To recap the year, I had some thoughts on the music scene. First, I'll start with the major musical trends of the 2010s. We had the death of indie, but we also saw the rise of other genres. We all know K-Pop started really getting popular in the tail end of the 2000s and early 2010s with groups like Girls Generation, BIGBANG and EXO, culminating in a major cultural moment with Psy's "Gangnam Style," which for a while held the status of the most viewed music video of all time. Also there was the eruption of underground and experimental hip-hop starting in 2011, with artists like Death Grips, Shabazz Palaces, A$AP Rocky, Odd Future, Aesop Rock, Danny Brown, etc. So in 2020, and maybe extending back to 2019 or 2018, one of the major trends I see is the explosion of Latin and Spanish-language artists, such as Rosalia, Bad Bunny and Kali Uchis, both critically and commercially. Bad Bunny, a Latin trap and reggaeton artist hailing from Puerto Rico, is my best example of incredible critical and commercial success in 2020. He had a stupendous year, placing #19 in Billboard's Top Artists of the year. He released two proper studio albums in 2020, both with artistic/critical value. The first, YHLQMDLG, is a personal and psychedelic take on reggaeton, and was very well received by critics. It sold over a million album-equivalents, including nearly 75,000 copies in the U.S., and set new records on the Billboard 200 for an all-Spanish record. Compare this to Bad Bunny's previous album, X100PRE (2018), which sold only half as much, including only 5,000 in the U.S. The second, El último tour del mundo, is an ode to touring and the live concert. It came out a bit too late for critics to properly evaluate it, but it debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, making it the first all-Spanish album to top Billboard in the chart's history. A mostly-Spanish album first topped the chart in 1995, with the release of Dreaming of You, a posthumous album by Latin icon Selena. 2020 has been the best year for Bad Bunny's career so far. Next up is Rosalía, the artist from Barcelona with the quivering voice modernizing flamenco, who in 2020 was featured many times by other artists, a clear sign of commercial viability. Most prominent is the remix of "Relación" by Sech, Daddy Yankee and J Balvin, which went double platinum in Spain. A song more prominent in the States was "TKN" with Travis Scott, which helped propel Rosalía into the top 100 most-streamed artists on Spotify, despite her not releasing an album this year. Previous to this, Scott and Rosalía showed up together in the final days of 2019 on the "Highest in the Room" remix with Lil Baby. In November, Rosalía also featured on Bad Bunny's new record as well as a remix of the Weeknd's "Blinding Lights," one of the most popular songs of the year. Apart from all these features, Rosalía also performed at the Grammys before the pandemic. Rosalia is also relatively popular with music critics, since her most recent album El Mal Querer placed in the critics' year-end top 50. Rosalia has had incredible success in the feature department all year, and that sucess is sure to continue. Colombian-American artist Kali Uchis, while having grown up in the States, earned a victory for Spanish-language music this year. For some backstory first, her major label debut, Isolation (2018), was an all-English-language of alternative pop and R&B music, featuring the likes of Tyler the Creator, Steve Lacy and Gorillaz. It scored her moderate success on Billboard, and a lot of favor with critics. One would expect her to continue on this trajectory. But instead, she decided on her sophomore release to make a pretty-much all-Spanish album to pay homage to her family lineage, risking the alienation of her fans. But she achieved success again, scoring #1 on the Apple Latin charts and #8 on the Billboard Latin charts. Even Kali herself was surprised by the success. But I think it shows that English-speaking audiences are more willing than ever to listen to music in other languages. Those are my main examples of commercial success, but I have several more examples of critical and artistic success. Colombian singer Lido Pimienta infuses indigenous and Colombian music into art pop, earning positive acclaim from critics. Chilean-American electronic producer Nicolas Jaar was extremely prolific in 2020, releasing three albums and one EP, most of which received positive reviews. Meridian Brothers, while still relatively unknown by both listeners and critics, is making a uniquely kooky version of cumbia. Natalia Lafourcade continues to honor Mexican pop tradition with top-notch musicians and production value on her latest record. And who could forget club music eccentric Arca? While these artists don't do amazing numbers, they have enough success to earn a solid living making music. These artists have thrived in 2020, carving their own niches in the music industry.
