CREDIT: YouTube Screenshots

Damn, there were plenty of songs that made me go “Damn” in 2020. Check ’em out below!

1. U.S. Girls, “4 American Dollars”: What can I say, I love a good song about economic enlightenment that you can totally shake your little butt to.
2. Miley Cyrus, “Midnight Sky”: Miley is a rock star for the ages. It’s 100% official.
3. Doja Cat, “Say So”: Pure neon-soaked euphoria.
4. Cannons, “Fire for You”: Listen to the words she’s using: “I was on fire for you.” It feels like that to some of us sometimes, doesn’t it?
5. Dua Lipa, “Don’t Start Now”: Oh wow, that’s a lot of disco in the top 5. It’s back, baby! “Don’t Start Now”? More like “Don’t Stop Ever!”

6. Taylor Janzen, “What I Do…”: I posted a YouTube comment on this song’s music video months ago, and the sentiment stills hold true, so I’m reproducing it here in its entirety: “This reminds me of early 2000s indie pop rock like Rilo Kiley (Taylor even looks a bit like Jenny Lewis), but with a Gen-Z twist.”
7. Run the Jewels, “a few words for the firing squad (radiation)”: This is the sort of song that paints a picture that breaks my heart but also gives me hope and just in general makes me so thankful that the people who wrote it allowed us a peek into their lives.
8. Tame Impala, “Lost in Yesterday”: I find myself bobbing my head back and forth to a nice, easy tempo while listening, and honestly? That’s not a bad way to live.
9. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, “Ghosts”: Are there like, approximately, a million guitars in this song? It’s like the aural equivalent of a big warm song.
10. Smashing Pumpkins, “Cyr”: This sure sounds like the latest dispatch from outer space. Has Billy Corgan been travelling through an alternate reality that’s a simulacrum of a 50s sci-fi B movie?
11. Bakar, “1st Time”: If a song is called “1st Time,” it ought to feel like the first time, and yes, YES, Bakar’s “1st Time” does feel like the first time!
12. Dua Lipa, “Physical”: This is the second Dua Lipa song on this list, and I’m not afraid to admit it! It feels like entering a hall of mirrors and getting attacked (playfully) by a bunch of flashing lights. I have no choice but to keep dancing.
13. Hayley Williams, “Simmer”: This song gives me a sensation of being sucked into some netherworld and then being spun around and caressed into a new version of myself.
14. KennyHoopla, “How Will I Rest in Peace if I’m Buried by a Highway?”: I pretty much have to have at least one song in which someone just lets out a series of primal screams.
15. Dua Lipa, “Levitating”: This is the third Dua Lipa song on my list, and I don’t mind admitting that it lifted me up.
16. Best Coast, “Everything Has Changed”: Those guitar runs to open the song seem to say, “Hey! Big Announcement Incoming.” And then Beth Cosentino makes an announcement.
17. The 1975, “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)”: Damn, they got me with the melancholy.
18. Lady Gaga, “Stupid Love”: Y’all better be using that Stupid Love to have Stupid Dance Parties.
19. Pearl Jam, “Dance of the Clairvoyants”: This is just so vibrant and crisp. What’s the Pearl Jam regimen for keeping healthy? I feel like that secret exists in this song.
20. The Weeknd, “Blinking Lights”: Urban nights, blinding lights, enveloping soundscapes.
21. Bishop Briggs, “Higher”: Bishop Briggs is pretty much cornering the market on killer workout tracks.
22. Twenty One Pilots, “Level of Concern”: Apparently I like it when a song says, “Hey, let’s look out for each other, okay?”
23. SHAED, “No Other Way”: This song feels like being tickled by sunlight.
24. Ava Max, “Kings & Queens”: The theme song of ESPN’s 2020 U.S. Open coverage – Appropriate Triumphant Vibe achieved.