Time for the silly year end routines. I try to do these year end lists rather quickly this time around. Not a whole lot of writing, but a whole lot of beautiful music. Here’s the first one which contains 30 EPs that I loved during this strange year. Maybe that’s a lot, but I could have easily picked another 30 without a drop in quality. Anyway, the first 20 are in random order and then there’s top 10 in some sort of not that serious ranking. The numbers are arbitrary. Music is love not a competition. I think it’s just maybe helpful for the reader to have some sort of vague order, because not everyone is an music addict like me and have time or interest to listen 30 EPs or 100 albums and therefore might be interested in what were the ones that I loved the most. Anyway, here it goes. Hope I didn’t forget anything important. Always scared of that and it’s often a justified fear. There’s a Spotify link at the bottom with one song from each if you are into that sort of thing. Sea Below and Gladie are only on Bandcamp at least for now (put another Gladie song on the playlist from one of their other EPs). Bandcamp is a better way to support of course.

Favorite EPs of the Year 2020

Gladie – Raw Nerve

A total last minute entry. Just bought it today, but hey I love it to bits and it’s my blog so I can make the rules. No Call List. That’s one hell of a song.

Rae Fitzgerald – Lonely Listener (Keeled Scales)

Jake Tittle – Pulling of the Label (Anxiety Blanket Records)

Lily Dabbs – After the Blues

Khruangbin & Leon Bridges – Texas Sun (Dead Oceans)

Molly Parden – Rosemary (Tone Tree Music)

Sea Below – Sleeplessness

Gianna Lauren – Vanity Metrics (Forward Music Group)

Via Mardot – Via Mardot (Eurotown Records)

Aaron Beckum – Songs from a Triangle Room

Kelsey Waldon – They’ll Never Keep Us Down (Oh Boy Records)

Daniel Markham – Shed

TK & The Holy Know-Nothings – Pickled Heat (Mama Bird Recording Co)

Fiver & the Atlantic School of Spontaneous Compositon – You Wanted Country? Vol1.

Matt Woods – Morning After (Lonely Ones Records)

Charlotte Cornfield – In My Corner (Next Door Records)

Tomberlin – Projections (Saddle Creek)

Dillon Warnek – Fruit from Crooked Trees

Will Stewart – Way Gone (Cornelius Chapel Records)

Psalmships – Another Tongue

10. Floating Room – Tired and True

Really like the whole thing, absolutely totally love the first two songs.

9. Dylan Rodrigue – Human Muses

This song. What a song. Damn.

8. Luka Kuplowsky – Judee Justin Arthur Mary (Mama Bird Recording Co)

Judee Justin Arthur Mary Rohmer Luka. What a dream team. Even bigger Luka deal is the new album of his own material. More about that on the album list.

7. Emilee Emiko – Emilee Emiko (Perpetual Doom)

I didn’t know anything about her when I heard the first song. It didn’t stop me from falling for it and every song that came after it.

6. The Deep Dark Woods – Broadside Ballads II

More beautifully told Broadside Ballads from the Canadian masters.

5. Cayley Thomas – How Else Can I Tell You?

This is solid gold from start to finish.

4. Terry’s Paradise – Shoobeedoo High, Shoobeedoo Low Pt.1 / Pt.2

There’s two parts to this. I can’t decide which one is better, because I need Full Moon from part one and Dotted Line from part two.

3. Abby Hamilton – Afraid of the Dark

Abby Hamilton from Lexington, Kentucky is one of my new finds of the year. I think I first found her single Fast through another great songwriter Justin Wells. I liked it a lot, did some investigating, heard Change Things and instantly fell in love with the song. A great EP and can’t get wait to hear more.

2. Le Ren – Morning & Melancholia (Secretly Canadian)

What a treasure from Le Ren aka songwriter Lauren Spear. Love Can’t Be the Only Reason to Stay was already one of my favorite songs of 2019 and the other three songs are also pure gold. I hope we get a full-length sometime soon.

