Starting in the aughts and continuing into the 2010s, Canada was known for its indie rock boom. Now, as we arrive at the halfway point of the 2020s, the crest of that wave has passed — which isn't to say that the country's music is in a lull. Far from it: our country's musical output is kaleidoscopic, its many scenes and sounds giving rise to underground eclectics and mainstream pop megastars.
In the first five years of the 2020s, we've needed this music more than ever. Amidst financial strains, social divisions and, of course, a global pandemic, music has felt particularly urgent so far this decade, providing voice to and escape from this turbulent era.
As the first half of the 2020s comes to a close and we enter the final five years of the decade, we're celebrating the 20 Canadians albums that have defined the tumultuous and undeniably memorable 2020s so far.
20. The Weeknd
Dawn FM
(Republic Records)
After conquering the world as one of modern music's most popular artists, Abel Tesfaye turns his attention to dominating purgatory on his fifth album, Dawn FM. The Scarborough native has come a long way since anonymously releasing mixtapes in the 416, including headlining Coachella (twice) and the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Dawn FM, produced by hit-maker Max Martin and avant-garde electronic artist Oneohtrix Point Never, punches through the ceiling that 2020's After Hours had previously set. Synthpop singles "Take My Breath," "Sacrifice" and "Less Than Zero" sparkle under the Weeknd's singular touch and enshrine his position as a visionary of 2020s pop music. The light at the end of the tunnel shines bright, and its source is the Weeknd.
Dylan Barnabe
19. Ducks Ltd.
Harm's Way
(Royal Mountain Records)
Throughout the first half of the 2020s, Toronto duo Ducks Ltd. have released two albums and an EP — and they've yet to release a song that isn't a perfect encapsulation of their throwback jangle pop style. With a sound that's referential but not retro, Harm's Way barrels through its streamlined nine-song tracklist like a train full of gasoline, hooks piling on top of hooks, witty yet poignant lyrics racing past and barely giving listeners a moment to catch a breath. Whether wistfully reliving the memories of "Deleted Scenes" or charging forward with a giddy head rush while "On Our Way to the Rave," Ducks Ltd. elevate their scrappy tunes with stately splendour.
Alex Hudson
18. Feist
Multitudes
(Polydor Records)
In the early depths of the pandemic, Feist, too, was thinking about how to return to the stage. While other innovations took the form of livestream shows and curbside concerts, one of this country's finest songwriters decided to reimagine the relationship between audience and performer in this moment newly loaded with a special kind of nervous, sweat-soaked reverence. Multitudes was born for — and born of, and reborn in — this shape-shifting experiment, which incorporated a multimedia experience into intimate in-the-round performances. Not merely an album, then, Multitudes is a recalibration: "I live up to what I sing to," Feist envisions on "The Redwing," imagining who's listening, making it real.
Megan LaPierre
17. Yoo Doo Right
A Murmur, Boundless to the East
(Mothland)
Montreal trio Yoo Doo Right took a major step forward with their sophomore LP by using sound and volume not strictly as effects but as feelings. Drawing from their city's lineage of great post-rock acts, the band has carved a truly distinctive sound, one that evokes at times CAN's krautrock vamps (the hypnotic "SMB") or the furious minimalism of Swans (epic closer "Feet Together, Face Up, on the Front Lawn"). Produced by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, A Murmur, Boundless to the East is a brilliant study on the power of dynamics, allowing the occasional vocals of Justin Cober to be most impactful, as the band keeps writing its own story of majesty and loudness.
Bruno Coulombe
16. CFCF
memoryland
(BGM Solutions)
memoryland occupies an interesting place in a 2020s roundup. An adroit exploration of turn-of-the-century Y2K sensibilities, its explicit focus on the sounds of an era two decades before its release doesn't make it an aesthetic touchstone of the early 2020s in the traditional sense. Then again, perhaps this retrospective mode is in itself a formal aspect of our current cultural moment. However you approach it, memoryland is a veritable trove of drum 'n' bass, rave and buzzing alt-rock, all wrapped in dream-like, bit-crushed production that feels like a free-floating tour of the early internet. A future LimeWire-core classic.
Luke Pearson
15. Lido Pimienta
Miss Colombia
(ANTI-)
How do you follow up something as artistically exploratory as 2016's La Papessa? By rejecting the idea of "topping" oneself in order to stay relevant. Released just a few months into the new decade, the Colombian-Canadian musician's third LP is a visionary exploration of sound, culture and experience — territory few songwriters have visited so effectively. Over the course of 44 minutes, cascading melodies soar above Prince Nifty's rich electronic soundscapes, reaching sonic heights reserved for only the most forward-looking listeners. Who Lido Pimienta is and where she comes from is both essential and irrelevant to the transcendence of Miss Colombia. Her identity informs the album's brilliance without limiting its artistry.
