Like many consumers of streamed music, I just got my year-in-review recap from Spotify. A couple of caveats before we get into the results, which are largely predictable, with one very notable exception:
- I listened to a lot more podcasts this year on Spotify than I did music. My 1,407 minutes of music on Spotify only ranked me in the 27th percentile of users. If my podcast app did the same thing as Spotify, it would tell you that my top listen was NPR's Up First (which is my early-morning dogwalk starter), followed by The Right Time with Bomani Jones, Men in Blazers, and 99% Invisible.
- I tend to fixate on a band for a period of time to the exclusion of others. This will become obvious as you read this post.
Without further ado, my top five songs of the year.
This one was filmed at Norfolk Academy's 2014 Homecoming. Guessing a Gheorghie might've seen this live and in person.
I do love this song.
This was the first song I ever heard on the very first iPod I ever owned, courtesy of my man Whitney, who loaded it with a fuckton of music.
There's a thematic consistency, at least. Spotify says my aura for 2021 was wistful and poignant. So, yeah.
Three of the bands represented on the top five songs list also made it into my top five bands of 2021, so I won't give you anything more by The Avett Brothers (#2), Wilco (#3), or Crowded House (#5).
The band I listened to the most is also the one I saw in the last show of the before times. I find myself pretty frequently dialing up their stuff, because I really dig their sound and lyrics - they put me in a good headspace. Proud to say that I was in the top 6% of all Spotify users in terms of the number of times I listed to these guys:
Which leaves the number four artist on my list. It came initially quite a surprise to me, but then I realized that this performer released two records over the past 18 months that my daughter loved and turned me onto. And that one of those records featured one of my favorite indie artists. So there's a reason Taylor Swift made it onto my list.
I listened to a few things other than Indie/Alt/Swifty stuff. Here's what Spotify compiled as my songs of the year.
Posts
