Year in Review: 33 Moments That Made Us Smile in 2020

The Grammys took place in Los Angeles the same day as Kobe Bryant’s tragic death in a helicopter crash (an early harbinger of what a massive suck-storm 2020 was going to be). So no one was really in the mood for the usual self-congratulatory awards-shows bullshit — especially since it was taking place at the Staples Center, where Kobe had made his legend playing with the Lakers. But when Lizzo opened the night taking the stage in a rhinestone-studded black ball gown and told the crowd “Tonight is for Kobe!” before launching into a resplendent slam-dunk performance of “Cuz I Love You” and “Truth Hurts,” it hit just the right note; “I’m crying cuz I love you!” she belted with devastating soul-queen authority, channeling everyone’s grief and shock. Later during her performance, she was given her flute on a platter and proceeded to crank things up even more, blasting a wild-style solo that offered the perfect moment of absurdist catharsis we needed, the sound of numbness floating away with each on-fire filigree she coaxed from her instrument. It was a fitting start to a year in which survival often meant finding creative new strategies to ward off pain.  —Jon Dolan

Covid-19 first forced Americans to stay home in the middle of March. The virus is evil, and even its timing was cruel. Streets were empty, and social distancing cut short plans for barbecues, pool parties, and all the other markers that spring had begun. 

D-Nice to the rescue. The ex-Boogie Down Productions member started spinning live on Instagram that first Saturday of quarantining, and suddenly we didn’t mind staying at home so much. With him playing hits like Frankie Beverly’s “Before I Let Go,” the sorrow of our isolation was lost in a fog of nostalgia. Later followed by the likes of Questlove and cueing up the artist “battles” we’d see as the year went on, D-Nice reminded us that the party can not only be wherever we make it, but also wherever we need it to be. —Jamil Smith 

The coronavirus swept over New York last spring and changed the city forever. For a string of days more than a thousand people were dying every 24 hours. Some hospitals were overwhelmed. Bodies were stacked in mobile freezer trucks. Fear was everywhere. But at 7 p.m. each night, from fire escapes, rooftops, and open windows, a disjointed cacophony emerged: the ringing of bells, shouts of “WOOOO” and “WOOHOOOS,” pounding drums, guitars, and occasional horn sections, in salute to the hospital workers and first responders who were facing the plague on the front lines. The collective cry was not a sound of triumph, but of resolve and gratitude for service and tremendous sacrifice. Though the ritual started in Europe, the roar of thanks came during some of the darkest days this city has ever known, and carried with it something even this cynical New Yorker needed: hope. —Sean Woods

Exotic dancers aren’t typically considered essential workers, but the good folks of Portland, Oregon — home to the highest number of strip clubs per capita in the country — would probably beg to differ. In the early spring, employees at Lucky Devil Lounge, a local strip club in the area, were lifting spirits and earning a well-deserved paycheck by delivering chicken wings and burgers to patrons’ homes while topless, throwing in a shimmy or two for good measure. Initially known as Boober Eats (the name was quickly changed when a certain ride-share service got involved), then Food 2Gogo, the Lucky Devil is now offering drive-thru strip-club services — proving that the best business models can pivot on a dime. —EJ Dickson 

Tim Burgess has given music fans so much with the Charlatans, with U.K. rock gems like “North Country Boy.” But this year, he came up with a real service to humanity: Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties. They were an incredibly fun way to experience favorite albums with a real-time worldwide community joining in. Even better, the artists show up to livetweet their own records, sometimes with different members of the band arguing along. So many U.K. legends came out to play: Oasis, Blur, the Smiths, the Fall, Saint Etienne, Pulp, Cocteau Twins, the Pogues, Duran Duran, ABC, even my beloved Scritti Politti. (It’s so touching to know that, even as the world goes to hell, the members of New Order will still find ways to push one another’s buttons.) It wasn’t the same kick as a live show, but it sure helped ease the year’s universal loneliness for music fans. This is one of the very, very few 2020 innovations that should hopefully stay around forever. —Rob Sheffield

When my wife and I realized we needed to pull our three-year-old out of preschool last March, it was a pandemic gut punch. He’d be losing contact with trusted teachers, new friends, and a budding life outside our house. Like most families with young kids, we were left scrambling for resources to fill his educational void. And then, like a ray of sunshine through that 2020 fog, Dolly Parton showed up on our iPad, decked out in reading glasses and sleepy-sheepy pajamas, reading The Little Engine that Could. 

