PopMatters made a very good selection of the 15 best hip-hop albums released this year, arguing that the "best records of the year served as rallying cries and made us reconsider the very genre itself". So, the PM's 15:

15. Megan Thee Stallion – 'Good News'

14. Pa Salieu – 'Send Them to Coventry'

13. Riz Ahmed – 'The Long Goodbye'

12. Denzel Curry/Kenny Beats - 'Unlocked'

11. Elzhi – 'Seven Times Down Eight Times Up'

10. Flohio – 'No Panic No Pain'

9. R.A.P. Ferreira – 'Purple Moonlight Pages'

8. Sa-Roc – 'The Sharecropper's Daughter'

7. Jay Electronica – 'A Written Testimony'

6. Spillage Village - 'Spilligion'

5. Run the Jewels – 'Run the Jewels 4'

4. Growing Concerns Poetry Collective - 'BIG DARK BRIGHT FUTURE'

3. Aesop Rock – 'Spirit World Field Guide'

2. Serengeti and Kenny Segal – 'Ajai'

1. Black Thought – 'Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Able'

Leslie West, the towering guitarist who created the hard-rock milestone 'Mississippi Queen' with his band Mountain, died aged 65, the New York Times reports. West was respected for his versatile playing - from fingerpicking to metallic power chords - and was revered by a new generation of guitar players who followed, like Eddie Van Halen and Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore.

New York rapper Ecstasy from the early hip-hop band Whodini has died aged 56, Billboard reports. Coming out of the fertile New York rap scene of the early 80s, Whodini was one of the first rap groups to add R&B twist to their music, thus laying the foundation for a new genre - new jack swing. They made the first rap song accompanied by a video. Live performances of the group were also the first rap concerts with the participation of breakdance dancers.

On Monday, Philadelphia punk rock band Mannequin Pussy reached out to their neighbors via Twitter in hopes of finding their 15-passenger blue Ford van, which had been stolen the night before, Brooklyn Vegan reports. A day after, the band announced that the missing van was found, by Philly ska band Catbite "on another street in north Philly. They popped open the back lock, hot wired tf outta it and dumped it 10 blocks????". Turns out Catbite also had their van stolen, and they found it less than a mile away a few days later.

John McClure of Reverend & The Makers has offered to perform private one-on-one shows for fans who will be spending Christmas Day on their own. McClure told BBC he’s already been offering private performances through the pandemic.

Burial will release his new album in the spring, and he announced it with a 12-minute song 'Chemz'; Darkside also plan a release of a new album in spring, which will be their first in eight years', and they announced it with 'Liberty Bell'.

The Village Voice, the long-running New York alternative weekly culture paper, which also covered music, is returning both to digital content and print, after being acquired by Street Media, who currently publish LA Weekly. The digital publication will begin in January, with quarterly print editions starting in early 2021, the New York Times reports. Bob Baker, a former Voice editor, will be senior editor and content coordinator, and more former staffers will be hired. The cult alt-weekly ceased print publication in September 2017 and online publication a year later.

PopMatters made a selection of new artists who are expected to brake quite big quite soon (for some it had actually already started to happen). Among the selected there are: Polaris music award winner Backxwash; indie-rock foursome Porridge Radio; critically highly acclaimed Sault; Moscow all-female prog/post-punk girls Lucidvox; genre-defying Bartees Strange.

“Christmas songs shouldn’t only be this performative optimism. They should contain a grain of melancholy. Especially in 2020, it’s tone deaf to say, ‘Oh Christmas is all going to be ‘happy happy’. I try to live in the real world” - Chilly Gonzales told The Independent about his "sad" holiday album 'A Very Chilly Christmas'. There are others from the indie-rock world that felt the urge to add some sadness to Christmas - Mark Lanegan, Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, Calexico...

National Guitar Museum has named Eddie Van Halen as their Lifetime Achievement Award winner for 2020, and, for the first time, it was in memoriam. Every year for more than a decade, the museum has saluted a living guitarist who has contributed significantly to the legacy of the guitar - previously it was given to Roger McGuinn (2011), B.B. King (2012), Tony Iommi (2015), Glen Campbell (2016) and Bonnie Raitt (2017). The guidelines state that the person whose talents had an effect on guitar playing, and whose career inspired and influenced other guitar players, Blabbermouth reports.

The US Congress included a provision to the latest COVID-19 relief package that makes illegal streaming a felony, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The “Felony Streaming” copyright proposal attaches felony penalties to commercial platforms that are dedicated exclusively to streaming unlicensed works. If found guilty of such actions, operators of these platforms could face up to 10 years in prison.

