25. Christine and the Queens — People, I’ve been sad
Christine and the Queens’ ‘People, I’ve been sad’–the opening track of the EP La vita nuova — could not have been released at a more appropriate time than it was, as its lyrics put into words emotions experienced by many, across the world, during the pandemic that characterized 2020. Stunning in its sincerity and simplicity, the song begins with Chris bluntly explaining that, no, things haven’t been okay. There is no stability to be found here, in Chris or the listener, and each staccato word and beat bites at the listener, emphasizing the harsh, simple loneliness and sadness that the song attempts to explain. Then, in French, Chris paints a picture of a less than idyllic childhood and pain that made her numb, then strong. And so, where does the listener meet Chris — during their numbness, or on the road to finding strength?
‘People, I’ve been sad’ is characterized by synths and sparseness, by soaring vocals over musical backdrops that shift into focus suddenly. The backing instrumentals and the vocals weave together seamlessly to paint a picture of loneliness and of hope, of grief and of resilience, and it is no surprise that this song resonated with so many during 2020, as it featured on many year-end best-of lists. While the synths of 2020 often took us to the blinding, euphoric highs of the late 20th century, ‘People, I’ve been sad’ flawlessly combines the sounds of that era with the ennui often explored in songs today, and therefore perfectly encapsulates the sound and feel of 2020. — holsomeness
24. Perfume Genius — On The Floor
‘On The Floor’, the second single off of the stunning Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, was released in the middle of March 2020. It builds on the strength of his increasingly avant-pop back catalogue, as well as his formative collaboration with Kate Wallich — The Sun Still Burns Here — which found him dancing live to original songs like ‘Eye In The Wall’ and ‘Pop Song’.
In an interview with The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino, he said “It was dance that blew up this separation between my work and the world, between my work and other people…I started thinking in terms of stories, of physical settings, of real people, not just of ideas.” That couldn’t be more evident in a song like ‘On The Floor’, which situates us in a pit of bodies on a dancefloor, drenched in sweat and, sorry, respiratory droplets. The track bounces through passages of whirring synths and strutting, shimmering guitars as the listener, locked in a manic internal monologue, is beckoned to pursue an ecstatic freedom and connection that can only be accessed by the body. I would explore this relationship in some crowded bar 14 days from now, I told myself, as I gripped the steering wheel of my rental car and watched the smog-drenched, slowly disappearing Manhattan skyline bob in and out of the back windshield. — Dylan Bedsaul
23. Harry Styles — Adore You
‘Adore You’ is just the kind of hit we needed in 2020. The rest of the charts seemed so depressing, if not downright patronizing (yes of course we’re “in the mood”, have you looked outside lately?!). In an era of pop music where striving for greater authenticity has often left songs feeling rather pessimistic, a warm, lush sounding song about simple attraction is a much-needed breath of fresh air.
Nothing too outside-the-box is really going on in ‘Adore You’. It’s a four-chord song with a straightforward vocal melody and an easy enough subject matter. And while Harry Styles’ first album was mostly songs of that same nature, there was something about ‘Adore You’ that marked a blossoming for Harry, the beginning of a new era.
For one thing, it just SOUNDS pink. Maybe I’m the only weirdo out here who associates songs with certain colors, but ‘Adore You’ is definitively a pink-sounding song in a year where pop music was distinctly lacking in color. 2020 was the grayest of years, and ‘Adore You’ was a burst of living color. The production is sleek, Styles’ vocals are given a gorgeous layering effect in the mix, and the melodies are both comforting and inventive at the same time.
There’s really not a lot we’ll want to remember from this year in music. Mediocre trap beats and bargain-bin TikTok anthems may well dominate the music landscape for the next few years, but as long as each year has something like ‘Adore You’, we’ll always have a soundtrack for the silver lining. — gamedemon24
22. Charli XCX — claws
My girlfriend and I moved in together one week before the pandemic lockdown began in my city. Seeing Charli’s goofy quarantine videos and hearing new songs from her weekly coming up to the release of her quarantine album how i’m feeling now injected a little fun into our boring, closed-in lives. However, I promptly forgot about how i’m feeling now after the teaser videos and fan edits stopped showing up on my Instagram feed.