“Hello,” she said in a singsong introduction, filmed in her bedroom, “I’m Dolly Parton, the book lady.” And by the time she reached the timeless choo-choo incantation — “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can” — my son was enthralled, we were both smiling from ear to ear, and I was starting to think, just maybe, we’d be able to get through this national Covid calamity. 

Promoting early childhood literacy is nothing new for Parton; the 74-year-old superstar launched the Imagination Library in 1995, and has gifted more than 100 million print books to pre-K kids across the world. But as the pandemic took hold, Parton saw a new need — from book-starved kids and frazzled parents alike — and began sharing bedtime stories in this Goodnight With Dolly series, which premiered in April and built to 10 episodes through June. The readings included Parton’s own children’s book, A Coat of Many Colors, as well as classics like The Last Stop on Market Street and There’s a Hole in the Log on the Bottom of the Lake. Every installment we watched seemed like a salve for my parental sanity, and every reading was met with the highest mark of approval from my young son as it concluded, joyfully shouting “Again!”  —Tim Dickinson

Jarvis Cocker served like a champ this year, proving himself the kind of rock star you can count on in a crisis. The Pulp singer (and Brit-pop legend) planned to spend this past summer touring the world, flaunting his excellent new album, Beyond the Pale, featuring the claustrophobic banger “House Music All Night Long.” But when plans changed, Jarvis kept a stiff upper lip and just swiveled into DJ mode. Jarvis brought us his Domestic Disco sets, looting his vinyl collection, direct from his living room via Instagram Live, bringing a little Saturday-night fever to shut-ins everywhere. As he told Rolling Stone in the summer, “My girlfriend helps me do it, so it’s a form of couples therapy as well.” He also did “Bedtime Stories” on Sunday evenings, reading works by Ray Bradbury or Richard Brautigan in his soothing northern English accent. “When everybody went on pause globally, people had to re-evaluate what was necessary in their lives and what they could do without,” Jarvis told Rolling Stone. “And I guess the thing people realized they couldn’t do without, in the end, was other people.” —Rob Sheffield 

Riverdale is decidedly the most gloriously nonsensical show on television — it is a dark, sexy take on the Archie comics, after all — so fans weren’t surprised when it dedicated an entire episode to John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s 1998 musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. They were, however, delighted. The rock & roll musical centers on a German genderqueer rock star, the titular Hedwig, as she becomes obsessed with a younger musician who goes on to steal her music and become an even bigger star. In this episode of the teen show, theater nerd Kevin Keller (Casey Cott) rallies for the school to put on the musical — which is replete with Bowie-esque bangers — only to be foiled by killjoy principal Mr. Honey (Kerr Smith). There’s all kinds of side plots about evil private schools and mysterious voyeurs, but it’s truly a joy to watch real-life theater major Cott belt “Wig in a Box,” Cole Sprouse’s Jughead growl “Exquisite Corpse” with his girlfriend Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart), and the whole cast deliver a show-stopping performance of “Wicked Little Town.” This episode is sure to go down as one of the best musical interludes in TV history — alongside “Once More With Feeling” of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. “It’s almost an experience; it’s a rock concert and a storybook and almost like a Broadway show all mixed into one,” Cott told Rolling Stone. “It’s almost a standalone episode that celebrates all the beautiful qualities of Hedwig. It’s a celebration of the incredible themes and tones and messages of Hedwig, beautifully displayed in this unique little variety show Riverdale episode.” —Brenna Ehrlich

In the early months of the pandemic, there were very few bright spots. The folks at Disney, however, had a solution: host a cheesy, overproduced singalong of favorite Disney tunes from B-list celebrities’ homes, from Derek Hough and girlfriend Hayley Erbert whirling through their kitchens for a madcap “Be Our Guest” to Josh Groban on Zoom singing an operatic “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” Disney’s singalong, which aired on ABC and Disney+, was proof that old-fashioned entertainment wasn’t going to die during the pandemic; it was just going to look a little different for the time being. —EJ Dickson

