2020: Inside (A Playlist for a Hell Year)
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7anG54P20kViq6Q3M8fiLt?si=XmrhDfopTlaOzKQ3ZPqkMw
Look, we all know it, this year sucked. There’s no way around it. The responsible of us, who want less people to die, have now spent upwards of eight months spending the majority of our time in our homes, rooms, and personal spaces. I spent a lot of that time going back through artists full discographies that I hadn’t fully appreciated (The Flaming Lips, Car Seat Headrest, Knxwledge, Camp Lo, Bonnie “Prince” Billy) and playing video games until my eyes bled. I also tried to throw myself into making playlists. It’s hard for me to call this a real artistic endeavor, putting a bunch of other peoples music in an order I want is nothing close to making your own music, but it brought me a substantial amount of joy in some of the darkest parts of the year.
So when I saw Andy Greenwald posting his year end playlist (another banger) I got inspired. 50 songs seems like the right amount of songs to get a full grasp of the sound of the year, without being so long that no one will ever listen to the whole thing. To be fair, I almost broke the format at the end and made it 52 songs to let Knxwledge get three songs, but I gutted through the hurt. So I set off to make a playlist that encompassed my favorite musical moments of the year, and make those moments into one great experience.
I started with a rough cut version. Basically going through all my favorite albums of the year and picking one song off each. Some of these I knew would absolutely not make the final cut, but I wanted to have this playlist for personal use.
This is where I ended up. There are songs that I would have included but are not on Spotify. This sucks, but in the end, I had 91 songs, I didn’t need to add more.
So at this point I put the whole playlist in alphabetical order by artist and listened to every track again. This helped put into perspective that some song are good, but not Top 50 good. At points I thought about trying to form out the playlist from 91 songs and then just cutting it at a certain point when songs stopped fitting, but I every time I realized I needed to let the songs control the mix, not the other way around. So I started cutting. 91 songs down to 56 songs took me about 40 minutes. 56 songs to 50 songs took me an hour and 37 minutes. Luckily, while extremely high at 11:49 PM, I documented the final six cuts on my Twitter.
It’s impossible for me to say which of these cuts was the hardest. It took me an hour and 37 minutes to make the decision on these six final cuts, but the act of taking them off the playlist happened all at once. I realized that these songs are great, even possibly deserving of being on the playlist, but they just didn’t quiet have the impact on me as the 50 that were left.
Music is always a connective tissue for me. I think about the song that was playing in almost every big moment of my life, and I strive to remember the first time I hear something new. I always remember people talking about that on the VH1 Best Songs of the 80′s/90′s episodes. The first time they heard Guns N’ Roses, or where they were when they heard Nirvana over the radio and realized their career was over. I like thinking back on the day in March where I found out Navy Blue’s album had been out. The time someone put a new Soccer Mommy song on at work. My birthday this year was highlighted by the fact that Westside Gunn and Fiona Apple both put out new records on it. Most of these moments from the year took place in exactly the same space i’m typing this out right now. At my desk, with Lottie on the couch next to me, sitting in my silly wooden chair, most likely while doom scrolling Twitter. And while that might not be putting the best parts of the year forward, at least it’s accurate.
It’s impossible for us to discern all the trauma we have been through this year in real time, and I don’t want this text post about a playlist I made to turn into me telling everyone about my personal traumas.
Look, I hope you enjoy the music. These artists were going through the same things we were. There are feelings in this music that relate directly to experiences and feelings you had this year. That is what makes these the 50 best songs of 2020. That’s why I felt like I had to make this.
Good luck in 2021, we’re all gonna need it.
Ok, so I wrote all of the above on 12/23/20. I then proceeded over the next week listen to more music from this year/remember more stuff that came out this year that I needed to include. Look, this year has felt infinitely long and there were like 20 albums I thought came out last year that actually came out earlier this year. So I tinkered with the playlist even more. I spent another three or so hours adding some must haves, making more brutal cuts, re-ordering the track list to create better cohesion, the works.
I also realized I wanted to share my rough cut playlist. If you want a bunch of good ass songs to put on shuffle that encompasses what I listened to this year, here it is. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4a7EzJ76pCXihgPIuJ3Y7L?si=iTzGiuaWQp-Rn_BLoQGALw