Hindsight is 2020 with 2020isasong’s Marisa Aveling

By Alyana Vera, contributor

Graphics courtesy of 2020isasong

2020 may have been a year of intense isolation, but in hindsight, it was a year that reminded us that we're part of a larger community: from social distancing for the safety of others to the renewed attention around mutual aid and the Black Lives Matters movement. We may have been isolated, but we weren’t experiencing or going through the pandemic alone—that’s the premise behind 2020isasong, a virtual sonic time capsule created by writer Marisa Aveling, designer Naomi Abel and web developer Chris Allick. Built off of song submissions and the memories and emotions attached to them, 2020isasong asked users to share one song that helped them get through 2020. Below Marisa reflects on how 2020isasong became “a moment of collective catharsis” and how music helped us hold onto our humanity during the pandemic year.

What inspired this project?

For most of last year I waded through everything feeling extremely numb and the only two instances where I was really viscerally shaken out of that was because of music. It was within the space of 24 hours that I listened to these two songs that actually made me feel something. It felt like a bit of a revelation. I thought this surely is not an individual experience so it made me curious to find out what other people’s experiences would be like with this year we’ve been having.

Did you notice your listening habits changing at all throughout the pandemic?

I might have listened to less music honestly. It felt like we were all dealing with things on a survival level and music to me is such a pleasurable act that there was almost a rupture in my listening experience. When I did dive back in with that SAULT album, that album just really moved me. I nearly cried listening to it and it kind of brought me back in a way.

Alyana: How did you first come across the SAULT album?

My friend played them for me last year, but then I guess the two albums this year considering everything that had been going on with anti-blackness and the Black Lives Matter movement just seemed to take on a lot more meaning. I was surprised actually that more people didn’t add to the playlist for the project.

Part of what interested me in this project was the emphasis on emotions in comparison to other data-focused year-end campaigns. Did you envision 2020isasong as a counterpoint to Spotify Wrapped?

Honestly, I didn't think of it in that way. Initially, it was more just about capturing a feeling and a time, and how music can trigger memories. In retrospect, a lot of people were sharing their Spotify Wrapped, and [2020isasong] kind of launched at a very similar time. So it did feel kind of like more of a humanistic version of that, not to begrudge Spotify Wrapped, because I think what they do is really clever. That's why I guess the project became more interesting to me in terms of reading the memories more so than just listening disconnectedly to the song.

Right, 2020isasong is more about active listening and reflecting on how the music made you feel.

I don't know if you saw but at the end of the project we turned it into a Spotify playlist, but just listening to the music is a really different experience that is removed from reading people's memories associated with each song. So that's one of the reasons we didn't do a Spotify playlist while the project was live; we didn't want to subtract that from people actually going to the site and spending as much time as possible going through all the memories and submissions.

Did you listen to and read every submission?

Every single one. It was pretty time-consuming in a really lovely way. It made me feel like we definitely weren’t alone in some of what we were experiencing, particularly in a year marked by isolation.

Did any of the submissions stick out to you?

There was a small number of really personal submissions. There are two that really stick out to me. One I posted on my Instagram, it’s from a man called Jeff in LA who talked about how this was the worst year of his life basically. But then he wrapped it up by saying, "but Bob Dylan always helps." I think he submitted "Shelter from the Storm" and that one really hit me. Then the second one was really sad but beautiful came in at the very last minute. It was from somebody called Brona from somewhere in New York. They kind of commemorated that their mom had Alzheimer's and she had passed on February 13th. They would listen and dance to “TINTS” by Anderson .Paak with their mom. They couldn’t listen to the song anymore because it was too painful.

Did you expect people to be so forthcoming?

I didn't know what I expected. I wanted to shout out my two collaborators: Naomi Abel, who helped me with design, and Chris Allick, who worked from the tech side of things. Initially, Chris and I had thought about a word limit and we were going to cap it at 220 characters for 2020. We ended up not capping it because people just wanted to go really long, and I'm really glad that we let people go as long as they like because some people really took advantage of that.

How do you feel about the traction and response that the project has gotten?

