, Horen Sarrison
beabadoobee’s debut album Fake It Flowers is a doorway of an album. On one side, there’s the softly-lit intimacy of the bedroom-pop bea is famed for, but on the other side, there’s a stage, a spotlight, and thousands screaming along to a set of grunged-up rock tracks. Fake It Flowers straddles the line between the two, and the end product is a record packed with utter anthems – singalong, car-roof-down cruising, ecstatic, powerful – and saturated with heart, vulnerability, and authenticity. Bea’s musical backdrop might be louder and more soaring, but her subtly lovely songwriting is intact, just with a little more intent.
12. Halsey – Manic
Highlights: 3am, Alanis’ Interlude, 929
Manic is Halsey’s second album as a household name. So it’s even more powerful that it’s her first non-concept record – this is just pure Halsey, start to finish. Her soaring vocals are as stunning as always, but they’re somehow more painstaking when they’re truly coming straight from the heart, unveiled by a costume or mask. The result of Halsey’s vulnerability is an album that’s stunning, heartbreaking, relatable, and aspirational in equal parts. Musically, as well, it’s some of Halsey’s best – incredibly varied, from the country tinged devastation of You should be sad, to the astounding features including album highlight Alanis’ interlude ft the legendary Alanis Morrissette. Halsey, with Manic, is claiming her crown as the queen of left-field pop, and it suits her to perfection.
11. Marsicans – Ursa Major
Highlights: Summery In Angus, Evie, Dr Jekyll
The brilliance of Ursa Major isn’t just that it’s a shiner of an album – it’s that it delivers exactly what Marsicans fans love about them, and more. Their debut album has been long-awaited, because they’re unfailingly consistent with their euphoric singalong anthems, and they manage to integrate more of this brightness into Ursa Major than you can possibly comprehend, but at the same time take it one step further and bring us along for the ride. It’s no surprise that Marsicans’ sunny guitar songs are amazing – but it is a surprise that they’re just as wonderful on their gentle, airy interludes. The Marsicans magic sparkles throughout.
10. Will Joseph Cook – Something To Feel Good About
Highlights: Be Around Me, DOWNDOWNDOWN!, She Likes Me
Will Joseph Cook makes music to feel good about – so his album was very aptly titled. It definitely delivers on its promise, with a set of tunes that you can dance and relax to depending on your mood, but that it’s impossible to feel blue when you’re listening to. From the first beat of ecstatic opener Be Around Me, WJC sets the tone: bright, bubbly, and groovy. He’s not only on one level though – STFGA is just as dreamy on its more reflective tracks. The soundscapes are to thank for this, a delicious mixture of glittering synth that sometimes slows down, sometimes perks up – and certainly takes us with it.
9. Best Coast – Always Tomorrow
Highlights: Wreckage, Everything Has Changed, Seeing Red
Best Coast have a career of sunny, gorgeous, but thematically heartbreaking tunes behind them, and on Always Tomorrow they’re just as lovely. Their brand of shiny surf-punk builds on the brightness they’ve cultivated, a step back from the scrappy side of the genre but polished up for an optimistic message, and Bethany Cosentino’s velvety vocals dazzle across the whole record. It doesn’t necessarily do anything beyond what we know Best Coast are fantastic at, but they definitely are fantastic, and Always Tomorrow is a breath of fresh air in a year that’s been stifling.
8. Vistas – Everything Changes In The End
Highlights: Everything Changes In The End, Summer, Retrospect
Everything Changes In The End is THE album we needed in 2020. Forty minutes of pure glorious sunshine in song form, riffs that positively radiate beams of light, guitar indie at its absolute finest. Even just in the title track! Vistas are totally consistent, though, and deliver this euphoria time and time again throughout the album. The greatest gift they’ve given us, though, is something to really look forward to – waiting for the chance to see these tracks live. ECITE is Vistas’ statement of arrival as indie favourites, and if the energy that saturates every track is anything to go by, they’re going to be filling huge venues as soon as humanly possible.
7. The Hunna – I’d Rather Die Than Let You In
Highlights: I Wanna Know, I’d Rather Die Than Let You In, Cover You
After losing the chains of a label that held them down, The Hunna are breaking loose in every way possible on I’d Rather Die Than Let You In. Their soaring songwriting is as present as ever, but they dip out of the indie anthem territory over to some haunting narratives, alt-pop-tinged tunes like the poignant phem feature on If This Is Love, or the gritty drum beats of Better Without Me. Their trademark astounding, soaring vocals are ever-present, but it feels like for the first time The Hunna have been really allowed to let loose – and it makes for some of their best songs. The swirling propheticisms of Dark Times, the dizzying build of I Wanna Know – this is The Hunna at their most themselves, and shining.
