I got Wrapped

Well, all the cool kids were doing it, so I decided I must, too: This past Sunday, I got my “Spotify Wrapped”—um, report? List? Whatever it’s called, the highlights are in the graphic above. I’ve never actually paid all that much attention to it before, but this year I did, and it was—interesting.

I'm not upset about the rankings in the graphic—how can I be? It's based on an astounding 81 minutes of listening in 2023! Clearly I don't listen to Spotify, which is a waste since I pay for it (to get rid of the ads). That's going to change: Last week, I decided to listen to more music (it clearly can't be a New Year Resolution since I decided it in mid-December, but I never make those, anyway, as I’ve said many times). Instead, I simply decided that music is something I need more of in my life.

I was surprised that UK band Deco was my top artist, but it was probably because I went through a flurry of listening at one point this year. Even so, I really do like their 80s synth pop-inspired sound, and I really did like their cover of "Bitter Sweet Symphony" (so much so that I listened to it a whopping three times! Spotify threw in a video from Deco's vocalist, Max Kendall, thanking Spotify listeners for listening to their music and promising "something a little bigger" than the EP ("Nice Car") they released this year. Personally, I hope it has a full version of their cover of Miley Cyrus' "Flowers", or at least that they release one eventually (I mentioned that cover in a post back in August of this year).

As for the other songs, The The and Sonic Youth are part of a Spotify Playlist (“One Night in 1987”) I made to recreate one of my mixtapes from 1987, back in the days before I moved to New Zealand, and I think I listened to the entire playlist at least once (if so, that'd be 46 of my 81 minutes). Wafia and Auckland artist K M T P are probably there because I heard a song somewhere, like backing music on TV or in a commercial, and thought, "who's that?", used the App Shazam to find out, then listened on Spotify (my listening to only 81 minutes in 2023 meant it wasn't hard to get on my top list…).

My Top 10 streamed songs in 2023.

My "Top Songs of 2023" playlist has 31 songs that add up to 1 hour 54 minutes of listening time. So, I guess I must've only listened to some of those songs for a minute or two for me to have had only 81 minutes listening time. Those 31 songs included all ten songs from the 1987 playlist, seven of which were in the Top 10 (graphic at right). I suppose this must be some sort of evidence that listening time really does matter for these things. That makes sense: They keep track of everything streamed in part so they can pay artists, well, something.

In any case, maybe Spotify made the list too soon, because after getting my “Wrapped”, I listened to the entire playlist in the hope I might remember why I added some of the 31 songs that ended up on this year's list. It turned out that there was only one piece I didn’t recognise at all: “Tuesday – Instrumental Version” from a 2014 EP called “Sine Muscia Nulla Vita”—or is that who it’s by? I can’t figure it out. The piece didn’t sound familiar at all, and I also had absolutely no recollection of adding it to my library—which is probably because I didn’t. The only explanation I can think of is that I was listening to Spotify—possibly that 1987 Playlist—and when it was done Spotify played it next as a “Recommended” song (even though none of the playlists I curated have any instrumentals, so… yeah, no idea. Still, that was the only “WTF?!” moment on the 2023 Wrapped Playlist, so I count that as a win.

All of that made me think a bit more about some of the anomalies on the list, like how Deco was my “Number One Artist” even though, Spotify told me, I only listened to them for five minutes in 2023. I think it could be that they’re top of the list because with four songs on my top 31 they have more than anyone else, so if 5 minutes was also the most I listened to anyone, I guess that makes me sense?

This whole thing was just a bit of fun for me—I mean, if I only listened for 81 minutes over a year, I simply can’t take this thing seriously. On the other hand, if I really do listen to Spotify more in the coming year—and, in fact, I’ve already listened more since I got my “Wrapped” thing than I did in the year before it—then I might take next year’s a bit more seriously. Maybe. I’ll have to see how the coming year unwraps, I guess.

Related:
My Top Songs 2023 Playlist on Spotify
Top Tracks of 2023 Spotify’s playlist of the most-streamed songs in 2023
"Weekend Diversion: Old Tunes, Part 1" from June 25, 2017.
"Weekend Diversion: Old Tunes, Part 2" from July 2, 2017.