After almost three months, our lockdown was lifted, and ‘claws’ finally made its way into my heart the best way a pop song can: through repeated listening at the gym. With assisted production from Dylan Brady of 100 Gecs, claws is chaotic, noisy, cling-clangy, and great for sprints. It’s also delightfully horny, with lyrics like ‘slip and slide off my thighs, juicy just like clementines’. As is usual when discussing Charli’s songs, critics referred to claws as ‘futuristic’ and ‘kitschy’. Futuristic and kitschy, however, can manifest in many ways. claws, along with the rest of ‘how i’m feeling now’ illustrates a shift in Charli’s sound from the cleaner palette of Charli, her 2019 release, toward a noisier, punkier sound, reminiscent of her earlier mixtapes but more relaxed. Charli has said she is ‘always forward, forward, forward’ — I can’t wait to see what’s next, whenever she’s ready. — starla_
21. Bree Runway — Damn Daniel (feat. Yung Baby Tate)
There are two story arcs in play that make ‘Damn Daniel’ such a special song. First is the arc described in the song itself: Bree and Tate are involved with the same guy and grow suspicious when he refuses to post about either of them on his social media, then compare notes and discover each other. This moment of realization is my favorite part of the song because it subverts song structure by putting a short bridge before the final chorus as well as subverting the conventions of a female collaboration like ‘The Boy Is Mine’ where the two women become rivals. The second arc is the metatextual mythos of poptimism surrounding the song: despite packing pretty much every trendy sound of the past few years into one song (80s synths, new jack swing, New Orleans bounce), it’s become much more of a critical cult classic than a commercial success. In a just world, teens everywhere would be throwing it back to “Say that shit better watch your back,” but I’m fine with it remaining an obscure gem that’s basically tailor-made for places like Popheads.— TragicKingdom1
20. Dua Lipa — Break My Heart
What makes Future Nostalgia so magnificent is that every song could be envisioned as a hit single. The songs bring cohesion to the album’s theme of modernized nostalgia, yet Dua manages to follow her biggest hit to date with another disco anthem that could certainly draw comparisons but ultimately succeeds in its own right. For such a groovy track, Dua is drowned in hesitance in the verses and is surprisingly demure in the chorus. The light, rather unenthusiastic delivery of the chorus is sprinkled with resentment as she thinks of the worst that could come out of falling in love. The disco production is just so slick that it’s difficult to connect with the message of potential heartbreak when your hips just instantly give in to that bass. — Brian
19. Phoebe Bridgers — Kyoto
The second single from Phoebe Bridgers’ critically acclaimed sophomore album Punisher is a relative departure from the rising queen of alternative’s typical sound. ‘Kyoto’ sees Bridgers in a rare uptempo mood, embracing indie rock stylings and effortlessly putting her own spin on her influences to create a soaring, rollicking diary of her constant “grass-is-always-greener” mentality and her struggles with impostor syndrome. The song itself feels light and airborne, qualities accentuated by the lyrics “Dreaming through Tokyo skies” and “Twenty-five felt like flying.” Phoebe’s soft, airy vocals swoop and glide over steady guitars and gleeful trumpets as she delivers the bluntly confessional, slightly comedic lyrics that have become her calling card. Perhaps most notable is the happily exasperated “I’m gonna kill you/If you don’t beat me to it,” a line somewhat reminiscent of 2017’s ‘Funeral’ (“We talk until we think we might just kill ourselves/But then we laugh until it disappears”).
