Spotify Wrapped & The Music Project of 2023

At last, I've achieved a New Years resolution.

As noted elsewhere, at the end of last year I did my Spotify Wrapped and the “Festival” lineup of the music I’d listened to and posted it on socials, etc. And a comment my brother made really resonated with me - I’m paraphrasing, but he said it looked like I wasn’t trying to listen to new music, and just listening to the same playlist(s) over and over.

Which was spot on.

I actively tried to find new music - which included new music by artists I’d already discovered, as well as new artists altogether - and made it a goal for 2023. Using recommendations from friends (thanks, friends!) as well as those Spotify suggested or hearing about something externally, I ended up adding a bunch of new music to the playlist.

Just to highlight the new music, here are the bands I don’t think I’d ever listened to before that are on this list. The order? Apparently how I added them to the playlist.

• JAWNY

• Alvvays

• Last Dinosaurs

• Penguin Prison

• Dutch Criminal Record

• Wallows

• Beach Weather

• Inhaler

• Sjowgren

• Matt and Kim

• COIN

• Glass Animals

• Windser

• almost monday

• Wilderado

• Tennis

• beabadoobee

• Cat Clyde

• RENEE

• GAYLE

• Gold Motel

• Hippo Campus

• Generationals

• Porches

• Katie Toupin

• boy pablo

• The Beaches

• BETWEEN FRIENDS

• Suki Waterhouse

• Venus & the Flytraps

• Peach Pit

• hey, nothing

• Beach Bunny

• illuminati hotties

• Blondshell

• Arlie

• STRFKR

• Wilder Woods

• Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

• Lady Lamb

• Landon Conrath

• Wet Leg

• Samia

• The Beths

• Nothing But Thieves

• Paris Texas

• Dan Croll

• Soccer Mommy

• Santigold

• Japanese Breakfast

• W.H. Lung

• Viagra Boys

• Arlo Parks

• Goose

• Olivia Rodrigo

• Declan McKenna

• Silk Sonic

I mean, that’s a very long list. Also? Band names these days are hilarious. (It also hasn’t escaped me that I listened to The Beaches, Beach Bunny and Beach Weather. Something is going on here.)

I listened to almost twice as much music on Spotify in 2023 than I did in 2022, and the diversity was fairly clear. My most listened to artists from 2022 to 2023:

In 2023?

What I like about the Top Artist list is that two of these - The Beaches and Wallows - are bands I didn’t listen to at all until 2023. As for the songs, note that in a prior post I talked about which songs I got ‘stuck’ on this year - all five in that Top Songs list were discussed.

It’s also affirming that I stuck to my guns of trying to listen to newer music in that none of the top artists from 2022 repeated - though many I still listened to. Let’s go to the “Festival” view, shall we? This looks at the last six months, not the full year but it’s the same for both lists.

2022:

And after the 2023 Music Project? Here’s 2023:

You’ll see some similar names for sure - I’m not gonna stop listening to The National or Sleater-Kinney, and certainly not in a year where both released new albums. (Also, the reason it doesn’t map with the yearly data is that again, this is just the last six months. I’d wager boygenius would be a headliner if it was for all of 2023 I wish it could do it for a calendar year, but that is not an option.)

The Frank Black one surprised me until I remembered that I got WAY back into “Teenager of the Year” for a few weeks. And look, compared to many, the amount of time I spent listening to music is still fairly low. There are some bands on here that I know I only listened to fairly small amounts of, but it was enough to make the cut. For instance, Beach Bunny is a “headliner” act here but that’s because I listened to that album a few times, where bands like Hippo Campus, Blondshell, Alvvays and others I listened to specific tracks a lot.

Still, this was a very fun experiment. I’m for sure going to make a new playlist next year and see where we go from there. And who knows, maybe next year I’ll achieve another resolution.