The achievements of Bad Bunny, Rosalía and Kali Uchis this year are quite impressive and admirable, and Spanish-language music in general seems to be hitting a peak of recognition. Now, I admit I'm probably overselling this. After all, reggaeton has been mega-popular since at least the beginning of the 2010s. J Balvin, pretty much the biggest name in Latin music over the past few years, hit it big earlier in 2017 and 2018. However, let us remember that Balvin mainly creates reggaeton music, just one of many forms of Latin and Spanish-language music. Similar to how Death Grips, Danny Brown and Odd Future don't make the same monolithic style of underground hip-hop, neither do Spanish-language artists with Latin music. The 2020 artists I have mentioned make differing styles and genres of music - Latin trap, alternative R&B, art pop, cumbia, etc. 2020 is not simply an explosion in popularity, but a widening of perspective; this year has shown the world that Latin music and the Spanish language can be incorporated into popular music in vastly varying ways. And to see Latin music on the cusp of taking a seat at the big table alongside Anglo music, that might be the most significant sign of all.
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Happy holidays, and thanks for stopping in. 2020 was tough for everyone, and maybe that's especially true for musicians, whose main source of income - touring - became unavailable due to the lockdown across the world. There are new ways of virtual touring that sites like Bandcamp have pioneered, so not all hope is lost, but my heart goes out to the DIY musicians. Shout out to all the artists hanging in there. I heard more music released in 2020 than I have for any other year - 121 albums, 21 EPs, and one compilation, not even including the hundreds of songs I tried out from other various albums and projects. It was a lot of music, and I hope and pray that I don't attempt to listen to as much in 2021, because boy it takes a lot of time to dig into all of them. In fact, the amount of music I've heard from 2020 is more than what I've heard from the entirety of the 1960s decade. As a result, I've been able to assemble a list of 40 incredible projects (albums and EPs combined) for this year, more projects than I've heard from most years in the era of popular music. Alright, with the intro out of the way, let's get to the list!
Introducing my personal program to gather YouTube data. I will add more information here if needed.
Below you can find a sample of some code from my app RankList.
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Today, we didn’t see any sights. We woke up, checked out, bought some more chan bao, and took a taxi to the airport. The driver talked about the democracy-leaning politics of Hong Kong vs. the authoritarian nature of mainland China. Also about the difficulty of the millennial generation. At the airport, we had a little difficulty printing our boarding passes. We saw a shop in the airport called “HK Homeless.” We managed to get seats together on the plane. However, we were stuck in the last row with non-reclining seats. The good news is that we could take a few steps to the bathroom. We took United Airlines, the same one we took to Japan. Hell, it might have been the same plane. The entertainment programming and controls were the same. I read more of Crime and Punishment on the plane. However, I just wanted to watch more movies. I first watched a movie called “Keyboard Warriors,” a comedy film about a couple of nerds who try to solve the mystery behind a security truck dropping $22 million dollars in the middle of the street in Hong Kong. It was better than the Chinese movie I watched on the previous flight. I liked how pretty and handsome the main cast was. However, all the characters were hackneyed, and the comedy was sometimes just, “Look at us, we’re funny nerds!” I ate a meal during the film, but I don’t remember what I ate. I think there was ice cream after the meal. I took a nap after this, as it was the appropriate time in San Francisco (remember my strategy?) I only slept for an hour or two. Then I tried watching “Blade,” because I knew Red Letter Media had done a re:View on it. It was fun! I actually liked the effects, unlike the RLM guys; they were endearingly cute. I thought the storyline was lame, but the action and effects were cool. Then I went to the bathroom, and took a walk around the airplane to stretch a bit. Finally, and I was surprised that the end of the flight was coming up on me, I watched “Aquaman.” I had to skip ahead sometimes because I didn’t have time to watch it in full. I honestly don’t really know what was going on, wasn’t fully invested in it. Finally, we arrived at the airport. My dad was getting angry about something again. My uncle picked us up (thank you!), and we got back home. I was tired, and while I saw some cool stuff on the trip, I was glad to be home.