Despite the song’s fairly joyous tone, the subject matter, like most of Phoebe’s material, is inherently dark. Touching on everything from her own mental health problems, her dislike of touring, and her complicated relationship with her father, ‘Kyoto’ is an amalgamation of the singer’s yearnings, fears, and perceived shortcomings, closing with the repetition of variations on the line “I’m a liar.” There is a sense of both sadness and smugness here, as Phoebe expresses her disappointment in herself and displays her strong sense of painful self-awareness. Any doubts about Bridgers’ skill or her place in the music industry are easily erased by her masterful juxtaposition of sad, wistful lyrics and the ebullient backing instrumental. While much of Phoebe Bridgers’ music dwells in the shadows, it is strikingly clear that her future as an artist is bright. — fallenriot
18. Taylor Swift — exile (feat. Bon Iver)
I won’t lie: Bon Iver’s deep, wavering voice being the first to enter what is likely the centerpiece of Taylor Swift’s career-reviving Folklore was… startling. But it puts you on the edge of your seat as you enter the world of a house shaken that is ‘Exile’. The masterful track (which Joe Allen, Taylor’s boyfriend, also cowrote) is of the decay of the most solid foundations, of rock turning to sand as you watch a home you know so well slide into the abyss. You can practically feel the whole world shake as the duo slides into the first rendition of the bridge. The two seem to attempt to outsing the other in a battle of who’s pain is worse and whose scars are deeper, as if it’s the only thing they have left. The song leaves nothing resolved, and thats where the brilliance lies. It lies in the middle of an unknown land with no inhabitants, wandering in exile for the vague outline of a home you once knew. It’s one of the most brilliant songs of this year, and one of the most brilliant Taylor has ever written. — Therokinrolla
17. Jessie Ware — Spotlight
Disco feels like such a natural fit for Jessie Ware. ‘Spotlight’ is a five-and-a-half-minute slow burn, Ware’s thesis statement to an album that exudes sensuality, seduction and nostalgia. As she sings “Cause a dream is just a dream and I don’t wanna sleep tonight”, orchestral strings give way to a pulsating synth beat that continues as the beating heart of the song. Ware’s vocals float effortlessly above the punchy production, smooth and ethereal throughout. In a year where being surrounded by others on the dance floor was off limits to most, this feels about as close as you can get to that same experience through a pair of headphones.
Spotlight delivers a throwback to the past that still feels timeless and fresh today. It feels theatrical and dramatic while always remaining classy, refined and sophisticated, every nuance carefully thought through and every layer to the production enhancing the experience. While it is always a bold choice kicking off an album with one of its longest tracks, ‘Spotlight’ feels right at home being front and centre. Jessie Ware has deservingly received a wealth of praise since the release of What’s Your Pleasure? last year, and what a way to kick off an album with one of the best opening tracks of the year. — theburningundead
16. Chloe x Halle — Do It
These monosyllabic rhyming words keep punching along with the sharp bass and percussion combination to deliver a bop that is both chill in delivery and ridiculously fun in execution. The verses are packed with comical lines, describing applying make-up as ‘beating [their] face’ and comparing a secure wig to the money in their safe. The fun also lies in the girls’ voices; as lulled as their tone is, it is also adorned with energy. Certainly “girls’ night out” anthems have been done time and time again, but this one keeps you riding that slippery synth and those gorgeous harmonies while trying to keep up with the nimble vocal delivery. And it’s the perfection introduction for many to the 5x Grammy-nominated sister duo’s refreshed sound. I personally can’t wait to finally party to this one when Chloe and Halle are already on their third album cycle. — Brian
15. Grimes — Delete Forever
A clean acoustic guitar riff accompanies clear vocals, Grimes’s voice shining through: “Lying so awake, things I can’t escape/Lately, I just turn ’em into demons”.
This is the first line of Grimes’s song ‘Delete Forever’, a single from her latest album Miss Anthropocene. Grimes has described the concept of the album as the anthropomorphization (wow, that’s a long word) of the ‘New Gods’ and societal ills of this world (for example, the song ‘We Appreciate Power’ = the Goddess of AI, the song ‘My Name is Dark’ = The Demon of Apathy). ‘Delete Forever’ earns the spot of Demon of Addiction.
