The Best Songs of 2020

Without any pretence of being exhaustive, and without trying to fully represent the editorial staff's rankings, we thought we'd share the playlists that best capture each of our own "musical year". The songs that stood out within a certain genre, the songs symbolic of breakout artists or major returning names – or, more simply, the songs that meant something to those of us who listened to them.

Tommaso Benelli

I'm not losing my mind, I'm simply claiming that the best Italian indie-rock song in years is the work of a trap group, and I'm so convinced of it that I've chosen it as the opening track of this thoroughly confused, and probably ill-conceived, playlist. The fact remains that it contains some of the most beautiful things I've heard this year, truly, gathered from all across the listenable spectrum – from rock, from pop, from rap, from reggaeton (just one), from dance, etc. At one point I even slipped in a song by Sharon Van Etten that came out of nowhere and didn't make much noise, but as we all know, there's always room for a bit of Sharon Van Etten in this life.

Gabriele Benzing

Deserted streets, an unreal silence. How many post-apocalyptic films had already shown us this? Reality, though, revealed itself with a different face: the fading of humankind, as in a page of Guido Morselli. In your headphones, the whisper of Matt Elliott sounds like a warning: “Farewell To All We Know”, an elegy for the arrival of an age of uncertainty.

If there's one natural soundtrack for lockdown, though, it's lo-fi. The homemade DIY of the confined, the specialty of Mountain Goats. After twenty years, John Darnielle seized the chance to pick the old cassette recorder back up. And to tell us once again, through his quarantine tapes, that we'll make it to the end of this year too.

The fact is that, by the end of 2020, we find ourselves more alone than ever. Bill Callahan confesses as much in his conversational baritone: we always try to hide from others. We could all use a neighbor like old Jack from “The Mackenzies”, someone willing to let us into his house and his life. Someone who makes us feel part of the same family again: “And I wished that Jack would call me son again”.

Paolo Ciro

While putting together my personal musical rundown of this blinding, deadly 2020, I found myself wondering whether the records that dominated my listening — tied to the thousand facets of a soul/jazz/afrobeat-inflected black music that has turned militant again, and to the long-running, seemingly eternal wave of the now two-decade-old "new" post-punk scene — had any objective bearing on the events of these past months.

If, in the first case (Sault, Moses Boyd, Keleketla!, Shabaka Hutchings, Irreversible Entanglements, Makaya McCraven, Jeff Parker) it was fairly easy to spot a more or less veiled response to contemporary policies of racial discrimination in America and around the world, things got more complicated with the "new" post-punk (Protomartyr, Fontaines D.C., Idles, Porridge Radio), since it raised, as usual, the question of a lack of temporal specificity.

True, my teenage background was certainly looking in that direction, but in the end there was something more important than mere nostalgia in those nervous guitars and gruffly restless voices — something spasmodically contemporary, perfect for describing the hysteria born of a global pandemic too.

Between these two main currents, my Top 10 listens also placidly harboured two rather antithetical representatives of the singer-songwriter tradition: the traditionally rootsy, primal one of Bob Dylan (as convincing as he's been in ages), and the poetically glitter-rock one of Lucio Corsi.

The seasoned realism of the dean of all storytellers, set against fantasy as a place of refuge for the Maremma elf.

From my point of view, there's nothing better for keeping one's feet on the ground in one of the most terrifyingly suspended periods of the new millennium so far.

There are so many musical genres and scenes, both global and national, that one can follow today, and so many treasures that each of these fields holds, that putting out a playlist that's both concise and satisfying gets harder every year. The only way to tackle a mission like this is to impose strict rules on yourself. In my case, otherwise I'd never be done, I told myself: "okay Michele, 20 songs, only 20". That's how this first, wilful and uninhibited string of tracks came about, one that couldn't care less about genres or boundaries, united only by the beauty and the "stickiness" of the songs — which are, in fact, the ones I've listened to most in this year of compulsive, voracious listening, and which I'll certainly carry with me.

Don't despair, though. I also thought up a Side B for the playlist: just as many tracks, but less immediate, with longer and more tortuous developments, and sounds that in some cases are less accessible. Here too, versatility is the watchword: we go from spacey Chinese jazz-rock compositions to spectral ambient visions from Brazil, without forgetting a detour into post-metal or psych-stoner nooks, in Finland and Poland. And so much, much more. Enjoy.

