Songs are the soundtrack to my life.
Quite literally, in fact.
Whether I am out exercising of a morning – this year saw me back at my 8km exercise routes which I couldn’t do without music – or commuting (a far rarer thing this year thanks to COVID-19) or simply kicking back after a big day, the songs I listen to make whatever I do all that more enjoyable.
Much like all the pop culture I consume, songs come to me in tsunami-like numbers, the result of subscribing to a ridiculous number of music blogs, and an enduring love of new music that shows no sign of slowing down, despite my advancing age.
I have never been one of those people who reach a certain point in life and say “That’s it! No new music for me!” and so I fully expect that I will keep finding and listening to all kinds of amazing artists in 2021 and adding their new songs to my life’s soundtrack.
It makes sense that so much new music is added since my life is constantly refreshed and new but for now, I’m happy to bask in the music that was, and enjoy reliving these 20 amazing and life-enhancing songs.
- Please note that the songs are listed in no particular order and do not reflect a 1 to 20 ranking.
(1) “Two Hearts” by NZCA Lines
“Two Hearts” is, to be fair, not a new release.
First released upon an unsuspecting world back in January 2016, the song, by London based Yamaha CS-80 analog polyphonic synthesizer-user duo NZCA Lines (Michael Lovett and Sarah Jones), now has a new lease of life thanks to recently-released Netflix series I Am Not Okay With This.
The soundtrack to a reasonably typical high school party that the protagonist and her best friend attend and love until they don’t, the song is a gorgeous slice of synth pop that moves from beat-heavy verses to ecstatically dark and vibrant chorus with shimmeringly resonant ease.
It has joyfully haunting vibes washing off it in waves, a song that artfully sounds upbeat and fearfully downcast at the same time, perfectly matching the theme and narrative of one of the pivotal scenes in the TV show.
Song and show go together perfectly that it’s startling to realise they had their genesis four years part; it’s proof if good art will always find its like, and in the case of “Two Hearts” receive a much-deserved second lease on listening life.
(2) “Come Over” by Dagny
You have got to love Norwegian singer Dagny (known to the tax department as Dagny Norvoll Sandvik)!
She meets someone special, decides she likes them, so much that she can’t stop thinking about them, and so she invites them over to ask them everything, absolutely everything!
None of this pining in the dark waiting for a text or message on a dating app; she seizes the romantic bull by the horns, all to a bouncy, dance beat that matches her vivacity exquisitely well.
The lyrics suggest an exuberant approach to finding and keeping love, one that cuts to the chase and the music falls lock, stock and giddily upbeat barrel in step with the passion that percolates joyfully through every last happily optimistic note on “Come Over”, the lead single from the artist’s debut album due later this year.
(3) “6’s to 9’s” (feat. Rationale) by Big Wild
Done with the dark pleasures of the night and the hushed cosy reverie of watching the rain fall? Head to the desert or the manicured garden (both feature in clips for the track) my friends where the laidback magnificence of Big Wild’s “6’s to 9’s” featuring Rationale, awaits you.
It’s a song that celebrates those moments when love grabs you so completely and wholeheartedly that you are consumed by the feelings coursing through your body as Billboard rather poetically notes.
“You know those loves that just turn your world upside down? Your stomach does flips like roller coaster rides, and the dirty sidewalk becomes a disco catwalk where you can strut before the world. That’s the vibe on Big Wild’s “6’s to 9’s,” a tongue-in-cheek love song featuring singer Rationale from the producer’s album Superdream.”
” “6’s to 9’s” is a luscious piece of musically low intense but emotionally rich pop that has some fun with its subject matter sure but feels richly authentic capturing the all-encompassing pleasure of love taking you wholly and completely.
It’s a delight that will have to grooving slowly again as you keep an eye out for such a love to come your way or celebrate the love you are already blessed and fortunate to have in your possession already.
(4) “Dance Dance Dance” by Astrid S
Norwegian singer-songwriter Astrid S aka Astrid Smeplass knows her way around a supremely catchy piece of pop.
“Dance Dance Dance” is very much a case in point, all bright and breezy melodies within which she explores the pain of of being trapped in a place in her life where problems are besetting her and no readily apparent solution is on hand.
