You're listening to sound opinions. I'm Greg Kot, he's Jim Deeregatus, and this is one of our favorite shows that we wait all year to do.

Yes. We're making this list, checking it twice, and we have a mid-year list, and now we have the real thing.

This is the year-end list of our favorite records.

First, let's talk about the year in music.

Between the COVID-19 pandemic, police violence, the uprising against racial

injustice, the election, and more, the year has been chaotic for everyone and

painful for quite a few people. But one thing that has helped us through all of this is music.

Absolutely, Greg.

You know, I just always go back at the very start

of this dam pandemic, the opera singer on the balcony in Italy, right?

Music brings people together.

And what struck me about our list this year

is the diversity of genres,

but the similarity of messages even when in some cases

these records were recorded before the current mess of 2020.

Anger and sadness toward injustice, the potential for change and hope and even joy for the future.

Let's get into the list. You were going to get to go first. We are starting more or less midway through with your number six record of the year.

That's right, Jim. Number six on my list. An artist by the name of Bartise Strange. I talked about him a few weeks ago as a buried treasure and he's very much

unburied in my house because I'm listening to this record consistently. I'll say

you know when I make my list and I know this is probably true of you as well, as I recall,

we're not talking about necessarily the records that everybody embraced during the course of

the year.

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