In the outro, strings swell in and the tempo increases as she hauntingly asks her former partner “Do you think about it too?” Reverb in the simple piano and synth chords sets the atmosphere, backing her simple but clear and beautiful voice as she relays painful, intimate details such as “I wish your mum and I could be friends / I think about her now and then / How we drove up to her house / I’ll never see that dog again.” The title fits the mood, and her lyrics strike a chord during a time in which many of us are spending much time at home, and can reflect on social situations from “before quarantine” that we wish we could have navigated better. The Irish singer-songwriter kicks off our list with a stripped-back piano ballad from her EP “Freckle Season” in which she reminisces on a relationship that has recently ended. The common thread of these songs, even those that were written before the pandemic started to spread, is that they express, most often through lyrics but also through instruments, the struggles, intricacies, and joys of social life in these unprecedented, difficult times. It is also really exciting to see so many established acts reinvent themselves this year. It is really exciting to see so many young, talented artists who started releasing music in the second half of the 2010s set such a good course for themselves to start the new decade. It is not surprising that less than a third of the songs on this list are from artists I was not a big fan of before this year, and that there are many great songs from this year that just missed out on the list. I was impressed by both the wide variety of new releases, and older songs I had not heard of or found time to listen to previously. And musicians found new ways to perform and share their music despite the challenges of the pandemic.
Quarantine and the isolation it brought led to me looking for new music to fill my time and reflect on the busy last few years of my life as I have transitioned into adulthood and from high school to college. 2020 was a really difficult year for our society, and for myself for endless reasons, yet it was an inspiring and liberating year for pop music, music in general, and my own music listening.
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