The 100 Best Songs Of 2020
Welcome to a whopper of a mixtape. If you've been living under the rock 2020 dropped on all of us back in March and spent the last nine months finding comfort in the sounds of your childhood (hell, even 2019), we have some good news for you: As crappy as this year has been for anyone with a shred of empathy, the jams were ample. When the news cycle had us at a loss for words, we found quiet songs to speak for us. When we wanted to smile without looking at our phones, buoyant distractions abounded. If racism, xenophobia and sociopathic behavior made us want to scream, Black musicians found astonishingly inventive ways of saying "um, did you just start paying attention?" And since we're still stuck in this storm for the foreseeable future, we present to you a silver linings playlist: 100 songs that gave us life when we needed it most. (Find our 50 Best Albums list here.)
The 100 Best Songs Of 2020:
100-81 / 80-61 / 60-41 / 40-21 / 20-1
20.
SZA (feat. Ty Dolla $ign)
"Hit Different"
The first voice we hear on SZA's comeback single isn't hers, but that of Ty Dolla $ign. "Hit Different" opens with an emotive chorus, handled by hip-hop and R&B's go-to gun for hire and carried by a deceptive simplicity, made compelling by Ty's gravelly vocals. Produced by The Neptunes, "Hit Different" features SZA burrowing deeper into the earthiness of rhythm and blues, and exploring the complexities of the genre's central focus: love, at its most passionate. —Kiana Fitzgerald
19.
Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride & Brian Blade
"Right Back Round Again"
During their, captures the silvery grace and flickering combustion that was special about this all-star alignment in the first place — but even better.
