Drop your fav releases that held you down during the pandemic (April - June).

Yves Tumor ‎– Heaven To A Tortured Mind
Thundercat ‎– It Is What It Is
Dijit - Hyperattention: Selected Dijital Works Vol. 1
Four Tet - Sixteen Oceans
Daniel Avery + Alessandro Cortini - Illusion Of Time
Moses Sumney - græ
Freddie Gibbs & Alchemist - Alfredo
Sonic Boom ‎– All Things Being Equal
Quelle Chris & Chris Keys - Innocent Country: Season 2 (2Dirt4TV)
Regis - Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss
Deerhoof - Future Teenage Cave Artists
Run The Jewels - RTJ4
Armand Hammer - Shrines
Shabaka And The Ancestors - We Are Sent Here By History
I Break Horses - Warnings
Alva Noto ‎– Xerrox, Vol. 4
Stove God Cooks - Reasonable Drought
The Koreatown Oddity ‎– Little Dominiques Nosebleed

Crazy that we're already here though...

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

Lots of good stuff coming out this year. The Armand Hammer album has probably been played the most (some of the most incredible rapping I've ever heard period), but I've been playing all of these a good amount:

Fiona Apple - Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Armand Hammer - Shrines
R.A.P. Ferriera - Purple Moonlight Pages
Protomartyr - Ultimate Success Today
Ka - Descendants of Cain
Tyshawn Sorey - Unfiltered
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
KeiyaA - Forever, Ya Girl
Sault - UNTITLED (Black Is)
ShrapKnel - ShrapKnel
Quelle Chris & Chris Keys - Innocent Country 2
Blu & Exile - Miles
Okkyung Lee - Yeo​-​Neun
Gerald Clayton - Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard
Laura Marling - Song for Our Daughter
Cleo Sol - Rose in the Dark
Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - Alfredo
Lido Pimienta - Miss Colombia
Ego Ella May - Honey for Wounds
Natalia Lafourcade - Un canto por México Vol. 1
Shabaka and the Ancestors - We Are Sent Here by History
Lianne La Havas - Lianne La Havas
tricot - 真っ黒 (Makkuro)
The Strokes - The New Abnormal
Conway & The Alchemist - LuLu

full list: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Kosa12/evil-is-a-relay-sport-the-best-of-2020/4/

>Tyshawn Sorey - Unfiltered

I need to check this. Thanks for reminding me.

Sorey and a bunch of adventurous young players. Definitely worth the time/money.

The Strokes - The New Abnormal
Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes - What Kinda Music
Quelle Chris & Chris Keys - Innocent Country 2
Kota the Friend - EVERYTHING
I Break Horses - Warnings
Buscabulla - Regresa
Hanni El Khatib - FLIGHT
Ezéchiel Pailhès - Oh!
Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - Alfredo
Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher

Fredie Gibbs & Alchemist - Alfredo
RTJ - RTJ 4
Armand Hammer - Shrines
Blu & Exile - Miles
Enemy Radio - Loud is Not Enough
Ka - Descendants of Cain
Quelle Chris & Chris Keys - Innocent Country 2
CJ Fly - Rudbwoy
Shrapknel
Stove God Cooks - Reasonable Drought
Chris Crack - White People Love Algorithims
RA the Rugged Man - All My Heroes Are Dead
Sault - Untitled
In Flamingosis & The Kount - Maniacs!
Thundercat - It Is What It Is
Westside Gunn - Pray For Paris
Preservation - Eastern Medicine, Western Illness
Curly Castro & Small Pro - BluU Edwards
A-Plus & Architect -Chamber Games
The Koreatown Oddity - Little Dominiques Nosebleed
Third Root - Passion of the Poets
Jamo Gang - Walking With Lions
Iron Wigs - Your Birthday's Cancelled
Jihad the Roughneck - The Red Sentence
Lord Finesse - Motown State of Mind

I'll share a top-ish list and then a list of stuff that deserves a listen no matter what. Asterisks for those that really stand out to me.