My mom was very happy to have bought some new Clarks’ shoes at a storefront around the corner from our hotel the day before. She seemed like she was doing a lot better on her feet. I was glad she was feeling better, but I don’t know why she originally brought such painful shoes, on our trip where we’d be walking everywhere. Today, we were headed to a meeting place by our great-aunt’s place, to have dim sum. As we were waiting to take our bus, my dad went to buy some chan bao, my sister’s favorite morning bun. It tasted absolutely amazing. Perhaps my single favorite food I ate on the trip. It was sweet and warming like I remember from when I was a child. In San Francisco, the Chinese bakeries don’t really sell chan bao anymore, so I’ve been missing it for a while. We took the bus through Hong Kong. Hong Kong looks so much like the worlds in Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell. It is truly the most post-modern city in the world. All these tall skyscrapers, but also just dense populations living like people did a hundred years ago. We arrived at the shopping complex. We walked around for a bit first. There was a McDonald’s on the ground level. On the third level, there was a guy who raised birds! The birds were so pretty. They were kept in bird cages. There were some shops of the usual cheap stuff, but there was also a supermarket. It was amazing how many vegetables were in there, and so nicely laid out. I was surprised that no one was inside, but it was probably because it was still early in the day. There was fish and meat as well. My mom said the prices were good. The coolest thing in there were the cages of frogs! My dad said Chinatown used to be like that. The supermarket was so awesome to me. It was the thing that made it click in my brain, that I could possibly live in Hong Kong. I have a few issues still. The weather (it’s really hot, and there is the threat of hurricanes) and the language barrier (I know a little Cantonese, but not to the point where I can fully rely on it) would be tough to deal with, as well as the overly indecorous attitude of the people here. My mom says Japanese people are too rigid, but Chinese are too much the other way, of having no respect for anything. Eventually, we met up with our great-aunt, who took us to the dim sum restaurant. The food there wasn’t that great, we were hoping to get some kick-ass dim sum in Hong Kong. We took a picture with our great-aunt, and then we went separate ways. Now we rode a bus to the mainland in the north to see the flower market. There were a lot of pretty flowers. Here is one of my favorites. I am not a huge pretty-flower guy, so I was mostly bored. When I got to a shop with gardening tools, I was thinking I should have gotten one of these for nai-nai instead of the ramen. Nai-nai has since tried the ramen, and she said she liked it. So, it seems like my choice wasn’t too bad. Anyways, then we wanted to check out the area known as Tsim Sha Tsui, the peninsula that looks out onto Hong Kong Island. Here there is the famous night market, with zillions of stalls selling a bunch of stuff. The key thing here is that you don’t know the quality of the product and haggling is okay, so it is kind of a place to play the fun game of pricing. First we stopped off at a dessert shop where I got papaya with crunchy fungus in sweet water. I’m not a fan of this kind of dessert – it’s too light for me. I also got some egg puffs later on. At the egg puff stall, something bad happened, and I learned to ask the stall owner stuff, not anyone else. We found the Night Market even though it was only 4PM. It was actually relatively busy, despite being so early. I ended up buying a belt. The lady said it was 3200 HKD, and I got it for 1600 HKD. It was a good markdown, I guess. I can’t say how much it would go for in an upright market, and I don’t know if it is genuine leather. Anyways, it’s been working for a week, so there is that. We spent a good half-hour figuring out where to go next. We finally decided to walk around Victoria Peak. We took a taxi up the mountain. We took the 2-3 mile scenic trail around the mountain. Midway around, it started raining! Luck finally caught up to us. We got quite a bit wet. Fortunately, it stopped raining after fifteen minutes, and we eventually dried up since it was so hot. As we came up around the last stretch, there was a beautiful sunset, casting a nice light on Hong Kong. Due to the cloudiness, it looked like Minas Tirith in Return of the King. The trail was longer than I expected, and I was sure glad when we saw we had made it all the way around. Next, we climbed the observatory tower. My dad and I went all the way to the roof, paying the admission fee. We took some pictures of the Hong Kong night view, despite a creeping fog. As it turned out, we could have went down a couple levels and gotten a free view. In the basement of the observatory tower, there was a wax museum. I took a picture with Nicole Kidman and Albert Einstein. We had to pay for more, but it would have been cool to see Jackie Chan, who is one of my movie heroes. It was past dinner time at this point. We found a smoking taxi driver, who overcharged us for taking us back down the mountain to our apartment. We ate at a grilled goose butchery-restaurant just a block away. My dad seemed to really enjoy it, maybe to the point that it was his favorite meal of the trip. I got a chicken over rice. The chicken was really tasty, and it was a good dish. It’s this kind of Chinese butchered meat that is one of the reasons why I can’t even go vegetarian, let alone vegan. My brain gets too happy with meat. We enjoyed a beer, too, and had a toast to a successful trip. The next day we would be going back to San Francisco.
The next morning, I woke up with the recognition that this was our travel day. We took out the trash, as it was part of our agreement to take the room. It was raining outside! We were unbelievably lucky on our trip, because until that point it had been virtually rain-free. We put on our lightweight waterproof jackets that were brought specifically for June rain in Japan. We said goodbye to our lodging, and rolled our baggage to the station. Then we took the train to the airport. Boy we were lucky, because as soon as we got to the airport, we saw that it was pouring rain. It was smooth sailing to the gate. There we waited for a couple hours for our flight. On the TV was an NHK program about two celebrities (I think a former boy band member and an actress) getting together. It seemed like an old program because the boy band looked like they were from the Nineties. I think it was indeed a current news item, though. I was also continuing to work through Crime and Punishment. I think at this point I was past the one-third mark or something like that. All the while, out the window it looked like the Great Flood was upon us. Right in the nick of time, we were leaving Japan.
