Quarter 2 (April - June 2020): Recap Analysis and Look Ahead
- lifeisbella
- Aug 9, 2020
- 15 min read
This post will be broken down into 3 sections: recap, analysis and look ahead. In the first section I'll be recapping everything that I finished watching/reading/listening to in April through June 2020 and I'll briefly talk about my favorites. The second part will be an analysis and breakdown of the things that I did watch. The third part will be discussing anything that I am looking forward to watching in July through September.
RECAP
Here I will list everything I watched/read/listened to in chronological order that I experienced them. I will be including 2020 and non-2020 media here. I'll also talk about my favorites of each media type.
TV:
Tiger King, Season 1, Netflix, 2020
High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, Season 1, Disney+, 2020
Hollywood, Season 1, Netflix, 2020
I Am Not Okay With This, Season 1, Netflix, 2020
Hunters, Season 1, Amazon Prime, 2020
Listen To Your Heart, Season 1, ABC, 2020
Outer Banks, Season 1, Netflix, 2020
Favorites (in no particular order):
Tiger King. This one was just a wild ride. This was just so fun to witness and experience the hype surrounding this and all the memes and everything.
High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. Is it bad that this was probably my favorite TV show out of everything I watched this quarter? This one was just super cute and wholesome and had pretty good original songs. I'm definitely looking forward to Season 2.
Listen To Your Heart. I didn't do a full review on this since it's a reality show, but I really liked this show. I just I love everything in the Bachelor franchise. It's all really good reality TV fluff. I was really doubtful going into this because I thought the concept was a little weird. I had no idea how they would make a show work that was marketed as a mix between the Bachelor (dating show) and American Idol, but I think it actually worked out pretty well. The singing/competition element was actually pretty cool and there were plenty of sweet romantic moments, as well as the reality TV drama we all love. I'm looking forward to the next season (if they have one).
Unfortunately, it was a little bit of a disappointing quarter in TV for me. Including Quarter 1, this brings my total to 12 2020 TV shows (17 overall) that I watched this year.
MOVIES:
Parasite, Theatrical Release, 2019
Booksmart, Theatrical Release, 2019
The Phantom of the Opera Live at the Royal Albert Hall - 25th Anniversary, Professionally shot musical theater/concert, 2011
Love Never Dies, Professionally shot musical theater/concert, 2012
The Half of It, Netflix, 2020
Dangerous Lies, Netflix, 2020
The Farewell, Theatrical Release, 2019
I Still Believe, Theatrical Release, 2020
The Ring, Theatrical Release, 2002
Marriage Story, 2019
Come To Daddy, 2020
Favorites (in no particular order):
Parasite. This one definitely lived up to the hype for me. This movie is just so rich in thematic depth and meaning. I feel like this is one that I could rewatch a lot and notice something new every time.
Phantom of the Opera/Love Never Dies. These sent me in a DEEP Phantom of the Opera/Broadway googling spiral. I'm still in this phase actually. I can't stop watching reviews of Love Never Dies and Phantom of the Opera behind the scenes, and general Broadway YouTube videos.
The Half of It. This one was just super cute and deep in that young adult romance kind of way. I really liked this one. I don't really hear many people talk about it, I wish it got a little more attention.
The Ring. This movie did not leave my mind for weeks. I kept thinking about this and watching analysis and reaction videos on it. This was a very memorable horror movie in my opinion.
This was a really good movie quarter for me! There were a lot that I really enjoyed. Including Quarter 1, I have watched 7 2020 releases (19 movies total) this year.
ALBUMS:
After Hours, The Weeknd, 2020
3.15.20, Childish Gambino, 2020
Kelsea, Kelsea Ballerini, 2020
Kid Krow, Conan Gray, 2020
Calm, 5 Seconds of Summer, 2020
Before Love Came To Kill Us, Jessie Reyez, 2020
Future Nostalgia, Dua Lipa, 2020
High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: The Soundtrack, 2020
Velvet, Adam Lambert, 2020
The New Abnormal, The Strokes, 2020
Fetch The Bolt Cutters, Fiona Apple, 2020
love is not dying, Jeremy Zucker, 2020
I Feel Alive, TOPS, 2020
It Is What It Is, Thundercat, 2020
Invisible People, Chicano Batman, 2020
Jazzhound, The Buttertones, 2020
good to know, Jojo, 2020
Petals For Armor, Hayley Williams, 2020
Favorites (in no particular order):
Kelsea, Kelsea Ballerini. This album was great! I really liked it.
Kid Krow, Conan Gray. I love this album! This will probably be one of my favorites of the entire year. Literally every song on the album is a bop.
Future Nostalgia, Dua Lipa. This is another perfect album. This one will also probably be one of my favorites of the year.
The New Abnormal, The Strokes. This album has some really great songs on it.
love is not dying, Jeremy Zucker. The whole album is pretty good, but there are a couple of really, really great songs on there.
It Is What It Is, Thundercat. I really enjoyed how innovative and unique this album was.
good to know, Jojo. This album is just catchy and I love Jojo's voice.
Petals For Armor, Hayley Williams. This album has some really great songs as well.
Including Quarter 1, I am now at 36 albums total (all of those 2020 releases).
I also want to do my top 8 favorite songs (in order). I have to do at least 8 this time. There's so many good songs. Even with 8, there's still a few that I really really like that I still won't fit on the list. It's hard not to flood this list with Dua Lipa and Conan Gray songs, but I tried to only include a maximum of 2 songs per album.
Physical, Dua Lipa. Its hard to choose which song I like the most from her, but I think it's this one. I really like the music video as well.
Maniac, Conan Gray. Again, this whole album is great, but I think this is my favorite and most memorable song on the album.
Blinding Lights, The Weeknd. I really love the 1980s sound of this song. This is why I was looking forward to his album so much. Too bad that the rest of the album wasn't exactly the same style that I was looking for.
The Adults Are Talking, The Strokes.
Somebody Loves you, Jeremy Zucker.
Don't Start Now, Dua Lipa.
Dead Horse, Hayley Williams.
Just For A Moment, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: The Soundtrack.
Honorable mentions (in no particular order): Wish You Were Sober (Conan Gray), In Your Eyes (The Weeknd), Break Your Heart (Dua Lipa), Comethru (Jeremy Zucker), Man (Jojo), Club, Overshare (Kelsea Ballerini), No Shame (5 Seconds of Summer)
BOOKS:
Lucky Boy, Shanthi Sekaran, 2017
The June Boys, Court Stevens, 2020
Thorn, Intisar Khanani, 2012
Circe, Madeline Miller, 2018
We Are The Wildcats, Siobhan Vivian, 2020
The Vanishing Deep, Astrid Scholte, 2020
Loveboat Taipei, Abigail Hing Wen, 2020
In Five Years, Rebecca Serle, 2020
Favorites:
Circe, Madeline Miller. I really liked this one! I really liked some of the revelations and messages in it. I thought the plot was really interesting too.
Eh that's about it for favorites. I didn't really love anything else. This puts by book total at 7 2020 releases and 12 books overall.
And here are my favorites across all media types (in no particular order). These are anything that has completely captured my attention for days, weeks, months and made me obsessed.
Kid Krow, Conan Gray.
Future Nostalgia, Dua Lipa.
Phantom of the Opera/Love Never Dies
The Ring
I didn't completely love too many things this quarter (I can't even come up with a Top 5), but these 4 above were so great.
ANALYSIS
TV:
More than half of the shows I finished this quarter were on Netflix. The other half were pretty scattered. I'm missing a show from Hulu this quarter, but I do have a Disney+ show and a Amazon Prime show (which is an improvement from last quarter). Next quarter, my goal is to watch a few more shows on another platform other than Netflix.
This chart shows the different TV Show genres that I watched this quarter. This is a little subjective, since some shows count as multiple categories. I had to pick the category that fit the show the best. It was pretty scattered. Drama (if you count comedy-drama as well) accounts for more than half.
The next pie chart would usually be a Release Year Breakdown. I don't need to do that this quarter since all the shows I watched are 2020 releases. I have plenty of old shows that I want to watch, but its hard to prioritize them since they won't count towards my 2020 challenge, and also they are usually less relevant in pop culture and current events/discussions.
This chart shows the breakdown of how I rated the shows I watched this quarter. I'm glad I had so many shows that I liked. I liked 5 of the shows and didn't like 2 shows.
This chart shows what months were my strongest/weakest watching months. May was a really strong month for me with 5 shows, and June was really weak with 0 shows.
I'm happy with the amount of shows I watched. I'm happy with the genres I watched (even if there wasn't much variety). I could improve a little on the platform I watch. And I'm really happy that I liked the majority of the shows I watched this quarter.
During Quarter 2, I watched 7 shows overall, 6 of which qualify for my 2020 challenge. By the end of Quarter 2 I should have watched 10 shows for my 2020 Challenge. At this point (including Quarter 1 and Quarter 2) I have watched 12 2020 releases (and 17 shows overall). So I'm slightly ahead which is great!
MOVIES:
This pie chart shows the release years of all the movies I watched this quarter. About two-thirds are made up of movies from 2019 and 2020. I'm decently fine with those numbers. I like watching recent stuff since that is more relevant in current conversations. But I love old movies so much. I love so many movies from the 1950s-1990s, and i haven't watched ANY movies prior to 2000. That's pretty bad honestly. I definitely have a lot of improvement to do on that next quarter. My goal would be to have at least one movie from every decade between 1950 and 2000.
This chart shows the percentage of movies I watched that were theatrical releases, or from streaming services (like Hulu or Netflix) or were professionally recorded musicals/concerts. I consider these musicals and concerts to be slightly different than theatrical or streaming because concerts are different than a movie in the sense that there is no plot, and the plays/musicals are different from movies as well because stage acting is very different from movie acting, and we're not as focused on elements like cinematography. But I think that they are similar enough to be considered a type of "movie." These professionally recorded plays or concerts are also a little different from streaming or theatrical releases because they tend to be a direct to video kind of deal. But back to the statistics... More than half of the movies I watched this quarter were theatrical releases. I am fine with this percentage, since I'd say that generally theatrical releases can be expected to be of a higher caliber than streaming services. But I'm glad I'm also getting my streaming services movies in.
This chart shows the breakdown of all the different genres I watched this quarter. The most watched category is thriller. This is so weird to me. I wouldn't say that I have any genres that I particularly stay away from, but for whatever reason I don't think I usually watch many thrillers. The next biggest genres are comedy-drama and musical. Adding up drama and the two drama sub-categories, this adds up to about a third. Next quarter I'd like to have a few more strict dramas on there. Maybe also more strict comedies. And I'd also like to see some documentaries.
This chart shows the rating distribution of the movies I watched this quarter. I only had 3 movies that were bad (5 or below) and 8 movies that were good. I don't like to see that I had some that rated as low as a 3 or 4, but I'm happy that I had some that rated as high as a 9 or 10. I'd like to see more of a concentration in the 7-9 range.
This chart shows the month distribution. I was pretty even with how many movies I watched each month.
I definitely need to work harder to watch more movies. They're guess I tend to gravitate towards TV. So overall next quarter I need to watch more movies. I'm relatively happy with the genres, and ratings of the movies I watched, but I could do a little better with watching more old movies.
In Quarter 2 I watched 11 movies overall, 4 of which qualify for my 2020 challenge. Including Quarter 1 and Quarter 2, I have watched 19 total movies, 7 of which qualify for my 2020 challenge. I should have watched 10 2020 releases by now, so I am a little behind.
