"The albums on this list still represent a kind of miracle — a year where the great music never stopped" - Stereogum writes in the introduction of their 50 best albums of 2020 list. Many carry Stereogum's Album of the Week tag, still an interesting choice.

The 20 top albums:

20. Sorry - '925'

19. Charli XCX - 'How I'm Feeling Now'

18. Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - 'Alfredo'

17. The 1975 - 'Notes On A Conditional Form'

16. Bartees Strange - 'Live Forever'

15. Perfume Genius - 'Set My Heart On Fire Immediately'

14. Fleet Foxes - 'Shore'

13. Yves Tumor - 'Heaven To A Tortured Mind'

12. Lomelda - 'Hannah'

11. Hum - 'Inlet'

10. Soccer Mommy - 'color theory'

9. SAULT - 'Untitled (Rise)'

8. Touché Amoré - 'Lament'

7. Oneohtrix Point Never - 'Magic Oneohtrix Point Never'

6. Boldy James & Sterling Toles - 'Manger On McNichols'

5. Taylor Swift - 'folklore'

4. HAIM - 'Women In Music Pt. III'

3. Run The Jewels - 'RTJ4'

2. Waxahatchee - 'Saint Cloud'

1. Fiona Apple - 'Fetch The Bolt Cutters'

"Rather than succumb to the difficulties of the epoch, many creators doubled down on their artistry and amicability to produce some of their best work and tighten their relationships with their admirers. Perhaps more than ever, their records offered glimpses of hope and happiness amid such an uncertain and foreboding time" - PopMatters writes in the introduction of their list of the 10 best prog- rock and metal albums of 2020.

10. The Ocean Collective - 'Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic'

9. Pure Reason Revolution - 'Eupnea'

8. Fates Warning - 'Long Day Good Night'

7. Pain of Salvation – 'Panther'

6. Caligula's Horse - 'Rise Radiant'

5. Pallbearer - 'Forgotten Days'

4. Wobbler - 'Dwellers of the Deep'

3. Haken – 'Virus'

2. Imperial Triumphant - 'Alphaville'

1. Gazpacho – 'Fireworker'

Dua Lipa’s Thanksgiving-weekend Studio 2054 live-stream drew five million viewers, it was broadcast in territories across the world, cost upward of $1.5 million, and took nearly five months to put together. Lipa’s management says it was a profitable venture with 284,000 tickets sold, and that Lipa will do another live-stream in the future regardless if in-person shows come back first. Rolling Stone believes Lipa’s show was also a highly "successful guinea-pig case for the music business". Tech platform Live-Now is selling tickets for fans to catch the recorded show until Sunday, 8,50 euro per ticket.

Spotify has donated $500,000 to the National Independent Venue Association in a show of solidarity with music venues in the U.S. that aren't part of a conglomerated promotion apparatus such as Live Nation or AEG. The donation comes at a critical time for indie venues across the U.S. as they face a long winter without live shows, possibly even well into the next year as well. Spotify's half-million-dollar donation is the second-largest that NIVA has received since its inception - only Anheuser-Busch has given more, $1 million.That plant needs watering

CoS' list of 50 best albums of 2020 is made mostly of singer-songwriter and pop-star albums, perhaps a few albums only CoS will have on year-end's list. See the first 20 below:

20. Lil Uzi Vert – 'Eternal Atake'

19. Sufjan Stevens – 'The Ascension'

18. Charli XCX – 'how i’m feeling now'

17. Yves Tumor – 'Heaven to a Tortured Mind'

16. Bad Bunny – 'YHLQMDLG'

15. The Weeknd – 'After Hours'

14. Thundercat – 'It Is What It Is'

13. Rina Sawayama – 'SAWAYAMA'

12. BTS – 'Map of the Soul: 7'

11. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – 'Reunions'

10. Pearl Jam – 'Gigaton'

9. Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist – 'Alfredo'

8. Lady Gaga – 'Chromatica'

7. Deftones – 'Ohms'

6. Waxahatchee – 'Saint Cloud'

5. Dua Lipa – 'Future Nostalgia'

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

3. Phoebe Bridgers – 'Punisher '

2. Run the Jewels – 'RTJ4'

1. Fiona Apple – 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters'

South Korea has changed its military service law so as to allow the members of BTS to extend their careers, and the lifespan of the band, New York Times reports. South Korean men must perform compulsory military service once they turn 28, and two of the members of the K-pop group, Jin and Suga, will soon turn 28. The law change, however, has extended the maximum age to 30 for those allowed to defer their service.

With 8.3 billion streams, Puerto Rican rapper and singer is Spotify's most-streamed artist of 2020, the first time an artist that has never sung in English tops the year-end list. Second to Bad Bunny for 2020 is Drake, while another Latin act, J Balvin, came in at No. 3, followed by the late rapper Juice WRLD and The Weeknd. Bad Bunny's album 'YHLQMDLG' is also the most-streamed album globally on the service, with over 3.3 billion streams, ABC reports. Spotify’s most-streamed song of the year is Blinding Lights', with 1.6 million streams globally.