Marco De Baptistis

A playlist off the beaten path to accompany what some have called an "annus horribilis in a malefic decade". Here are the new releases from the dark side: from Rome's "Kali Yuga Über Alles" to the black metal of Paysage d'Hiver ("Im Winterwald"), by way of the Nordic folk of Forndom ("Jakten") and Myrkur ("Leaves of Yggdrasil"). We climbed the Norwegian mountains listening to the captivating track by Wardruna, "Lyfjaberg (Healing-mountain)", and dived into the unconventional neofolk of artists such as Ostara and Orplid, not forgetting the excellent return of American act Blood and Sun, who with a track like "Madrone" had us dreaming once again of the mythology of a deep America resonating with mystery and ancient legends. Among the various listens, a special place goes to the extreme war metal of Canada's Revenge, who with a track like "Salvation Smothered (Genocide Of Flock)" ferociously mark this 2020.

Giuliano Delli Paoli

“And if we’re running towards a place, where we’ll walk as one. Will the hardness of this life, be overcome?” sings Brandon Flowers in “Running Towards A Place”. A warning, a cry of hope, or more simply another way to exorcise the moods of a complicated, difficult, unspeakable year. 2020 has the shape of a scar. In the gloomiest of years, music thus becomes a Red Cross nurse for a constantly troubled state of mind. After all, “songs save your life”, as “someone“ would say. 2020 is therefore dominated by charges like that of the reunited Killers, futuristic ascents (James Blake), Afro progressions (Les Amazones d’Afrique), electronic evolutions (A.G. Cook), pastoral ballads (Agnes Obel), pop miracles (Troye Sivan), lunar ballads (Thundercat), laments for a better jazz (Moses Sumney), faded photos on the nightstand (Lana Del Rey) and unforgettable mainstream embraces (Weeknd).

Claudio Fabretti

It was the year of major releases in the black field – from Sault to Moses Boyd by way of The Weeeknd – but also of dance music's comeback (despite the closed clubs), as shown by the two fine records by Roisin Murphy and Jessie Ware. A difficult, anguished year nonetheless, like the songs of Agnes Obel's “Myopia” and King Krule's “Man Alive!“, or the desolate scores of Sofja Nomik's “Anomi“. Yet there was no shortage of pure pop brightness to light up the horizon: from the formidable return of Erin Moran under the banner of A Girl Called Eddy to the colourful ethnic hues of Khruangbin. And while the new post-punk of the likes of Fontaines D.C. and Protomartyr takes over the staff's charts, I especially like to remember the terrific comebacks of genre-founding masters such as X and Psychedelic Furs. And speaking of comebacks, after 13 years of silence, Maria McKee still manages to move us. All this and much more in a year-end playlist that, as always, embraces a variety of genres and tastes.

Stefano Fiori

In a year like the one just gone, melancholy could only reign supreme; whether it was electro and glacial (Woodkid and Sufjan Stevens), smoky and r’n’b (The Weeknd and Joji) or acoustic and reassuring (Troye Sivan and Jessie Reyez), it was a constant throughout. Even when the rhythms paradoxically picked up pace, a nostalgic patina kept them elegant and never cheap (Jessie Ware, Róisín Murphy and Christine And The Queens) or, in reaction, viscerally propulsive (Perfume Genius, Fiona Apple and Nadine Shah).

Fabio Guastalla

Francesco Pandini

They started it themselves: Elettra Lamborghini & M¥SS KETA, the two Honorary Geese of 2020, who treated the Ariston stage like the gravel in a country-fair parking lot. Trash? By the shovelful. But it was also the most joyously carefree moment of a year loaded with heavy emotional aftershocks, so all that's left to say is: thank you truly, from the heart, girls. Zebra Katz also gave a lot to the cause of trash talking this year, especially when paired with Shygirl, currently the most apt problem solving bitch in circulation. Thanks also to Populous & Emmanuelle for the over eight minutes of "Flores no mar", the diaphanous, ultra-stylish soundtrack to a summer born cut short. From there on, drama and nostalgia: the intense MorMor, the teenage decadence of 070 Shake, a dramatic Mahmood. Hopes for a better 2021 rest in the ever impossibly cool voices of Jorja Smith and Sabrina Claudio.

