2020 has been an eventful year filled with love, hate, empowerment and many more emotions. Not only is Covid-19 taking over 2020 but, the Black Lives Movement protest was a huge part as well. One thing that is helping us through these times is the power of music. Many artists made music specifically to talk about these situations and today I will be mentioning my top 4 songs that cover these topics.
#1: I Can’t Breathe - H.E.R
H.E.R (Gabriella Wilson) is a mixed African-Ameircan/Filipino singer songwriter from the United States. She wrote an acoustic blues song back in June called “I Can’t Breathe” which pours all of her emotions and feelings into the police brutality and the whole issue of systemic racism. She uses her music as a way to mark history while still raising awareness of the situation, connecting with her fans and being completely real as she writes these lyrics. Two lines in the song that I believe everyone should always think about is:
How do we cope when we don’t love each other?
Where is the hope and the empathy? (Yeah)
Lyric Credit: Genius
#2 What They’ll Say About Us - FINNEAS
FINNEAS (Finneas O’Connell) is an American singer/songwriter/producer and also the older brother of Billie Eilish. Finneas has been active during the protests and he even took his activism to his music where he created this song back in September called “What They’ll Say About Us.” This song was written during the protests in June and reflects upon social change and striving for optimism. This song made Finneas realize how optimistic people can get during tough times when they all see flaws in a system but come together to create something positive. My favourite lines from the song that are:
We’ve got the time to take the world
And make it better than it ever was
Lyric Credit: Genius
#3 Six Feet Apart - Alec Benjamin
Alec Benjamin is an American singer-songwriter who is still underrated but one of my favourite artists. He wrote this song “Six Feet Apart” to represent the impact of isolation and not being able to live the way you want to live due to COVID-19. This song is basically a brain dump of all his emotions and feelings towards the whole pandemic situation which makes this song very relatable to most of us.
And lastly…
#4 We Lost The Summer - Tomorrow x Together
Tomorrow x Together is a K-Pop group who released this song “We Lost The Summer.” Although the overall feel of the song is upbeat, the song represents how we all had to lose our summer because of quarantine having us being stuck in an “eternal winter.” Although this song is mainly Korean with a bit of English, it proves that music is a universal language and we can all relate to it no matter what. The music video as well is a great representation of how we all lived during this summer and are still living in. The video portrays clips of the members being at home alone, being on zoom and wearing masks outdoors. You can watch the music video here:
I hope this blog post was insightful and gave you some recommendations for new music and new artists, If you would like to listen to all of these songs and even more songs not included in this article, I have linked you to my Spotify playlist “2020: We Will Get Through This.”
Stay safe and stay groovy!