6. The Blinders – Fantasies of a Stay At Home Psychopath
Highlights: Forty Days and Forty Nights, I Want Gold, Black Glass
Columbia was more than good – but on Fantasies of a Stay At Home Psychopath, The Blinders scale everything up by about a hundred times. There’s still stinging, forceful punk anthems, but somehow they’re imbued with a new necessity – it’s easy to see why on tracks like Lunatic With A Loaded Gun, a damning indictment of political figures prevalent in the news headlines all year. But even on their broader, more abstract tracks, The Blinders are vicious – the sprawling penultimate Black Glass, a six minute epic that’s a whistle-stop tour of every compelling facet of the Blinders’ excellence, or the moody slow-burn of Circle Song. The Blinders spread their reach further on Fantasies, and it makes for a record that’s as expansive as it is needle-sharp.
5. Courteeners – More. Again. Forever.
Highlights: More. Again. Forever., Previous Parties, The Joy Of Missing Out
The fact that Courteeners are so much of a household name means that any release they put out has to be twice as good as the last – and More. Again. Forever. achieves this. Liam Fray’s songwriting has always been spot-on, striking a balance between wistful and down-to-earth, and it’s as evident as ever as it trips and stumbles through the tale of Previous Parties and the confessional Better Man. Sonically, Courteeners are pushing the boundaries on this one as well, showcased to perfection on the dizzying talk-singing LCD-style title track. It’s really just a bonus that there’s also a slew of classic Courteeners anthems on there too, and while they haven’t ascended to classic status just yet, they’re still just as fun of a listen.
4. Halloweens – Morning Kiss At The Acropolis
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Highlights: Ur Kinda Man, Paris Undercover, Corridors of Love
The Vaccines’ Justin Hayward-Young’s lyrics are famed for being confessional and real, and on side project Halloweens with Vaccines bandmate Timothy Lanham, it really feels like there’s a world for this dreaming melancholia. The instrumentals centre around piano and synth, making for an ethereal soundscape to showcase Halloweens’ subtle metaphors and weaving vocal lines. There’s emotion all the way through, but there’s also a handful of grooves to build out the album’s flow – the sweet lead single Hannah, You’re Amazing, the class of Broken English, the jaunty cheer of opener Rock Bottom Rock. Morning Kiss At The Acropolis is something truly fresh from indie scene staples, which is pretty rare to find.
3. DMA’S – The Glow
Highlights: The Glow, Hello Girlfriends, Round and Around
DMA’S set out to make something different to their previous two albums with The Glow, and they definitely managed that – The Glow is subversive, ambitious, and brilliant. DMA’S tap into their Britpop-via-Australia sensibilities, throw in some buzzing electronica, some searing guitar lines, and some good old singalong anthems. As always, their dreamily opaque lyricism sits centre stage – rather than taking a backseat to the new vibe of the instrumentals, it works symbiotically. When the vocals are slow and dreaming, the instrumental is luxurious and hazy; when the vocals are inviting, hook-laden, and sunny, the instrumentals follow suit with dizzying excitement and light. The Glow really does glow, and DMA’S make it clear that they’re one of indie’s brightest stars.
2. Bloxx – Lie Out Loud
Highlights: Thinking About Yourself, 5000 Miles, Give Me The Keys
Lie Out Loud is a formidable debut. Bloxx have been favourites on the scene for a while, but their first record is a staggering collection of their best, most confident tunes. Frontwoman Fee Booth’s charisma is unmatched, effortlessly cool and at the same time confessional on every track on the record, and always inviting you to belt it out along with her. Guitar indie is a genre known for being repetitive, but Bloxx prove that there’s no excuse, churning out a set of the most exciting guitar tunes we’ve ever heard in an album that’s totally addictive.
1. Declan Mckenna – Zeros
Highlights: You Better Believe!!!, Rapture, The Key To Life On Earth
After his grassroots beginning, Declan Mckenna has definitely shot for the stars on his space-age sophomore record Zeros. Though it’s hard to picture him being as appealing without the boy-next-door charm that characterised WDYTATC?, he absolutely blows us out of the water. Mckenna glitters with conviction, howling his indictment of Thatcher politics and swaggering through Bowie-esque narratives. Mckenna recorded Zeros with the aid of his full band, and it absolutely shines for it, built out to the max on every level. Zeros floats through space, landing occasionally for a sharp comment on the state of the world before catapulting back into the stratosphere. Mckenna has cemented himself, yet again, as one of the greatest songwriters traversing the scene right now, and Zeros is a worthy testament to this.