Roberto Rizzo

From the umpteenth creative spring of Jon Hassell, whose magical realism is now more in vogue than ever, to the dry, no-nonsense beat of Omar S, by now an institution of "deep" house, my playlist is, as usual, meant not as a list of songs but as a flowing selection to be listened to in sequence. Into the trip I've included some of the most interesting contemporary sounds, some already well known, like the dense path of Elysia Crampton or the return to the floor of the enigmatic Actress, others far less spotlighted, whether the semi-industrial gqom of the Mafia Boyz/Citizen Boy collective or the noise-tinged Arabesque echoes of Maral, somewhere between Muslimgauze and Cabaret Voltaire. Not forgetting the groove, with the latest stroke of class from a Roisin Murphy in a state of grace on Roisin Murphy, and the new frontiers of New York house condensed into the AceMoMa project.

Federico Romagnoli

I chose tracks that aren't part of the albums included in my personal top 10 (available on the OndaRock chart page, into which it was folded). In doing so, I focused attention on artists who during the year released only singles, or whom I didn't explore deeply enough to include them in the album list, or whom I discovered too late, as in the case of the two tracks dated December.

Mac Miller – Woods (United States, January 17)

Madrigal – Seni Dert Etmeler (Turkey, March 26)

Emman – Kung Pwede Lang (Philippines, April 5)

Hua Chenyu – Dou niu (China, April 8)

Mantra Vutura & Hindia – Percakapan Pt. I (Indonesia, May 7) 

Bar Tzabary – Johnny (Israel, July 3)

Çağatay Akman – Bul Beni Çıkar Bu Çukurdan (Turkey, September 11)

Mabel Matiz – Toy (Turkey, October 15)

Dino Brandão, Faber & Sophie Hunger – Derfi di hebe (Switzerland, December 11)

Omnipotent Youth Society – Hebei Mo Qilin (China, December 22) 

Gioele Sforza

2020, thanks to the endless amount of time spent at home, was the year that brought me back to a relationship with music as intimate and direct as I hadn't had in a while. Working from home turned out to be the ideal setting for listening to hours and hours of albums and playlists, which during the long days of lockdown were the only way to escape, mentally if nothing else, from that monotonous grey. It was the year I spent every day trawling, purely for pleasure, through charts and playlists from other countries, driven by a genuine curiosity to discover new things, and I found great songs coming out of the Polish scene (Mata made my album of the year), the Turkish scene (home to a first-rate atmospheric pop-rock scene, represented here by Madrigal), and the Russian and Japanese scenes too. It was also the year vaporwave and synthwave built a whole new imaginary world for me, one I then found again in new forms on the records by Sewerslvt and The Weeknd. In Bad Bunny I found a way to imagine the parties that never happened this year, while Troye Sivan and Emman (R.I.P.) perfectly captured that shadowy quarantine mood. My playlist aims to offer a crash course in my happiest discoveries, in a year that, by shutting us off from the outside world, perhaps led us to discover an inner universe we didn't know we had.

Marco Sgrignoli

I thought of this playlist as a flow, an hour-long journey in which styles and sounds bleed into one another and gradually lead into different territories — the ones that most defined my musical explorations this year. There's nu jazz (represented by Richard Spaven, Otis Sandsjö, Lunch Money Life), the new directions of traditional folk and world sounds (Stick in the Wheel, Clap! Clap!, Cosmo Sheldrake), and abstract electronica shot through with deconstructed club influences (Arrsalendo, Charli XCX). But there's no shortage of cross-references and frequent overlaps with progressive approaches either: above all, the tightrope-walking jazz-rock of Armenian Tigran Hamasyan or the near-folktronica of French artist Chassol, but also the avant-prog of Watchdog or the eclectic chamber-scale IDM of Chapelier Fou, used as a prelude to the closing, thoroughly urban “From The Mouth”, from this year's masterpiece album by Melt Yourself Down. 

Massimiliano Speri

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25/11/2025