Our favourite local sounds of the last 12 months came from the most polarised genres.

Fran Lebowitz says there will always be music because it’s an intrinsically human phenomenon. The pandemic proved this to be true.

When COVID-19 ravaged South Australia last year, closing the clubs and live music venues, audiophiles didn’t go without – they ventured online for their much-needed musical comfort. They dove into playlists, live streaming platforms and physical releases, like records and bedroom tapes.

Spotify’s 2021 trend report found 76 per cent of Australians surveyed reported using audio – music, podcast, and in-between reverberations – to reduce stress levels. We at CityMag fit into this bundle. As the price of beer inflated and we processed our dismay over the city prioritising cars over music festivals, we kept artist Lil Ugly Mane and podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones on high rotation to soothe our weary souls.

The Spotify report also found Australian listeners increasingly looked for more diverse voices, with millennials in particular leaning into nostalgic sounds. This rang true for us, your humble CityMaggers, both millennials who enjoy a throwback, so we’ve decided to reflect on what we found over our 12 months of listing Adelaide’s best new music.

We covered a lot of artists

In writing this analysis, we found echoes from every corner of the global industry reverberating in our city. The singles that hit most squarely with us presented striking, and more often than not wholly unique, sounds.

We understand the impulse by Adelaide musicians for bombastic swings. The last couple of years have been consistently contradictory – we were either locked down or living large because we were no longer locked down. There was no space for in-betweens.

Olivia Rodrigo led pop-punk’s global resurgence by combining referential nostalgia with universal frustration in the form of an Avril Lavigne duet. This same brash disdain stretched beyond our local lockdowns, swirling in our new music lists from May this year, with rock stalwarts TOWNS and vanguards Twine respectively releasing fiery singles.

Local pop-punk also filtered into Haliday’s ‘Phase Me’, Raccoon City’s ‘Mortality’, Hindsight’s ‘Low Hanging Fruit’ and Hubris’ ‘Chemical Remains’, all of which we listed. Teenage Joans proved the genre is having a moment, having taken out seven wins at last year’s SA Music Awards. It’s not just the ageing tastemakers of CityMag hanging on to these musical sensitivities.

Teenage Joans’ award-winning pop-punk, live. This photo: Samuel Graves

There was also pep on our playlists, with happy-go-lucky singles like Wanderers’ neo-soul ‘Penny’ and Koleh’s mystical ‘Maze’. Again, that millennial predilection for nostalgic familiarity (which CityMag‘s reviewers are both afflicted with) meant these songs were a welcome salve against constant deadlines and the never-ending pandemic.

YouTube Music’s 2021 year of music videos and milestone moments were rap- and club-heavy. These were bombastic video clips and singles, offering listeners a portal out of the rough reality of the last year – but also giving hope for the future. Our lists corresponded with YouTube’s finding, with rap-rich songs such as B.Z.A’s ‘Same Road’, Tkay Maidza’s ‘So Cold’ and Sacredd’s ‘Freak($)’ all mentioned. With music centres like Northern Sound System pumping out the next crop of talent, it’s no surprise Adelaide rappers are finding their feet.

INFINITIES, another rapper and newcomer, was one of CityMag’s most-flogged artist of the year and released three unapologetic, tear-streaked emo-pop bangers: ‘LMK’, ‘ROVER’ and ‘LOSTMYWAY’. Hip-hop duo SO.Crates was another of our most-mentioned, with introspective and generous neo-soul singles like ‘Beaut-i-full World (ft. Zima and Kalala)’, ‘Stars’ and ‘S.F. Holiday’ getting shoutouts.

The 2021 Spotify report found Australia’s audience of hyper-pop – exaggerated meta pop music – grew a whopping 672 per cent in the first quarter of the 2020 financial year. Made famous by musicians like Charli XCX and A.G. Cook’s PC Music collective, it’s taken hold in Adelaide. Collarbones’ Travis Cook released a string of electronic music singles last year, such as ‘hell_2022’ and ‘bananas’, that was, like pop-punk and hardcore, grating, unnatural and ripe with homage. ‘Feeling Like’, from new rapper on the block Magajie, also fits into this hyperbolic hyper-pop niche.

This frenzied approach to music-making has throughlines in other genres, such as country and folk. Ricky Albeck was another of our most-mentioned, with ‘Hollywood’, ‘It’s Normal’ and ‘That’s How I Wanna Be’. Along with scene acolytes, Jess Johns and Workhorse, the genre was a sonic balm for the often solipsistic, ultra-clean city life, with pedal steels, jangly guitars and romantic lyricism beckoning listeners to the bush. Mixdown Magazine listed the return of the corner pub as a trend to look out for in 2022, which feels related to the genre’s growth.

Pop-punk, neo-soul, hyper pop and country were maybe what South Australians needed over the last 12 months. There’s been a seismic shift in the state over this period. We’ve welcomed two new governments (state and federal) and ditched our former COVID-19 skins for something afresh. We’re also leaving the city in scores and quitting our jobs at breakneck speed. Maybe after two years of inconsistency, a polar vibe shift is what humans naturally seek out.

This analysis is only a sliver of what Adelaide’s music scene has going on. Your monthly musical guides are two white journalists with tenuous access to BIPOC communities, and we only listen to the music that somehow finds its way to us.

The singles that do land on our laps are usually produced by musicians who – to varying extents – know how to play the game. The 2021 Global Music Report from not-for-profit organisation International Federation of the Phonographic Industry found growth in the music industry was bolstered by streaming and paid subscription services. This means to get ahead, you need to know how to serve the algorithm. A musician with marketing nous will get a leg-up in Adelaide (or anywhere) if they know this.

Given the preferences of the streaming services for singles over longer releases, the more songs an artist releases, the more relevant they’ll be seen in the eyes of the algorithm. But that doesn’t stop Adelaide artists bucking the trend. There are those who aren’t afraid to set the concept of playlisting on fire.

Just look at the Shaolin Afronauts. They’re about to release five albums at once. How’s that for contrast?