Lest you think that dancing away the hurt is some kind of facile response, Astrid S is quick to point out she knows that its efficacy as a solution to her sadness is shortterm but that there is a value is losing yourself in the ephemeral for a night.
“Dance Dance Dance” is vividly honest about how life can assail you and leave you overwhelmed but that while you’re trying to work through things, some dance therapy might be just what the doctor ordered.
And if it’s not, have you lost anything along the way?
(5) “Impact” (feat. Robyn, Channel Tres) by SG Lewis
Quite apart from the fact that “Impact” comes bursting out of the musical gate with a gloriously upbeat intensity, this track from British singer-songwriter, musician and record producer SG Lewis, is HUGE and cannot help but be noticed because it includes some damn fine vocal input from iconic Swedish artist Robyn and deep-voiced Californian music artist Channel Tres.
The overall effect is of a song that powers through musically and emotionally and about which Acid Stag had this to say:
“Channel Tres lends some wonderfully deep vocals to ‘Impact’, that perfectly complement Robyn’s strong chorus. The amazing beat charges forward with buzzing synths, crisp samples and swirling atmospherics all dancing around the beat and creating an undeniable club vibe. ‘Impact’ is fun to listen to and feels almost euphoric when Robyn’s chorus breaks through. This is a song that is really hard to forget and so easy to fall in love with.”
The song elevates and uplifts and well and truly lives up to its name, leaving you wonder how you ever lived without it.
(6) “Gimme a Minute” by PVRIS
Stumbling across a song quite by accident by an artist you already know and love – thank you YouTube front page for your carefully-calculated but nonetheless seemingly random selection of things you know I’ll like and (dammit you and your algorithm are usually bang on) – is one life’s great and inestimable joys.
It’s even more joyous a discovery in a digital age where it seems nothing can ever sneak up on you so ubiquitous is the presence of just about everything new and upcoming on social media channels that bloom multitudinous profusion.
Such is the deliriously exciting case with “Gimme Minute” by Massachusetts rock band PVRIS (pronounced “Paris” and comprised of Lynn Gunn, Alex Babinski, and Brian MacDonald), which came out of seeming nowhere, grabbed my ears and heart by the proverbial and hung on with the welcome tenacity of an everlasting earworm ever since.
It’s a track that starts deceptively slowly, anchored by stripped back melody and plaintive vocals before ramping everything up to a roaring crescendo of poundingly melodic magnificence that keeps upping the energy level up and up until the final electrifying final third of the song.
If you’re going to stumble unexpectedly across a song, make it something as profoundly memorable and good as “Gimme Minute” an atmospheric piece of scintillating, goosebump-inducing delicious pop that never diminishes one iota after repeat listens.
(7) “Spinning Over You” by REYKO
True I discovered this song three years after its release but such is the way of YouTube which does not simply favour the new and the shiny but happily delves into its considerable archive to bring you musical delights you missed at the time of their release.
“Spinning Over You” by London-based Spanish pop duo Reyko (vocalist Soleil and producer and multi instrumentalist Igor) is a lusciously breathless pop delight, accompanied by a video of vividly-coloured latex, cheeky geometric props and some finely-tuned choreography which still manages to convey a giddy element of playfulness.
There is something mesmerisingly diverting about the clip which is simply constructed in one sense, occupying the one black-backdropped throughout but Reyko uses this limited space well, injecting vivacity of colour, stylised moves and a sense of fun that matches this transcendantly fun track beautifully.
If you were to picture how best to do justice to this song, this would be the way to do it, the perfect marriage of form and pop substance.
(8) “Save a Kiss” by Jessie Ware
British singer-songwriter and podcaster Jessie Ware, and her gloriously upbeat song of romantic anticipation and longing, “Save a Kiss” (from Ware’s fourth studio album, What’s Your Pleasure?) is one of the best results of disappearing down a YouTube rabbit hole of videoclip viewing I have ever come across.
The clip is very much a creative creature of its time, put together with everyone in their COVID-lockdown homes and working to choreography by Olivier Casamayou, and in case you’re wondering, there’s are lucky winning fans in the video, the result of Ware encouraging her loyal listeners to learn the moves and be given the chance to make an appearance in the promo clip along with her and her brilliantly-talented dancers.
