A Pandemic Year in Musical Review

Music Trends

| April 19, 2021

Lauren Pufpaf

Now that we’re seeing some light at the end of this long tunnel, people are starting to reflect on the last year. There were plenty of personal growth opportunities and so many turbulent emotions. The business/work aspect of life has also been a somewhat conflicted experience, with some businesses thriving while others were knocked down hard.

Countless artists and venues have had their lives and livelihoods turned upside down due to canceled performances and social distancing measures. But on the other hand, the same pandemic-related factors have helped music streaming reach new highs and motivated digital innovation across commerce, fitness, music, and many more segments.

At Feed Media Group, we’ve been riding those same highs and lows and have had a front-row seat to innovation in both music and fitness. We’ve seen traditional businesses and brick-and-mortar gyms pivot swiftly into digital programs their members can access at home, and digital fitness brands driving record growth. Similarly, we saw streaming usage among our own customers rise a whopping 1600% year over year.

Through it all, music has been the glue holding us together and the fuel motivating us to push forward into the post-pandemic frontier. Music has provided relief from the stress of adapting to a new way of life and given us a place to seek solace as needed. Upbeat pop songs like Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande’s “Rain On Me,” and hip hop songs like “Fly” by D Smoke added fun and humor to a not so fun or humorous era, and more melancholy tracks like Mac Miller’s “Everybody” related to the anxiety, isolation, and sadness all too many of us felt during lockdowns and periods of civil unrest. All the while emotional and heartfelt tracks like Chris Stapleton’s “Starting Over” captured the long-awaited moment of receiving the first round of vaccines or reuniting with long-unseen friends and family members.

So to capture the mood of this wild roller coaster of a year, we put our music curation skills to the test to assemble the playlist, divided by quarters, below which we believe represents an accurate soundtrack to the “experience of COVID-19.”