Last March, I experienced two life-changing events: the world was locked down due to a killer virus, and my second child was born. Both of these things happened within days of each other. The chaos of the pandemic and standard new baby disruption was a potent cocktail that managed to frazzle every one of my nerves. An inept, morally bankrupt president and rioting over the summer did not help steady things. Many of the things I use to cope with were not available to me: friends and family couldn’t help, escaping to work for a few hours was out of the question (work from home), movie theaters were closed, no concerts, no baseball games. I tried reading a few books but only managed to get through one, and it was tough.

Thankfully, by April, I’d started to fall back onto music. Not for the first time, and probably not the last, I found my mental equilibrium thanks to music. Through the misery that was 2020, there were five albums I found myself listening to over and over. These five albums got me through days the air was too smoke-filled to run, and nights my nerves wouldn’t let me fall asleep. They didn’t “save my life” or any cliche like that, but they sure did make life somewhat bearable, even when I was physically, mentally, and spiritually drained.

So here they are, my pandemic albums (in no particular order):

ANAK KO by Jay Som: 

I just did a write-up on this record so go check that out. This album came out in 2019, but it was new to me. I think Pandora or Spotify randomly recommended “Superbikes” to me in early April. The chill-looking album art intrigued me, so I looked up the rest of the tracks. I wasn’t even halfway through my second listen before I found myself PayPal-ing Jay Som a few bucks. I was so stoked to find music that was genuine and emotional.

DON’T TELL A SOUL by The Replacements:

I love all The Replacements stuff, but I’ve always gravitated to their middle period stuff. The early punk stuff is all aggression without the great hooks and sly lyrics Paul Westerberg would later become famous for. The later albums, including this one, are a little too slick and are mostly Westerberg solo albums, so I usually skipped over them in my re-listens. But nostalgia hits hard, and even though I was definitely not listening to The Replacements in 1989 when this album came out, the 80’s production scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had. I’ve always liked the album opener, “Talent Show,” but in 2020, I found myself pulled deeper into later tracks like the romantic “Achin’ To Be” and “They’re Blind.” And even though it’s pretty cheesy (for a Replacements song), I found comfort in “Asking Me Lies” over-the-top radio-friendly production. Seriously, they were begging for a hit, and it’s a bit embarrassing. The song sticks in your brain like gum in your hair–you want it out, but good luck with that. And as I looked at the smoldering ruins of my country and feared for the future I’m leaving my children, I found myself singing “We’ll Inherit the Earth” to them repeatedly.

STOP MAKING SENSE by Talking Heads:

2020 was the year I got into Talking Heads. This happened when I discovered Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott’s music podcast U Talkin’ Talking Heads 2 My Talking Head. This podcast was an album by album review/reassessment of the band’s entire career. Both men are damn funny, so much so that no prior knowledge of the albums was necessary, but it was more fun to listen along with the guys. Their enthusiasm for the band and their music is very infectious (pun intended) and helped me through the pandemic. Going in chronological order, it took several weeks before the show got to STOP MAKING SENSE. During the lead-up, both Aukerman and Scott insisted that nearly every song on this 1984 live album was better than their studio album counterparts. I’m not a big live album guy, so I chalked this up to the fact that both were initially introduced to the band via this record (and the concert film of the same name). STOP MAKING SENSE is not a good or even a great live album…it is the greatest live recording I’ve ever heard.

The band’s approach in the beginning, of having David Byrne take the stage alone for “Psycho Killer” and then slowly adding in the rest of the band, pays off in spades. The energy the band brings to these songs is off the charts. Seriously, you could power a large city for years off of the heat the band produces. Songs like “Slippery People” and “Making Flippy Floppy” fell flat for me in their studio incarnations, but these became some of my favorite tracks via STOP MAKING SENSE. And of course, during the summer of police brutality and social justice protesting, I got really into “Life During Wartime.” That song is great during normal times but took on an eerie prophetic quality during the tumultuous summer of 2020. If you haven’t experienced STOP MAKING SENSE, watch the movie, it’s fantastic.

