Best of 2020 Powered By Rock Awards - The Nominees

Here at Powered By Rock, we wanted to look back on the crazy year that was 2020 and honor the best of the best when it comes to rock artists, albums and songs.

We wanted to give a LOT of attention to 2020 due to the fact that almost none of these bands were able to tour or do a proper presser or tour to promote any of their albums. 

The best part is that even though it FELT like nothing really came out in 2020, there were actually a TON of good to great albums from some very good bands.

We are only going to do a handful of categories as we are not a massive media company like Rolling Stone or MTV, but we wanted to make sure to hit some of the main categories that we could easily distinguish from this past year.

So, without further ado, here are the categories and nominees we are honoring:

Album of the Year:

• Sad Happy - Circa Waves
• The New Abnormal - The Strokes
• Angel Miners & the Lightning Riders - AWOLNATION
• Always Tomorrow - Best Coast
• Q36 - The Rentals
• Silver Linings - Less Than Jake
• Devastator - Phantom Planet
• Songs for the General Public - The Lemon Twigs
• Brain Candy - Hockey Dad

Song of the Year:

• "Eternal Summer" - The Strokes
• "I'm a Wreck" - AWOLNATION
• "Who's Gonna Stop Me (feat. 'Weird Al' Yankovic)" - Portugal. The Man
• "Everything Has Changed" - Best Coast
• "Sad Happy" - Circa Waves
• "Bad Decisions" - The Strokes
• "Pedestal" - Phantogram

Breakthrough Artist of the Year:

• Best Coast
• The Lemon Twigs
• Ocean Alley
• Circa Waves

Comeback of the Year

• Less Than Jake
• The Strokes
• The Rentals
• Bush
• Goldfinger
• Neon Trees

Best New Artist

• Sports Team
• Beabadoobee
• Hayley Williams
• Bartees Strange

If you have any choice words for us about these selections, please email them to "WeAreNotTheGrammys@poweredbyrock.com." 

Stay tuned for the winners being announced. More details to come soon.