Homebake 2009. Credit: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images
Letâs not beat around the bush: musicâs done better than weâd have guessed it would this year, and the future is looking if not exactly bright, then it at least has a vague luminescence you can pick out if you really squint.
And lest you accuse me of being a starry-eyed Pollyanna deliberately underplaying the devastation the year has wrought, letâs first acknowledge our losses: from John Prine to Fountains Of Wayneâs Adam Schlesinger, we lost many music legends prematurely to the virus.
A lot of people in the music industry also saw their careers abruptly ended in 2020. This was particularly in the wake of the governmentâs baffling and entirely deliberate decision to exclude many in the arts industry (and the university sector, and people on visasâ¦) from JobKeeper support because, as treasurer Josh Frydenberg explained, âa line has to be drawn somewhereâ.