Bryan’s Year In Review 2020

Articles | Dec 30th, 2020

Bryan's Year In Review 2020

2020 sucked for many, many reasons. Everything came to a screeching halt in March and was beyond tough for everyone in a lot of ways. I managed to see 1 concert this year and managed to see one film in a theater in 2020 as well. All before the pandemic hit. Despite the live music industry taking a massive hit, there was a lot of great new music that came out this year.

Musicians and artists had to get creative with releasing new material, playing shows on live stream and even doing drive-in concerts during the warmer months. I’d like to see musicians continue to do this kind of stuff, even after the pandemic. On the other spectrum, movies were another story and I can’t even think of more than 6 movies that I thought were worthy of a list. I’m not sure where some of these would land if I got to see all the movies that were slated to come out in 2020. Those were just the ones that went straight to streaming too. TV series fared better because frankly, there’s so much TV content out there now that it was pretty easy to make a top 10 list for that.

2020 did get better towards the end with Orange Fascist losing the election(we think?), vaccines are slowly getting to the people and for me personally, with finding out my family will be welcoming another baby in June. Here’s hoping 2021 is what 2020 could have been with the right people in charge.

Music

Top 20 Favorite Albums of 2020:
1. Iration – Coastin’
2. Levellers – Peace
3. Carbon Leaf – Gathering Vol. 2: The Hunting Ground
4. Chris Trapper – Cold Water Waltz
5. Babylon Circus – State Of Emergency
6. Ska Against Racism 2020 Compilation
7. Alan Doyle – Rough Side Out
8. Gizmo Varillas – Out of the Darkness
9. Bouncing Souls – Volume 2
10. Jordan Klassen – Tell Me What To Do
11. The Bombpops – Death in Venice Beach
12. The Menzingers – From Exile
13. Long Beach Dub All-Stars – Long Beach Dub All-Stars
14. Less Than Jake – Silver Linings
15. The White Buffalo – On The Widow’s Walk
16. Rude Boy George – Lies and Alibis
17. Matt Berry – Phantom Birds
18. Goldfinger – Never Look Back
19. William Elliott Whitmore – I’m With You
20. Bite Me Bambi – Hurry Up and Wait

Other Albums I Liked:
1. Sea Girls – Open Up Your Head
2. The Aquabats – Kooky Spooky…In Stereo
3. Willie Nile – New York At Night
4. Wailing Souls – Back A Yard
5. Cheerleader – Almost Forever

I Want New Albums From:
The Maple State
Mustard Plug
The Pietasters
The Rifles

The Only Concert I Went To In 2020:
The Adicts @ Gramercy Theatre, NYC – and it was a good one!

Pop Song I Couldn’t Stop Listening To:
The Weeknd – Blinding Lights

Favorite Live Streams of 2020:
Carbon Leaf – Home for the Holidays (Duh)
Chris Trapper’s weekly (mostly) live streams
Mark Chadwick of Levellers playing some Levellers songs
Dropkick Murphys with Bruce Springsteen at Fenway
Alternate Routes at Live at Daryl’s House

Top 100 Songs I listened to in 2020, according to Spotify:

Movies

My Top 5 Favorite Movies of 2020 (that I’ve seen):
1. Soul
2. The Trial Of The Chicago 7
3. Class Action Park
4. Borat Subsequent Movie film
5. Bill and Ted Face The Music

Runner-Up:
Onward

Favorite Documentaries of 2020:
Class Action Park

Top 5 Favorite Film/TV Scores:
1. Ludwig Goransson – The Mandalorian: Season 2
2. Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross / Jon Batiste – Soul
3. Hans Zimmer – Wonder Woman 1984
4. Ramin Djawadi – Westworld Season 3
5. James Newton Howard – News of the World

Most Confusing Movie of the Year:
Tenet

Movies I Didn’t Get To See That I Might Like:
News of the World
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
The Last Blockbuster
Love and Monsters

Movie That Looked Terrible Just Based On The Trailers:
Dolittle

Most Anticipated Movies of 2021 (pretty much the same as 2020):
1. The Eternals
2. Ghostbusters: Afterlife
3. Matrix 4
4. Shang-Chi
5. Black Widow
6. Quiet Place 2
7. No Time to Die
8. Coming 2 America
9. Top Gun Maverick
10. The Many Saints of Newark
11. Dune
12. Mission: Impossible 7

TV/Streaming

Favorite TV Series of the Year:
1. The Mandalorian
2. What We Do In The Shadows
3. Curb Your Enthusiasm
4. Yellowstone
5. Ozark
6. Ted Lasso
7. Better Call Saul
8. The Boys
9. Long Way Up
10. Family Guy

Favorite Mini-Series/Docu-series:
1. The Outsider
2. Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults
3. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark
4. Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich

Favorite Political Shows of The Year:
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Show That Did Better In A Pandemic:
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Shows That Were Worse In A Pandemic:
Real Time with Bill Maher
SNL (last season, not current season)

Series I Would Have Put On My Favorites List Last Year If I Watched It:
Watchmen
Succession
The Imagineering Story

Show I Bailed On:
Billions

Show That Gives Me Anxiety:
Ozark

A Show I Didn’t Think Would Be Good As I Thought It Would Be:
Ted Lasso

Favorite Late Night Talk Series:
Jimmy Kimmel Live

Random Stuff

Favorite Podcasts of the Year:
The ReadJunk Podcast (hey it’s my list)!
Conan Needs A Friend
WTF with Marc Maron
This Was The Scene Podcast

Best Mobile Apps:
Disney Plus
HBO Max
Netflix
Vudu
Apple TV Plus

Top 10 Things I Learned During A Pandemic:
1. Anti-maskers are stupid
2. Masks will fog up your glasses with any type of mask or technique that you see on YouTube
3. Teachers should be getting paid double!
4. Staying up until midnight or later to buy groceries online royally sucks, especially when you can’t get a delivery or pickup time
5. Packing a freezer is a tricky thing to do
6. “You’re on mute” is not something I thought I’d be saying most of the year
7. Getting out for just a walk can help soothe the soul
8. Be informed with news but not so much that it will make you want to punch a wall
9. Companies finally deciding it’s “not so bad” to be working remotely when I’ve been saying jobs should be going this route for years.
10. There’s way too many dishes to do when you’re home all day

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