The song is out-and-out dancefloor banger and would’ve done just fine without a clip of any kind such is its infectious listenability.
But there’s something about this video, which has so garnered 1.5 million views and counting, which is as gloriously goosebump-inducing as the track it accompanies; there’s a gorgeous exuberance to this lockdown creation which puts a smile on your face and keeps it there.
It’s so much fun to watch that more often than that, I listen to the song on YouTube in preference to ITunes, happy to spend some time with Ware and her crew who are clearly having a ball.
(9) “Sleeping on my Dreams” by Jacob Collier
British singer and composer Jacob Collier is an immensely talented young artist.
Influenced by classical and jazz genres and with an ear for a delectable catchy hook, Collier has poured all his prodigious talent into “Sleeping on my Dreams”, drawn from the third of his Djesse volumes, released on 14 August this year, described by Atwood Magazine as “the closest thing to a pop record Collier has made”.
The magazine goes on to say that “it feels laughably prescriptive to identify his music as any one thing” and that feels very much true for this insanely infectious track which is pop, classical grandeur and jazz vivacity all poured into one exuberant package.
Packaged with a sunny, technicolour and benefiting from Collier’s dusky vocals and impish sense of fun, “Sleeping on my Dreams” is a highly-listenable, accessible song by an artist who clearly knows his way around music that makes an impact.
(10) “don’t be sad” by Tate McRae
There are songs that are emotional … and then there is “Don’t Be Sad” by Canadian singer/songwriter Tate McRae which is all heart-bursting, intensely-affecting emotion, a song that feels like it really means something to the singer.
Which indeed it does as this quote from Line of Best Fit makes clear:
“… in the clip’s opening credits McRae explains that ‘don’t be sad’ is ‘basically talking about someone who will never understand [and] therefore ‘mocks’ you for being dramatic or too sad, or too depressed, not making sense etc’ before adding that “this is a [really] personal one to me.'”
As heart-on-the-sleeve as any song can get and rewardingly listenable as a result, “don’t be sad” is a ballad that cuts to the heart of the matter and stays there, rewarding you with one of the most emotive tracks you’ll hear all year.
(11) “Confetti” by Julia Jean-Baptiste
I love playful French pop, and there is none better than 2014’s exuberant release “Confetti” which has shot back to prominence with its inclusion on the soundtrack for Netflix’s latest watercooler hit Never Have I Ever.
Part of the aural landscape of the eight episode of the show’s 10-episode premiere season, “Confetti” is a delight, one of those brilliantly deceptive pop songs that sounds deliciously simple but is gloriously complex and rewarding on repeat listens.
Hailed by Jubox as a “future icon of French pop”, the artist moves with deft and danceable precision between pop and electronica, creating in songs like “Confetti” and her latest single “Ca tourne en rond” which embodies a fancifully fey ’60s vibe, the sort of music you want to listen to again and again.
It’s perfect pop – easily accessible, it is richly-layered and melodically, appealingly complex, the sort of music that is anything but disposable and which will stay with you last after the last note has sounded.
(12) “Supermarket Riots” by Lupa J
There are times, and hearing this song for the first go-around was definitely was one of them, when a song just launches itself as you, all engaging melodies, compelling vocals and thoughtful lyrics, and you know, you just know, it is going to make a very welcome mark.
“Supermarket Riots” from Melbourne singer-songwriter is a jaunty upbeat with a very anxious sensibility, written as it was before COVID in its hideous hellishness.
“‘I wrote ‘Supermarket Riots’ in the week or so before lockdown became a reality in Australia, while people were panic buying, when you had to get into the store at 8am if you wanted to get anything you actually needed,’ they said.
‘I remember walking around my area trying to comprehend what was about to happen; at the shops feeling this universal skittishness, noticing a look of fear in everyone’s eyes.
‘I think the way I wrote the lyrics reflects all this, it’s not a cohesive ‘narrative’ so much as a bunch of anxious sounding phrases, trying but struggling to paint a picture of what was going on externally and internally for me.'” (NME)
It’s a dazzling powerhouse of a song that grabs you with intense force, lyrically and musically, channelling 2020 with unnerving but hugely listenable precision.