Rapper Triple Beanz was shot and killed on the street in Newark, NJ on November 27, at the age of 29, CBS New York reports. According to the police, and to the video footage, the rapper was about to get in his Range Rover on the 300 block of Avon Avenue when two masked assailants got out of another SUV and opened fire.

It was an astonishingly strong and diverse year for music, according to The Quietus. The British alter-pop site chose 100 albums from this year, placing Hey Collosus' double album on top. Here are the top 20:

20. Annie - 'Dark Hearts'

19. Sex Swing - 'Type II'

18. Keeley Forsyth - 'Debris'

17. Sault - 'Untitled (Rise)'

16. Richard Skelton - 'These Charms May Be Sung Over A Wound'

15. Duma - 'Duma'

14. Land Trance - 'First Seance'

13. Autechre - 'SIGN'

12. Einstürzende Neubauten - 'Alles In Allem'

11. Alison Cotton - 'Only Darkness Now'

10. Nazar - 'Guerrilla'

9. Pa Salieu - 'Send Them To Coventry'

8. Nadine Shah - 'Kitchen Sink'

7. Squarepusher - 'Be Up A Hello'

6. Duval Timothy - 'Help'

5. UKAEA - 'Energy Is Forever'

4. Lyra Pramuk - 'Fountain'

3. Special Interest - 'The Passion Of'

2. The Soft Pink Truth - 'Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase?'

1. Hey Colossus - 'Dances / Curses'

London drill rapper Digga D is one of the first musicians in British history to be given a criminal behaviour order that controls his creative output, which means he says to tell the police before releasing any music or videos. If the police conclude it is "inciting or encouraging violence" they can arrest him. The new docu 'Defending Digga D' by the BBC starts on the day he is released from prison after 15 months of being incarcerated, and it follows him through trying to restart his career.

Chris Brown took home four trophies last night at the 2020 Soul Train Awards, including best R&B/soul male artist and song of the year for 'Go Crazy', Billboard reports. Summer Walker’s debut album, 'Over It', won album of the year, while Snoh Aalegra, a Swedish singer/songwriter based in Los Angeles, took best new artist. H.E.R. won best R&B/soul female artist and songwriter’s award, saying in her acceptance speech - “People say R&B is dead; R&B is not dead. R&B is in everything”.

AllMusic made a selection of books released this year. Included are: 'This Isn't Happening' about how Radiohead made their album 'Kid A' that changed so much; 'The Meaning of Mariah Carey' about one of the biggest stars being surrounded by some of the most powerful people in the music industry; 'Larger Than Life' about the phenomenon of boy bands; 'How to Write One Song' with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy offering straightforward advice on the process of writing a song...

K-pop boys BTS have debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart with their newest release 'Be', after earning 242,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. last week, Billboard reports. BTS is now the first group to land two different albums at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2020, and the second artist overall - following American rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again. 'Be' is also BTS’ fifth album to enter the chart at No. 1.

The Birmingham bedroom that Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osbourne spent his childhood in is now available to rent for a night. Speaking in a GQ interview, Osbourne said the person currently occupying his pre-fame family home is charging people to sleep in his old room - “He charges £400 a night. The fucking house weren’t worth £300! They must be doing an expensive extension on the bathroom”.

Three Slipknot members are getting a toy-treatment by pop culture collectibles producer Funko for their popular line of "Pop! Rocks" vinyl collectibles. Despite Slipknot totaling nine members, and more if you were to count past members, only three figures - Corey Taylor, Sid Wilson and Craig Jones - have been announced. Taylor, Wilson and Jones are depicted in their most current state as seen on the 'We Are Not Your Kind' album cycle.

'Other Music' was a cult record store in Manhattan, which opened in 1995, becoming a crucial hub of New York’s vibrant 00s indie boom, and closing in 2016. New docu of the same name "goes on to capture the store’s final days, before it gets physically ripped apart. Watching it could hurt even the coolest of hearts", Guardian says.

LA Times presents Jacob Collier, the British "strange-pop" artist with a jazz background. The 26-year-old of British and Chinese descent wasn't a household name until this week when he was nominated for the Grammy award for album of the year, alongside Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, Post Malone and Coldplay. A nice boy...

Vinyl album sales in the US had their best week of the year last week with 55.5% increase to 943,000 copies sold, Billboard reports. That also marks the third-largest week for vinyl since 1991. The last time overall U.S. vinyl album sales were higher was in the week ending Dec. 26, 2019, when volume hit 1.24 million sold -- the largest week for vinyl album sales. Last week the record was set largely thanks to sale pricing and promotion at Walmart - the mega-store discounted all vinyl albums in-store to $15.