1. Flora Hibberd – Archipelago

Flora Hibberd and Le Ren made my two big favorites and I went back and forth with choosing the EP of the year. I love them both just as much, but because Le Ren’s opening song Love Can’t Be the Only Reason to Stay already took my breath away in 2019, let’s give the imaginary EP of the year award to Archipelago. A stunning EP from Paris-based UK-born songwriter Flora Hibberd. Here’s a couple of examples of its magic.

A quick mid-year round up of the class of 2020. Thank you music and musicians for keeping me relatively sane throughout this first half of the year. Here’s some beautiful albums / EPs / songs that I’ve loved during the first half of the year. It’s been a good music year and I already came up with over 100 albums that I’ve either really enjoyed or that I find really interesting but haven’t yet listened enough. Maybe I should find other things to do with my life than listen to 5-10 new albums every week of the year. Anyway, the ones listed here is just a tiny fraction of all the good music released. Follow the weekly round ups and playlists for more great music.

These are in completely random order. Ok, maybe the Ron Sexsmith album is my biggest favorite, because it carried me through some dark nights earlier in the spring and it made a world of difference to have that familiar warm voice on my side during that time. But yeah, not a whole lot of thought went into this and I’m sure I simply forgot something and some good ones are missing because I haven’t yet listened to them a lot or at all. Something that’s not on this might easily find its way on the EOTY list in December. This is just a long list of some of the music that kept my 2020 as something manageable. The text and photos are actually in somewhat different order. I’ll fix it, if I bother. Maybe that just shows how unimportant the order is.

Songs of 2020:

My song of the year so far is the new J.E. Sunde single I Don’t Care to Dance. I also listed just a few more great singles that aren’t on the albums and EPs above. There’s plenty of more fabulous 2020 songs on the playlist below. I know there’s some missing though, so I’ll do some further updates during this week.

J.E. Sunde – I Don’t Care to Dance (Vietnam)
NQ Arbuckle – Love Songs for the Long Game (Six Shooter Recordings)
Courtney Marie Andrews – Burlap String (Loose Music)
Zephaniah OHora – All American Singer
Chase Weinacht – Leap Day (Keeled Scales)
Dolly Valentine – My Astrology (Holy Golden Music)
War & Pierce – Amen (War & Pierce Records)
John K. Samson – Millennium For All (ANTI)

Playlist link

Finally the last of these pointless year-end lists and then onwards to 2020 tunes. This world song category is kinda impossible, because there’s so much great songs released within a year. This comes with a playlist that has over 350 songs. No, I do not expect anyone to listen to the whole thing. If you follow my social media pages, you may have seen and listened to this playlist that I posted before the Christmas. That was the basis for this, but I did change a few songs to different ones. Impossible to choose which one to pick from Matthew Milia, Anna Tivel and Josienne Clarke albums for example. Plus I selected these 30 songs and put them on the top of the playlist in some arbitrary order. The list might change on a daily basis, because there’s a couple hundred songs that were dear to me. The playlist is in random order after these first 30. Maybe slightly top heavy, but there’s very important ones in the end too. You’ll find it at the bottom of the post. Anyway, here’s my 30 (or well 365) favorite songs of 2019. Thank you to every one who followed the blog during 2019. It matters more than you know.

30. Erin Enderlin – Broken (Blaster Records)
29. Ian Noe – If Today Doesn’t Do Me In (National Treasury Recordings)
28. Little Mazarn – Vermont (Self Sabotage Records)
27. Carla Geneve – I Hate You (For Making Me Not Want to Leave the City (Dot Dash Recordings)
26. Vagabon – Every Woman (Nonesuch Records)

25. Clara Baker – Things to Burn (independent)
24. Sidney Lindner & The Silver Wilderness Collective – You & Me Kid (Broken Sparrow / Burst & Bloom Records)
23. Erin Durant – Rising Sun (Keeled Scales)
22. Julia Jacklin – Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You (Transgressive Records)
21. red steppes – Madera (Native Cat Records)

