Albums from Canada’s The Weeknd, Grimes, Jessie Reyez and Caribou have made the Billboard list of "The 50 Best Albums of 2020."
The Weeknd’s After Hours, released in March, ranked No. 3 and was praised as “spellbinding.” Heran Mamo opined: “Sonically, After Hours hits the sweet spot between the soul-corroding decadence of his Trilogy mixtapes, the melancholic, garbled melodies of My Dear Melancholy and the futuristic frenetic pop rhythms of Starboy, projecting a gleefully basking The Weeknd directly into the bright luminescence of international superstardom.”
Miss Anthropocene, the February release from B.C. native Grimes, placed 21st on the list of the year’s best albums.
The debut album from Toronto’s Jessie Reyez, Before Love Came to Kill Us, earned the No. 28 spot. Gail Mitchell loved “the album’s raw-yet-relatable discourse on romantic relationships” and opined that Reyez “deftly shifts from soft to sultry to seething.”
The other homegrown album on the Billboard list is February’s Suddenly from Caribou, which earned No. 40.
“Although the Canadian producer certainly didn't intend Suddenly to reflect the collective mood of 2020, this occasionally joyous, largely low-key and often melancholic collection of tracks hit differently this year anyways,” wrote Katie Bain.
All four albums were on Billboard's June list of the "50 Best Albums of 2020 (So Far)," which also had releases from Justin Bieber, Drake and Andy Shauf.