[imagesource: Chris Pizzello/Associated Press]

Music is subjective, so any list that talks about the best songs of any year is going to be contentious.

I will say only this – if you enjoyed that Las Ketchup song from back in 2002, you are disqualified from having an opinion.

Those are the rules.

We know which songs, musicians, and albums were the most streamed this year on Spotify, so now let’s check in with Rolling Stone’s picks for best songs of 2020.

You’re welcome to read numbers 50 through to six here, but we’re going to focus on the top five.

To begin, number five – Taylor Swift, ‘August’:

It’s hard to pick the greatest lines from this Folklore highlight: “August sipped away/Like a bottle of wine” or “Cancel plans just in case you’d call/And say, ‘Meet me behind the mall.’” Either way, “August” depicts a beachy summer fling gone wrong…

Swift’s lithely vocals soar across string instrumentation as she tells the story from the side of the “other” woman. One thing is for certain: Don’t trust Inez.

Enjoy, Swifties:

Number four is The Weeknd, ‘Blinding Lights’:

With its fuzzy synths and hopscotching drum-machine line, “Blinding Lights” is the best New Wave song this side of Duran Duran.

In just three minutes, the Weeknd checks off any number of Eighties pop-song signposts — unanswered phone calls, driving fast just to feel something, lights representing loneliness — but the real magic is how his voice and the song’s chiming keyboard line lingers in your head well after he injects new life into the greatest Eighties-steeped lyrical cliché of them all: “I can’t sleep until I feel your touch.”

I get the Duran Duran reference:

Número tres is Christine and the Queens, ‘People, I’ve Been Sad’:

Between lockdowns and mandatory quarantines, 2020 has been a year of unprecedented loneliness, and “People, I’ve Been Sad” is its anthem.

With sparse synths and a voice on the verge of tears, Christine and the Queens captured the universal moment with words in English and French about missing out, disappearing, and falling apart. But when Chris sings, “You know the feeling,” she brilliantly breaks the fourth wall.

Indeed, we all know the feeling, and we can all feel lonely and sad together — and maybe a little better, too, with a song this good to help pull us through.

Lonely and sad – a 2020 vibe:

The second best song of the year is Bob Dylan, ‘Key West (Philosopher Pirate)’:

A brand-new classic Dylan ballad — not the only one on Rough and Rowdy Ways, but the one that casts the deepest, darkest spell.

In the nine-minute “Key West (Philosophical Pirate),” he’s adrift in Florida… But even in this palm-tree paradise, he’s got Desolation Row in his heart, and this outlaw still keeps his eye out, looking for the next chance to make his getaway.

Bobby D, hey, still going strong.

Oh, and richer than ever, too.

And so it is that we have arrived at number one.

Which is…

Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion, ‘WAP’:

In the darkest depths of Covid lockdown — at a moment in history when leaving your house could literally get you killed — Cardi B and Megan delivered the perfect instructions on how to beat the quarantine blues: “Gobble me, swallow me, drip down the side of me/Quick, jump out ‘fore you let it get inside of me.”

“WAP” was just the escapist raunch America needed in 2020, the sound of two of the strongest women in music defiantly putting the pleasure principle front and center in a moment when fun and joy seemed dead.

I say nothing and present the music video:

For me, the best part of ‘WAP’ was how many conservatives got their undies in a tangle over it.

Whatever you’re listening to, I hope it helps you through these last few weeks of work and into the holidays.

You can check out Rolling Stone’s picks for best TV shows of 2020 here.

[source:rollingstone]