There is no single list of the best synthwave albums of 2020, but there is a fact about the year nobody argues with: the Frekvenci archive lists 2,597 releases dated 2020, more than any other year on file and 14% up on 2019. Below are ten 2020 albums we picked as places to start, then the numbers behind the peak.
Ten albums to try first
Picked to cover the year's labels and tags, one record each, with the sound described only as far as the tags allow. They are doors in, not a ranking.
- An LP on FiXT Neon, the year's third busiest label, tagged synthwave.
- L’Avenue · 2020 · Retrowave Touch Records · LPA synthwave-tagged LP on Retrowave Touch Records.
- Andy Andi Han · 2020 · Retrowave Touch Records · LPA game soundtrack by a name new to the archive.
- California World · 2020 · business casual · EPA future funk EP on business casual.
- ll nøthing ll · 2020 · Wave Racers Collective · LPA vaporwave LP on Wave Racers Collective.
For a longer list across years, see The best synthwave albums, and what the lists agree on.
The peak, and who made it
Vaporwave (1,007) and synthwave (963) were close, with vaporwave ahead by 44. The label count hit 675, also the highest so far, from 1,678 artists, 904 of them new to the archive. 546 releases are self-released, a small rise on 529 in 2019.
SHOW THE NUMBERS
| Year | Releases |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 318 |
| 2015 | 441 |
| 2016 | 639 |
| 2017 | 819 |
| 2018 | 895 |
| 2019 | 842 |
| 2020 | 963 |
| 2021 | 763 |
| 2022 | 581 |
| 2023 | 472 |
| 2024 | 419 |
| 2025 | 267 |
The biggest change is the format. Singles reached 655, up 30% from 505, next to 1,173 LPs and 494 EPs. Whether that reflects people working from home, streaming, or who got added to the databases, the data cannot say. The other families: popwave 275, darksynth 243 and dreamwave 108. The darksynth count is its highest yet and includes the older darkwave tag; read it with the What is darksynth? The heavy, horror-lit side of synthwave open.
The single tags: synthwave 894 (the highest for that tag so far), vaporwave 463, future funk 221, darkwave 218, synth-pop 180, chillwave 80, slushwave 58 and barber beats 57.
Who led, and a smaller giant
DMT Tapes FL released 97 records, down again from 196 in 2018 and 126 in 2019, so the total rose while the biggest label shrank. It put out about 4% of the year, where in 2018 it put out 8%. NewRetroWave is second with 33 and FiXT Neon third with 30, so two of the larger synthwave labels lead the synthwave side of the table. First Class Collective follows with 24, global pattern with 23, Vaporwave Tapes Brasil with 22, Bayview Financial Trading Group with 20 and Seikomart with 19. See the FiXT Neon: label profile and where to start and NewRetroWave: label profile and where to start profiles.
The most prolific artist is 超高 Titan from the United States with 34 releases (29 of them self-released), then "$lick King" (26), Makeup and Vanity Set (24) and a Russian act known by the block symbol ▥ (16). The Norwegian Espen Kraft has 15, David Stockdale 14, and Essenger, Project Lazarus and DARK DESIRE 11 each. Among first-listed names is Andy Andi Han, whose Sense is the soundtrack to a game titled A Cyberpunk Ghost Story.
Brazil, Mexico and Russia
Country is known for 61% of the year. The United States has 621 releases, the United Kingdom 142, France 104, Russia 86 and Germany 74. Brazil (44) and Mexico (37) are both in the top ten, and Vaporwave Tapes Brasil is among the year's busiest labels. The archive's Russian artists went from 64 releases in 2019 to 86 in 2020.
Three events in the news
"Blinding Lights", The Weeknd's single, first came out in November 2019 and reached No. 1 on the US Hot 100 dated 4 April 2020. As of the chart dated 13 March 2021 it was the first song to spend a full year, 52 weeks, in the top ten.[1] Commentators call it synthwave-influenced pop. It is not a synthwave record, and nothing in our data lets us trace listeners from it to the scene. How synthwave went mainstream: Drive, Stranger Things and Blinding Lights, against the release numbers handles that question.
In June, Metal Hammer's Dom Lawson published a list of ten essential synthwave albums that opens with the film score for Drive (2011), Perturbator's Terror 404 (2012) and Kavinsky's OutRun (2013).[2] In November, Bandcamp Daily ran a guide to sovietwave, a nostalgia style from the early 2010s that its writer treats as more a mood than a fixed style.[3] The Russian count above is a country count, not a sovietwave count, so take it as context only; the What is sovietwave? Space-age nostalgia from the former USSR goes deeper.
Questions people ask
Is 2020 really the biggest year for synthwave releases?
In the Frekvenci archive, yes: it has the most listed releases of any year, with 2,597. A year in our data is the release date on file, which can be a reissue date, and databases keep filling in older years, so the ranking can shift.
Is "Blinding Lights" a synthwave song?
Most writers call it a pop single influenced by synthwave. Charts and genre tags measure different things, which is why it does not appear in the numbers above.
Why did singles jump in 2020?
The archive shows that they did (505 to 655) but not why. Possible reasons include how artists released music that year and how the databases were filled; we cannot separate those.
Sources
- The Weeknd's Blinding Lights sets US Top 10 chart record · Official Charts Company, 9 Mar 2021
- 10 essential Synthwave albums · Dom Lawson, Louder, 8 Jun 2020
- A Guide to Sovietwave · Bandcamp Daily, 16 Nov 2020