Grimes explains that she finished the song the day that rapper Lil Peep died of an overdose at the age of 21. In the song she tackles her own personal experience with loss and the feelings that follow, having lost 6 of her friends to opiate related deaths. She sings: “Cannot comprehend, lost so many men/Lately, all their ghosts turn into reasons and excuses”.
The contrast of the upbeat banjo riff and the triumphant horns mixed in with this intense subject matter invokes a bittersweet effect. The acoustic guitar featured throughout the song (a rarity for Grimes) is raw like the emotions of the song itself, and her vocals are center focus, not cloaked in the usual reverb or drowned by otherworldly sounds. The lyrics are heart-wrenching.
The song also has a sense of alienation to it, with a music video to match. In the video, Grimes is seen singing alone on a broken throne — a nod to a scene from Katsuhiro Otomo’s movie Akira — with her head in her hands, as the world crumbles around her. — sandyfishnets
14. Chloe x Halle — Ungodly Hour
In the stunning sophomore album of RnB sister-duo Chloe x Halle, the girls find themselves thrust in the exciting freedom of young adulthood. As it turned out, the kids are more than just alright now, they are fucking game. They are two attractive young women ready to embrace the hedonism of adult romances and the fucking drama that it’s packaged with. In the album’s title track, Chloe x Halle employ the help of a fellow talented sibling-duo Disclosure, who are no stranger to mixing RnB with UK house and EDM. The brothers paired their signature drum kicks and nighttime synths perfectly with the sisters’ gorgeous harmonies and honest prose. In this track, the sisters explore the concept of the “ungodly hour,” a time where people do nasty deeds that will have nasty repercussions come daylight. Ungodly hour represents people with inhibitions, insecurities, and crushing loneliness trying to find comfort from each other’s presence. It’s during these times that Chloe and Halle lament the loss of the essence of love in modern times. Lately, relationships have been more of an ego boosts; a game of “what can I gain from the other.” The sisters beckon their lovers to cut all the bullshit and just fucking /love/, goddamnit, it’s shouldn’t be a complicated thing! But the simplest, purest love you can give to another person comes AFTER loving yourself first. And it’s not just tacit acceptance of your shortcomings, it’s actively making the best version of yourself so you could give out the best version of love to both. Of course, when Halle with her angelic bridge punctuates her point on the bridge “love me, love me, love me, love me”, it’s easy to be convinced. It’s ironic (or perhaps fitting) that Chloe x Halle had a breakout year and released this brilliant record gobsmack in the ungodliest of times. Much like with their lover in ‘Ungodly Hour’, the sister left has no choice but to love them. — bespectacIed
13. The Weeknd — In Your Eyes
‘In Your Eyes’ is one of the less serrated tracks The Weeknd’s done lately, but a smooth little bop is still welcome in an album campaign as dynamic as his. The album’s 80s pastiche is on full display here, with Max Martin’s stylings clearer than ever in that funky and dilatory beat — one of the more straightforward ones on After Hours. But there’s still a forceful energy broiling under the surface, and The Weeknd is in full control over it, letting it slowly build up then swell over with that graceful segue into the best saxophone solo this side of ‘Run Away With Me’. Did this need two ad hoc remixes? Probably not, but the more bops the better! — letsallpoo
12. Charli XCX — forever
Time is quite literally meaningless now. It all somehow feels too fast, yet at the same time, like it’s not moving at all. How then do we interpret a song called ‘forever’ when the very concept of forever threatens to collapse in on itself? It could only be Charli who would produce work like this while living out the emotional fevers of a global pandemic, in a way that felt present and immediate yet, as Charli’s music oft sounds, displaced from another time. When the song came out, I feel like the singletons were probably reeling at Charli’s loved up bliss but her ode to the immovable nature of love really was built like a national monument, each repetition of “I will always love, I love you forever” a brick in her heartfelt construction. — Rai