Young began his Fireside Sessions series in March, when his plan to tour arenas with Crazy Horse was put on hold. Whether he was sitting in front of a cozy fire or strumming his guitar to chickens scurrying around his Colorado home, he threw curveballs into the brief sets, like a rare “On the Beach” and the deep cut “Campaigner.” No one could have predicted, though, that he’d perform “Through My Sails” for the first time ever. The song is the meditative closer on 1975’s Zuma — an album I love so much that I named my cat after it. The original recording features David Crosby and Graham Nash on backing vocals, as Young sings about how spiritually freeing the ocean can be. The Fireside take is obviously solo, as Young peacefully wades through each verse while embers glow behind him. Young recently released a 1974 version of the song on Archives Volume II last month, but nothing was as jaw-dropping as seeing this gem live, virtually shocking fans everywhere. Here’s hoping he’ll unearth “Motion Pictures” in 2021. —Angie Martoccio

On June 1st, the Trump administration gassed and beat the Black Lives Matter activists who were protesting outside the White House, clearing a path for Donald Trump’s nearby photo-op, in a move more reminiscent of a fascist dictator than an American president. On July 2nd, with military vehicles on most downtown Washington, D.C., street corners, the activists again gathered, standing in front of a high fence and surrounded by hundreds of armed law-enforcement agencies. A citywide curfew of 7 p.m. was in effect, as law enforcement blared warnings that their “unlawful assembly” would be cleared. But 7 p.m. came and went, and the police state blinked: The BLM activists, predominantly young people of color, made it clear they’d stay as late as they damn well pleased. They danced, sang, shouted, cried, and held their ground, reminding anyone watching that this generation of civil rights advocates — like those who came before them — would not and could not be beaten into submission. —Patrick Reis 

John Lewis was a leader beyond his last breath. In his posthumously published op-ed for The New York Times, the Georgia congressman remarked upon why he went to Washington, D.C.’s Black Lives Matter Plaza just a day after chemotherapy. “I just had to see and feel it for myself,” Lewis wrote, “that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.”

The yellow paint spelling out the words had hardly dried when Lewis, cane in hand, arrived to survey it. It was on June 7th, just a month before pancreatic cancer would take him from us, and yet the photos show him standing ramrod-straight with his signature gaze of determination. Here was this civil rights giant whom racists once knocked from his feet on a bridge in Selma, Alabama, fighting for me before I was born, now using his last moments to inspire. —Jamil Smith 

June was rough. The world had just witnessed yet another senseless death and the demonization of black bodies by police. There were nightly demonstrations; the anger was boiling over. So when Ungodly Hour was released on June 12th — less than three weeks after the brutal death of George Floyd — it was the perfect moment of pause as we mourned and collected our thoughts before taking action. The album starts with haunting vocal melodies, a signature for those who are familiar with the infamous sister duo Chloe x Halle, and deep bass chords that set a tone for the majority of the LP. Tracks like “Busy Boy” and “Don’t Make It Harder On Me” remind us of familiar melodies from the 1990s and early 2000s, while upbeat tracks like “Tipsy” and “ROYL” make us remember that the dance floor is out there waiting — somewhere. —Kyle Rice 

We all had fun mocking literally every aspect of Quibi this year — I see you, Mrs. Maisel’s golden arm — but we’ll save the schadenfreude for another day. When bored celebs like Joe Jonas, Chris Pine, Jack Black, Rob Reiner, Tiffany Haddish, Josh Gad, and many more wanted to raise money for charity this past summer, they brilliantly re-enacted the entire The Princess Bride on their iPhones. 

The cast staged each long-memorized-by-many scene in Los Angeles backyards, with the Be Kind Rewind-esque production causing joyously amateurish results. (Hugh Jackman plays Humperdinck with a dim-sum steamer as a crown, while Jennifer Garner as Buttercup surrounds herself with stuffed animals to play the crowd.) It’s so enjoyable, in part, because it’s the exact opposite of meticulously choreographed, bland red-carpet appearances and junket interviews we’re used to; just a few iPhones, some makeshift props lying around the house and a day or so to memorize (sort of) the scene with no pressure or expectations. It’s like imagining what your favorite actor does on his day off from being a professional actor.

