"Better to think of the best music of 2020 as an urgent cacophony of distinct voices rather than a chorus with a single melody" - NPR says about their best albums of 2020 list. The top ten:

10. Waylon Payne - 'Blue Eyes, The Harlot, The Queer, The Pusher & Me'

9. Lil Uzi Vert - 'Eternal Atake'

8. Nubya Garcia - 'Source'

7. Bad Bunny - 'YHLQMDLG'

6. Thomas Adès - 'Adès Conducts Adès'

5. Spillage Village - 'Spilligion'

4. Phoebe Bridgers - 'Punisher'

3. Lido Pimienta - 'Miss Colombia'

2. Fiona Apple - 'Fetch The Bolt Cutters'

1. SAULT - 'Untitled (Black Is)'

Two of Kurt Cobain’s smashed Fender guitars sold for a combined $281,600 at an auction, Rolling Stone reports. Bob Marley’s first guitar earned $153,600 at Icons & Idols Trilogy: Rock ‘n’ Roll Auction, while three guitars once belonging to the late Eddie Van Halen have sold for a combined $422,000. The instruments were sold as part of a celebrity auction where nearly 900 items were offered, including items once owned by Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, and more.

Roddy Ricch's breakout single 'The Box' has been named Apple Music’s most-streamed song of 2020 around the world, while the rapper’s 'Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial' was the most-streamed album on the streaming service, Music Ally reports. The year’s most-Shazamed song on the app was Tones And I’s 'Dance Monkey', and the most read-lyrics were from 'WAP' by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

Foals keyboardist Edwin Congreave is suffering from eco-anxiety due to carbon footprint of their global tours. "I don't want to fly ever again" the 35-year old told BBC about touring far-flung places like Asia and Australia. "The actual impact that driving gear across Europe has compared to flying, in the big picture, is relatively low" he added, "but, yeah, I think that a lot of musicians and a lot of DJs and bands should just stop touring".

The New Yorker's Amanda Petrusich chose 10 best albums of 2020, with a surprise at the top:

10. Phoebe Bridgers - 'Punisher'

9. Freddie Gibbs and the Alchemist - 'Alfredo'

8. Fleet Foxes - 'Shore'

7. Bob Dylan - 'Rough and Rowdy Ways'

6. Jyoti - 'Mama, You Can Bet!'

5. Fiona Apple - 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters'

4. Dua Lipa - 'Future Nostalgia'

3. Mary Lattimore - 'Silver Ladders'

2. Adrianne Lenker - 'Songs' and 'Instrumentals'

1. Etran de L’Aïr - 'No. 1'

"YouTube famously hinges on an algorithm that guesses viewers' interests to keep them clicking and viewing" - Ars Technica writes about the unexpected rise in popularity of Japanese 1980s ambient music, thanks to the video social network. The most famous upload of them all came in 2017, when a video of the 1984 city pop song 'Plastic Love' by Mariya Takeuchi became "mind-bogglingly popular. It has 45 million views today, along with an Olympic swimming pool's worth of fan art, vaporwave remixes, and memes".

"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'

"The oppressed will always find a way to feel their joy" - a critic at RobertEbert.com writes about 'Lovers Rock' by Steve McQueen, about young people of first- and second-generation West Indian background in London who make house-parties listening to lovers rock (a romantic style of reggae). Vulture deemed it "a transfixing romance not just between the two characters at its center but one about the beauty of the human body, the succor of an energetic party, and the possibility in the hush of a night". Empire says it's "a woozy, musical fever dream with wit, sexiness and one unforgettable extended singalong".

"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'

Phoebe Bridgers released a beautiful new video for the song 'Saviour Complex' from her latest album 'Punisher'. It was directed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, creator of 'Fleabag' comic series. Two Phoebes connected over email while quarantined, after the singer discussed her admiration of the director. 

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.

"£10 a month for access to all music is too little" - Elbow's Guy Garvey told the Guardian, suggesting music fans should pay more, otherwise we face a risk of losing the next generation of bands. "It’s not sustainable and the emergency is we’re losing artists because they’re demoralised and they can’t afford to live" - Garvey said. Elbow frontman is pushing for equitable remuneration in which streams are split 50/50 between labels and groups.

Travis Scott’s virtual concert in Fortnite in April reportedly earned him roughly $20million including merchandise sales, according to a new Forbes report. In comparison, Scott’s four-month-long, 56-stop Astroworld tour from 2018 to 2019 garnered approximately $53.5million, or roughly just under $1million per show. Despite the actual virtual concert’s length of nine minutes, it took months to put the event together. The show also attracted a record concurrent player count for Fortnite of 12.3 million.

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'

A great "time-capsule" video-interview with Billie Eilish for Vanity Fair, with media outlet interviewing her for the fourth year in a row (BRAVO! for VF for recognising a future star in 2017). Eilish talks earnestly about her identity: “For a while now, I’ve been really having an identity crisis a little. I think it was December, I did some radio show performance, and the entire show I felt like I was pretending to be Billie Eilish. Like, I felt — I completely wasn’t looking at myself as myself. I was totally seeing it from not-my-own perspective and it was so weird. Happened multiple times at award shows and whatever. I felt like a parody of myself”.

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.

"The changing of the word ‘faggot’ for the nonsense word ‘haggard’ destroys the song by deflating it right at its essential and most reckless moment, stripping it of its value" - Nick Cave wrote on his blog after BBC announced that Radio 1 would be playing an alternate version of The Pogues' 'Fairytale of New York'. With this change "it becomes a song that has been tampered with, compromised, tamed, and neutered and can no longer be called a great song. It is a song that has lost its truth, its honour and integrity".

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'

Rolling Stone made a list of 15 best country music songs about drugs, including drug-odes by Willie Nelson, Kasey Musgraves, Waylon Jennings, John and Prine, and Johnny Cash's 'Cocaine Blues' about a man who kills his wife while high on cocaine and tries to escape from the police.

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”.

The Quietus made a collection of 10 record sleeves by twentieth century artists, "sometimes as artistic statements in their own rights and sometimes simply as a paying gig". There are Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and others.

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.