11. Rina Sawayama — Bad Friend
Pop music — and music in general — has always been one of the best emotional vehicles for universal experiences: death, love, sex. The swathe of songs about bad breakups is one thing, but the canon of songs about the pains of friendship? It’s mysteriously lacking, despite the fact that I imagine most of us have experienced downs in our friendships from time to time. ‘Bad Friend’ is Rina’s humble addition to that woefully small collection of pop songs about the topic, a painfully autobiographical song about falling out of touch with a friend and confronting the loss years later. Rina perhaps touches on why the topic is so rarely spoken about — the accumulation of shame over a friendship feels so much more difficult and subtle to talk about on a basic level than the bold passions of love and its aftermath. Rina’s more than aware of how truly universal the experience is anyway, the gospel-tinged bridge literally inviting people to “put your hands up if you’re not good at this stuff”. It’s to Rina’s credit that she captures this particular variety of guilt in her writing so well: tales of karaoke to Carly in Japan, of drunken mishaps on nights out, inner monologue wondering what her friend has been up to now in the time since and realising how little she knows. A naïve childhood statement like “We were best friends forever” melts into the vocodered emotional chorus at the heart of the song as if to watch those words fray at their very edges. — Rai
10. Doja Cat — Boss Bitch
It’s a shame that Doja has been involved in so much controversy that has made it sometimes difficult to enjoy her music with a level of separation. The spectre of Dr Luke seeps between the moments of Doja’s consistent swagger after all. On ‘Boss Bitch’, we hear Doja on something entirely new, Dr Luke free, and perhaps all the better for it. Sure, she brings a new dimension of attitude to a relatively laid-back funk jam like ‘Say So’ and playful drunken absurdism to ‘Tia Tamera’, but her snappy class joker style of rapping always felt like it needed something equally as high-octane as a complement. In comes some clubby hip-house, with bits of metal percussion rattling around every last inch of the mix like kids let loose in a kitchen after having had a bit too much sugar.
She raps on the track as if she’s riding an extended drug high — after the initial “I ain’t tryna, I ain’t tryna” fakeout, it gallops into breakneck speed for the short two minutes that remain with the tempo high (although frankly Doja’s enthusiasm almost makes it feel like the instrumental is trying to keep up with her). There’s a touch of Azealia in here, recalling the infectious energy of ‘212’ especially in Doja’s “Said, I took it and I ran for it” verse, although the jittering noise and carefree braggadocio makes it also sound like her interpretation of a k-pop song in the vein of ITZY. “I’m a bitch, I’m a boss” is barely her trying to convince you, she knows it’s fact. — Rai
9. Phoebe Bridgers — I Know The End
The ultimate 2020 record, at least for me, came in the form of Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher. The combination of intimate complicated hesitant feelings with big-budget arrangements gave the record an uncomfortable hyperrealism, its existential dread all too resonant with the state of 2020 as a whole. A mindset that shifts between pinpoint clarity and foggy doubt, observations that swing from sardonic to paradoxically beautiful in the space of a couple of lines. It’s nowhere more apparent than on the album’s closer ‘I Know The End’ where Phoebe envisions the apocalypse itself, something that frankly didn’t seem too out of the question when she dropped the record, refusing to push it forward in amongst the chaos that the world had been plunged into: “I’m not pushing the record until things go back to “normal” because I don’t think they should. Here it is a little early. Abolish the police. Hope you like it.” reads one of her tweets, which speaks for itself.
