WAP Dominated Pop Culture In 2020, Now It's Dominated The Music's Song Of The Year Poll

"When women choose to capitalize on our sexuality, to reclaim our own power, like I have, we are vilified and disrespected." 

That's what Megan Thee Stallion wrote in her The New York Times piece, Why I Speak Up For Black Women, in October, and given the "controversy" that followed the Houston rapper and collaborator Cardi B after the release of their single WAP, it's not hard to understand why she felt the need to write it. 

WAP - an acronym for Wet Ass Pussy - was an immediate success. It smashed YouTube's record for biggest debut and claimed the title of the largest opening streaming week ever. In Australia, lead artist Cardi B secured her first-ever Australian #1 single and the pair broke the record for most weeks at #1 on the ARIA Singles Chart for a female-led hip hop song - a title that was still held by Salt-N-Pepa's Let's Talk About Sex from their four weeks at #1 in 1992. 

Of course, for every bit of celebration of the track, it felt like there were equal amounts of criticism. WAP challenges the canon that women are there to be sexualised, not to be sexual themselves - so it was no surprise see conservatives like America's Ben Shapiro chiming in about the track (and quickly being Twitter shamed for his comments). Even Snoop Dogg - a man famous for an album called Doggystyle and songs featuring lyrics like "I get this pussy everywhere that I go / Ask the bitches in your hood cause they know / Bitch please! Get down on your god damn knees / For this money, chronic, clothes and weed" [2007's Bitch Please feat. Nate Dogg and Xzibit] - weighed in saying, “Let’s have some, you know, privacy, some intimacy where he wants to find out as opposed to you telling him."

Women speaking explicitly about their sexuality through music isn't something new - see tracks like Khia's 2002 track My Neck, My Back (Lick It), and Lil Kim's 2000 hit How Many Licks? - but WAP's domination of pop culture has been faster than any before it, particularly on platforms like TikTok where the WAP dance challenge launched the track to a wider audience.

WAP might be the most controversial song of the year, but it will also be the most subversive of the decade.

It's a sharp turn in genre for our #2 song of 2020 with Orville Peck & Shania Twain's Legends Never Die. The cowboy crooner is joined by the all-time best-selling female country artist for the track which just demands a road trip. Peck has been on the rise for the past few years and with this country-pop anthem jumps up The Music’s songs of the year list (after placing #8 last year with Turn To Hate). Legends Never Die is the perfect blend of camp and kick arse, and was the exact pick-me-up needed this year. You also can't look past a drive-in themed video complete with RuPaul's Drag Race royalty Jaida Essence Hall, a leopard-print clad Shania Twain (not all that dissimilar to her iconic That Don't Impress Me Much video) and a cast so diverse that music videos should be setting it as the new gold standard.

Melbourne's #1 Dads - the work of Tom Iansek - marks the highest Australian track on the list with Freedom Fighter at #3, the first single from Iansek's third #1 Dads album, Golden Repair. "An interesting part of this for me is change, which is constantly happening, but often it happens so incrementally that life appears static, but of course this isn’t so," he shared at the time. "We get lulled into a sense of permanency until suddenly something that was once there now no longer is, hence 'even if I have it now, doesn’t mean I’ll have it always'... and if you’re waiting for the tides to turn your way, then you must then learn patience." How very apt for 2020 - especially when you consider that the track was released in January...

Melbourne indie group Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever follow close behind with Cameo, taken from their much-lauded Sideways To New Italy, while Taylor Swift's surprise folk album sees her land at #5 with Exile featuring Bon Iver. Halsey's striking, and at times confronting, 929 comes in at #6, just ahead of Bob Dylan's first original song in eight years, Murder Most Foul. 

Things take a heavier turn for #8 with Bring Me The Horizon's Parasite Eve, a track from their series of POST HUMAN companion releases, while a tie rounds out this year's Top 10 with acclaimed US artist Fiona Apple's Shameika and the now Brisbane-based Tired Lion's Waterbed.

The Top Ten

1. Cardi B feat Megan Thee Stallion - WAP
2. Orville Peck & Shania Twain - Legends Never Die
3. #1 Dads - Freedom Fighter
4. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Cameo
5. Taylor Swift ft Bon Iver - Exile
6. Halsey - 929
7. Bob Dylan - Murder Most Foul
8. Bring Me The Horizon - Parasite Eve
9. Fiona Apple - Shameika
9. Tired Lion - Waterbed

Past Winners

2019: Billie Eilish - Bad Guy
2018: Childish Gambino - This Is America 
2017: Lorde - Green Light
2016: Beyonce - Formation
2015: Kendrick Lamar - King Kunta
2014: FKA twigs - Two Weeks
2013: Daft Punk - Get Lucky
2012: Tame Impala - Elephant
2011: Gotye feat Kimbra - Somebody That I Used To Know
2010: Cee Lo Green - Fuck You