20. Caroline Spence – Sit Here and Love Me (Rounder Records)
19. Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron – Belief (P.W.Elverum & The Sun)
18. Friendship – Dusky (Orindal Records)
17. Will Johnson – Need of Trust and Thunder (Keeled Scales)
16. Andy Shauf – Try Again (ANTI-)

15. Kassi Valazza – Mama (independent)
14. Black Sea Dahu – How You Swallowed Your Anger (Mouthwatering Records)
13. Josienne Clarke – Dark Cloud (Rough Trade)
12. The Delines – Holly the Hustle (Decor / El Cortez)
11. D.H. Scott – Long Arms of Regret (independent)

10. Christian Lee Hutson – Northsiders (independent)

Starting the top 10 with the wonderful and deeply moving Christian Lee Hutson single.

Christian Lee Hutson Website
Christian Lee Hutson at Facebook

9. Matthew Ryan – On Our Death Day

One of the most moving and powerful songs of 2019. A heavy one, but there’s love, gratitude and beauty shining through the darkness.

Matthew Ryan Website
Matthew Ryan at Facebook

8. Ian Daniel Kehoe – Evil People (You’ve Changed Records / Tin Angel Records)

My pop obsession of the year. I’ve been blasting this with full volume all year long. One of the most listened by my neighbours too.

Ian Daniel Kehoe at Facebook

7. Matthew Milia – Congratulations Honey (Sitcom Universe)

More difficult to make one song standout, if you make a perfect #1 record. Quite frankly, any of these songs could be my song of the year. I kept changing the song multiple times.

Matthew Milia at Facebook
Matthew Milia Website

6. Joanna Sternberg – This is Not Who I Want to Be (Team Love Records)

I love the last song Don’t Ever just as much (and well the whole record), but this vulnerable yet powerful debut single is the reason I first became a Joanna Sternberg fan.

Joanna Sternberg at Facebook
Joanna Sternberg Website

5. Twain – Royal Road (Keeled Scales)

Call us gay, straight, bi
call us what you like
I call it all romance
and I call the man who hates romance a sad man

Twain at Facebook

4. Le Ren – Love Can’t Be The Only Reason to Stay (independent)

A really powerful song from Montreal-based songriter Lauren Spear aka Le Ren. Works on its own too, but makes an even deeper impact when its accompanied by this music video that was directed by Ali Vanderkruyk.

3. Matt Dorrien – Teddy Wilson (Mama Bird Recording Co)

Matt Dorrien only released one song this year, but it was more than enough to claim a spot in the top three for the second year in the row. The song is gorgeous ode to jazz pianist Teddy Wilson and gives us a beautiful warmhearted escape from this messed up the world. We all need to spend beautiful moments in the arms of the people and art we love. Such moments will give the strenght to carry on fighting for what is right.

Matt Dorrien at Facebook
Matt Dorrien Website

2. Anna Tivel – The Question (Fluff and Gravy Records)

I think almost all songs on this Anna Tivel album would be worthy of a spot on this list. The title song The Question is still the one that rises slightly above the rest, because transgender rights are an important issue and this song is so powerful and deeply moving.

Anna Tivel at Facebook
Anna Tivel Website

1. Steve Sloane – Let All In (independent, 2019)

My favorite song of the year is Let All In by Toronto-based songwriter Steve Sloane. It’s not necessarily and objectively the best song on his wonderful 2019 album Near Death, but this fragile, humane and powerful song resonates deeply within me. Sometimes it just can be so damn hard and scary to feel something else. I love the way the song unfolds into a hopeful future. I love the way Steve sings and how Julie Arsenault’s voice comes to carry it deeper into my heart. I love everything about this song. It’s a shoulder and kindred understanding soul.

Steve Sloane at Facebook

And here’s the full playlist with 365 songs. One for each day.

Playlist link