Introduction

My 2022 Spotify Wrapped was disappointing. There was a lot of Taylor Swift, even though I would at most call myself a casual listener. The list also included a lot of comedy songs, musical soundtracks, and “Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall,” because Scott Grimes sang it in that one episode of “The Orville: New Horizons,” and I liked it. It was not a great list. 

So, in 2023, I changed things up a little. In 2022, Spotify Wrapped supposedly recorded listener statistics from January 1st to October 31st, thus any music listened to in November and December 2022 wouldn’t be included. It seems weird and inauthentic not to include music from November and December, but maybe Spotify didn’t want their stats to be clogged with Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and other Christmas tunes. Spotify claimed it would continue the count past October in 2023, but as I don’t work at Spotify or know anyone there, I can’t confirm that.

Methodology

If you do research for a living, I expect you to criticize them. I would think of any artist I could, select their playlist, crank the volume to zero, leave my phone somewhere, and then do something else. Ta-da. I did this almost every single day. I would randomly select an artist or a genre, hit play, and then walk away for months.

Was this experiment truly random? No, it wasn’t. I selected artists, genres, and songs based on my mood. During my depressive mourning period, I only wanted to listen to “Daisy, Where Did You Go?” by Marissa Nadler. Sometimes, I would play John Denver on repeat. Other days, it would be Brandy or Tropical House or something I didn’t usually listen to, but I just wanted to keep Spotify guessing. I very likely missed a lot of genres and songs that would have made the Wrap-Up a lot more interesting, and I did try to avoid some garbage like “Insane Clown Posse.”

I mostly did it because there’s some shame in having “basic” music tastes. Even though there’s nothing wrong with loving Taylor Swift or Top 40 hits, I often feel societal pressure to be cool and listen to underground hits. Or the right amount of Olivia Rodrigo to stay relevant. It’s too much work, and it’s not like I even enjoy it. A lot of music is very distracting, and I prefer to be grounded. So I figured in 2023, I’d mess around with Spotify, learn a few new songs, and then see what happened. 

Results

Discussion

This list does not accurately reflect the music I like, or even all of the interesting songs and musicians I discovered. Spotify needs to up their game regarding descriptive terminology for listeners. Every person I know was called a “Time Traveller” because we liked to listen to some songs on repeat.

My Top 5 Artists were kind of interesting. Marissa Nadler, Simon & Garfunkel, and ABBA are all artists I’ve been a fan of for years.

Paige Thesing is a friend of mine and an independent artist.

Tinashe’s music video “Bouncin'” appeared on my “Search & Explore” page back in March, and I was obsessed.

Conclusion

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I should clarify: I am still a human person and I do like music.

However, my enjoyment, or insufficient lack thereof, is not a major facet of my personality, and I wish I didn’t feel like it had to be. Enjoying music should be like enjoying food: you are not more interesting than other people because your favorite food is Beef Roulade rather than pizza bagels.

Please do not take this post as an invitation to educate me on why music is a vital part of the human experience and why my life will be forever transformed if I listen to a specific song or artist. If I were in a movie, I dread my romantic lead being the kind of person who’s obsessed with music, like Ryan Gosling from “La La Land” or one of the Country Bears. I do not want to engage in a conversation about music or be quizzed on my taste or be introduced to an artist that will “change my life.”

If I repeat this experiment, it’ll be to find new artists who would benefit from additional listeners. If you’d like to comment about new artists who could use a little support, then I’m happy to add them to my 2024 list.