‘I Know The End’ plays its prophetic terror with a slow burn, starting as a quiet acoustic ballad with a The Wizard of Oz reference (“three clicks and I’m home”) foretelling the tornado to come, before sidestepping into a stomping 00s indie rock soundtrack sort of thing, as she rolls off observations about an America collapsing from coast to coast: outlet malls, slot machines, picket fences as an idyllic cross-country drive burns with claustrophobia (“Let the ultraviolet cover me up” she says, with all-too-sweet delivery). The tale eventually focuses in on a SpaceX launch, mythologised in the imagery of government drones and alien spaceships, as if a Norse Ragnarök had supplanted itself into modern society. By the time the song’s climax sneaks up on you, the horns transfigured into a doom-laden clarion call with the Four Horsemen in tow, it’s already too late. “The billboard said ‘The End Is Near’” she recalls, before simply subtly correcting “Yeah, I guess the end is here”. Phoebe eventually breaks from her reserved delivery in the very last moments of the song and the album, a primal scream amongst the fire and lightning. It’s all too fitting. — Rai
8. Taylor Swift — august
Folklore has launched thinkpiece after thinkpiece, this time somewhat different to the other many times Taylor has caused such a fuss under the rushed schedule of the album being surprise-dropped. It is perhaps of all the Taylor records the most quietly exciting, a fall-scented gift that came at the right moment as we all squandered away the summer months while a pandemic raged on outside. Its intricacies seemed to be hidden under every layer of its present wrapping, like a layer of forest undergrowth, the spectres of Jack Antonoff and The National’s Aaron Dessner lurking behind the next tree. The songs felt like curios, fables about ghosts and socialites, a natural partner to the album’s campfire production.
Most curious of all was the supposed “Teenage Love Triangle” that Swift described on the album, three songs (‘cardigan’, ‘betty’,’ august’) that explored a love triangle “from all three people’s perspectives at different times in their lives”. They all largely work without further context, the lead single ‘cardigan’ presented that way initially, although they certainly benefit from each other as they illuminate parts of each other’s mysteries as they unfold on the tracklist. ‘august’ is maybe the highlight of the trilogy however, and acts as the album’s literal centrepiece too as the eighth track on the album (another example of Taylor Swift’s curious love for makeshift cryptology). Of course when Folklore dropped, the month of August was just on the horizon, but frankly it’s not as if I was doing very much in August in the first place so joining Taylor in her reminiscence about a lost forbidden summer fling wasn’t very hard, especially when accompanied by the heavy fog of reverberant guitars that seem to be paradoxically scented just on its sylvan edges by sea salt and hazy sun. The tragic tale of the other woman, rendered in tragic beauty by a Taylor Swift both excitingly new and yet so familiar. — Rai
7. Megan Thee Stallion — Savage Remix (feat. Beyoncé)
Megan’s rise to fame has been swift and explosive. She’s been helped along by TikTok virality of course, but she shines as a female MC with such unmatched verve that it’s really not difficult to see how Megan has become a cultural force herself and not just a single TikTok challenge. When she first released ‘Savage’, it felt like Megan laying out the constitution for everything she represented, its chorus of “I’m a savage/classy, bougie, ratchet/sassy, moody, nasty” a no-nonsense representation of herself that had everyone repeating all-day, as if to channel even the smallest fraction of Megan’s own formidable energy for themselves.
It’s no surprise after all that she got the Beyoncé co-sign, the ‘Savage Remix’ essentially approaching a completely new collaboration of a song than a phoned-in remix verse. Beyoncé provides two full new verses, and her “okay” ad-libs to the iconic chorus elevate it into something almost regal, as if to watch Queen B give Megan a crown of her own in the process. Indeed, most people would be threatened by Beyoncé’s mere presence but one of the greatest things about ‘Savage Remix’ is that the two Houstonians feel like complete equals on the track, with the intricacies of the remix somehow being on a totally deeper level than just adding a verse, or even changing the production. Their energies don’t just meet but seem to intertwine: one can only imagine what they’ll sound like if they collaborate in proper fashion. — Rai
6. Lady Gaga — Rain On Me (feat. Ariana Grande)
With all of Lady Gaga’s career revivals, with renewed relevance every time she changes up her persona, her approach to music — the most recent being her stint as Ally in A Star Is Born — you can sometimes forget that she has been a cultural phenomenon and a ‘serious’ musical artist for over 10 years. Ariana Grande on the other hand released her debut album a full five years after Gaga launched onto the scene and broadly hasn’t been treated as much more than a Nickelodeon girl maybe until the likes of Dangerous Woman. It is with this context that the cross-generational (at least in pop terms) collaboration between the two forces on ‘Rain On Me’ becomes curious to think about — is it Gaga looking for another reset on her public image by appealing to a younger audience? Or are we to interpret Ariana as leveraging the collaboration to further herself as a household name by collaborating with someone who has already solidified their legacy?