Daniel Sylvester
14. Zoon
Bekka Ma'iingan
(Paper Bag Records)
Sonic chameleon Daniel Monkman excavated every ethereal, dream-induced musical tone of experimental rock on their most monumental work, Bekka Ma'iingan. With seemingly no consideration for the form or structure of traditional "rock," the Anishinaabe artist's pioneering moccasin-gaze floods Bekka Ma'iingan with uniquely tuned guitar chords, rhythmic Indigenous drumming, lush classical strings and ear-shattering distortion. Bekka Ma'iingan is the confluence of everything that made up Daniel Monkman in 2023. It's a record where the most profound emotions — honesty, family, love and identity — are felt in the most abstract and indefinite corners.
Myles Tiessen
13. U.S. Girls
Heavy Light
(4AD)
Heavy Light bursts open with "4 American Dollars," a disco track that strikes like "Dancing Queen" but tucks lyrics about wealth inequality into its jaunty grooves. While keeping an eye towards Remy's staunch political views, Heavy Light replaces her penchant for character studies with a commitment to self-excavation. The result is a record with its soul on the surface, cleared of any noise or effects that would shroud her robust and expressive vocals. She wrestles with her shadows ("Iou") and confronts strange Freudian urges ("Woodstock '99"), but also repeatedly decentres herself to underscore the album as a collective endeavour; choirs often take the reins and interludes are filled with people's responses to searingly personal questions, layering individual confessions on top of each other until they merge into patchworks of common experience.
Noah Ciubotaru
12. DEBBY FRIDAY
GOOD LUCK
(Arts & Crafts)
Reared in raves and versed in philosophy, DEBBY FRIDAY has crafted a debut full-length fit for both jamming out to heart-racing tracks dripping with sexuality and taking intellectual deep-dives into Jungian theory. Revelling in lashing industrial techno, electroclash, and futuristic, dubbed-out blues and R&B, GOOD LUCK is forward-thinking and reverent of the past. The album flickers and flares with harsh, demanding criticism and encouraging compassion directed at FRIDAY's unmoored younger self, but every insecurity she lays bare is a seed from which to grow and flourish. GOOD LUCK proves that one can show vulnerability and still flex steely cool.
Leslie Ken Chu
11. Bibi Club
Feu de garde
(Secret City)
Though it's only been in orbit for six months, there's a feeling on Feu de garde that you've heard it before. Its melodic, chorus-filled riffs intertwine with rounds of vocal layers, as its ice is thawed by Bibi Club's unwavering chemistry. Feu de garde is looking out your kitchen window while waiting for the kettle; an impromptu visit from friends. It's a testament to pop rock's evolution — sleek in composure, but raw in spirit. It's only fitting that it sits at the front line of Quebec's revitalized indie explosion.
Sydney Brasil
10. The Sadies
Colder Streams
(Dine Alone Records)
Anyone who has seen or spent time with the Sadies and their timeless music has had an eerie sensation that this rock 'n' roll band is otherworldly. Colder Streams already possessed an inherent mysticism before bandleader Dallas Good died suddenly, ahead of his finished masterpiece reaching the Sadies' loyal audience. Searching, philosophical, charged-up folk rock and country songs about mortality and temporality are dotted throughout their catalogue, but this record inarguably finds the band at its zenith, and, given their knack for perfect timing, the Sadies rose to the occasion exactly when the universe beckoned them to.
Vish Khanna
9. Ghostkeeper
Multidimensional Culture
(Victory Pool Records)
Calgary-based art rockers Ghostkeeper elevated their collaborative magic to whole different level on their fifth album. The continuing chemistry between titular visionary Shane Ghostkeeper and his wife, singer/percussionist/designer Sarah Houle, blossomed on tape, while the sonic textures crafted with bandmates Ryan Bourne and Eric Hamelin, alongside additional strings and guitar from Jay Crocker and Jesse Zubot, subconsciously wove Cree pow wow, Metis fiddle music and freak folk into an adventurous indie pop dream. It sounds like a weird, fun little alt-country indie-psych record somewhere between creepy lounge and Link Wray's swamp-rock shack recordings from the early '70s, yet the poetry and self-reflection in their boldly honest songwriting reflects the wisdom of Indigenous spirituality and connection to their ancestors, capturing the desire to escape from the toxic colonialist populism of a pandemic-era world, while coming to terms with truth and reconciliation.
Alan Ranta
8. Caribou
Honey
(Merge Records)
After defining 2010s indie electronic music with Our Love, Dan Snaith returned to kick off 2020 with Suddenly, tapping into his mellower tendencies for an anticipatory balm that tumultuous year would go on to require. He's flipped the vibe in 2024 with Honey, a gushing fire hydrant to Suddenly's calm pool, the album overflowing with club bangers — featuring chopped-up hooks, hip-hop influences and a dizzying array of arpeggiated (sometimes-proggy) synths — that further refine Snaith's combined output as both Caribou and Daphni without falsely trying to reinvent either. Snaith altered his own vocals using AI, which is neither a case for nor against the use of AI in music; rather, Snaith simply uses it as a tool through which to filer his own human creativity. It's a future classic — the dance floor absolutely yearns.
