I’m not sure when First Aid Kit became the Official Tribute Band at the Polar Music Prize awards ceremony but these two performances from 2012 and 2015 are all-timers for me. I was reminded of the second one by a YouTube recommendation last week and I had to watch both in their entirety.

Having done a more thorough review of albums and songs I liked in 2020, here’s some other stuff I enjoyed during our first lockdown year. It was a very heavy-media year, since we didn’t really… go anywhere, starting in March. The furthest from home I’ve been since the beginning of March 2020 is a lawyer’s office about 20 miles away, where I signed some paperwork in a parking lot. So let’s get to it!

Here’s a list of some albums I really got into in 2020! There’s no ranking here, these are sorted by artist name. If you didn’t see my favorite songs list, it’s available here.

Here’s a list (in no particular order) of ~50 songs I really liked in 2020! You can also find the playlist on Apple Music if you search for my profile and check out my shared playlists. Enjoy!

I’ve never been quite so enamored with a game as I am with A Dance of Fire and Ice, an indie rhythm game that just released a remastered PC edition on Steam. It visualizes music in a really simple and interesting way that I don’t think I’ve ever seen rhythm games explore before– and I’ve played a lot of them!– but finds ways to make interesting rhythms challenging but immediately obvious in a way that I haven’t felt about the genre since the Ouendan series on the Nintendo DS.

I don’t know what else I have to say about it right now, but if you’re at all into rhythm games, you really need to watch the trailer: