If you lived through 2020, you might reasonably ask the question: what the fuck was that? 

It's not been a normal one, that's for sure, and the time it will take to reckon with what's happened will stretch far into the future. Let's start by looking at how we spent the weirdest year in living memory. 

We collared a bunch of our favourite bands and artists and asked them questions about how they experienced the year that all of us will remember forever.

Today, we Are Scientists take the quiz.

 

You know, I’m okay, I think. We’ve been hard at work on new album for the bulk of 2020, so my distraction level has been very, very high, all year. We’re incredibly fortunate to have a time-consuming hobby that coincides with our actual career, so we didn’t really have to pick up any random new avocations, like sourdough-baking or whatever, to pass the time.

 

 

Of course, I did. Pathetically, I watched the whole thing in a single, gruesome sitting. That was back when I was still treating the quarantine situation as if it were a snow day off from school, just gorging on media like it was some grotesque, stolen pleasure.

 

 

A better question would be what I *didn’t* binge-watch. What’s really distressing is that, while I’ve plowed through an insane volume of TV shows, my film viewings have taken a brutal hit this year. I’ll tell myself that I don’t have two hours to sit down and focus on a good film, but then will instead watch six hours of garbage television or put something catastrophically bad like Tremors: Shrieker Island on Netflix. I desperately need cinemas to safely open so I can get back to watching quality cinema.

 

 

I have this recipe book from the New York cocktail bar Death & Co., and I’ve simply been ploughing through its contents. Before this year, it would have been hard to imagine myself living an unhealthier lifestyle than being on tour generally affords, but at least when we play shows, I end up sweating all of that booze out. At home, I’ll make a series of stiff cocktails and then just sit on the couch and get blitzed while crushing a season of The Good Place in one stretch.

 

 

It’s going to seem like I’m simply pitching our latest video, but I promise, that’s not ALL I’m doing: my favorite moment this year was filming (We Are Scientists’ bass-man) Chris Cain for the music video of our new song 'Fault Lines'. In it, he plays a grotesquely cocky producer, and we shot about twenty-five total minutes of him hamming it up like a smug jackass. I earnestly argued that the entire video should be composed using solely that footage. Chris Cain is my favorite comedian.

 

 

I started wearing sweatpants for the first time in my life; does that count as a hobby? I did buy a jump-rope in a fit of concern for my cardiovascular health at some point, but it’s never actually been unfurled.

 

 

I got into Ben Lerner pretty late, but that turned out to be a fortunate mistake, because it meant that I got to read all three of his novels in quick succession this year. It was a hugely gratifying spate of reading, since he’s only gotten better with each book. The Topeka School is killer.

 

 

Phoebe Bridgers really knocked it out of the park with her latest album, Punisher.  I’ve been a fan since her first record, but this new one is an order of magnitude more potent than anything else she’s done, I think. I’m generally pretty immune to music that can be described as “folksy” or “morose,” but I’m powerless against Bridgers’ skill-set.

 

 

I hope it’s not too obvious and basic to say that I most miss playing live shows, but I’d be lying if I pretended that it weren’t the truth.