Top list (in no order, but somewhat chronological from April through June):
Adrian Young/Ali Shaheed Muhammad - Jazz is Dead 001
Cleo Sol - Rose in the Dark**
Fiona Apple - Fetch the Boltcutters**
Jamael Dean - Oblivion**
Raw Poetic/Damu/Archie Shepp - Ocean Bridges**
Moses Sumney - Grae**
Nick Hakim - WILL THIS MAKE ME GOOD** (seriously, I wish more folks would check this out)
Perfume Genius - Set My Heart On Fire Immediately**
HAIM - Women in Music Pt III
Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure**
Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher** (THIS RECORD IS SO GOOD)
RTJ4
Skyzoo - Milestones & The Bluest Note


Other stuff I really liked:
Charlotte Dos Santos - Harvest Time
John Carroll Kirby releases (Conflict and My Garden)
Damien Jurado - What's New Tomboy?
Natalia Lafourcade - Un Canto por Mexico
Orrin Evans and Captain Black Big Band - Intangible Between
Cory Wong - Meditations
Okkyung Lee - Yeo-Neun
Roy Ayers/Younge&Muhammad - JID 002
Khruangbin - Mordechai
Norah Jones - Pick Me Up Off the Floor
Ramakhandra - Ramakhandra
Sarah Jarosz - World on the Ground
Sault - Untitled (Black Is)

Need to spend more time with:
Aaron Space & His Terrestrial Underlings - Fishland
Christian Lee Hutson - Beginners
Freddie Gibbs - Alfredo
Silent Titan - Remote Cinematic
Ambrose Akinmusire - On the Tender Spot...
Armand Hammer - Shrines
Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways
Brigid Mae Power - Head Above the Water
Neil Young - Homegrown
Owen Pallett - Island

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

Even when we're all at home...ha ha.
While I'm buying a lot, I still haven't gotten around to fully listening to everything.
And even then, I'm trying to listen and fully GET the work.
I've had that Quelle Chris in a folder and haven't even pulled it out yet.
Sault? Nope.
Just getting around to the Tall Black Guy project.
And then there's the 2000Black Project X project.
which I just last week found out I really enjoyed.
That came out late April.

I get that some albums you hear and you just love.
But there are a lot of projects for me that I need to sit with
for like...a good YEAR before I know.

So question to y'all who are listing like 15 albums.
And no shade when I'm asking this but...
Are y'all like REALLY listening to them?
Or is it just a once through and on to the next one?

dont have many options but to listen to music and surf the web. when i have gotten to work from home and when im just at home i definitely listen to less music.

i havent posted a 2nd quarter list, i want to go through the june albums again.

i will listen to albums in full once. i add any song worth listening to a playlist, any song i think could be a favorite into another playlist and my favorites into another playlist. ill shuffle the three playlists when im not listening to new music. sometimes i take a break from new music and just shuffle other playlists.

i keep a spreadsheet with my score of each song and eventually go back to listen all the way through each playlist and adjust scores where needed. albums that are my favorites i will go back to and listen to in full but thats kind of rare.

Plus, I take about an hour walk a day, which gives me time to listen to stuff on my iPod.

The entire time I'm at the gym, the majority of my work day in my office (same while working at home remotely) unless I have meetings, when I'm reading or studying something in my spare time, cooking, etc. I will say that my listening is pretty passive nowadays with Spotify always on, and I don't put my full attention on it unless I really feel the need to.

Like others, I listen a lot during work (when possible), in the car (not a lot right now, obviously), while cooking etc. around the house, and so on. My most dedicated time right now actually tends to be the last few hours of the night, a few times a week, when I'll listen on the deck. I have a system that I've used in one way or another for a few years now, this is how it works currently:

I overwhelmingly listen either to albums straight-through (allowing for interruptions) or via a large playlist of my current downloads that I'll play on shuffle. If a new release is something I'm really interested in from the jump - something I've been waiting for or an artist I follow - I'll try to make room for listening to the album at least once through pretty early on, and then continue to return to it over time. This is usually more dedicated or intentional listening.

But if an album doesn't grab me right away, I'll still keep it downloaded and in that playlist, which I keep on shuffle while I'm doing things around the house, getting ready in the morning, whatever. And when something grabs me from the list - a track I forgot about or a song that I don't recognize - I'll note it and go back to it later with more attention, maybe check out the album as a whole then.

I also keep a follow-up list for stuff I don't want to give my precious phone storage to but want to check out later, in the same way as above. (My wifi situation is complicated so I try to download once rather than stream repeatedly.)

