Amidst the final push of the semester, I’ve been revisiting some pieces that gave me comfort and made me fall in love with music. This little excerpt comes from the Franck Violin Sonata. I’ve played this piece with a variety of instrumentalists (including flute and cello) and over the years have become very familiar with it. Comfort was hard to find in this piece as the chords so big and stretched out, they are impossible to play and the voicing is very subtle and hard. I think I find comfort in this hyper romantic piece because my fingers have a memory of their own, the push and pull have a familiarity that this music lends itself to.
The opening of the first movement builds to this solo piano part and the grandness dissipates to a sweet melancholy sigh. There’s a tenderness and mellowness to the dulcet tones that brings to mind an empty room of billowing curtains with a once warm bed.
The past few days, my social media feed has been inundated with posts of people’s 2020 “Spotify Wrapped.” For those unfamiliar with them, Spotify Wrapped recaps offer data on the songs and podcasts that users listened to throughout the past year, including their most-played songs, top genres, and more. Users can see how many minutes they spent listening to content, how many new artists they discovered, and how they ranked compared to other Spotify users. For example, Spotify’s recaps may let an individual know that they were in the “top 5%” or “top .5%” of listeners of a specific artist or band over the past year. Overall, Spotify’s 2020 Wrapped aims to let users “see how they listened in 2020,” share their music habits with friends, and review the art that helped them get through the past whirlwind of a year.
Just as this data suggests, pop and show tunes are my favorite types of music to listen to. I’m surprised that classical didn’t make the list, but for those who may not know, bow pop is considered the combination of pop music and orchestral string instruments.
I admit that seeing everyone else’s sparked interest in my own Spotify Wrapped. While I didn’t share my results on social media, I’ll provide some of them as examples of this year’s features. Some results were expected, like my top genres. Spotify also included information about top songs. For me, my top song was “Heart of Stone” from Six (a musical that I happened to write a blog post about). This song can be attributed to themes of steadfastness, endurance, and patience, which were important to me during 2020. Indeed, Spotify lists user’s top song as the “one song that helped you get through it all.” Additional information on the top song includes when they first started listening to it and its total streams, which is new to 2020’s Spotify Wrapped.
The 2020 version includes a slew of new features, including personalized playlists, quizzes, and options for customized social sharing. This year, Spotify Premium users can also earn badges. I earned a “pioneer” badge, for example, for listening to a song before it hit 50,000 streams. I began paying for Spotify premium once I entered college, as my Spotify usage increased with all the hours spent studying and streaming music. I normally don’t pay for these kinds of services, but I was enticed by the student discount and the convenience of all kinds of ad-free albums, playlists, and more available at my fingertips. The time spent listening to music has only increased throughout this past year, and it is interesting to see the data in a condensed, colorful format.
Seeing RADWIMPS on this list surprised me, but that’s what I get for listening to the Your Name movie soundtrack on repeat.
Inside the Spotify app, you can find your personalized recap for 2020 by scrolling down to “2020 Wrapped” and tapping “see how you listened in 2020.” While it can be monotonous clicking through Instagram stories to see the same content over and over, it’s interesting to see what type of music others enjoy. Additionally, it can be an opportunity to check out new genres, artists, and more based on your friends’ selection. Besides looking at the pre-configured Spotify Wrapped, you can also visit friends’ profiles and see a combination of public playlists and the artists they follow.
While this post may seem like a Spotify advertisement, the popularity of Spotify and its “2020 Wrapped” goes to show how important music is to many. Spotify’s emphasis on the chaos of 2020 is a bit cheesy, but it holds some truth in how music has helped many get through the past year. While we may not be able to attend concerts and other performances, technology and increasing online accessibility allow us to still enjoy and appreciate our favorite songs and artists. Recapping our listening habits encourages us to reminisce about the art that has helped us cope with the loneliness of quarantine and craziness of the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the reasons I love the movie Emma is because it’s about a rich, arrogant brat who thinks she’s better than other people and knows what’s better for their own lives than they know for themselves. But the thing is, Emma thinks that she’s doing a great favor to everyone else. Even in her manipulation, she sees no fault. And yes, the white woman, Karen-complex doesn’t escape me– it’s glaring, actually– but I think in some ways I’ve been prey to this as well. And it’s this “kindness” motivated by selfishness that ends up being more destructive than good old-fashioned cruelty could ever be. But I think there is such a thing as real kindness– if only we can peel back layers of ego and confront our own performativity.
Music for this episode is from the beautiful Emma (2020) soundtrack by Isobel Waller-Bridge.
A few exciting words can be used to describe the design work of Zipeng Zhu: fabulous, vibrant, and loud. The Chinese-born designer now works in New York City, working on branding, posters, illustrations, physical environments, and anything design-related. Boasting past positions at Pentagram and Sagmeister & Walsh, Zhu founded and has run his creative agency, Dazzle Studio, since 2016. His self-stated mission is to “make everyday a razzle-dazzle musical.”
Zhu’s approach to design is refreshing to see in the graphic design world that is often white male-dominated and elitist. Instead, Zhu advocates for appreciating fun and beauty in ordinary life.
His Instagram is full of colorful projects informed by current events, AIDS advocacy, voting education, and more, including collaborations with Adobe and AIGA. What stands out from Zhu’s compositions are his immaculate knowledge of typography and color. Going against the grain of black and white minimalist design, the images are unapologetically brash–and of course, quite dazzling. The designer is also notably unafraid to dive into the digital-forward world and use it to heighten his projects.
Zipeng Zhu also runs Dazzle Supply, a shop that carries an array of posters, apparel, and cute gifts certain to brighten up anyone’s home. Ultimately Zhu uses his voice as a designer to bring light to important issues while highlighting the significance expressing yourself no matter what people say.
I Voted StickerCombat COVIDD CampaignGarage MagazineEliqs BrandingAdobe PrideNovo Brazil Brewing Co.Work Balance PosterExit 2020One of the mugs you can purchase at Dazzle Supply!
“This poetry-vlog is brought to you by my parent’s dining room”
I got the idea for this piece when I showed my roommates what I looked like with the glasses I never wear. One of them regarded that if you need glasses, even only a little bit, and don’t use them, it can ruin your eyesight. This planted the seed, but then when my brother said that some people think wearing glasses when you don’t really need to can damage your eyesight, then it was growing.
There’s a certain frustration to this scenario. Rarely do my eyes hurt randomly, but what if those sparse moments get more frequent and it’s all because of me not wearing the glasses? Or vice versa, where I start wearing the glasses more and because of this my eyesight worsens, meaning I just have to wear them more and more often.
Honestly, I have no clue what to do, and I wanted to try to capture this is words. I’m semi-satisfied with how this turned out, but only because there were a few concepts that I wanted the voice of it to touch upon that I think it got. These were things like the weird and subtle superiority I felt for not needing glasses for so long, even though I recognize that’s preposterous, and other very vague, floaty ideas. This sort of subconscious connection I want the reader to make is a hard thing to pull off, but I think this poem is a good stepping stone for me as a writer.
Also, hope everyone had an great Thanksgiving! Almost done with the semester, so just keep your head up.