Tones And I's breakthrough hit 'Dance Monkey' moved past two billion streams on Spotify, which makes the Australian singer the first female artist to reach the milestone, Billboard reports. Just two tracks have accumulated more streams on the platform, Ed Sheeran’s 'Shape of You' (at 2.7 billion) and Post Malone’s 'Rockstar' featuring 21 Savage (2.079 billion).

Warner Music Group has signed a deal with TikTok that will boost its fees for song rights and increase collaboration with the popular social-media app, Bloomberg reports. In the past year alone, major music companies have signed licensing agreements with Facebook, TikTok and Snap, creating a new, billion-dollar business. Warner alone now generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year from such deals, YouTube paid the music industry more than $3 billion in 2019, Facebook paid the music industry more than $600 million a year since 2017, and TikTok now is expected to be a big spender as one of the most popular apps in the world, boasting more than 600 million users.

Former American President Barack Obama has shared his 2020 “Songs of the Year” playlist which includes pop hits like Dua Lipa’s 'Levitating', indie songs like Phoebe Bridgers’ 'Kyoto', country music like Chris Stapleton’s 'Starting Over', and some veterans like Boy Dylan’s 'Goodbye Jimmy Reed'...

Director Peter Jackson has shared a preview of his forthcoming documentary 'The Beatles: Get Back' which aims to “take audiences back in time to The Beatles’ intimate recording sessions during a pivotal moment in music history”, NME reports. Jackson said he wanted to showcase “the vibe and energy” of the film with the preview. It will be out in August 2021, probably.

Indie-rock singer-songwriter Har Mar Superstar began working for the United States Postal Service in November, NME reports. He applied for the job on a whim while posting out vinyl records to fans at the post office. “I’ve definitely considered quitting music and getting a real job. So many times,” HMS said - “I mean, I’m really excited to have pension and benefits and all that kind of stuff”.

The American Congressional leaders agreed on a $900 billion rescue package, which includes $15 billion for live entertainment venues and independent movie theaters, the New York Times reports. Senator Chuck Schumer said "these venues are so important to my state and so many other states across the country. They are the lifeblood of our communities. They were the first to close and will be the last to open. This bill gives them a fighting chance”.

Taylor Swift notches her second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 this year with her surprise release 'Evermore', which earned 329,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 17, Billboard reports. It's her eight No. 1 album in general, and a companion set to her earlier surprise No. 1 album, 'Folklore', which bowed atop the Billboard 200 in August. Also, Swift set a new UK chart record among female artists, with the singer achieving her six UK number one albums in a record eight years. She has beaten previous record-holder Madonna, who racked up six UK number one albums over 11 years, UK's Official Charts reports.

Brooklyn Vegan's Indie Basement placed 40 indie-rock albums from 2020 in its cellar - it's an interesting selection, covering the best, and some unexpected albums. The top 20 are:

20. Doves - 'The Universal Want'

19. Working Men's Club - 'Working Men's Club'

18. Stephen Malkmus - 'Traditional Techniques'

17. Activity - 'Unmask Whoever'

16. The Innocence Mission - 'See You Tomorrow'

15. Drab City - 'Good Songs for Bad People'

14. Dougie Poole - 'The Freelancer's Blues'

13. Public Practice - 'Gentle Grip'

12. Billy Nomates - 'Billy Nomates'

11. The Flaming Lips - 'American Head'

10. Cindy Lee - 'What's Tonight to Eternity?'

9. Sweeping Promises - 'Hunger for a Way Out'

8. Crack Cloud - 'Pain Olympics'

7. Cut Worms - 'Nobody Lives Here Anymore'

6. Sault - 'Untitled (Black Is)' / 'Untitled (Rise)'

5. Caribou - 'Suddenly'

4. Loma - 'Don't Shy Away'

3. JARV IS… - 'Beyond the Pale'

2. Roisin Murphy - 'Roisin Machine'

1. Porridge Radio - 'Every Bad'

CoS writes about an interesting cover-band, Brass Against, a brass band that originally started as a Rage Against the Machine cover band, and then expanded with covers of Deftones, Alice In Chains, Panter, Deftones, Soundgarden etc. Their latest cover, Tool's 'Stinkfist' becomes "a horn-heavy track without losing the song’s key melodies and mood", with stand-out vocals by Sophia Urista.