I do a lot of repeat listening but it's definitely less immediate than it was when I was buying a lot of CDs - it happens over a longer period of time. There are pros and cons to that but I still build really close relationships with albums, just at a different pace. Albums that grab me right away still get lots of immediate replay - I've been making more of an effort over the last few months to buy physical copies and use them rather than Spotify for clear favorites - but I often get more acquainted with records now over months (beyond the first few plays) rather than right away, if that makes sense.

I do think repeat listening is really important fwiw - in part because I think appreciation for a record is more than just immediate like/don't like based upon a single listening. But I've found myself more open to letting that happen over time than I might have been, say, 10 years ago.

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

Of course, there are times during work when I need complete silence to focus, but generally, I have music on and I also have music on whenever I am walking somewhere or shopping, etc. I often use my weekly grocery shopping as a time to immerse myself in recently released records. I also designate time for focused listening to albums - just sitting at my desk at home and taking the album in. The first listen I give an album is always a "focused" listen. I've heard all of the records I listed multiple times (to varying degrees) in all of those contexts.

I also write about music fairly often for fun, so it's interesting to me to revisit records I loved on those initial 2-3 focused listens and see if my opinion on them has evolved in any way or how they work in a different context. I usually end up with around 100-ish releases that I like to varying degrees per year, and the ones that end up towards the top of my list are the ones that impress me the most/I revisit the most.

music on pretty much all day, and more immersive than in the office where I could only have 1 earpod in so I could hear coworkers. Also doesn't hurt that the podcasts I listen to, mostly film and sports, have had a severe lack of content lately

And I also check out releases every Friday on the dot, makes it much easier to digest than before when I would randomly check for recent stuff

scores out of 5

favorites
Skyzoo - Milestones 5.000
KOTA the Friend - Everything 5.000
Raw Poetic & Damu the Fudgemunk - Moment of Change 4.929
Skyzoo & Dumbo Station - The Bluest Note 4.917
Westside Gunn - Pray for Paris 4.875
Kali Uchis - To Feel Alive EP 4.875
Freddie Gibbs & Alchemist - Alfredo 4.850

Might not be reflected in the score but these are a step below
Tom Misch & Yusef Dayes - What Kinda Music 4.786
Sun on Shade - Sun on Shade 4.778
SAULT - UNTITLED (Black Is) 4.731
Raw Poetic, Archie Shepp & Damu the Fudgemunk - Ocean Bridges 4.714
Conway the Machine & Big Ghost Ltd. - No One Mourns the Wicked 4.714
Run The Jewels - RTJ4 4.682
Norah Jones - Pick Me Up Off the Floor 4.682

honorable mentions
Jay Electronica - A Written Testimony 4.611
R.A.P. Ferreira - Purple Moonlight Pages 4.594
Little Dragon - New Me, Same Us 4.591
The Weeknd - After Hours 4.571
Joell Ortiz & KXNG Crooked - H.A.R.D. EP 4.563
dvsn - A Muse in Her Feelings 4.563

the top ones are pretty spot on, i think kali uchis kind of doesnt count since its only like 4 songs. i do feel like RTJ should be closer to being in the top than the score reflects, i really liked it. from the honorable mentions i think the weeknd and dvsn should be on the next step up and the rest probably could drop off from even honorable mentions.

Favorite 6 so far this year in order:

1. Four Tet - Sixteen Oceans
2. Kehlani - It Was All Good,Until It Wasn't
3. Jay Electronica/Jay-Z - A Written Testimony
4. Phantogram - Ceremony
5. Little Dragon - New Me, Same Us
6. Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure


Favorite 6 Sleepers (albums that didn't get talked about after they dropped....or not much at all)

1. JoJo - Good To Know
2. TokiMONSTA - Oasis Nocturno
3. RJD2 - The Fun Ones
4. Alina Baraz - It Was Divine
5. Styles P - Styles David: Ghost Your Enthusiasm
6. Purity Ring - WOMB


....I wonder if we don't get live shows until mid-late 2021 if artists will be compelled to make new music by then?

A couple of artists on my lists are moreso popular because of their live show (Phantogram, Little Dragon & Four Tet really fit this)...but will these early 2020 albums feel old to them by the time touring becomes a thing again?