Allie Gregory
7. Mustafa
When Smoke Rises
(Regent Park Songs)
Mustafa's debut proved that, behind all the cosigns and collaborators, the strength of his musicianship is the real thing. When Smoke Rises was named to honour his friend Smoke Dawg, a fellow Halal Gang member who was murdered in 2018. The album delicately explores the impacts of street violence, as well as the violence of dispossession and gentrification that threaten his Regent Park community in equal measure. At the same time, Mustafa smartly avoids expectations by wrapping his melodies into a folk music structure while using hip-hop touchstones like samples and voicemail interludes.
Nicholas Sokic
6. Cadence Weapon
Parallel World
(MNRK Records)
Parallel World isn't only essential thanks to Cadence Weapon's thorough takedowns of racially profiling facial recognition on "On Me," Toronto gentrification on "Skyline," and tech-induced isolation on "Connect." Inspired by fellow Polaris Music Prize winner Backxwash — an abrasively chilling guest here on "Ghost" — the Edmonton MC also pushes himself and his medium forward by screaming cathartically. Cadence wisely platforms up-and-comers like Jacques Green and Korea Town Acid, who are talented enough producers to give Parallel World fittingly gritty-digital production, making it sound as dystopian as Cadence's timelier-than-ever lyrics.
Kyle Mullin
5. The Weather Station
Ignorance
(Next Door Records)
When Tamara Lindeman decided to bring in a full band to support the central message of Ignorance — a setup that included everything from drums and guitars to string arrangements, woodwinds and Wurlitzers — she must have been very aware of the power to come. The robust sound helped her deliver her most potent work to date, a searing manifesto on climate change and environmental loss that also serves as an exercise in juxtapositions, an album simultaneously grand and intimate, towering and minuscule, quiet and infinite. She sings of sunsets and love, of confusion and birds, of trees, parking lots, compassion, pain and wonder, asking, hoping, pleading that we stop being cynical and bring in some joy, some hope, some knowledge. Three years later, she's still as right as ever.
Marko Djurdjić
4. Tomb Mold
The Enduring Spirit
(20 Buck Spin)
Tomb Mold were already stamped as luminaries of the new wave of old school death metal before The Enduring Spirit arrived, but the group's fourth album proves that after, four years between full-lengths, their power and ambition hasn't waned in the least. It's as if the Torontonians traded their early prolificacy for even greater precision, pushing the limits of their respective playing and leaning further into their progressive tendencies to stunning results. The Enduring Spirit is an immense achievement by one of the style's most beloved bands; imposing in its brutality, mesmeric in the crystalline beauty it leaves in its wake.
Calum Slingerland
3. Backxwash
God Has Nothing to Do with This Leave Him Out of It
(Independent)
Backxwash's sophomore release God Has Nothing to Do with This Leave Him Out of It introduced many to a new wave of what heavy music can sound like and created uncharted avenues for sonic exploration. An album that tackles themes of queerness, faith and forgiveness over a backdrop metal-influenced beats creates one of the most cathartic releases in recent memory. The album is so punishingly aggressive that it would make a five-piece sludge metal band seem sonically weak in comparison.
God Has Nothing to Do with This also provides plenty of catchy and hook-driven moments throughout, as songs like "Spells" and "Redemption" are iconic compositions in Backxwash's catalogue. This album introduced Backxwash to a much larger audience and serves as an excellent launching point for where heavy music is heading in the 2020s.
Mark Tremblay
2. Cindy Lee
Diamond Jubilee
(Realistik Studios)
The passage of time just about guarantees that music listeners will overlook the ways in which certain sounds can awaken our collective spirit. However misguided the discourse around the supposed "death of rock" has been, it is not a trivial point that guitar-based music faces an uphill battle the older it gets. Familiarity breeds contempt, and it takes a lot to make the instrument feel utterly uncanny these days. Enter the spectral Diamond Jubilee, an iridescent beam of '60s-inspired balladry that's dazzling in its melodic hooks and disorienting in its ramshackle production.
Upon the record's arrival, much fanfare was made about some of its extra-musical qualities. Its rogue release — the album is available only via a GeoCities site or YouTube video — redrew the contours of the DIY ethos. The glitzed-up wardrobe of Patrick Flegel's Cindy Lee drag alter-ego had people ruminating on the relationship between person and performer.
Those elements are undoubtedly integral to the impact of Diamond Jubilee. Even more impactful is how Cindy Lee plumbed the heart and, in the process, reminded us that music is timeless.
Tom Piekarski
1. Alvvays
Blue Rev
(Celsius Girls)
There's a split second at the beginning of "Pharmacist," just as Molly Rankin's dreamy voice makes it through the first syllable of the word "pharmacy," but before Alec O'Hanley's wavy, distorted guitars kick in. That gap, the juxtaposition between those two sounds, that's the distance between what many Alvvays fans expected from the band's third album and what they got.
There are no gimmicks, no metanarrative, no lore; just a hooky indie rock record with great songs about love and heartbreak that disproves the idea that, in the 2020s, such things are an anachronism. You can define success in a lot of different ways, but being the best version of yourself seems like the ultimate interpretation. On Blue Rev, Alvvays went from being a very good band to a truly great one.
Ian Gormely