ALBUMS:
This chart shows the percentage of albums I listened to from solo artists vs bands or groups. About two-thirds of the albums I listened to this quarter were from solo artists. I don't have any particular goal for this, I just think its interesting to see. But I do think that bands have more authenthic since they typically write and play all their own music. So next quarter I could listen to more albums from bands, but I don't particularly feel bad about what I did this quarter.
This chart shows the popularity level of all the albums I listened to. This is how I split the different categories of popularity:
Indie: <100k subscribers
Mid: 100k - 1M subscribers
Popular: 1M - 5M subscribers
Mainstream: 5M+ subscribers
These are subscribers on YouTube Music. The one album in the n/a category was for the one soundtrack that I listened to this quarter. Since it's a soundtrack, there isn't really an artist to subscribe to. The split is pretty even between the 4 categories. I don't really have any goals other than keeping it equal between all the categories. I see the benefit in listening to indie artists as well as mainstream artists. Mainstream artists can define years and eras of music because they have so much influence. They're more involved in pop culture and discussions, and these mainstream artists are the ones that will up for VMAs and Grammys. But indie artists are important to listen to because they can be more homegrown, authentic, a lot of them write their own music. The quality of the music isn't necessarily better just because an artist is mainstream. Music can be just as good from an indie artist, and in these situations its more important to help them out and show support since they're up and coming.
This chart shows the percentages of all the different genres I listened to. Surprisingly the biggest category is R&B, with Indie Rock as the second largest category. If I include all different subsets of pop (pop, indie pop, electro pop, pop rock), this adds up to 34%. If I include all different subsets of rock (indie rock, funk rock, pop rock) this adds up to 29%. I thought it was important to include each of these subsets as different categories, because there definitely are important distinctions to define between pop rock and funk rock for example. Next quarter I would want listen to more country and jazz. I don't have any hip-hop or rap. I don't typically like that kind of music, but I need to force myself to try new things sometimes. I'd also be interested in listening to more things traditionally rock.
This chart shows the gender breakdown of the artists I listened to this quarter. I just think this is really interesting to see if there's any pattern with what I tend to listen to. This is interesting because I feel like I usually tend to listen to more female artists. The mixed category is for bands or groups that aren't composed of all female or all male members. I would like to see the male and female categories to be a little more even next quarter.
This shows the distribution of ratings I gave out for the albums I listened to. I like to see a bell curve shape like this. I want to have a lot of average likes (around the 6-7 mark), with a few given out for the excellent listens (in the 8-10 area), and a few given out for ones that weren't my favorite (in the 4-6 area). And hopefully I wouldn't have any ratings that are 3 or lower. So I am very happy with the rating distribution this quarter.
This chart shows my most productive months. I listened to a lot of albums in April. And then you can see that I kind of burnt myself out and only listened to two albums in May. And then I got to a more normal level in June.
I'm pretty happy with what I listened to. My rating distribution was generally good and I think I listened to a good variety of genres and popularity levels.
In Quarter 2 I listened to 18 albums. Including Quarter 1, I listened to 36 albums overall. I already completed my 2020 challenge, but I will continue to listen to new album releases.
BOOKS:
This chart shows the percentage of books I read that were targeted at young adult or adult audiences. I tend to gravitate towards Young Adult books because I tend to hear more about them and which ones are good. Also, adult books don't really offer the same takes on fantasy and contemporary genres. Sometimes I read only YA books, so I'm glad I read a decent number of adult books as well this quarter. I need to start venturing even more into adult books.
The majority of the books I read this quarter were 2020 releases. And I read no books prior to 2010. I definitely need to read more classics next quarter. Its hard because I want to read new books because I want to be on forefront, reading things before they get turned into movies and I want to be involved in conversations around new releases etc. But also it takes me so long to read even one book. That's a lot of time to waste on something that might not be very good, and its hard to tell if its good when there's such a limited amount of reviews for new releases. If I read older things with a better established reputation, I may not be as disappointed with the reads that I'm choosing to spend time on.
