Parallel to other major holidays, I included plenty of songs that were explicitly about New Year's, but there was a fair number of songs that weren't. As per usual, I also tried to include musical shout-outs to notable music figures with a birthday during that last week of 2020. But beyond the more obvious nods to calendar turnover or birthdays, I wanted songs where hope and perseverance were major themes. (It's pretty hard to miss once you get to the home stretch of the third danceable hour.) On the original event page I wrote, "Let's look forward to next year -- and whatever fresh horrors await us there -- in style." I was being droll, of course, but horrors turned out to be a bit fresher and a good deal more horrible than I had so naively anticipated. The music, of course, remains. As of this writing, 2022 is only a few hours away and I'm not terribly optimistic about what's on the horizon. But as much as I enjoy being right, I wouldn't mind being wrong this time. Either way I hope you, dear site visitor, "hang on in there."

0:00:00 Pregame show

0:21:22   Main event (new school danceable hour)

1:21:17 Old school danceable power double-hour

3:21:44 Shouts & mumurs

3:22:38 Postgame show (with a few willfully extreme stylistic shifts)

(After the last song of the danceable part of the playlist , when the Zoom meeting was at its end, it became standard practice for the folks who were still left and myself to greet each other and say see you later. To avoid trying to cue up postgame songs on the fly, I added a minute of silence to the playlist. This time, however, I neglected to pause so that we could chat for however long felt right -- which was longer than usual since 2020 was at long last coming to an end -- and so the next song comes crashing in at an awkward moment. The following week, I added another 30 seconds to the buffer period.)

Some notable birthdays from the final (official) week of 2020 (everybody is represented in some way across the playlist):

12/27 -- Hayley Williams (Paramore)

12/28 -- Pops Staples (Singers), Charles Neville (Brothers), Lonnie Liston Smith, Johnny Otis, John Legend, Alex Chilton (Box Tops/Big Star)

12/29 -- Yvonne Elliman, Pimp C (UGK), Joe Lovano

12/30 -- Bo Diddley, Jimmy Jones, Jay Kay (Jamiroquai)

12/31 -- Odetta, Donna Summer, Andy Summers (Police), Paul Westerberg (Replacements)

    1/1  -- Grandmaster Flash, Milt Jackson, Brody Dalle (Distillers)

    1/2 -- Dawn Silva (Sly & the Family Stone/Brides of Funkenstein)