THE NEW ABNORMAL by The Strokes:

Released on April 10, 2020, this album has the spookiest title of any modern record. I think The Strokes are my favorite modern rock band, even though their output has been sporadic over the last decade. Their first three albums have a very special place in my heart that frankly warrants its own separate post. The previous two albums are a bit spotty and are more influenced by lead singer Julian Casablancas’s trippy electro solo career. That said, I always make time for a new Strokes release, and boy, did I have time in 2020! THE NEW ABNORMAL opens with the classic-sounding “The Adults Are Talking,” which, while subdued, sounds like it could easily slot into any of those first three albums. THE NEW ABNORMAL also features my song of the year, “Why Are Sundays So Depressing?” which catchy as hell and sonically highly textured. It’s like a classic Stones song but from the future. The majority of the album is chock full of lyrical and musical hooks that I find myself singing all the time. I can’t remember the last time a record had me singing the lyrics and the guitar parts.

The Strokes, those cheeky boys, continue the tradition of borrowing from other artists (like when they stole Tom Petty’s “American Girl” on their breakout hit “Last Nite”). Unlike in the past, however, the boys are forced to credit everyone. Thus, Billy Idol and Tony James get a songwriting credit on “Bad Decisions,” which borrows heavily from their 1980 single “Dancing with Myself.” Likewise, the Psychedelic Furs get credited on “Eternal Summer,” which borrows the lyrical melody from the hook in “The Ghost in You.” Despite winning a Grammy, I read several people critical of THE NEW ABNORMAL because of this musical theft, which I get but seems to be missing the point. The Strokes are musical alchemists, synthesizing good old shit into good new shit. At least, that’s how I see it. I’m more okay with it on this record because they’re upfront about it and credit everyone appropriately.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the stellar album closer, “Ode to the Mets.” This one of the best album closers I’ve heard in a decade. It’s a brilliant bit of pop that doesn’t seem to be about The Mets or baseball. I’m not exactly sure what the track is really about; it’s so dense and dreamy. What I do know is that this song has some of the eerily prescient lyrics of the pandemic:

“Gone now are the old times

Forgotten, time to hold on the railing

The Rubik’s Cube isn’t solving for us

Old friends, long forgotten

They all wait at the bottom of

The ocean now has swallowed“

I’ve listened to this song dozens of times, and that bit never fails to give me goosebumps. I’m not sure which drugs let The Strokes record a pandemic album before the pandemic, but that sure is what THE NEW ABNORMAL feels like. I did not do an Album of the Year list in 2020 because I wasn’t writing about music, but this record definitely would have been my #1 pick.

Lastly, but certainly not least…

MORDECHAI by Khruangbin:

Khruangbin is a three-piece band from Huston, Texas, and three days after my birthday, they released their third album MORDECHAI. Despite being from Texas, MORDECHAI is very much world music, blending American psych-rock, funk, Latin and Indian music. MORDECHAI is the perfect album to listen to while the world is crumbling around you. Somewhat happy and upbeat (“Pelota” and “Time (You and I)”) and also at times peaceful and introspective (“Shida” and “Father Bird, Mother Bird”). If I was the type to take peyote and mediate in the desert, this is definitely a record I would take with me.

MORDECHAI is an expansive album that never gets too shaggy or weird. I have no idea how this record came into my life one day, it was hot as hell in my air conditioner-less home, and it appeared on my wireless sound system shimmering like a mirage in the desert. I was initially perplexed by some of the weird left turns the album makes–like the track “Connaissais de Face,” which is like a bizarre soap opera wrapped in a New Age blanket. It’s really campy but also really sad when you listen to these disembodied voices talk about all the people they miss and how “time changes everything.” MORDECHAI’s an entertaining sonic odyssey that, on its surface, seems to be built for very few people. Still, strangely being made out of all these weird parts, the record is one that I could confidently recommend to just about anyone. And even if they didn’t like all of its weirder parts, they’d surely find something they’d enjoy.

Lastly, people don’t really care about album artwork anymore, but I became entranced by the album art for MORDECHAI. So much so that I found a company selling (bootleg?) art prints of it online. I immediately spent (way too much) for a copy and had it framed. It hangs in my hallway between our hall closet and the guest bathroom:

Now that I stand back and look at all these albums, I’m kinda proud of how weird and disconnected they all are. There were a few other records that got significant airplay during the 2020 portion of the pandemic, but the above five are the ones that hit a critical mass of replays. Hopefully, I’ll never have to put together a list of pandemic albums again. That said, I am grateful for the time I got to spend with this music. There is no doubt in my mind that the latest Strokes record and the Khruangbin release would not have resonated with me as much as they did had I not been forced to cocoon myself in them for months.