Special: 2020 In Review: Top 100 Singles Of 2020: 90 - 81

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90. You Me At Six - Beautiful Way

89. Echosmith - Love You Better

88. Body Count - Bum-Rush

87. Point North - No One's Listening

86. Protest The Hero - The Canary

85. Too Close To Touch - Pick Me Up

84. Machine Gun Kelly - Drunk Face

83. We Came As Romans - From The First Note

82. Anti-Flag Ft. DE'WAYNE, Marcia Richards, Jalise Della Gary & Tom Morello - A Dying Plea Vol. 1

81. Neck Deep - Fall

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Special: Spotify Wrapped 2020

I'm pretty sure I did not discover this many artists this year. It's more likely that I listened to a bunch of artists for the first time on Spotify that I already knew and loved since this was the first year I really, really used Spotify. 

See above, I'm pretty sure I didn't branch out to that many new genres however I am still surprised I dabbled in that many though I'll be the first to admit I don't really know how Spotify categorizes things.

Pop punk doesn't surprise me at #1 neither does Dance Pop or Screamo at #2 and #3 respectively. If Machine Gun Kelly, jxdn and Mod Sun are considered pop rap then I suppose I could buy into that but again I'm really not sure what's categorized as what. I'm a little surprised normal Pop music didn't take a spot but I won't complain that Political Hip-Hop made the list.

I wouldn't have pegged this as my most streamed though I understand Wrapped gets capped on Halloween so maybe other songs didn't have a chance to catch up to the sum (heh) of streams I gave to Big Vibe as this was definitely my personal song of the summer. 

Sleeping In at #2 does not surprise me. Complicated is a solid tune that I don't really skip but I also don't go out of my way to listen to it. Chalk this one up to it's early 2020 release date so it had more time to rack up listens. Sway at #4 conversely just got released in September so I racked up the streams on that in September and October to get it on the list. Getaway Green is a surprise but again I think we can chalk this up to the early 2020 release date. Ones I was surprised didn't make it: Forget Me Too by Machine Gun Kelly and Halsey just didn't have the time to crack the top #5 with it's late release date I guess. Greatest of All Time by New Found Glory came out in late spring and I thought I listened to it a lot but I guess not enough.

Thanks to COVID I actually listened to podcasts this year. The Scrubs Rewatch podcast I have listened to every episode so it's unsurprising I guess that it's my #1 even though I'm working through a deep dive at the minute on a different one.

Alright so I just remembered the Halloween cut off so that played a role as I really didn't attack the deep dive until end of October so I now see based on this screen that Scrubs took up 80% of the podcasting this year.

So Lead Singer Syndrome is what I'm currently going through an with 5 years worth of content I think it'll keep me busy for a while and will account for most of my podcasting in 2021 Wrapped. Baseball BBQ I have started just recently (end of October I guess?) but since it's primarily a news podcast it's probably not worth doing a back catolog deep dive but worthy of listens going forward.

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing this happened in the last week of October since as previous mentioned the deep dive started pretty recently.

This is my pioneer badge! At first I thought this was Leave Me Alone by I Don't Know How But They Found Me and I was shocked. I now see it's Leave It Alone by Rarity. That's less shocking as I would not be shocked if that track didn't even have 50,000 streams yet.

I'm assuming this was outside of current decade which really isn't surprising. Neither is the banger of a song that was my most streamed as Hit The Lights' Drop The Girl off 2008's Skip School, Start Fights is among my favourite songs of all time so it definitely deserves the spot here.

Going in I figured Neck Deep would be my most listened to artist however when I saw tow All Time Low songs in my top 5 I expected that might take over but Neck Deep managed to hold on. Congrats to them and to me for being in their top 3% of listeners.

Just wanted to add this to say how shocked I am that I listened to that many different artists as I feel like I generally just listen to my pre-made playlists but good for me I guess!

So I already touched on Neck Deep and All Time Low above. Had you of told me Echosmith was on here I would've thought maybe they snuck in at #5 since there wasn't a lot to listen to at the beginning of the year yet. That being said I'm floored they made it to #3. The Used at #4 is another surprise though I guess their larger number of singles allowed them to sneak up. MGK at #5 isn't all that surprising as going in I thought he might be #1 but realized it was unlikely with the album not dropping until September, the singles wouldn't have been able to keep it afloat the rest of the year. I also expected Silverstein to make an appearance here but I guess because I bought the album I was less likely to listen on Spotify.

