See all best of 2020 coverage.
20.
Saint Sister
Dynamite
Saint Sister’s ‘Dynamite’ is a song that typifies the gentle and beautiful instrumentation that Morgan Macintyre and Gemma Doherty’s music often possesses with harp, dulcimer and piano and the song is about the memories at the end of a relationship. The duo also collaborated with Lisa Hannigan recently on ‘The Place I Work’.
19.
James Vincent McMorrow
Gone
James Vincent McMorrow’s Gone’ is his most confident and pop-centred song he has released to date. With a rhythmic sway from reggaeton-lite beats that swirls into a larger synth-assisted chorus, the song is “about the disintegration of relationships. In my case, the disintegration of my relationship with myself.”
18.
Ailbhe Reddy
Looking Happy
‘Looking Happy’ is the encapsulation of a particular modern problem in a guitar bop, seeing an ex’s life through the lens of social media and feeling anxiety, sadness, weirdness and perhaps, jealousy. “I can make it stop, just turn it OFF!” is the closing advice.
17.
Brién
Sundried
Belfast’s Brién released a fine EP on Soft Boy Records this year and this laid-back hook-filled track has a real somnambulist groove to it.
16.
MuRLi
Til The Wheels Come Off
‘Til The Wheels Come Off’ addresses racist chants at soccer matches while also underscoring a dominant theme that was a major part of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. “Ain’t nobody safe here / Unless we all are.”
15.
Niamh Regan
Save The Day
Galway singer-songwriter’s Niamh Regan’s Hemet was my second favourite Irish album of this year. It mostly consists of beautifully lyric folk music but ‘Save The Day’ is a more on the indie-leaning spectrum while lyrically, concerns letting go of a saviour complex.
14.
Fontaines D.C.
A Hero’s Death
“Life ain’t always empty,” is the dominant lyric that Grian Chatten repeats on this propulsive song which alongside other rules, are repeated a mantra as if the singer is trying to convince himself of the sentiment (“principles for self-prescribed happiness that can often hang by a thread” is how Chatten put it). The fragility of the line is matched by the downward guitar chords repeating throughout. The backing vocals offer a lift between the push and pull of this, one of Fontaines D.C.’s finest songs.
13.
Loah and Bantum
NGLA
The partnership of Irish Sierra Leonean singer-songwriter and Cork producer Ruairi Lynch AKA Bantum is one that always provides nourishment. ‘NGLA’, which stands for ‘Never Gonna Love Again’ is a deep fried funk synth jam with a resigned desperation at its core. A sad banger through and through.
12.
AE MAK
I Dance In The Kitchen
Aoife McCann debuted a new side to the music of AE MAK in 2020 with songs that were self-written, self-recorded and self-produced music featured on how to: make a kitsch pop song to show the world.
‘I Dance In The Kitchen’ is the sort of fun giddy pop song that McCann excels at. The production’s playful backing is a perfect foil for the bright and yearning vocals by McCann and Seba Safe.
11.
Wyvern Lingo
Don’t Say It
Caoimhe Barry, Karen Cowley and Saoirse Duane’s ‘Don’t Say It’ is a song that is informed by Wyvern Lingo’s R&B/funk roots, capably spun in a style that feels fresh for the band, more confident and tightly arranged while also harkening back to their very early music. The song “is about an inevitable and reluctant end, where the reasons to stay are deeply rooted, but the reasons to leave are becoming harder to deny.”
