The Worst Year’s Best Music

Here are the songs that made 2020 a little less terrible, in no particular order

I started 2020 hoping for the best. I ended it in debt, alone, and sad — yet still hopeful. There’s something to be said for surviving a year where this much shit gets thrown at us on a daily basis, and I can honestly say that without a ton of mood playlists I would not have come out as upbeat as I did.

So in celebration of a truly terrible twelve months, and because my Spotify Wrapped is mostly my own music and is not representative of my tastes, here’s my favorite songs of the year — everything from rage to sadness to chill to electro to rock to pop and everything in between. Hope you dig them half as much as I do.

Ocean Grove —”Thousand Golden People”

Ocean Grove’s 2020 album Flip Phone Fantasy came out right as the pandemic hit full swing in America, so I wasn’t exactly able to go out and rage to it like it demands, but god damn if it doesn’t make for a killer listen. It’s got elements of everything I used to love about 2000s/2010s modern rock, but while a lot of my former favorite songs haven’t aged super well, Ocean Grove manages to infuse their blend of pop punk, alternative, and nu metal with a youthful optimism and swirling, atmospheric production that keeps it from ever feeling cheesy or insincere.

“Thousand Golden People” is maybe the best representation of OG’s energetic style, merging soaring choruses (“There’s not a sooooooul awake”), rhythmic rap verses, and an absolutely massive guitar riff to tie everything together. This is one to put the top down and drive along the coastline to while everyone wonders why you’re headbanging so hard. But you don’t care, because the song kicks ass.

Lil Texas & Danny L Harle — “Dreaming”

Watching Lil Texas’s come-up over the past couple of years, starting as a trap and Jersey club musician and eventually creating his own brand of up-tempo American hardcore, has been exciting as all hell. This year saw him venturing into pop production for the first time, turning Dorian Electra’s “Ram It Down” into a horrifyingly intense banger, but months before that, we received this frantic-yet-melodic collaboration between Texas and UK hyperpop producer Danny L Harle. “Dreaming” manages to straddle the line between “hard as fuck” and “catchy as hell”, offsetting its massive bass drops with catchy vocals and rave stabs. It may give you anxiety, but, like, the good kind.

Warning: this video features a lot of flashing lights, so photosensitive viewers, please proceed with caution.

Little Big — “Hypnodancer”

Ah, yes, my favorite weird Russian rave-pop band have actually had a great year. They covered “Gonna Make You Sweat” for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, captured the world’s entire mood this year with “Suck My Dick 2020”, and even almost played the Eurovision song contest. Between all of that, my favorite of their releases this year was this no-frills bouncy little jam that brings up everything I love about Little Big — a great beat, a fun little interplay between Ilich and Sonya’s vocals, and to top it all off, a totally ridiculous music video where the band steals money from people using Ilich’s hypnotic dancing skills. Just a perfect package.

MUZZ — “The Warehouse”

MUZZ’s debut album The Promised Land is easily my favorite full-length release of the year — it’s a perfect blend of rock and dance styles into a constantly engaging listen. “The Warehouse” is easily one of the filthiest bangers on the whole record, bringing in rappers Miss Trouble and PAV4N (formerly Vulgatron of Foreign Beggars) to lay down some bars over a truly dangerous beat. It’s as dark and hard-hitting as its name suggests.

Pendulum — “Nothing For Free”

Clearly, I like rock and dance blends a lot. There’s a lot of it on this list, but how could I leave out the return of one of my favorite bands after ten years of silence? Pendulum’s previous music has aged incredibly well, and they’re long overdue for a comeback, which makes “Nothing For Free” all the more worth the wait. Everything on this song works — Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen have clearly learned a lot working on their Knife Party side project, as the production here manages an engaging pop atmosphere without losing the hard-hitting quality that the band is known for. Swire’s vocals are gorgeous as ever, too, and it all comes with a way-too-relevant video about a rabbit pandemic. Hold the line.

Charli XCX — “Claws”

I feel awful for not really getting into Charli XCX until this year, because her work in the pop realm has been fascinating recently. “Vroom Vroom”, “Unlock It”, and “Gone” have all landed on heavy rotation for me, but “Claws” is easily my favorite song from Charli’s How I’m Feeling Now quarantine album, portraying a bubbly, cute love story over a metallic Dylan Brady beat and incorporating the hip-hop and trap influences Charli has been exploring in her last few releases. It’s just a good time.

Enter Shikari — “T.I.N.A.”

This track has one of my favorite intros of the entire year. The electro chords. The “there is no alternative/take my hand if you want to live” line as the drums kick up. Then the guitars drop in and everything goes up in flames. It’s awesome.

Enter Shikari have been driving deep into some weird territory on their last few albums, but 2020’s Nothing is True and Everything is Possible mashes up every little experiment they’ve ever done into a very pleasing sound. “T.I.N.A.” has a little post-hardcore influence, a little disco, a little alt-rock, and a lot of hooks, and it’s easily my favorite of the record.

Rabbit Junk — “Neurodivergent”

Leave it to my favorite husband-and-wife cyberpunk/industrial duo to take a song about the treatment of neurodivergent people by society and turn it into a drum and bass/metal banger of epic proportions. This song opens Rabbit Junk’s 2020 album Xenospheres in massive fashion with a killer guitar riff, screams, hooks, synthesizers, and everything else I love about the band — pure chaos, tamed into loud music you can dance to.

Reaper — “Barricade”

A bunch of remixes of this track just dropped, but for my money, nothing can outdo the energy of the original version. It’s got a little of that rock influence I like so much, driven by a destructive groove and a perfect vocal sample (“I be takin’ names just to elevate the barricade” has been screamed in my car more times than I can count). This is one of many, many releases from Monstercat, an electronic label from Canada who’s been putting out some of my favorite songs of the past few years, and I’m surprised this track didn’t get more attention. It’s easily one of the best releases that either Reaper or his label have unleashed on us in a long time.

Zomboy — “Battlefields”

Look, it’s a dubstep song with a metal guitar riff. Just trust me, it’s incredible.

Wargasm — “Backyard Bastards”

Rounding out my list this year is a relatively recent find — the nu metal/electronic/punk/whatthefuckever stylings of Wargasm. “Backyard Bastards” continues the duo’s streak of heavy-as-hell releases, including a killer cover of N.E.R.D.’s “Lapdance”, but injects a bit of Sleigh Bells influence and births something unfairly awesome out of it. The guitar riffs, the cheerleader chants, the screams of “I wanna kill somebody but I know it’s wrong” — how could you not get behind this.

Fuck you, 2020. Here’s to 2021 being better and still coming with a ton of killer music.