10 musical moments that defined 2020 in all the wrong ways, from Gal Gadot’s cringeworthy Imagine cover to David Guetta’s ill-timed tribute to George Floyd
- French DJ David Guetta raised eyebrows when he dropped Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech into a tech-house live-stream ‘in honour of George Floyd’
- Piggy Knows by experimental pop band Animal Collective is eight minutes long, with a chorus that simply says: ‘piggy piggy piggy piggy’ over and over again
Think of it as a victory lap for arguably the worst year ever. Now that every list-maker with ears has run down the albums and songs that made 2020 a little easier to endure, let’s take a minute to spotlight some of the music that reflected, defined or simply lived down to the appalling crumminess of the past 12 months.
1. Gal Gadot and her celebrity choir, Imagine
What strikes you now about the clip, though, isn’t its self-satisfaction but its naivete: “Day six in self-quarantine,” Gadot says to the camera, scarcely able to believe that regular life has been disrupted for so long. That she had no idea what was coming – that none of us did – makes a stupid thing kind of sad too.
2. David Guetta, tribute to George Floyd
3. Trey Lewis, D**ked Down in Dallas
We’re all for a supremely bawdy country song – and with a largely unprintable chorus running down the many ways (and cities) in which the singer’s ex is enjoying herself, this filthy viral hit certainly qualifies. But as expertly pitched as the songwriting is, D**ked Down in Dallas ends up a bummer thanks to its slut-shaming moralism: “I wonder what her daddy’d say,” Lewis sings with a plaintive twang, “Maybe he’s the one to blame.” Womp-womp.