Next up would be a chart that shows the percentage of books I read that were fiction or nonfiction. All of the books I read this quarter were fiction. I should expand my horizons and read more nonfiction whether autobiographies or informational/self-help, but I don't really like these genres. I definitely should read at least a few nonfiction books a quarter.
Next would be a chart that shows the percentage of books I read that were written by male or female authors. I don't need a chart for this because all of the books I read this quarter were written by female authors. I'm fine with this, but next quarter I would want to at least have a few books written by male authors.
This chat shows the different genres I read this quarter. The genre that I read most of were considered Contemporary. Next was fantasy. I'm not the biggest fan of the contemporary genre so I would like to read less of that next quarter. Fantasy books made up 25% of the books I read last quarter. I think fantasy is my favorite genre right now so I would want to read more of those next quarter. Contemporary can include romance, but I'd like to read some romance books next quarter. I also would want to read some kind of non-fiction (memoir, self help, informational etc.) and maybe horror next quarter.
This chart shows the page lengths of the books that I read this quarter. 50% of the books I read were in the 400-500 page range. I didn't read any books with less than 200 pages and no books more than 500 pages.
This chart shows the popularity of each of the books I read. This is how I categorized the popularity levels:
Indie: < 1k reviews
Mid: 1k - 10k reviews
Popular: 10k - 100k reviews
Mainstream: 100k - 500k reviews
Titan: 500k+ reviews
The number of reviews are taken from GoodReads. "Titans" I would consider to be the behemoths that even non-book readers are aware of. These are books like Becoming, Little Fires Everywhere and Educated. I didn't read any "titan" books this quarter which is disappointing. I would definitely want to read at least a few of those really popular books next quarter. A lot of the books I read this quarter were indie. I haven't been too happy with the books I've been reading lately, so I definitely should start reading books that have established better reputations and garnered more buzz.
Most of the books I read this quarter were in the 3-3.5/5 (or 6-7/10) range. Basically this means that they were all extremely average. I guess most of the books I read should be in this range. If all of my books were 4 or 5 stars, then my real average would be 4 or 5 and I'm just rating them all in an elevated, over-exaggerated way if that makes sense. But I would want there to at least be a few 4 or 5 stars. PLEASE! I'm begging. I've literally been reading average books for years. But the good thing though is there was only one book that I really didn't like.
I was pretty consistent with how many books I read each month, with one more book read in May and June.
I am very happy with the amount of books I read this quarter. 8 books are a lot for me. I definitely have some more work to do in terms of non-fiction vs fiction, adult vs YA and genres. I also really want to be able to give books better ratings next quarter.
In Quarter 2 I read 8 books overall, 5 of which qualify for my 2020 challenge. Including Quarter 1, I've read 12 books overall, 7 of which qualify for my 2020 challenge. Again I am a little behind on my challenge.
LOOK AHEAD
Here I want to talk about some of the upcoming releases that I'm looking forward to during the next quarter. Again, some of these releases could definitely move due to Coronavirus stuff, but this is based off of the available information currently. And the stuff I'll be bringing up below are things that I'm aware of, but of course as we get closer to release dates, more trailers will drop and there will be more hype that will grab my attention. So the list will of course broaden as we go on through the quarter.
TV:
The Baby-Sitter's Club (Netflix)
Little Voice (Apple TV+)
The Bachelorette/Bachelor In Paradise
MOVIES:
Hamilton (Disney+)
The New Mutants
Bill & Ted Face The Music
ALBUMS:
The Chicks- Gaslighter
The Killers- Imploding the Mirage
Katy Perry- Smile
And that's about it for my recap, analysis and look ahead! I really enjoy looking at all the statistics that show what my preferences are, and how I may need to improve to broaden my horizons and education. Let me know if you watched/listened to/read any of the above media this quarter. And let me know if you have any recommendations of things for me to watch or read next quarter!
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