Originally Chris and I were like, "We'll be totally happy if we got 110 entries." So the response has been way beyond what either of us had imagined. We had submissions from 53 countries all over the world: Turkey, Kenya, Slovenia. Some really mind-blowing places. I'm so touched that the project has resonated with so many different people in so many different ways.

You're based in New York, which was the epicenter of the pandemic back in March. Did you notice any difference in submissions from New Yorkers in comparison to people from other parts of the country or world?

I guess the interesting thing is not really. Obviously, everyone was experiencing 2020 in different ways but there were really kind of unifying themes that I would see, like perseverance, resilience, hope, and rage—people being angry that things couldn't be the way they wanted to be. We listed seven emotions that you could tag songs with and I think the top three were hope, joy, and love. Then there was rage, anxiety, insanity, and sadness, which fell far behind. Even though 2020 was really terrible, most people wanted to remember the year with a song that reminded them of something a little more positive.

What role has music played in your life?

It's been an ever-present force. It’s how I ended up new York actually. In my former life, I was a music writer and my first job was CMJ. I went over there to be an intern and I ended up becoming a part of the editorial team. Music is how I process emotions, how I make sense of things I can’t articulate at the time. It's such a powerful vehicle and that’s why it’s also so crazy that we can't go to any live shows right now, that feels like a really big hit. I think there are more people talking about the way that the hospitality industry is being hit by COVID-19 and that there are also huge fall-out effects on the arts, musicians, and live venues.

I've definitely seen a lot more people are talking about the value that music holds to them, especially because there isn't any live music right now. How did 2020 illustrate the value of music to you?

I guess the project illustrated the value of music not just to me but to everybody. Usually, it's so hard to get people to contribute to any collaborative project, let alone strangers. The fact that we had so many submissions made me feel like everybody feels that way about music, that it is important and how we hold onto our humanity in a way.

Since 2020isasong is a time capsule, what do you think years from now people will take away from the project?

I think it will hopefully be interesting as an artifact of remembrance of the year that was particularly horrible just through music. So you have this Spotify playlist now as the musical artifact. But then the companion piece, which I think is more important, is the site itself. We can see t people remembering 2020 as they were experiencing. My hope is that people will be able to revisit it and remember how important music was during that time and remember that despite the trauma of it all, there were more glimmers of hope and joy and love than despair and sadness and melancholy.

Do you plan on doing this project again in the future?

I was thinking about it because Chris was like “Oh do we do 2021isasong?” I don’t know, does it have the same meaning? Hopefully, 2021 will be a better year so we won’t need this moment of collective catharsis that we needed for last year.

Alyana:  Do you think that your Spotify Wrapped was as reflective of your own personal experience with music as your submission was?

I looked at my Spotify Wrapped once and I can’t even remember what it said. I think that it told me that my top artist was SAULT and that does feel very accurate. I guess the way that I discovered music was less about listening to albums in full. I looked to different people to share what they were listening to. For example, I really like Benji B in London so I would listen to his radio show and that’s how I would discover new music instead of using Spotify. I guess it was also interesting because some people consulted their Spotify Wrapped to decide which songs they would contribute to the project. I had a few friends complain that boiling down 2020 to one song was too hard.

I noticed that a lot of the submissions were top 100 songs or from big artists like Taylor Swift or Harry Styles.

I had a friend comment that this year they were just really looking for something that they found to be comforting, so they were reaching for more shiny, poppy, cheesy things from food to music. Who am I to judge someone’s music taste, there’s some really good pop music out there as well. Harry was submitted a lot, BTS was submitted a lot, Taylor [Swift], Phoebe Bridgers. The most submitted song was "Rain On Me" by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande. I was surprised that there wasn't more Billie Eilish, that perhaps we didn't reach a young enough listenership.

Were there any songs that you discovered from this project that ended up being your favorites as well?

I have a guilty pleasure. So this woman, Claire, from Los Angeles, submitted "Have a Little Faith in Me" by John Hiatt. It’s one of those songs that's at the end of a 90s film where the hero has fucked up with a woman and he's running through the rain to go and get her. But that song really resonated with me so I’m not going to lie I listened to it a bunch of times after it was submitted.

It sounds like you got as much out of the project as other people did.

Absolutely. I had a terrible December personally, so this was very much a saving grace.