We boarded the plane around 11:00AM. On the plane, I was separated from the rest of my family. I felt drowsy, so I tried to sleep for almost the whole flight. I say tried because the lights were too bright, and we kept running into turbulence, shaking me alert. At one point, I woke up, and saw the lady next to me had lunch. I looked around and saw only two other people had lunch. I thought that perhaps the lunch was not free. I was still drowsy, so I decided to try to sleep again. A half hour before we were to land, I opened my eyes, realizing I wasn’t going to be able to sleep. A flight attendant asked if I wanted lunch, I said yes. I asked if it was free. She said yes. She left, but then came back to say she was sorry, but it was too late for lunch. She did give me a drink and a lot of snacks, though. I was a bit hungry, but luckily the pangs weren’t too bad. The snacks were good enough. When we got off, my parents asked me if I ate the lunch, I said no. This caused a huge hubbub where my dad called me stupid. I said, Alright, I’m stupid. To me, the dumbest thing was that the yelling and scolding was ten times worse than my hunger (I wasn’t that hungry). Anyways, my sister had to go to the bathroom so we waited for her. Then we found the bus station, paid for bus tickets and waited in line for the bus that would take us to Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong was hot just like Japan (perhaps even hotter). But Hong Kong was also humid. The humidity does make the weather feel much more suffocating. My mom commented about the people being much more free, not so rigid and polite. The bus didn’t take too long to arrive. We piled in with all the other people with luggage. It was a double-decker! Up on the second level, I was amused to see a screen receiving feed from a camera down below pointing at the luggage area. This was a nice feature, so that you could see if someone was taking your luggage. The only issues were that one, it was hard to tell which piece of luggage was yours, and two, if someone were to really steal it, you might not be quick enough to climb down the stairs and catch him. We got off at our stop, and I turned on my data, under AT&T’s International Day Pass, to use Google Maps to find our way to our hotel. The hotel was nicely air conditioned, and finally we had an elevator to get up to our room! Our room was small. There was the bathroom. The bedroom had only enough room to squeeze two king-sized beds right next to each other. Then there was just enough room to walk at the foot of the two beds to the front door. Eh, it’s not too bad, we’ve been in worse. It was 4:30PM. We lazed around for an hour or two, deciding what to do. We could go around Victoria Peak. But then my mom mentioned we could eat with her aunt and her family. By the time we decided to make a decision, it was too late, we decided to just go to dinner with the relatives. It was good for us that they chose a place so close to our hotel. It was the usual Chinese banquet-type restaurant that I go to once a month. We used Google Maps again, and found the restaurant, on the second floor of a shopping complex of some sort. There we met my mom’s aunt, cousin, niece, niece’s husband, and great-niece. The cousin bore a great resemblance to my grandmother (my mom’s mom). The great-niece looked about 11 years old, and she seemed really capable and independent. She asked for the bathroom for me, and she could get her own food and everything. The restaurant was decently fancy, and food was good, nothing to write home about. I only wish there were more vegetables. I was super stuffed afterwards, and definitely wasn’t worried about hunger anymore. Then my great-aunt and aunt escorted us back to our hotel. That was so nice of them, especially since my great-aunt has trouble walking now. We bought some fruit (gosh darn I don’t remember what they were called!). There was a pear-tasting fruit. We all went up to our room, and we shared our fruit together. My aunt found a cockroach in our bathroom, which my dad killed. I gingerly picked up the cockroach with a tissue and flushed it down the toilet. Our relatives left, and we lazed around some more. I kept reading. I was probably at nearly page 400 of 629. At around 12, I finally decided to go to sleep. There is one other sight in Japan that I totally forgot! On the morning that we visited Osaka Castle, we first went to a temple just a few blocks from our lodging. It was kind of a standard temple, but the most interesting thing was that they had this large pool with dozens of turtles scattered throughout! I saw a couple turtles climb up a rock step from the water to get up onto land. It was really great, and was perhaps my favorite run-in with nature/animals during the trip. We also saw quite a few elderly people at the temple sweeping up. I’m not sure if they had just finished an early morning ceremony, or it is simply what they do every morning. There was also a weird display with over a thousand little Buddha figurines, as well as a prayer wheel in front of a large Buddha statue. On the way from the temple to the JR station, we passed by a parade of little schoolgirls. I surmised that on the temple grounds, there was an all-girls school. I looked at my phone and saw it was about 9AM if I recall correctly. I wondered if they shouldn't run, because the gate might close.
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AuthorI was born and raised in San Francisco, California. I am proud of my Chinese heritage, and I think my background gives me a unique edge on this vast field of opinion. As a self-proclaimed music historian, I have loved pop music ever since I first heard it. These are my opinions on some of the recent albums and songs that are making a splash in the industry. Archives
December 2020
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