Our highlight? Patton Oswalt and Jon Hamm reimagining Westley and Vizzini’s Battle of Wits (with Oswalt’s real-life daughter, Alice, playing Buttercup). Hamm is the keyword here, as both actors play their parts with delirious, over-the-top bombast that looks like they had as much fun as had the viewers. Three cheers to Quibi! May you reign for decades! Wait, really? They did? But it hasn’t even been a year … —Jason Newman 

In July, Washington’s football team became the Washington Football Team, dropping a racist moniker they’d played under for nearly 90 years. It was a victory for indigenous activists who’d demanded the team fix its name, and successfully pushed companies to curb sales of the team’s merchandise. They haven’t picked a new name yet, so for the 2020 season, Washington’s NFL franchise is playing under the most generic (but accurate!) team nickname imaginable. (Not for nothing, but, as of this writing, Football Team is on a four-game win streak and just pulled off the upset of the season, bringing a bit of joy to a city whose residents have had a terrifying year.)

The overdue name change is a tiny drop in the massive bucket of what’s owed to the nation’s first peoples, a tab the United States government somehow ran even higher this year after the disastrous federal mismanagement of Covid-19 was especially deadly among Native Americans. Still, the Navajo Nation said the team’s move made July 13th “a historic day for all Indigenous peoples around the world,” and we stand with them in celebrating a step in the right direction. Here’s to many more. —Patrick Reis 

Summer 2020 was going as well as it could. After a shockingly horrific spring, at least we had the sun and open parks and beaches to do socially distant hangs with friends. Yet the majority of big pop albums coming out did what pop albums often do: make you yearn to dance, which is not always the best feeling to have in the middle of a pandemic. Then came Taylor Swift.

An artist who never really moves in secret, the media blitzes surrounding her previous albums have always been multimillion-dollar affairs — in 2019, she introduced Lover with a massive, months-long rollout full of “Easter eggs,” TV performances, interviews, and blog posts, creating a barrage of content and anticipation. She ditched all that in 2020 for two of her best albums yet: the gloomy folk masterpieces Folklore and Evermore. In July — the same month fans had initially been expecting to see her two-city, multiday, football-stadium-size Lover Fest — she gave them less than 24 hours to prepare for the release of Folklore, and they weren’t sure what to expect. What she delivered was a bright spot in a very dark summer in the form an intimate collaborative quarantine project between Swift, the National’s Aaron Dessner, and her longtime producer Jack Antonoff that had Swift detailing stories outside of her own. Evermore, which was similarly surprise released in December, built off the cozy melancholy of its barely older sister.

For longtime fans of Swift, both sound like albums she has always been aiming to make: singer-songwriter records that don’t lose her pop sensibilities. As somber as many of the stories she tells are, the album proved to be a balm for old and new Swifties like myself stuck in isolation, living in fear and not knowing what would come next. Based on the fact that she was able to produce two of these albums, it may have been a source of comfort for her as well. —Brittany Spanos

Professional sports are a constant. Regardless of what’s happening in America, games have been played and champions crowned as reliably as the seasons change. This wasn’t the case in 2020, as Covid-19 forced leagues to reconfigure their operations and Americans to consider just how fragile the institutions they take for granted really are. As Black Lives Matter demonstrations swept the nation this summer, the Milwaukee Bucks wanted to send a message that the pandemic of police brutality can be just as disruptive.

Three days after Kenosha, Wisconsin, police shot Jacob Blake, black and unarmed, seven times as he attempted to enter a vehicle containing three of his children, the Bucks decided they simply were not going to take the court for Game 5 of their playoff series against the Orlando Magic. “We’re tired of the killing and the injustice,” guard George Hill told ESPN of the decision, which led the NBA to postpone the rest of the games scheduled for that day. Athletes should never feel they have to “stick to sports” and suppress how they feel about the state of America. In 2020, we were glad to see they didn’t. —Ryan Bort 

Has there been any form of pandemic content more draining than virtual awards shows? Digitized audiences and bad jokes about social distancing have already made a lot of usually fun telecasts feel like major misses this year, but thankfully MTV’s VMAs had one big star on hand to keep it from feeling like a total dud: Lady Gaga. Earlier this year, her Chromatica rollout hit a few snags, like leaked songs and a scheduled release date during the week in March the world settled into full lockdown. To the surprise of her fans, she pretty much disappeared after the highly anticipated house album finally came out April 10th. But who can blame her? This is a star who thrives onstage, and during 2020, she had few stages to perform on. As a fan of Chromatica, one of Gaga’s best albums and a welcome return to her dance-pop roots, I felt that her own brand of theatrical pop was sorely missing from the steady stream of austere at-home performances.

