Virtually famous: Avenue Beat

Although 2020 has already gone on for 17 years, and there are still five months to go, I think we can say definitively that we know which song will be playing over the clip montage on December 31.

F2020, by a previously little known trio of Illinois schoolfriends calling themselves Avenue Beat, hit the nail on the head so powerfully that it was watched 4.5 million times within 24 hours of its arrival on TikTok. “Lowkey f*** 2020/I don't know about everybody else/But I think that I am kinda done/Can we just get to 2021?” they sing over a selection of video lowlights including the George Floyd protests, Australia’s bushfires and the cancelled Olympics.

Sami Bearden, Savana Santos and Sam Backoff are based in Nashville but don’t sound particularly country. The handful of songs they have released to date, such as I Don’t Really Like Your Boyfriend and Thank You Anxiety, are cutely catchy and sarcastic, like three American Lily Allens.

They wrote F2020 as a 90-second song specifically for TikTok, as they thought its excessive swearing would preclude a proper single release, but had to write extra parts fast when it proved so popular. Ironically, it’s turning into a great year for them.