Background Songs:

Four Year Strong - Learn To Love The Lie
Echosmith - Love You Better
Neverkept - Complicated
Seaway - Big Vibe
All Time Low - Sleeping In
Machine Gun Kelly Ft. Halsey - Forget Me Too
Katy Perry - Smile
Protest The Hero - The Canary
Pvris - Deadweight
Rarity - Leave It Alone
Hit The Lights - Drop The Girl
Neck Deep - Lowlife
All Time Low - Getaway Green
You Me And Everyone We Know - F.I.N.E.
Courage My Love - Everybody's Lonely

Special: First Listen Thoughts: Anti-Flag "20/20 Vision", Handguns "When The Light Burns Out" and Echosmith "Lonely Generation"

Before we get to the first non TV show or best of Special since December we have to crown the winner of the TV Show bracket... Drum roll please... Lucifer fought valiantly but in the end it was Suits picking up the W by a handful of votes. Join us next March when Lucifer will look for that elusive win after being 2nd place 2 years in a row.

Anti-Flag - 20/20 Vision

Label: Spinefarm Records

Press Release: With 20/20 Vision the Pittsburgh, PA based band prove that they have plenty of vitriol left, aiming to face the challenges of our chaotic socio-political time head on. Opener “Hate Conquers All” pulls no punches, immediately drawing a line in the sand against the fascistic hate mongering of the Trump administration and making it clear that 20/20 Vision is an album intended to explicitly address the here and now.

My thoughts: Anti-Flag has been at it for 20+ years of protest songs yet they've never actually attacked a president outright but that changes with 20/20 Vision and more specifically Donald Trump in case you missed the artwork. It's an album full of songs about being pissed off but with an optimistic tone that we can make change. The album definitely needs more listens before I can declare it's better than it's predecessor (American Fall) but it's definitely got a shot after one listen.

Handguns - When The Light Burns Out

Label: Self-Released

Press Release: When The Light Burns Out is the fourth LP from Rigatoni Island pop-punk band Handguns and was released on January 1st 2020 at midnight. For this album, the line up from their first 2 EP's Don't Bite Your Tongue and Anywhere but Home were returning to record this album.

My thoughts: For a self-released album this record sounds similar to past label releases from the band so they definitely put the time, effort and money into production. Not their best effort but can certainly come close after more listens as the bones for a memorable pop punk record even if there are a few misses on first listen, something you don't normally want to determine on a first listen but songs like "Liquid Therapy" make that happen but thankfully songs like "Cap Peeler" and "Glass Lanterns" overpower those misses.

Echosmith - Lonely Generation

Label: Self-Released

Press Release: The sibling trio -- comprised of Sydney, Noah and Graham Sierota -- announced their sophomore LP Lonely Generation will be released Jan. 10. It will be the band’s first release under their new Echosmith Music record label, which was founded in 2018 with Warner Music’s Alternative Distribution Alliance.

My thoughts: Blending soft female pop vocals with indie rock melodies generally works but Echosmith makes it work better than most. I was worried with them deciding to self-release their sophmore album, especially nearly 7 years after their debut but they made it work. Only time will tell if Echosmith will return to an upward trajectory or if this is simply the beginning of the end for the band but if you enjoy pop-rock music with a good amount of slow jams mixed in you won't be disappointing with this release.

Special: Christmas CD 2019

What's up everyone, it's almost Christmas so you know I got some jams for you to check out. Last year was the first year in a decade I didn't do a new Christmas CD because I decided to instead focus on a Greatest Hits compilation chosen by me and my fiancee Tawnya (you can find that HERE). For the previous 10 volumes click HERE now let's get on to Volume 11 but first the obligatory I own nothing.

What's A Partridge? What's A Peartree? Volume 11:

1. Aly & AJ - Greatest Time Of Year
2. Goldfinger - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
3. Echosmith - Baby Don't Leave Me (All Alone At Christmas)
4. Panic! At The Disco - Feels Like Christmas
5. Butch Walker - Frosty The Snowman
6. I Don't Know How But They Found Me - Merry Christmas Everybody
7. Set It Off - This Christmas (I'll Burn It To The Ground)
8. Creeper - Fairytale Of New York
9. Plain White T's - Do You Hear What I Hear
10. Patent Pending - A Better New Year
11. Fight Fair - Going Nowhere
12. Relient K - O Holy Night
13. Bowling For Soup - Miss You Most On Christmas
14. Taylor Swift - Christmas Must Be Something More
15. Carousel Kings - We Wish You A Merry Christmas/Auld Lang Syne
16. The Rocket Summer - Elf Creep
17. The Summer Set - This Christmas
18. Broadside - Wish List
19. MxPx Ft. Emily Whitehurst & Pierre Bouvier - December
20. Reel Big Fish - Whatever U Celebrate

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