The Major Music Releases of 2020

As 2020 is ending it's time to discuss what the music industry has released to listeners this year. 2020 has been an eventful year for the music industry. Some of the most memorable and impactful songs, singles, and albums have been released by the biggest artists, including Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, and so on. The songs/albums mentioned in the following list are some of the biggest releases of this year. It must be mentioned that a social media platform, TikTok, played a big part in these song’s success, as the frequent usage of some songs on TikTok helped more people find out about them. This article discusses the impact these releases had, their achievements, the records they broke, and which platforms they were trending on.

WAP by Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion

Cardi B’s new single, featuring Megan Thee Stallion- WAP was released on August 7th, 2020. From the beginning, the song received widespread critical acclaim. The hip-hop song was immediately trending on almost every platform. All of the song’s verses were highly popular on a social media platform- TikTok. TikTok users even created a dance to this song, calling it the “WAP Challenge”. The song debuted at number 1 on Billboard Hot 100.

It quickly broke multiple records, including the highest streaming first week by a female artist, the highest streaming first week of 2020, and one of the top 3 hip-hop

streaming debuts of all time. Not long after, Cardi B, along with Megan Thee Stallion, released the music video for the song, which featured celebrities like Kylie Jenner. The music video broke the record for the biggest 24-hour debut for an all-female collaboration. “I remember when the song came out everyone was talking about it, I personally heard about it from TikTok and heard it so many times, that now I have it memorized by heart.” Says a student at GZAAT about the song.

Taylor Swift’s album “Folklore”

Taylor Swift released her eighth, surprise album on July 24, 2020. The album consists of 16 songs, including collaborations with Bon Iver and The National’s Aaron Dessner. One of the songs "Cardigan" serves as the lead single from Folklore. The first three songs of the album tell the story of a teenage love triangle, involving James, Inez, and Betty. These characters created by Taylor Swift are named after the three daughters of her friends Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. About the lyrical context of the album Taylor Swift says: “I found myself not only writing my own stories, but also writing about or from the perspective of people I’ve never met, people I’ve known, or those I wish I hadn’t.” In one of her songs “The Last American Dynasty” for example, she tells the story of American socialite Rebekah Harkness, who was hated by the people of her town.

As for the next Grammy Awards, the album and its tracks are nominated in five categories. The album is nominated for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album. The lead single, "Cardigan", is nominated for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance, while "Exile" is nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Globally, Folklore reached over 80.6 million streams on Spotify within its first day of release, earning the Guinness World Record for the most opening-day streams for an album by a female artist. The tracks of the album are emotional and comforting to the listeners who can relate to the lyrics. Overall “Folklore” is a calming, sentimental, and reflecting album. “The first time I listened to the album, I kept getting goosebumps all the time because of how great the songs were. “Folklore” is now probably my favorite album ever,” says a student at GZAAT.

Ariana Grande’s Album “Positions”

Ariana Grande’s sixth, studio album was released on October 20, 2020. The album has 14 songs overall, including the lead track of the same name as the album. Doja Cat, the Weeknd, and Ty Dolla Sign are all featured in the album. The third track, "Motive", is a collaboration with Doja Cat, and "Off the Table" is a collaboration with The Weeknd, and the track "tackles the idea of loving after loss head-on and with grace". She wrote the album while quarantining with her boyfriend Dalton Gomez and throughout the album talks about her fears of falling in love again and the comfort she’s found after letting her guard down. The song “Positions” debuted atop the US Billboard Hot 100, meanwhile, her second single "34+35" was number eight. In its third week on top, Grande’s single “Positions” landed 12.8 million song streams. The tracks were also highly popular on a social media platform- TikTok.

Along with the praise that Ariana Grande got for her vocals, she also got criticized that the album "does not break any new ground". For example, David Smyth of Evening Standard praised Grande's voice as "a thing of great beauty", but said that she "isn't firing as hard as she was when she released her last two albums". People criticized her “low-quality” lyrics and said that the tracks were “unmemorable”.

Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart”

“Break My Heart” is one of the tracks on Dua Lipa’s second album “Future Nostalgia”, which was released on 25 March 2020. The song’s music video was dropped on March 26." “Break My Heart” exemplifies the quintessential new era for Dua Lipa: extraordinary visuals filled with vivid color-blocking and mind-boggling manipulations of space, paired with vacantly sexy eye contact, all while strutting casually through explosions of artistic chaos that surround her.” " The song’s lyrics talk about how Dua Lipa questions herself whether her new love will break her heart. "Idolator's" Mike Nied calls the song a "stone-cold bop" and describes it’s music video as "retro-inspired" because the music video begins with a neon ‘80s title card.

Dua Lipa’s song peaked at number 13 on the US Billboard Hot 100. It also peaked within the top 10 of 17 other countries. "Break My Heart" placed at number 39 on NPR's best songs of 2020 list and was additionally ranked as the 10th best song of the year by Billboard. As for now, she is nominated for 6 Grammy categories, including “Best Pop Vocal Album” and “Album of The Year” with “Future Nostalgia” and for the “Song of The Year”, “Record of the Year” and “Best Pop Solo Performance” with her song “Don’t start now” which she released in 2019.

“Rain on Me” By Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande

The collaboration of Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande “Rain on Me” was released on May 22, 2020, as a part of Lady Gaga’s sixth album “Chromatica”. The song is about celebrating overcoming the hardships in life and additionally is supposed to empower the listeners to keep going. Both Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga wrote the song based on the hardships they had to overcome. Lady Gaga admitted herself that the song was inspired by crying: “I remember thinking I had cried so many tears that it felt like an unfathomable downpour from my eyes. But even with that much rain, you don’t have to drown… Even though it feels like you are, you can still swim. And if there’s a strong current with a bunch of waves and they keep crashing over you, if you keep swimming, you’ll reach the center of the ocean, where it’s calm, still, and peaceful.” Meanwhile Ariana Grande stated that the song is about finding beauty in overcoming your pain and embracing your emotions.

The song debuted on number 1 of the US Billboard Hot 100. It was the seventh most-streamed song of summer 2020 and topped the charts in twelve other countries. The song is nominated for “Best Pop Duo/Group Performance” on Grammys in 2021 and is also considered to be the best song of 2020 by many critics.

“Dynamite” by BTS

A south-Korean boyband BTS released their first all-English song on August 21, 2020. It is an upbeat disco-pop song with elements of funk, soul, and bubblegum pop. The song was praised by many for its catchiness and appealing retro sound. As the song was released during a pandemic, its main purpose was to brighten up the everyday lives of the listeners. It is meant to inspire joy and hope during these difficult times. “BTS: It all began from this: even in the midst of hardships, we must focus on what we can do. As for us, we found freedom and happiness in singing and dancing. This song goes to the ones who need encouragement. We hope people feel energized when listening to the song.”

The song’s music video became the most-viewed video in the first 24 hours on Youtube, getting 101.1 million views in its first day and setting three new Guinness World Records. It debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and made BTS the first Korean act to top the Hot 100. It surpassed Taylor Swift’s “Cardigan'' and became the biggest global song debut of 2020 with 7.778 million first-day streams on the global Spotify chart. It also peaked on Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts and charted in the top 10 in 25 different countries. BTS also became the first K-pop group to ever receive a Grammy Award nomination with the song, which is nominated for “Best Pop Duo/Group Performance”

Other major releases of the year include, Billie Eilish’s “Therefore I am”, Drake’s “Laugh now Cry Later”, Selena Gomez’s third album “Rare” and Justin Bieber’s album “Changes”, which were all released in 2020.

Edited by Natalia Rakviashvili