My Soundtrack For 2020

Does not feature thoughtful songs related to plagues or quarantines

"Sex combined with religion always works at the box office." —Cecil B. DeMille. 

Year-end best-of lists are mostly terrible.

I just spent a good amount of time checking out what Pitchfork featured for their end of 2020 best-of picks and 80% of it was shit I’d never listen to.

Generally what happens is that music journalists (or influencers—ugh) who listen to folks like Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith (double plus ugh) or old Bee Gees (natch) LPs (secretly at home) recommend the most obscure and sometimes obnoxiously awful artists for their top 50 lists or whatever because doing so conveys some kind of edginess cachet.

99% of those artists and albums you never hear again—ever. Often with good reason.

To admit that maybe Troye Sivan, Little Big Town or Ryan Adams actually put out a really great record would be too uncool or unwoke.

So avoid the elitist lists (say that three times quickly) and play my Spotify playlist for 2020 instead.

666 songs (how fitting)—44 hours of worthy-of-your-time sonics. And Jackie Wilson! (And the only queer love song that Bruce Springsteen ever wrote and recorded.) And of course, my playlist includes 2020’s Song of the Year: Petula Clark’s Downtown. 💥

So this is a great mix of new and old tunes. And most likely discover genres that you might assume you’d never listen to.

I mean would you, on your own, seek out songs by Efdemin, The Jones Girls, Pink $ock, Diana Ross duets with Marvin Gaye (maybe), Merle Haggard (fuck yas), Klymaxx, Tinashe, Mel Torme (hey-lo), Vanessa Willians, Elbow?

Know what I mean?

Enjoy with a cocktail or two (or three — hiccup) —

Frederick

Opening art is by Mariano Peccinetti with some tweaking by moi.