The 2024 Music Project, Wrapped.

It's a wrap.

As expected, the Spotify Wrapped dropped this week, which if long-term readers here remember, was the inspiration for the 2023 Music Project, which rolled into this year.

In 2022, when I shared my Wrapped on Instagram, it was clear I was basically just re-listening to the same old music. Which isn’t actually a bad thing. But there IS so much good music out there that I was implored to widen my horizons. And I did!

So, what happened this year? It’s an interesting question because I did listen to a good amount of new music - but some of it was from artists I not only have listened to for years, but who showed up on that 2022 list because I was listening to their older work. Is it my fault that Sunny Day Real Estate, The Cure, Sleater-Kinney and Nada Surf put out some bangers this year? IT IS NOT.

That said, I did listen to LESS music in 2024. If Spotify is to be believed, I went down from 11,176 minutes to 8,773 minutes this year. That’s at least partially a podcast problem as I’ve ever increased not just the number of podcasts I’ve listened to but somehow, many of them are LONG podcasts. (And to be clear, I don’t listen to podcasts on Spotify, mostly because it’s historically been a drag to do so. I might give it another look just so I can only use one app for this stuff.)

First, here is the playlist I put together - these are all songs I didn’t know about or really listen to until this year.

Please enjoy.

And, both from this list as well as their other releases, here are the bands and songs I listened to the most in 2024.

It should be no shock with these bands, with the exception that Dayglow has now made the list in consecutive years. But The Clash, Sleater-Kinney and The Killers are three of my favorite bands ever, and there’s no shame in that. And here’s the “Festival Lineup” view:

I’m not sure how The Beatles keep slipping in here when I truly have no memory of actively listening to them. There’s no shame here - the Beatles are the frigging Beatles - but I do wonder how and why they keep getting “headline” status here. Perhaps there’s a glitch in the Matrix.

Also, I have a 63 Niche Score! And I don’t know what that means!

Anyway, that’s the wrap on the 2024 Music Project.

What new music did I miss? Leave your favorites in the comments.