(13) “Feels Right” by Biig Piig
The obvious place to go with the track “Feels Right” is to say it most certainly does feel right, and so we shall because every time you listen to this gorgeously happy track about just letting yourself go on a night out:
“‘Feels Right’ is a track about the energy of a night out. I miss going out so much. The feeling of letting go and being surrounded by sweaty people; meeting strangers and one-night romances; the tunes and ecstasy. (NME)
Fresh from the hands of Irish-born London Biig Piig (aka Jess Smyth), the song celebrates something that hasn’t been available to lots of people this year where any kind of public event has fallen foul of COVID’s rapacious march across the world.
Much like running a home movie of your last trip overseas, “Feels Right” evokes the sheer, giddy buzz of going with the flow and honestly if you can’t head out on the town, this euphoric piece of lush upbeat pop could be just the escape you need.
(14) “Poison” (feat. Sydnee Carter) by SLUMBERJACK
When you got a lot of emails from music blogs, it is all too tempting to just graze over the songs on offer and only go for the ones that catch your attention in that moment.
In a rush to clear a backlog of songs in emails, I almost swept over “Poison” by Australian electronic music duo SLUMBERJACK (Morgan Then and Fletcher Ehlers) which would have been a Pretty Woman-level “Big mistake. Big. Huge.” error.
The song is gloriously, passionately intense, anchored by emotionally resonant vocals by Perth-born singer/songwriter and musician Sydnee Carter and what Acid Stag aptly calls “dark energy of brooding synths and deepened beats” and is apparently considered a huge artistic peak for SLUMBERJACK.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve felt this in tune with a track – it represents everything we’ve been working towards as musicians over the years. Sonically it’s the first time we really felt like we nailed what we call jokingly in the studio the “hi-def” sound. It’s supposed to feel like a pleasant wind. Musically it’s a step into a new era, bringing with us all the amazing stuff we’ve learnt along the way. And of course the incredible vocals of Sydnee Carter who we knew we had to work with again.” (Acid Stag)
(15) “Love of Your Life” by RAYE
Can a song be both euphoric and sad at the same time? Can life?
The answer to both questions is yes, life is that complicated and emotions don’t always stand in neat and orderly lines, so the fact that RAYE, a singer-songwriter from London who goes by the name of Rachel Agatha Keen when’s signing up to a Netflix subscription, has titled her new EP, Euphoric Sad Songs makes perfect sense.
Lead song of the mini-album, which follows July banger “Natalie Don’t”, is “Love of Your Life” a pounding slice of effervescent, emotion-filled, disco-tinged upbeat op that passionately declares that she could be the love of your life if only you were open to it.
Via Line of Best Fit, RAYE has this to say about the song:
“This is the final stage of my project Euphoric Sad Songs. It feels big and uplifting and I love how free and honest I am with the lyrics. I hope everyone enjoys this slice of me.”
(16) “Self Care” by Louis the Child & COIN
“Self Care” is one of those songs that you hear and know, you just know, will utterly consume your listening time in all the best possible ways.
Created by Chicago-based DJ duo, Louis the Child (Robby Hauldren and Frederic J. Kennett) and Tennessee-founded pop rock band COIN (Chase Lawrence on lead vocals and synthesizers, Ryan Winnen on drums), and Joe Memmel on lead guitar and backing vocals), the song is a joyous piece of exhilarating pop that the two groups described this way (all from Acid Stag):
“When COIN sent us the demo for ‘Self-Care’, we loved it. It had an infectious, funky vibe and a beautiful message. We were immediately stoked to add our drums, synths, instruments and arrangement ideas and turn the song into a jam! We’re excited for you to hear it. Turn it up and dance!” (Louis The Child)
“This year, we tried to stop looking left and right before crossing the street (metaphorically). Trust yourself – others won’t until you do. Remove fear and judgment, this year, and maybe forever find inner light and love to beam out to the world. Free your mind. Do it for yourself. The chorus vocal is an iPhone voice memo backstage at a festival in Memphis — mindlessly free. We felt this was perfectly fitting for COIN’s first ever collaboration.” (COIN)
It’s ridiculously, wonderfully danceable, the perfect track to see out a year in which most people have felt less inclined to move their feet in rapture than to wallow; “Self Care” all but demands that you get off your seat, and let yourself go and see where three minutes of pure pop joy can take you.
