#but upside: i mostly bought it for the album art lMAO

[shatteredfears-arch]

i just spent way too long looking at my acheudle to figur eout where tf i was

[clayray3290]

Clayray Closeout 2020

Alrighty, I am writing this in 2021 because I had things to do on New Year’s Eve lol.

Well, 2020 has been quite a difficult year. I am grateful to be as fortunate as I am, but at the same time, most of the year I have spent full of rage and despair and frustration and fear and grief at all of the loss and all of the injustice and just all of the horrific things that have happened this year. For 2021, I’m trying to find hope and to gather strength to persevere and keep on doing my part in fighting for what is right and contributing good to the world.

Art played a huge part in helping me get through this year, so let me take a look back at some of that great art:

Music - Artists

BTS

Jesse & Joy

Niall Horan

Glass Animals

McFly

Taylor Swift

Fiona Apple

Little Mix

Chloe x Halle

Secret

Who knew BTS would top this list? I’ve followed them from before their debut, but I am a casual fan at best. Though I was supposed to take my mom (who is a bigger fan than I am) to the concert at the Rose Bowl this year...until the pandemic happened.

Obviously, I did not go to any concerts this year, so there are no artists that got a bump from my having seen them live this year. However, some old standbys released some new albums this year - Jesse & Joy, Glass Animals, McFly, Little Mix. And speaking of Little Mix, news of Jesy’s departure from the group sent me into a spin down memory lane listening to their discography more. Also T. Swift’s two (2!!) new albums were in heavy rotation as well.

Secret made this list too, even though of course they’re disbanded now. My love for them stays strong, and their solo releases this year I enjoyed - Particularly Jieun’s Make It Love.

Chloe x Halle I started listening to much more than before, because “Ungodly Hour” is a fantastic album. Which juuuuust missed the cut of my top albums.

Music - Albums

BTS - MAP OF THE SOUL: 7

Niall Horan - Heartbreak Weather

High School Musical: The Musical: The Series Cast - High School Musical: The Musical: The Series Original Soundtrack

Jesse & Joy - Aire (Versión Día)

Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Starry Cast - Starry

Glass Animals - Dreamland

ZOMBIES 2 Cast - ZOMBIES 2 Original TV Movie Soundtrack

Taylor Swift - folklore

Beyoncé - The Lion King: The Gift [Deluxe Edition]

HSMTMTS and Z2 are products of work, but there generally are some fantastic songs from these soundtracks that I love independently. Olivia Rodrigo has turned out to be a star, and “All I Want” is gorgeous. And “Flesh & Bone” in particular is incredible and young people found such meaning from its lyrics, like “No more hesitation, it’s time we start to realize / With all this separation, silence is still taking sides.”

I have a fraught relationship with Glass Animals’ Dreamland right now because I had bought a limited edition vinyl, but there has been a whole rigmarole because it was super delayed (literally months!) and I went home to Michigan and so then I had to change the delivery address to my friend’s, and then she moved, too, so it has been a whole thing.

Starry is an as-yet unstaged musical about Vincent van Gogh, and it is exquisite. Please give it a listen and fall in love with it like I did.

Lastly, I once heard “Fetch the Boltcutters” as “Vegetable Goddess” and I cannot unhear it.

Movies

Soul Yes, would love if we could have a Black protagonist be a Black protagonist for the whole movie, but look, this is a beautiful beautiful film that is so meaningful. I cried so much.

The Old Guard It would be an honor to be slayed by Charlize Theron, Kiki Layne, or Gina Prince-Bythewood.

Palm Springs A delightful time loop take, and just so darn charming.

Emma. Works better as a comedy than a romance, but lusciously shot and Anya Taylor-Joy takes one of the trickiest Austen heroines and brings her to full life.

A Recipe for Seduction Okay, this one’s a joke. The KFC x Lifetime “movie” is ridiculous, but I have no regrets watching it.

The above list is just of movies that newly came out in 2020.

I watched a whopping 390 movies in 2020, 200 of which were Quarantine Movies with my friend Richard w/a Beard (Our 200th was BLOODY NEW YEAR, literally begun on New Year’s Eve with just moments left of 2020). Rw/aB and I watch mostly B-movies, slashers, giallos, psychedelic musicals, 80′s sex comedies, kung fu movies, and made-for-TV kids’ movies. And the KFC x Lifetime movie. (For the record, my top 5 of these movies would be: Blood Beat, Killer Workout, Pieces, StageFright: Aquarius, Mr. Boogedy. Honorable Mention to The Apple and Miami Connection.)

Honorable Mention: Sound of Metal (Technically a 2019 movie), Lucky Grandma (Also a 2019 movie), Hala (Again 2019), the Disney+ music specials like Hamilton and Black Is King, the Pixar SparkShorts particularly Loop, our DCOM releases this year - Zombies 2 and Upside-Down Magic and Secret Society of Second-Born Royals

Films I Want To See But Haven’t Yet: Minari (I can’t believe I haven’t seen it yet), One Night in Miami..., Definition Please, Disclosure, The Forty-Year-Old Version, The Personal History of David Copperfield (DEV PATEL), Nomadland

Television

I May Destroy You What an awe-inspiringly incredible show. Michaela Coel is a force.

Ted Lasso On a much lighter note than I May Destroy You, lol. This show could’ve been so stupid, but it is actually so deft and wise and mature. And just so full of heart.

The Baby-Sitters Club It is hard to take a beloved work and reboot it. But this show not only made it contemporary, but updated it to be relevant and to ring true for today. And it is just simply a really good show. 

Normal People My heart aches from this show, and in the best way.

Little Fires Everywhere This show took an incredible book and distilled it into its best form, packing just such gut punches along the way.

Not New: Pen15, Crash Landing on You (Did a group watch with friends for this, like we did with Erkenci Kus last year!), Schitt’s Creek, What We Do in the Shadows, Watchmen, Kidding, Succession

Honorable Mentions: Never Have I Ever, The Queen’s Gambit, Lovecraft Country, Bridgerton, Dead Still (A show about a Victorian dead people photographer!), The Amber Ruffin Show (I’m not actually much of a late night person, but I adore Amber Ruffin), Dash & Lily, Supermarket Sweep Reboot, Julie and the Phantoms, Taste the Nation, Little America, The Stranger (RIP Quibi)

Shows I Haven’t Finished Yet But Will: Ramy, Saved by the Bell Reboot, Gentefied, The Mandalorian, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist

According to my Trakt, I watched 282 hours of TV and 522 hours of movies in 2020 (But this was before the last week of 2020, so this is an undercount). That’s 805 hours total, which would be about 33.5 days lmao, so basically a month of my year was spent watching something hahahahahaha. I watch a lot.

But apparently, I listen even more? According to my Last.fm, I scrobbled 30,916 songs, making for total listening time of 74 days and 8 hours. Whew! Well, let’s get into my top songs then~