There may be some truth to both of these thoughts, but the song itself assuages any cynicism particularly in a year where cynicism was all too rife in the first place. The public narrative of Gaga’s almost motherly attitude towards Ariana feels genuinely heartwarming of course, but the overall impression of the song is of the two pop girls being on entirely equal footing — Gaga finally feels back home on a track actually approaching her club inclinations again, and there is a genuine novelty to hearing Ariana on something this joyful again and seeming entirely on board with it. Maybe the house production isn’t anything revolutionary in the evolving 2020 pop landscape, but Gaga and Grande sure make it sound like it is. I’m more than willing to be convinced. — Rai
5. Cardi B — WAP (feat. Megan Thee Stallion)
In the wake of what can only be called one of the most embarrassing conservative moments in America’s modern history, it’s worth revisiting the fact that ‘WAP’ was also the subject of conservative media frenzy a few months ago, with everyone from congressional candidates and Russell Brand to most infamously Ben Shapiro putting in their two cents about the song. Sure, the content is graphic, and the central ‘Whores in This House’ sample taunts more simple-minded outlets, but half the time it almost seems like the outrage was more of a response to how horrifically catchy the song was while doing it all. The supposed problem of the song came not just in its open display of unabashed female sexuality, but also in the fact that every single line was quotable without fail and impossible to ignore no matter how much conservative America tried.
‘WAP’ became an event, a self-celebration not of sexuality but of themselves in general: two rappers at the very height of their careers converging to produce something so absurdly bombastic and full of attitude, everything a hip-hop collaboration could be. Really there was never any threat of the media frenzy ever overshadowing the actual song in the first place: not when it was this simply good. — Rai
4. Miley Cyrus — Midnight Sky
Miley’s propensity to hop between styles and visual aesthetics is well-documented, for better or worse. 2020 is no exception, which sees her don a magnificent blonde mullet and channel the 70s and 80s in spectacular neon fashion. The 80s was of course the decade on everyone’s lips this year for some reason — we could spend all day speculating and analysing the reasons why that is but nevertheless the trend is here in full force.
For Miley in particular though, channeling churning new wave synths and arena rock vocals seems like a conscious choice to go for a hard reset: after all, ‘Midnight Sky’ came in the wake of a planned set of three EPs that included SHE IS COMING that ended up being cancelled after her much publicised divorce with Liam Hemsworth. What we get is pure melodrama, stadium fist pumps, and late-night joyride nocturnal hedonism, which feels like a natural fit for a personality as huge as Cyrus. ‘Midnight Sky’ also serves as tribute to Stevie Nicks and takes both ‘Stand Back’ chugging anthemic qualities and quite literally the riff from ‘Edge of Seventeen’, the latter of which became a remix (read: mashup) which Stevie Nicks came to do new vocals for. Miley may be known as an iconoclast, but her continued reverence to the icons before her — and their respect for Miley in turn — hints to the legacy she end up carving for herself. — Rai
3. Dua Lipa — Levitating
The crowning moment of ‘Levitating’ comes in its middle eight: the instrumental steps back, and Lipa breaks into a house party talk-rap with British accent on brazen full display. It’s a bold, almost laugh-out-loud moment the first time you hear it, especially when so many British singers have the reputation of sounding American when they sing perhaps due to the influence of American R&B. In many respects, ‘Levitating’ is the most overtly quote-unquote American song on Dua’s Future Nostalgia, with the bass and talk box (something I can’t help but compare to Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic) evoking an era of 80s funk and soul in a much more direct way than some of the other songs on the album.
It’s tempting to say that Dua is just wearing the stylings of the era as a costume, and Dua has after all been prone to criticism in the past for her music being — while always catchy and incredibly capable — somewhat lacking in personality and focus. But it’s maybe for these reasons that the choice for Dua to put a rap where she casually breaks out a line like “And I’m feeling so electric, dance my arse off” in a song like this was exactly the perfect retort to anyone who would accuse her of those criticisms in 2020.
