Let’s live it up: Songs that defined 2020
From bushfire fundraisers to drum-offs, surprise chart resurgences and quarantine-inspired albums, here’s the story of the year in playlist form.
COVID-19 dominated the headlines this year but not even a pandemic could quell the creativity from music stars around the world.
1 THE WEEKND
Blinding Lights
This track by the Canadian R&B artist born Abel Tesfaye was the No 1 song on the ARIA singles chart from January 27 for a total of 11 weeks, meaning that it effectively soundtracked the time between our relatively carefree sense of normalcy and into the strange new experience of national lockdown. By December, Spotify announced that Blinding Lights was the world’s most streamed song, with more than 1.5 billion plays across the year.
2 QUEEN + ADAM LAMBERT
We Are the Champions
(live at Fire Fight Australia)
After the devastating bushfire season of 2019-20, some of the biggest names in Australian music banded together at short notice for a fundraiser concert. Held on February 16 at ANZ Stadium in Sydney, the 10-hour gig raised almost $10m, and one of the highlights was British rock royalty Queen — who happened to be in the country for a national tour – surprising everyone by re-creating its iconic 1985 Live Aid set with singer Adam Lambert.
3 JOY DIVISION
Transmission
In the encore of New Order’s show at Melbourne’s Myer Music Bowl on Saturday, March 14, the British rock band cheekily devoted its cover of the classic Joy Division song to the incoming disease COVID-19. This turned out to be one of the last major concerts to be held anywhere in Australia for most of the rest of the year, as from March 16, gatherings of more than 500 people were banned, followed by … well, you lived through it and you don’t need reminding.
4 THE WIGGLES
Social Distancing
In April, the nation’s favourite children’s music group released this handy and maddeningly catchy 90-second track, which helped to explain the sudden shift in social norms to younger listeners. Sample lyrics: “Why do we have to wash our hands? / Well, it helps to keep the germs away / Let’s wash our hands many times a day / When you wash the germs to zero / You’ll become a hand washing hero!”
5 DUA LIPA
Levitating
The pandemic cut deep across the global music industry: the live sector went dark for months on end, while the record business was torn between pushing back album releases or sticking to their initial schedule. One of the few major artists to stay the course was British pop artist Dua Lipa, whose excellent second album Future Nostalgia reached No 1 in April and featured a string of strong singles, the best of which might be this one.
6 VIKA & LINDA
Amazing Grace
On Sunday, April 5, Melbourne singing sisters Vika and Linda Bull sat down at a kitchen table to record a stunning a cappella version of this timeless hymn for Isolation Room, a video series published by this newspaper. Their spine-tingling take on Amazing Grace reached tens of thousands of people on YouTube, and the pair later recorded it in the same sparse style for their September album release Sunday (The Gospel According to Iso).
7 POWDERFINGER
These Days
On May 23, Brisbane rock band Powderfinger screened reunited for the first time in a decade — albeit remotely, with its five members isolating at home across three states – for a stirring seven-song set screened on YouTube. The one-off show raised more than $450,000 for music charity Support Act and Beyond Blue, while the band capped its set with its signature song, whose chorus rang more true this year than perhaps ever before: “Control, well it’s slipping right through my hands / These days turned out nothing like I had planned …”
8 KYLIE MINOGUE
Say Something
In July, Australian pop singer-songwriter Kylie Minogue returned with the lead single from her 15th album, Disco, featuring vocals recorded at her home in London. Minogue wasn’t the first artist to use lockdown to keep her creativity afloat, nor the last, but this might be among the most irresistible dance floor-ready tracks to have emerged from quarantine anywhere in 2020.
9 DMA’S
Life is a Game of Changing
This single from Sydney indie rock trio DMA’S saw the group merging its knack for pop hooks with electronic music more successfully than ever had before. While its full-scale overseas tour plans were interrupted by the pandemic, the band still managed to make lemonade from that bucket of lemons by reconfiguring its music into an acoustic mode suited to seated audiences, including 18 sold-out shows at the Factory Theatre in Sydney. In October, the trio was eventually able to travel north to Brisbane to perform at the first AFL Grand Final to be held outside of Victoria, too.
