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ACL 2020: Sound Propositions

Hindsight is 2020. This will be the great irony of the 21st century. Yet it seems like the revisionism is already setting in. There’s no normal to go back to, and we can’t pretend to go on just as we had before. In the chorus of “Throw the Fear,” from An Unknown Infinite, Amani raps: You can feel it in the air White devils living off of fear We learn to cherish not to care The beginning of the…

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ACL 2020 ~ The Top 20 Albums of the Year

After all the chaos of 2020, there’s some solace found in the fact that the artist who scored our Album of the Decade at the beginning of the year now receives our Album of the Year award at year’s end. The album ~ along with many others on this year’s list ~ offers comfort, reassurance, and healing. Look down the list, and one will find lamentations, declarations, protests, and a suite on…

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ACL 2020 ~ Best Rock, Post-Rock, Folk & Jazz

All four of our sub-categories find a home in this year’s list, forming a diverse community. Loud and soft tones co-exist, but no voice is raised to drown out the rest. If only our whole world could be like this! It’s been a hard year for bands, especially those on the rocking end of the genre. Loud music needs stadiums and festivals, but these were some of the first things to go. Still, in…

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ACL 2020 ~ Top Ten Modern Composition

Modern composition is arguably the most upscale of our categories, and often includes music composed for film, dance and theatre. The genre lends itself well to conceptual projects and is strong enough to incorporate a great deal of experimentalism without toppling into abstraction. Female composers dominate our Modern Composition chart with seven entries, but that’s our 2020 list’s only…

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ACL 2020 ~ Top Ten Field Recording & Soundscape

In 2020, the global soundscape changed quicker and more significantly than it had at any point in history. The work of field recording artists was given added significance, as they documented sounds that had never been heard before, had not been heard for years, or might never be heard again. Industry slowed to a crawl. Traffic eased. People stayed indoors. Animals returned to locations they…

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ACL 2020 ~ Top Ten Experimental

A surprising fact about this year’s experimental picks: nearly every entry contains an aspect of spoken word. This unusual combination may reflect our desire for narrative as opposed to lyric. The world is a jumble right now; can anyone make sense of it? One narrator uses weather as a metaphor for mood; another waxes on the lost art of letter writing. One highlights the work of an integral…

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ACL 2020 ~ Top Ten Electronic

One of 2020’s greatest ironies was a surge in dance music ~ while clubs were being shuttered across the globe. The surge reflected the desire to dance, and people didn’t stop dancing, happily demonstrated by Berlin’s drive-in raves. Others danced at home, using whatever was at hand to generate music: turntable, Pelaton or iPhone. Conversely, one of 2021’s greatest pleasures will be the ability…

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ACL 2020 ~ Top Ten Drone

Fewer drone releases came in this year than ever before. The world was so dark, it seemed that even recording artists weren’t in the mood to record dark music. But by the end of the year, we began to notice something extraordinary; drone artists were turning their attention to reflections, elegies, and warnings, while cracking windows open for hope. One artist chronicled the rise and fall and…

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