While it feels like seven years have passed since New Year’s Day 2020, we’re actually only halfway through the year somehow. As the world around us feels like it has never been more chaotic, we’ve been lucky enough to have been blessed with some great music to help all of us get through the days. We’ve had incredible and epic albums from artists like Spanish Love Songs, Phoebe Bridgers, Hayley Williams and Jeff Rosenstock. Their music has got me through many days in quarantine and they’ve filled me with hope instead of feeling down about what’s going on outside. 

Hopefully the second half of the year is filled with the albums that have been pushed back or have yet to have announced release dates (Looking at you, A Day To Remember, Foo Fighters and Weezer). Even if they aren’t, the first half of the year has given us all plenty of fuel to power through the next five months. 

I mean, where do I even start with this year? I don’t. I don’t! I simply refuse. We’re all painfully aware of what kind of year this has been. Let’s just go ahead and skip the context that would typically be required for me to say something like, oh I dunno, thank fucking God-or-whoever for music this year. Seriously. In any year, this would have been an absolutely bananas six months of new tunes, but this year it has been especially appreciated. Whether it’s a newcomer or a triumphant return, defining solo career or dream collaboration — it’s 2020 and musicians are really out here Shooting. Their. Shots. So what have I been listening to and loving the most? I assume you clicked this to find out, so I’ll cut the impromptu ramble (but thanks for hanging in there). Here are my top 30 albums of the year so far.