But in late August, she was given a platform. Gaga has a long history with the VMAs, a show where she’s done her most daring, memorable performances. This year was no exception: She performed a medley of Chromatica tracks over about 10 minutes with some of her best choreography, costumes, and a special appearance from Ariana Grande for “Rain on Me.” It was funny, campy, and as weird as you want from a Gaga performance; there was so much going on I almost forgot that I was even watching a mid-pandemic award show. The only reminder was the fact that she did the whole damn thing while wearing an elaborate, light-up mask. Queen of Covid safety! —Brittany Spanos 

When Schitt’s Creek — the Canadian comedy about an obnoxiously spoiled rich family that makes good in a small town — dominated this year’s Emmy Awards, the backlash could have been swift. The all-white cast took home nine awards and overshadowed some other very excellent shows (Insecure, Ramy) with very deserving and talented casts featuring actors that remain underrepresented in Hollywood. But the feel-good show and charming creators were so sincere and lovely that it felt impossible to not warm to the moment. Especially when both Dan Levy and his dad, legendary funnyman Eugene Levy, both won and Dan’s pride (and tears) were lovely to see. The fact that he was also dressed in a stylish Thom Browne kilt (reminiscent of the one he wore to marry his fiancé, Patrick, in the series finale) didn’t hurt either. —Jerry Portwood

There are many baffling, borderline absurdist moments in Emily in Paris — Darren Star’s new rom-com-lite on Netflix — from Lily Collins’ ridiculous berets to the lack of clarity about her job (Is she a marketing manager? Is she a social media expert? Is she, somehow, both?) to her reliance on a translation app instead of learning how to ask “Where’s the bathroom?” in French. But perhaps the most psychotic moment in Star’s escapist fever dream of a show is when Emily’s best friend, the bubbly au pair Mindy (Ashley Park), inexplicably belts out Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose” in full in the Tuileries. A real Parisian audience would be vicariously embarrassed at a ex-pat for doing something so trite; in the world of Emily in Paris, however, Parisians are entranced, underscoring just how much of a fluffy fantasia the world of the show was. —EJ Dickson

What a year for Miley Cyrus. After launching the Stevie Nicks-sampling single “Midnight Sky” in August, the former Disney star did something unique to promote both the track and her fall album, Plastic Hearts. Instead of bombarding everyone with constant new singles, she hinted at what her new LP would sound like by singing songs by the artists who inspired it. Every livestream performance she did included covers of classic rock and pop songs by everyone from the Cranberries to Britney Spears. The most striking of these covers also quickly became her most popular one to date: a raucous, raspy, heavy take on Blondie’s disco-punk classic “Heart of Glass” at iHeartRadio’s virtual music festival. When Cyrus is singing it, the track becomes Blondie-by-way-of-Joan Jett, which turned out to be the perfect description of an album fans had yet to hear when she first sang it. For fans like me who have been dying for Cyrus to embrace that smoky voice and release a rock album long before this year, it was a promising sneak peek of my dreams coming true. —Brittany Spanos

It was a moment that resonated with exasperated women around the world: During the vice presidential debate, after Mike Pence had interrupted soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris for the umpteenth time, she quietly but decisively stated, “Mister Vice president, I’m speaking. I’m speaking.” Shortly after the debate, it became a trending sound on TikTok, remixed with Megan Thee Stallion’s “Girls in the Hood.” The soundbite, compared with Megan Thee Stallion’s defiant lyrics — “Fuck being good, I’m a bad bitch, I’m sick of motherfuckers trying to tell me how to live” — is a perfect anthem for women sick and tired of being interrupted by mediocre men. —EJ Dickson

