Pandemic Playlist

Pandemic Playlist explores a selection of popular music recorded in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing songs by Bono, Cardi B, Kid Rock, Van Morrison, Juvenile and many more. Through rhetorical analysis of these songs, Kevin Farrell considers how the pandemic shaped the music of 2020, 2021, and beyond.

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Pandemic Playlist: An Exploration of COVID-inspired Popular Music takes readers back to 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the music industry. Focusing on those artists who responded directly to the pandemic with their music, Kevin Farrell explores a selection of songs written and recorded about COVID-19. These songs range from the hilariously tongue-in-cheek to the painfully earnest to the self-righteously angry, coming from musicians obscure, world famous, and up-and-coming. Farrell argues that these songs, both originals and repurposed covers, are best classified by rhetorical approach, rather than musical style, identifying four basic categories of COVID-inspired popular music: the Coronavirus Anthem (Bono’s “Let Your Love Be Known,” Alicia Keys’ “Good Job”), Pandemic Pop (Cardi B and iMarkkeyz’s “Coronavirus,” Curtis Roach and Tyga’s “Bored in the House”), the COVID Cover (Gal Gadot’s “Imagine,” Juvenile’s “Vax That Thang Up”), and Pandemic Protest (Ian Brown’s “Little Seed Big Tree,” Kid Rock’s “We The People”). Through a study of these songs, and many more, this book seeks to understand what the pandemic and the music it inspired can teach us about the previously unimaginable.