12-year-old Manchester DJ Cael Bell had his equipment confiscated by the teachers after hosting a rave in the school bathroom, The Mirror reports. The boy invited “all the boys from year 8” at St. Antony’s Catholic College in Manchester, UK, and together they held an impromptu dance fest in the boys lavatory during lunch period on December 11th. The set included complimentary soft drinks and Cadbury Twirls, and it lasted 30 minutes before the teachers broke it up. Bell’s mother said that the boy’s speaker and lights have been impounded, although she did not herself punish him - “Am I wrong for finding this funny?”.

BadBadNotGood are back where they left with Ghostface Killah - 'The Chocolate Conquistadors' with MF Doom goes totally into the psychedelic jazz-hip-hop territory; an interesting cover - a senior man named Frank Watkinson made a lovely folk-rock remake of Slipknot's 'Snuff'.

Afropop Worldwide presents the pop music of Nigeria, by far the strongest scene in Africa. Burna Boy, Wizkid, Yemi Alade, Tiwa Savage, Olamide, and Fireboy DML are the biggest on the Nigerian Afropop scene presented in AW's feature, which also covers the rising social activism.

“With your help, our artists and songwriters not only raised the spirits of millions everywhere, but also brought awareness to worthwhile causes that will help to repair a world so badly in need of repair" - UMG's Lucian Grainge said in his year-end letter to staff, Variety reports. He added - "more often than not, that awareness will trigger action, funding, and, ultimately, results… When the harsh realities of inequality and racism exploded across the globe, our artists were galvanized and, together with them, we responded quickly”.

"Years from now, when we look back at this time period... there will also be this album that has recorded the stories and names of all these ordinary women who would have otherwise been entirely forgotten" - Chinese music critic Postman tells BBC about the new album by Chinese singer Tan Weiwei. The highpoint of that album is 'Xiao Juan', a moody, excoriating diatribe against domestic violence, still considered a taboo topic for many.

Guardian took "the essentials of pop and disco to distil an alchemic cocktail of club euphoria" for their 50 best albums of the year list, with Fiona Apple on top.

The top 20 are:

20. Grimes – 'Miss Anthropocene'

19. Lady Gaga – 'Chromatica'

18. Run the Jewels – 'RTJ4'

17. Fontaines DC – 'A Hero’s Death'

16. Phoebe Bridgers – 'Punisher'

15. Jay Electronica – 'A Written Testimony'

14. Jessie Ware – 'What’s Your Pleasure?'

13. Bob Dylan – 'Rough and Rowdy Ways'

12. Chloe x Halle – 'Ungodly Hour'

11. Róisín Murphy – 'Róisín Machine'

10. Moses Sumney – 'Græ'

9. Taylor Swift – 'Folklore'

8. J Hus – 'Big Conspiracy'

7. Haim – 'Women in Music Pt III'

6. Waxahatchee – 'Saint Cloud'

5. Sault – 'Untitled (Black Is)'

4. Perfume Genius – 'Set My Heart on Fire Immediately'

3. Rina Sawayama – 'Sawayama'

2. Dua Lipa – 'Future Nostalgia'

1. Fiona Apple – 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters'

Creed singer Scott Stapp will be portraying Frank Sinatra in the upcoming biopic about Ronald Reagan, simply called 'Reagan'. The biopic will feature a scene in which Stapp will perform as Sinatra at the Cocoanut Grove, "at a time when Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild and the club was a staple of old Hollywood", Billboard reports. The film, directed by Sean McNamara, is slated to arrive in 2021, and it will find Dennis Quaid in the titular role of Ronald Reagan.

This year's social media star released the numbers for 2020, here's a pair: over 176 different songs surpassed 1 billion video views; over 70 artists that have broken on the platform have received major label deals, including Claire Rosinkranz, Dixie D'Amelio, Powfu, Priscilla Block and Tai Verdes.

Paul McCartney and Rick Rubin are joining forces for a six-part documentary series that will take a look at the ex-Beatles' rich career, and the first official trailer is out now (watch it below). In the trailer, the duo talks about how the bass guitar can control a band, and McCartney explains how the Beatles wrote their tunes - “we realized we were writing songs that were memorable, not because we wanted them to be memorable, because we had to remember them”. According to Deadline, the untitled project is the first time that the original masters have ever left Abbey Road Studios.

Seattle blues singer Lady A has released a new song called 'My Name Is All I Got', written seemingly in response to her ongoing legal battle with country band Lady A, formerly known as Lady Antebellum, Pitchfork reports. It is a heartening blues song about standing tall and being proud of your identity with one line saying it all - “Oh they tried to take my name, but my name is all I got”.