(17) “Can’t Help Myself” by Kita Alexander
Hailing from the ever more COVID-free climes of New South Wales, Australia, singer-songwriter Kita Alexander, knows just how powerful attraction to someone else can be.
Well, you presume she does because “Can’t Help Myself” surges with the emotionally maddening back-and-forth of finding yourself into someone so completely and how gloriously but scarily overwhelming that can be.
“[The song is about] the push and pull of falling in love with someone you never expected to … For me it’s all about looking back at the first moments of falling in love and the thrill of it all. I don’t know why, but I always think of a very excited puppy when I listen to this song.” (NME)
As emotional songs about love go, “Can’t Help Myself” is an exuberant piece of passionate pop that beautifully conveys how wonderful it can be to find yourself in the midst of attraction to someone, an impulse that can almost impossible to resist, but how it doesn’t stop your mind wondering where it could all lead if the heart has its way.
(18) Bad Things” by Alison Wonderland
Australian Alison Wonderland, possessor of one of the best stage names in the music biz, has release a new track that is, in her words, about “confronting your demons and dealing with them.”
“Bad Things”, which is the forerunner of a 2021 third album, was first introduced to the public back in March, according to Rolling Stone, via an Instagram Live broadcast, and is described by the magazine this way:
“A slow-burning cut that begins with powerful vocals, before an explosive beat drop brings with a kaleidoscopic array of electronic sounds, the tune is an example of what has made Alison Wonderland one of the most in-demand Australian musicians in recent years.”
Given the subject matter, it makes sense that the song feels intensely, deeply, personally emotional, a sensibility that is matched by music that feels the descent into something massively cathartic.
You can’t listen to “Bad Things” and not feeling something profound, making it a perfect piece of therapy but also a damn good piece of immersively affecting pop that demands repeat listens and trips down to the depths of your soul.
Not bad for a piece of pop, right?
(19) “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals
Formed in Oxford in 2010 and lead by singer, songwriter, and producer Dave Bayley, Glass Animals are back with a new album Dreamland and a deliciously, lushly chilled single in “Heat Waves”.
Possessing a gently loping beat, arrestingly beautiful melody and a quietly affecting emotional resonance, both musical and lyrical, “Heat Waves” is a song of our times, coming complete with a very COVID video as Bayley explained in a press release quoted on NME:
“Bayley said the music video for ‘Heat Waves’ is ‘a love letter to live music and the culture and togetherness surrounding it’.
“It was filmed at the peak of the lockdown in my neighbourhood in East London by the lovely people who live around me, just using their phones. These are people who are usually out at shows, in galleries, going to cinemas etc. These venues are left empty now, and many of them will not survive. The song is about loss and longing, and ultimately realising you are unable to save something… and this video is about that but for art, being together, and human contact.”
(20) “Power” by Ellie Goulding
Possessed of a voice dripping with affecting emotional resonance, Ellie Goulding, who hails from the UK, has brought it home in an impressive way with “Power” which takes a hard look at some modern romantic dynamics, according to the artist via Rolling Stone:
“I wanted to release this song off my upcoming album as a preview into the world my new album is in! ‘Power’ is about relationships in the 21st century, how they can now be dictated by social media, superficiality and material things. Dating can sometimes start out with lies or embellishments. The girl in the song is disillusioned by love and the cruel, good looking, self-obsessed people she keeps ending up with.”
Accompanied by the latest in COVID-19 necessitated artistic accessories, the home-shot, lockdown-inspired video, “Power” is all bristling honesty, regretful melancholy and a determination to call out the things that need to be calle dout.
It’s an, ahem, powerful piece of music that is due to appear on Goulding’s as-yet-unscheduled and untitled fourth album which, if “Power” is any guide, is definitely going to be worth the wait.