— Rai
2. Dua Lipa — Physical
One of Dua’s strongest assets has been her voice: rough and full-bodied in a landscape of more delicate timbres, assertive and sensual without ever having to try too hard in the first place. It’s something that plays incredibly well on ‘Physical’, a sort of song that requires a certain level of, well, physicality to deliver those shouts of “Come on! Come on!” and “Let’s get physical!” in a way that seems genuinely authoritative and not just corny — it is of course a challenge that Dua accomplishes with ease.
The song stands out on the Future Nostalgia tracklist just by how much darker and serious it seems — not in the sense that it’s any less poppy and fun than the rest of the album, but the synthwave influences are singular on the album compared to the house, 00s pop, funk and disco you hear across the rest of the album. A Blade Runner to the Star Wars of ‘Don’t Start Now’ perhaps. It’s of course maybe one of the songs that wears its influences on its sleeve the most : A-ha’s ‘Take On Me’ (a song that has made its way into the DNA of The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’ too) and obviously Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Let’s Get Physical’. But present-day popstars like Dua seem to have the astounding skill to transform these campy 80s influences into something different — pop song turned command, rank and file to the dance floor. — Rai
1. Rina Sawayama — XS
It’s been a while coming, but the spotlight has finally been cast on Rina Sawayama — in spectacular fashion. It’s fully well-deserved of course, especially in an industry that seems to rarely have the space for WOC artists that don’t fit incredibly narrow boxes, and it’s not as if Rina has ever been undeserving of the attention either. Her RINA EP showcased the sort of turn-of-the-millennium pop nostalgia in loud, brash style, a trend that has only grown in the years since. The musical palette of Rina’s debut album Sawayama has generally grown from the heady guitars and plastic bubblegum of her older songs, but some of the best songs on it like ‘XS’ are a welcome reiteration of those stylings, polished up and catchier than ever.
It’s actually shocking how catchy ‘XS’ really is, as if Rina just took a time machine back to 2000 and stole Max Martin’s hard drive. The ‘gimme just a little bit’ hook is relentlessly high-energy, punctuated by robotic retorts of ‘more’ and ‘excess’ in the distance. The reference points are obvious — the aforementioned Max Martin, a touch of Timbaland, The Neptunes, Destiny’s Child — not that the song feels like a carbon copy of any particular songs from that era, rather it’s the way she builds the atmosphere from the ground up so that it sits next to its reference points, rather than simply being a pastiche of them. Clarence Clarity, Rina’s longtime collaborator, deserves some of the credit here too, who matches her addictive delivery with charmingly offbeat additions to that early 00s formula — church bells, timpani, and not least of all, generous helpings of electric guitar power chords that intermittently interrupt the sleek cool of the rest of the song.
Part of Rina’s modus operandi has always been her choice of unconventional topics for a pop song. Straight forward songs about love and sex are a rarity in Rina’s playbook (and even a song like ‘Lucid’ has a welcome sapphic twist), and it’s more often that you’re going to find a song about mental health or our parasocial relationships online as she exploded on RINA. ‘XS’ is a gloriously over-the-top commentary on capitalism and consumerism, and few other pop artists have really tackled the topic at all, let alone in such a fun and effective way.
The almost hedonistic lyrics are quotable from start to finish (the highlight may be the “Cartiers and Tesla Xs” line, adding another level of rampant silliness to the song title), and there’s even a point in the song where a rattling coin sound effect blends right into the percussion. Maybe it is that specific marriage of the theme to the blast of commercial nostalgia in the sonics of the song, but there’s something incredibly special about how the song comes across both campy and tongue-in-cheek but totally earnest with the whole thing. It’s been a year of more bombastic pop than usual, but the attempts of others seem downright stuffy about it all in comparison to Rina. ‘XS’ has all of Rina’s talents on full show as a polished package, but you imagine this is just the beginning of what she has to offer. — Rai
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