A bass guitar and effects pedal used by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, signed guitars from Liam Gallagher, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, handwritten lyrics from Florence Welch, Robbie Williams, and Ellie Goulding, a mixing desk from Craig David, and a signed synth from Chemical Brothers are all on sale at an online auction with the aim to help live events industry workers. Stagehand auction also includes memorabilia from Sam Smith, Jess Glynn and FKA Twigs, with more constantly being added, NME reports. Also benefiting the Stagehand initiative will be Prints for Music, a sale of more than 100 intimate photographs of stars including Grace Jones, Neil Young and Fela Kuti. Today, a £10,000 box set by Porcupine Tree' Steven Wilson, limited to a single copy, was sold at an auction, with proceeds from the one-off item going to Music Venue Trust, the charity lobbying for the UK’s grassroots venues under threat amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Famous New Jerseyans Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, and former TV-host Jon Stewart have joined their home state #MaskUpNJ health campaign. Bruce and Jons encourage people to "wear a friggin' mask", with Springsteen saying he hopes it will help bring concerts back soon.

One Spotify user has made a playlist of all the songs David Lynch mentions during his weather reports. The charismatic director has reinstated these reports during the early days of the pandemic, via his David Lynch Theater YouTube channel, and he has been doing them since. His reports are mostly quite similar - hot and sunny most of the days - so it's his favorite songs that make for a difference. His music taste includes This Mortal Coil, Portishead, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Mazzy Star, Buddy Holly, his own music and more.

A$AP Rocky donated 120 meals to families at a homeless shelter in New York where he, his mother and sister spent some time nearly two decades ago. The rapper, real name Rakim Mayers, personally turned delivery man on Thanksgiving eve on Wednesday to distribute the food from one of his favourite eateries in New York, Amy Ruth's Restaurant in Harlem, according to People. The 32-year-old musician gifted the food to the Regent Family Residence - a homeless shelter that serves 83 families, including 111 children - where his mum, Renee Black, stayed after falling on hard times in the early 2000s.

PopMatters made a good and versatile list of the 10 best global music albums of the year (PM still calls it "world music", which is increasingly becoming a politically un-correct term). The chosen ones are Keleketla project with an album that "goes in a number of different and utterly revolutionary directions", ONIPA with "an entire continent's worth of styles" on 'We No Be Machine', Evritiki Zygia playing mountain folk music from Eastern Europe on 'Ormenion', and others.

Guardian goes into a quest to find the heaviest music ever made, measured "in terms of the intensity of the music itself, the atmosphere it generates and how quickly it liquefies your innards". There are a few equally deserving candidates - Motörhead, Swans, Black Sabbath, Merzbow, Sun O)))...

Rolling Stones guitarist said he has taken up gardening to keep him occupied during the lockdown, leading to a “more normal way of life” after years of living as one of rock’s most notorious hell-raisers - "which is un-normal”. He told Goldmine Magazine, according to Contact Music: “I spent the whole summer actually admiring the garden and also doing a bit of gardening myself – watering the veggies and the stuff... I saw the garden grow – really quite unbelievable".

Queen have shared an image of the time their original lineup met Maradona backstage in his home country. A March 8, 1981 performance at José Amalfitani Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina saw the band draw a crowd of 300,000 people. Among them was a 21-year-old Maradona, who Queen sought to meet. Freddie Mercury invites Maradona onstage during Queen's performance to the crowd's delight: "Right now, I'd like do introduce a friend of yours — and ours — tonight. I'm sure you all know him". "I want to thank Freddie and Queen for making me so happy," Maradona said, ahead of leading bassist John Deacon into 'Another One Bites the Dust'.

Tame Impala, Sampa The Great, Amy Shark and Archie Roach were among the big winners at the 2020 ARIA Awards, with Kevin Parker's psychedelic pop band taking home five awards including best group and album of the year for 'The Slow Rush'. Sampa The Great made history in 2019 when she became the first woman of color to win the ARIA for best hip-hop release, this year - she got it again. The singer and rapper also took out best female artist and best independent release for her debut full-length album 'The Return'.

"I feel like we exist at the behest of other people, but, yeah, I feel like I don't exist" - Phoebe Bridgers said about life in lockdown while talking to her new friend Bettye LaVette, who responded - "isn't it beautiful that we don't exist until the light come off and everybody applauds". Bridgers added - "I feel like my social life is built so heavily into music where I hire all my friends, I tour with my friends, so I don't even know how to exist at home". Listen to the funny conversation of the two ladies for the Talkhouse podcast.

Dua Saleh is in-between genres on 'Angel Rock', driven by strings; Lana Del Rey covered 'Summertime', this time George Gershwin's original; Gilles Peterson's Brownswood released electro-jazzy rap 'I Know You See Me' by Kassa Overall; singer-songwriter Postdata shared 'Twin Flames'; Fana Hues presents her great voice on 'Snakes x Elephants'; Dueling Experts deliver hip-hop old school NY-style on 'Revolve Around Sciences'; Kelly Rowland goes for and - gets a pop smash with 'Hitman'; Ash Koosha explores the “hallucination of a machine” on 'Hallucinato' (30 mins).

EDM producer i_o has passed away at the age of 30, after a short experimental pop solo career, and a pop highlight this year, EDM.com reports. Throughout his career, i_o explored new methods of music production and dissemination with an artistic philosophy rooted in the idea that "everything can be hacked". This year he released three EPs for mau5trap, the independent record label founded by deadmau5, and collaborated with Grimes on 'Violence' from her record 'Miss Anthropocene'.