The Year in Review: 2020

ISSUE #134

Welcome to the Sixth Annual Year in Review Collaborative Playlist & Music Celebration.

This project started in 2015 as a simple message asking my friends to add their Top 10 Favorite Songs of 2015 to a playlist so we all had something to listen to as we drove home on our holiday breaks. It has since been acquired by (slash) morphed itself into Earwyrms. As a listener, you're invited to join in this year's playlist! Click the link above or below to open it up. Here's a brief guide:

• Collaborative playlists won't show up on my profile since you have to get invited to them, so you have to click the link and follow the playlist first. That’s the only way you can add songs to it.

• Add your Top Ten Favorite Songs Released in 2020. Nobody is expecting these to be "objective bests," because that is impossible. These are just the songs that meant the most to you!

• You can place them in any order, but I do mine from the top down, from most favorite to least favorite. You could apply any system you want for yours! Organize them by color or length if you want to get freaky.

• You can add the same song that somebody else has added. It might ask you if you want to "Skip Duplicates," but I encourage you to "Add Anyway." Any song on there more than once simply signals to me that it has universal appeal, which I love. Skipping songs is a listener responsibility here, not a curator responsibility.

• You can reply right to this email if you have any questions! I'll read it and I will help.

I want to celebrate your real emotional connection to art—it’s okay to be vulnerable—so I require that nobody be too self-conscious! For example, I listen to field recordings of frogs to get to sleep. We have a strict “No Teasing” rule.

If you're a visual learner, here are examples of the previous year's playlists:

The Year in Review: 2019
The Year in Review: 2018
The Year in Review: 2017
The Year in Review: 2016
The Year in Review: 2015

Finally, I'd like to thank you for subscribing. This year felt particularly unhinged—I'm sure I will look back on everything I wrote and have to go lie down in the shower again—but your endurance meant the world to me. It will take the rest of my life to reckon with the beauties and dangers of self-publishing, but as I blindly charge forth into the public sphere regardless, I am very grateful for those of you who find as much pleasure as I do in these things—art and emotions, sharing and whatnot. I'll see you all next year.