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2019 Wrapped. A few surprises

December 7th, 2019 · Posted by Skuds in Music · No Comments · Music

Spotify have this ‘wrapped’ feature where they tell you what your most listened to songs and artists are for the year. A bit premature when there is nearly a twelfth of the year left, but it is what it is. My bedtime habits do rather influence the results though. I have 30 or so playlists of about 90 minutes each for going to sleep to. They contain nothing too energetic or loud. Given that I will be listening to each playlist about 10 times on average throughout the year anything that is on one of the lists is going to skew the results a bit. It probably shouldn’t count that a lot of the songs I play I do not hear because I am asleep!

For a start my number one artist of 2019 was David Bowie, who I listened to for 7 hours. I think the fact only 7 hours is the most I listened to anybody is a bit surprising. It doesn’t sound like a lot. Spotify says my favourite’ song of his is The Next Day. It isn’t. It just features on one of my playlists.

The full top 5 artits for 2019 is:

  1. David Bowie
  2. Erasure
  3. Elton John
  4. Jean-Michel Jarre
  5. Yes

None of which is very surprising. I like all of them and they all have a lot of stuff to choose from.

I did find it interesting that I listened to music from 61 countries. I expect it was dominated by UK artists, followed by American, Australian, French, German, Jamaican and Kiwi artists. I know I do listen to a fair bit of Algerian and West African artisis and did dablle in Turkish psychedelia a bit this year but even so 1 does surprise me a bit.

As for genres, I am told I listened most to rock, dance rock, reggae, chamber psych and funk and am ‘genre-fluid’. That was a huge surprise because I have no idea what ‘chamber psych’ is and have never heard the term before.

My top songs was where the bedtime playists have skewed it all the most. These are all tracks from one or other bedtime playlist that I have also listened to a few times under other circumstances. Not what I would have expected from an old punk, prog and metal fan anyway:

  1. Rich Girl – Hall & Oates
  2. Golden Brown – The Stranglers
  3. I Feel the Earth Move – Carole King
  4. It’s My Life – Talk Talk
  5. Miami – Baxter Dury
  6. Friday I’m In Love – The Cure
  7. Wonderful Crazy Night – Elton John
  8. Love On Your Side – The Thompson Twins
  9. Merrie Land – The Good, The Bad & The Queen
  10. One Trick Ponies – Kurt Vile

Top podcasts where about what I would expect: the Bugle, No Such Thing as a Fish, The Birthday Game and RHLSTP. While I was languishing in hospital for a few weeks I did binge on ‘Fish’ and spent about 65 hours listening to podasts on Spotify during the year.

During 2019 I discovered 554 new artists. Sounds like a lot but I imagine that includes artists I did already know but had never listened to on Spotify. My best favourite discovery is supposedly France Gall. I can believe that.

As far as the decade is concerned, my top artists and songs were:

  • 2010 The Fall & Green Onions by Booker T & the MGs
  • 2011 The Fall & Who Am I? by Gang of Four
  • 2012 Madonna & Single Blip by VCMG
  • 2013 Elton John & Epic by Faith No More
  • 2014 Yes & Green Onions (again)
  • 2015 Yes & Thou Shalt Always Kill by Scroobius Pip and Dan Le Sac
  • 2016 The Beatles & Head to Toe by Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam
  • 2017 Public Service Broadcasting & Spitfire by Public Service Broadcasting
  • 2018 Pet Shop Boys & Golden Years by Bowie
  • 2019 Bowie & Rich Girl by Hall and Oates

Overall, the artist of the decade was David Bowie, followed by the Fall, Yes, Elton John and Dr. Feelgood and the song of the decade was Spitfire by the mighty Public Service Broadcasting.

In short, I appear to be largely listening to the same music I was in my teens and early 20s. In reality I do listen to a lot of new music but that is spread across a lot of artists so doesn’t show up at all, but it is true that I do spend a lot of my time listening to the same songs I was in the 70 and 80s.

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