There are many wonderfully bizarre moments in the madcap Borat sequel — the infamous Rudy Giuliani altercation, adult-babysitter Jeanise Jones’ star turn, the encounter with QAnon believers in a cabin in the woods, monkey cannibalism — but our personal favorite is when Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Tutar (played by newcomer Maria Bakalova) show up at a Southern debutante ball and decide to introduce the bemused attendees to their version of a Kazakh fertility dance, complete with menstrual blood running down Tutar’s legs. The onlookers are horrified, but everyone watching on Amazon Prime is rolling on the floor. It was just one of several great menstrual moments on TV this year. —EJ Dickson 

On election night, as we all hunkered down for weeks of uncertainty and a not-entirely impossible chance that Donald Trump would dismantle American Democracy, there was one clear winner: weed. Six legalization initiatives were on ballots across the country; six initiatives passed. Mississippi got medical weed. New Jersey, Arizona, and Montana got recreational. South Dakota became the first state to vote in both medical and recreational at the same time. There’s a lot of bad things to say about 2020, but at least we can look back on it as a tipping-point year in ending the disastrous War on Drugs. —Elisabeth Garber-Paul 

It was one joyous day in the middle of the worst year ever — when the networks began calling Pennsylvania for Biden, and it dawned on the country that there might be a light at the end of this Trumpian tunnel. Philadelphia had come through with enough votes to clinch the election. And then Gritty showed up to party.

Move over, Biden. This was Gritty’s day. He was everywhere — the streets of Philadelphia, the trending topics on twitter, Buzzfeed’s meme roundups. His sudden and overwhelming popularity brought confusion to the European news outlets covering the spontaneous celebration across the U.S. What is a Gritty? A hockey mascot, sure — but so much more. As one Gritty fan on Twitter put it, he’s more like “the manifestation of their city as a god, like Roma.” And he was a welcome, if deranged, face on that near-perfect Saturday in November. —Elisabeth Garber-Paul 

The black home is so often a refuge for the vulnerabilities we must so often hide from the world to simply get by. Though the laughs from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air — of one of my favorite comedies — did not go stale in the HBOMax reunion special, it was the poignant moments that have stayed with me. The remembrance for “Uncle Phil,” the late and great James Avery, with each cast member singing him hosannas through their visceral, tearful grief. Will Smith and Janet Hubert, the original “Aunt Viv,” reconciling after 27 years of not speaking to each other. When we stand in so much light, there is also a shadow: conflicts, sorrow, and solace. I loved that as they sat once again in their old living-room set, the cast invited America back into a black home in a proper way. —Jamil Smith

Even before the pandemic, Nandi Bushell was already becoming a star. The 10-year-old musician from Ipswich, England, had risen up the YouTube ranks with her exuberant rock covers — including a 2019 drum rendition of Nirvana’s “In Bloom,” recorded when she was just nine years old, where she punctuated her rolls with screams of joy. Then Covid hit, and Bushell raised the stakes, covering the Foo Fighters’ “Everlong” while challenging Dave Grohl himself to a drum-off. Grohl accepted, and what ensued was the year’s most heartwarming virtual buddy movie, in which the pair traded cover tunes, wrote theme songs for one another — “Number-one supergirl/Best drummer in the world,” Grohl sang in his — and even met up on Zoom for a getting-to-know-you chat. During their virtual hang, Grohl cemented his nicest-guy-in-rock reputation by confessing to Nandi, “I feel like I’m meeting a Beatle.” Watching the clip, it was impossible not to mirror Nandi’s wide-eyed smile. —Hank Shteamer

Historically, men on the cover of Vogue don’t go over well — remember the Kimye scandal that sent critics around the world questioning Anna Wintour’s hold on the magazine? Or how about the racially charged disaster of the LeBron James cover? Yet, this one hits different. Not only was this the first time a man had been photographed on the cover solo, but Harry Styles graced the front page of the December 2020 issue in a dress, his fingers arched around his mouth as he blew up a blue balloon. On one hand, you had generations of queer and gender non-conforming audiences applauding the decision and rallying behind the “radical” change in Vogue’s content, and on the other, hordes of conservative trolls ready to burn the internet to the ground. Yet, the nonchalant nature of the photo — from the waist up, as he concentrated on a simple task — is what made it such an uplifting moment. As culture writer EJ Dickson put it on our site, “There is nothing remotely threatening to anyone about Harry Styles in a dress.” —Kyle Rice 

Was there a better metaphor for 2020 than the typically majestic and inspiring Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree being unearthed this year as a decrepit shell of its fallen brethren of years past? But for optimists — should any still exist — a 2021 metaphor arrived soon after in the form of Rockefeller, a diminutive owl that emerged from the arboreal wreckage. 

