Locally…

- Concerts and performances were few and far between, although live events and industry shindigs started to pick up more steam as the Covid-affected year went along.

- The usual mainstream suspects – your Ali Zafars and Atif Aslams – churned out their requisite supply of singles.

- Several artists said they’d release albums and we believed them even though we should have known better at this point. This is how we hurt ourselves, you guys.

- Strings broke up, instantly ruining our year.

- The 2021 Pakistan Super League anthem, ‘Groove Mera’, sung by Naseebo Lal, Aima Baig, and Young Stunners, was either a masterpiece or an abomination. Or both simultaneously. It’s as though Schrodinger made a song.

- Schrodinger Xulfi was given the reins of Coke Studio for its 14^th outing. #HeavenHelpUs

It was also revealed that the upcoming season will feature artists including Atif Aslam, Faisal Kapadia, Young Stunners, Hasan Raheem, Justin Bibis, Talal Qureshi, Abdullah Siddiqui, Faris Shafi, and Arooj Aftab. Speaking of whom ….

- The Pakistan-born, New York-based singer’s cover of ‘Mohabbat’ not only made it to Barack Obama’s 2021 summer playlist, but Arooj was also nominated for two Grammys, even if it took a last-minute increase in the number of General Field slots for them to recognize her talent in the Best New Artist category.

- Abbas Ali Khan was declared the Best Singer and Bayaan’s ‘Teri Tasveer’ took home the Best Song honour at the Lux Style Awards. Meanwhile, ‘Uchiyaan Dewaraan (Baari 2)’ by Bilal Saeed and Momina Mustehsan won the Song of the Year trophy at the Pakistan International Screen Awards. No, we have no idea why either.

- Several music industry individuals faced #MeToo accusations. Among them was Abdullah Qureshi, who apologized for his problematic past after harassment allegations surfaced online.

- Kashmir Beats and Bisconni Music were a thing because God forbid there’s a brand left without its own music show.

Internationally…

- It was very emphatically the year of Olivia Rodrigo. The 18-year-old Disney Channel starlet’s debut album vibed with our inner tween and became ridiculously popular in the process. Sour was the year’s most streamed album on Spotify, while ‘drivers license’ was the most streamed song.

- Meanwhile, Bad Bunny was the world’s most streamed artist on Spotify for some reason.

- BTS remained confusingly popular.

- Justin Bieber continued to exist.

- Songs in the key of beige continued to be in vogue. *tips hat to Ed Sheeran*

- If you spent longer than two and a half seconds on planet Earth, chances are you had to endure Dua Lipa’s warbling at some point, a statement that admittedly does not reflect too highly on humans as a species.

- Adele released an album with a track-list that reads like it was created by a cliché generator, and … there goes our mascara!

- Lil Nas X had fun ticking people off and released a massive album along the way.

- Taylor Swift rerecorded her albums in the year’s most lucrative yawn-fest.

- Everyone conveniently forgot about Billie Eilish being problematic as soon as her sophomore album dropped.

- Coldplay had emojis for song titles and … yeah, let’s not do that.

- Four decades after parting ways, ABBA got back together to bless us with some anachronistic pop bliss.

- Little Mix went on hiatus. We promptly booked an appointment with our therapist.

- One Direction entered the sixth year of their 18-month hiatus. This update was brought to you by our still-broken hearts.

- The Grammys continued to be a joke, one that The Weeknd did not find particularly amusing.

- Benefit concert Global Citizen Live put on a day-long show with some of the biggest names in music and stops around the world. So that’s global poverty sorted then.

- Kanye West changed his name to Ye and his marital status to “it’s complicated”.

- Travis Scott kept performing while his fans were dying during a crowd crush at his Astroworld Festival in a horrific tragedy. A torrent of lawsuits promptly rained on him and his team.

- The #FreeBritney movement rejoiced when Britney Spears won her legal battle against her father and her decade-long conservatorship was finally terminated.

- And Italian rock band Maneskin won the Eurovision Song Contest with a track called ‘Zitti e buoni’, which translates to ‘Shut Up and Behave’, while doing pretty much the exact opposite because that’s just how they roll.