10 TAYLOR SWIFT
Cardigan
The enforced break from the usual routines of touring handed many recording artists something they usually lack: time. American pop singer-songwriter Taylor Swift used that new-found surplus better than perhaps any other popular artist on the planet this year by releasing two polished, accomplished albums of new material, both of them released with no advance notice. In July, Swift released Folklore, a comparatively subdued set, which drew on indie folk influences as opposed to the maximal pop style for which she had become known. In December, she did it again with “sister record” Evermore.
11 FOO FIGHTERS
Everlong
On August 17, 10-year-old British drummer Nandi Bushell recorded herself playing along to Everlong, the uplifting and optimistic signature song by US band Foo Fighters. “Dave Grohl, I challenge you to a drum-off,” Bushell said, pointing a drum stick as long as her forearm at the camera; within a fortnight, the Foos frontman had accepted her challenge and responded with a video of his own, kicking off an adorable exchange between rock ‘n’ roll giant and precocious newcomer.
12 HELEN REDDY
I Am Woman
On September 29, Melbourne-born singer-songwriter Helen Reddy died in Los Angeles, aged 78, leaving behind a trailblazing legacy for female artists and a track that will continue to echo across generations. “I am woman, hear me roar / In numbers too big to ignore …” sang Reddy in the opening lines of a song first released in 1971, before later reaching No 1 in the US and Canada the following year. In November, some of Australia’s best-known female artists joined forces to close the ARIA Awards with an extraordinary version of Reddy’s signature song.
13 FLEETWOOD MAC
Dreams
On a Friday morning in late September, an American nobody named Nathan Apodaca filmed a TikTik video of himself riding a skateboard to work while sipping from a bottle of cranberry juice and listening to Dreams, the classic Fleetwood Mac song that was released in 1977. Within weeks, Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks both responded on TikTok while the song itself scorched back up the charts, reaching as high as No 4 on the ARIA chart.
14 AC/DC
Shot in the Dark
The greatest Australian band to ever shoulder guitars and take on the world returned with a typically hard-rocking new single on October 7, three years after the death of co-founder and rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young.
On its release in November, the band’s 17th album Power Up topped the charts in 18 countries, including four weeks atop the ARIA chart in its home country – a tie with Taylor Swift’s Folklore for most weeks spent at No 1 in 2020.
15 MIDNIGHT OIL
One Country
When Bones Hillman died of cancer on November 7, after keeping his illness a secret from all but those closest to him, Midnight Oil didn’t only lose its long-serving bass player but a beautiful backing vocalist. New Zealand-born Hillman joined the group in 1987, and his high-register singing reshaped the quintet’s harmony arrangements all the way through to 2020 mini-album The Makarrata Project.
This powerful track from 1990’s Blue Sky Mining sees Hillman’s vocals dominate its latter half, and it was a song they played together all the way through to what would be his final gig with the band at the Big Red Bash last year.
16 SAMPA THE GREAT
Final Form
At the ARIA Awards on November 25, Melbourne-based hip-hop artist Sampa the Great had a night to remember, taking out the categories for best hip-hop release for her debut album The Return, as well as best female artist and best independent release.
Although released last year, the album’s standout track Final Form remains an ideal introduction to one of the most vital Australian artists working today.
17 BALL PARK MUSIC
Turning Zero
While the world’s population was greatly affected as a whole by the pandemic, wonderful things still happened to individuals. And that’s what comes to mind when listening to this gorgeous closing track to the sixth album from this Brisbane indie pop band.
Written by singer-songwriter Sam Cromack ahead of the birth of his daughter, the song finds pure joy in biology and impending parenthood.
18 GLASS ANIMALS
Heat Waves
Written and performed by British indie pop band Glass Animals and released in August, this propulsive song takes on a different resonance in the Australian summer. Sidenote: this track is among the favourites tipped to top Triple J’s annual Hottest 100 poll in January.
19 FANNY LUMSDEN
These Days
The country singer-songwriter penned this song about the languid period between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, particularly in small-town Australia, where normal rules of time and space don’t apply. “River’s up, got a pretty good flow / We’ll head down in an hour or so / Haven’t bothered looking at my phone,” she sings. You too, hopefully.
20 MENTAL AS ANYTHING
Live It Up
One of the best music stories in this cursed year waited until December to reveal itself: for a brief moment, the Sydney pop band’s signature song topped the British iTunes singles chart – ahead of Mariah Carey – after Glasgow Rangers FC adopted Live It Up as its unofficial anthem 35 years after its release.
Now that’s a sweet surprise worth raising a glass to.
The Australian’s 2020 playlist on Spotify:
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