{"id":15578,"date":"2020-12-08T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/?p=15578"},"modified":"2026-01-12T15:35:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T21:35:46","slug":"staff-picks-chriss-great-2020-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/2020\/12\/08\/staff-picks-chriss-great-2020-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks — Chris’s Five Great 2020 Songs That You May Not Have Heard Yet, and Three of Them Even Have Actual Videos, Too"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During the month of December, Loyola Libraries staff make lists and check them twice. What are these lists about? Anything! You can look at past years\u2019 lists here<\/a> and stay tuned for more lists all month long! <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initial disclosure: this brief year-end list is slightly misleading. I mostly listen to heavy metal and metal-adjacent bands\/music, and for reasons that most of you would appreciate, I went just a touch lighter on metal here. All of the songs are \u201cheavy\u201d in their own way, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loviatar \u2013 \u201cSilica\u201d<\/strong> (Listen<\/a>) <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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METAL. *throws horns* Erm, sorry. So Loviatar plays doom metal (think Black Sabbath as one of many historical antecedents), but they borrow from other metal- and rock-related subgenres–even mid-90s heavy\/alternative rock. It\u2019s heavy and sorrowful music, but with a lot of gorgeous, occasionally stunning guitar leads and soaring vocals. Lightless<\/em> contains no bad songs, but \u201cSilica\u201d is the best of the bunch, and besides, the video is all about moody emoting in a desolate Canadian wilderness. Count me in!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hum \u2013 \u201cStep into You\u201d (Listen<\/a>)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Speaking of mid-90s heavy\/alternative rock, Hum pulled a wonderful surprise in June by dropping Inlet<\/em> on virtually no notice. It\u2019s their first album in over twenty years, and if you\u2019re, um, of a certain age (read: near or over 40), there\u2019s a small chance that \u201cStars<\/a>\u201d broke your teenage brain like it did mine back in 1995. \u201cStep into You\u201d\u2014with its chunky, groovy, outrageously addictive riff\u2014was the song I played on Spotify most this year. We really needed musical feel-good stories in 2020, and this was one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cavern \u2013 \u201cRed Moon\u201d (Listen<\/a>) <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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The genre labels for Cavern\u2019s new kinda-EP\/kinda-album on their Bandcamp page<\/a> include \u201cpost-metal,\u201d \u201cpost-rock,\u201d \u201cprogressive rock,\u201d and \u201crock.\u201d Sure, all of the above. Maybe \u201cmath rock,\u201d too. What you get as a result are songs crammed full of winding and hooky melodies, complex but driving rhythms, and superb vocals (thanks to new member Rose Heaton). \u201cRiver\u201d is my favorite song on Powdere<\/em>d, but \u201cRed Moon\u201d, which technically came out as a single last year, is the song that has a standard rockin\u2019-out-in-a-garage video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staring Problem \u2013 \u201cEclipse\u201d (Listen<\/a>) <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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If there was such a thing as a secret, dank post-punk\nlaboratory, and if I was the mad scientist of said lab, then Staring Problem\u2019s\ntitle track \u201cEclipse\u201d would be my perfect creation. Slightly icy, haunting\nvocals? Check. Abrasive guitar that borrows inspiration from both early-era The\nCure and Joy Division? Check. An elastic, instant stuck-in-head bass line that nearly\npredominates everything else? Check. There are other post-punk albums<\/em>\nfrom the last year or two I like better \u2014as you read this, I\u2019m drawing hearts\naround a paper printout of the cover art for The Gate<\/em><\/a>\u2014but\n\u201cEclipse\u201d is probably my favorite recent post-punk song<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emma Ruth Rundle \u2013 \u201cStaying Power\u201d (Listen<\/a>) <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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While Emma Ruth Rundle often receives comparisons to other \u201cmetal-friendly\u201d female singer-songwriters (see here<\/a> for one example), the truth is that no one\u2019s quite like her. After 2018\u2019s powerhouse On Dark Horses<\/em><\/a>, this year saw her co-create a searing album with Thou<\/a>. Then there\u2019s \u201cStaying Power,\u201d which apparently was a Horses<\/em> b-side but only came out in July. Not to pick an argument with one of my favorite musicians, but its absorbing dynamics means it should have originally been on the album, and you should listen to why that is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chris Martin is the Head of Access Services at Cudahy Library. These are not all of his cats. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the month of December, Loyola Libraries staff make lists and check them twice. What are these lists about? Anything! You can look at past years\u2019 lists here and stay tuned for more lists all month long! Initial disclosure: this brief year-end list is slightly misleading. I mostly listen to heavy metal and metal-adjacent bands\/music, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":349,"featured_media":15547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[1,5016],"tags":[261,5019],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/349"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15578"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15620,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15578\/revisions\/15620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/noteworthy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}