Top 20 Albums of 2019

According to albumoftheyear.org catalogue, there were over 17.000 EPs and LPs released last year. Out of these, I’ve listened to a laughably small sample size of 300 records. And I’m pretty sure this is the highest number I’ll ever get to for any single year - it was way, way, way too many albums. I managed a good pace until around June, monitoring new releases and checking them out as they came, but then I kinda burned out and wanted to spend more of my listening time on favorites and exploring various artists and genres, and before I noticed it was December and I was binging entries from end-of-year lists to catch up on the last 6 months (as well as stuff that flew under my radar before). And for a long time it seemed like for every album I’d file away, I’d discover two new ones I was interested in.

Spring 2020 anime impressions

As a fair-weather seasonal anime viewer who usually only checks out a few entries here and there, I was suprised to see just how many interesting offerings this Spring had for me. And even after my most anticipated series such as Oregairu or Digimon Adventure: started getting indefinitely delayed thanks to our friend COVID-19, there were still shows abound for me to pick and choose from. I’ve dropped quite a few of them very early, and I still ended with 10 offerings that are way above average of what I’m used to in at least some aspect. I won’t write about the ones I dropped because I don’t think there’s any point in me talking down something that others might be enjoying - instead I want to focus on spreading the good word about just how many joyful shows this crunched industry was able to entertain me with. And to pique your interest a tiny bit, I’m gonna order them ascendingly in just how much I like them, meaning that my top recommendation is awaiting you at the end. And now let’s start with…