Rockefeller was tired. Rockefeller was dehydrated. Rockefeller was hungry. But a veterinarian cleaned up our fledgling and sent her out in the wild, where she’s currently finding the choicest cuts of mice and being showered with praise by more inferior avians. (She’s a metaphor for 2021. Let me have this.)

There are multiple theories as to how Rockefeller made the trek from the tree’s origin 170 miles upstate to a tourist trap that I haven’t seen in nine months, and, dear lord, I miss so much. But she’s still a metaphor, so when the animal expert who helped nurse her back said she may have been too traumatized to go out and just “stayed indoors” in the tree, I stopped looking for alternative theories.

Thank you, Rockefeller. May your owl-y legacy and non-owly disposition shine bright in the new year. —Jason Newman 

It started with a song — specifically, a deranged, high-pitched parody of a Christian worship song devoted to Remy, the aspiring chef-rodent in the 2007 Pixar film Ratatouille. The simple “Ode to Remy” — consisting entirely of the lyrics, “Remy, the ratatouille, the rat of all my dreams/I praise you, my ratatouille, may the world remember your name” — went viral on TikTok, with everyone from songwriters to composers to choreographers to graphic designers using it as inspiration to craft the collaborative TikTok project Ratatouille: The Musical, as well as a campaign to bring the show to Broadway. (They may well get their wish, albeit in the virtual sphere: On January 1st, the show will get a one-night-only concert performance to benefit the Actors’ Fund.) —EJ Dickson

In 2019, David Berman of the Silver Jews, easily one of the best rock lyricists of the past three decades, died of suicide just weeks after releasing his first new music in almost 10 years. His passing was a huge loss that immediately inspired many tributes and cover versions of his songs, and it continued to resonate in powerful ways throughout 2020. In January, there were Berman tribute concerts in Brooklyn and Portland, Oregon, highlighted by a moving performance from Berman’s old Silver Jews buddies Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich of Pavement. Berman’s music stayed on people’s minds all year. In September, his name showed up on Shore, the excellent new album by Fleet Foxes, listed among musical greats like Otis Redding and Nick Drake, as Foxes’ Robin Pecknold sang about the healing beauty of classic artists’ work. My favorite Berman moment, though, was more surprising; it came late in 2020 when Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs appeared on the new album by the Avalanches, carefully reciting lyrics to Berman’s beautiful heartbroken song “Darkness and Cold.” The Avalanches are a sampledelic dance-music duo from Australia, relatively distant from the indie-rock scene that worshipped Berman, and it was uniquely poignant to see his words and legacy resonate across different musical worlds, as I’m sure it will for years and decades to come. — Jon Dolan 

Since the dawn of Semitic time, Jews have bickered over the proper spelling of the Festival of Lights. But the pronunciation has been forever clear: Hah-nah-kah. On Sunday, the 27th of Kislev, 5781, that all changed.

When a Smokey Robinson fan paid for the Motown legend to record a “Happy Hanukkah” Cameo video to his mom, the singer charmingly called it “Cha-noo-kah” four times, adding, “I have no idea what Chanookah is.” It now puts us in a bind: On one hand, it’s definitely Hah-nah-kah. On the other, Smokey Robinson — one of the greatest gifts of the 20th century — says it’s Chanookah. 

It is now Chanookah.

I could spend thousands of words wondering how it’s possible Smokey Robinson made it to 80 — traveling all over the world and meeting people from all walks of life for decades — without knowing what Chanookah is. But let’s not overthink this. 2020 sucked — my Chanookah gifts were fine but could’ve been better, Dad — but Smokey’s wide smile and mellifluous voice is enough to change how an entire religion says a holiday’s name. Smokey, they’ll now always be a chair at my table for you at Po-suh-ver. —Jason Newman