2023 in Music
How I became a top-8%-of-Spotify-listener totally by accident.
My relationship to music is decidedly mixed. I am a deeply audio learner and struggle with random noises (dogs licking their paws, pen tapping, anything repetitive that I can’t identify), so music keeps me sane. I know how to use music to make people feel like they can do a thing they don’t think they can do (pointed out to me by a friend during a PD workshop many years ago). I can rattle off soundtracks of specific times in my life (Yellowcard’s Ocean Avenue = 2005-2007 and any time I’m by a literal ocean, Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball every traffic jam of the two years I lived in the DC area, The Wailin’ Jennys = writing my master’s thesis, the Hamilton soundtrack = everywhere I walked the year I was writing my master’s thesis). I took 10 years of piano lessons and spent most of my free time with marching and jazz band in high school. Not to mention the years of musical theatre and brief foray into opera stage management in my early twenties.
But I don’t really consider myself a “music person.” I am totally incapable of carrying a tune, have always been 10 years behind any trend, avoid karaoke at almost all costs, and dread someone looking at my playlists. My tastes are eclectic and don’t make a ton of sense, even to me. Plus, half the time, I don’t know what I want to listen to, and then get stuck on the same album for so long that I get sick of it and have to put it on a metaphorical shelf for 5 years or so. Spotify has helped with some of these problems (not the singing or matching pitch - that’s a lost cause); the last two years or so, when I’ve been lesson planning, I’ve mostly gone with my Discover Weekly mix, discovering a handful of songs I love and marking them with the little green heart, then moving on to a new list the following week. This works kind of like my car radios when car radios were more of a thing and also keeps me from wearing out things I’m newly falling in love with. It also makes Mondays a little less scary and gives me something to look forward to, and takes one element of decision fatigue out of my worktime.
Still, I’m a fairly casual listener. Which is why I was quite surprised to discover that, according to Spotify’s algorithms anyway, I was pretty high up on their list of frequent listeners. At first, I was crabby that Spotify Wrapped came out at the end of November, but eventually realized that I would probably skew all of the metrics with my holiday music in December (I wonder if this is why they do it with that timing?). Again, this list is too personal to share; one of my deepest fears is handing someone my phone full of playlists on a roadtrip, let alone a social gathering with more people than would fit in a vehicle. However, I can share a few pieces of information that were either totally expected or utterly surprising. Apparently, I listened to 27 full days of music, which put me in the top 8% of listeners.
Total Artists: 1,981 (which feels impossible)
Top Genre: Broadway (confusing, since I feel like I went through a Broadway phase only for about 3 months and not exclusively)
Top Artist: We Banjo 3. I love them, but hadn’t predicted them to come out on top. It’s fitting, though, that they are essentially a Galway-based bluegrass band; in this year of fulfilling the dream of live music in Ireland, this tracks.
Other top artists:
Molly Tuttle, who I just discovered in the Q4. I couldn’t stop listening to “Good Enough” as an aspirational anthem.
Vienna Teng, who I started listening to when I was a copywriting intern at Wolf Trap in 2012, and who has guided me through many difficult moments since then. (I did love the mini-message in my Wrapped from her, and was surprised and excited to see that she has music coming out in 2024 for the first time in a while).
Mary Chapin Carpenter, who I also encountered first at Wolf Trap and who has been a sort of musical spiritual guide. She was the artist who completed my transition from “I hate country” through “pop country’s okay” (thanks, Amanda and Taylor Swift), all the way to “my main genre is some kind of folk/country/pop/acoustic/bluegrass.” I, by happenstance, checked her website in the spring to discover that she had a concert in Austin the night before we left for Ireland, and couldn’t be more thrilled to have seen her live. Seeing her live was a bucket list item; she and Bruce Springsteen are equally formative for me for totally different reasons, and I’m deeply grateful to have shared space with them and the other people who love them.
Top Songs:
Ablaze, literally the only Alannis Morisette song I listened to all year.
Haven, with the refrain of, “we will make a choice for love and joy.”
Pictures on a Wall (I am fascinated with songs about going home or leaving home or some combination of the two - here’s a whole playlist),
Mary Oliver, which makes me sound more knowledgable about the poet than I am. Also my introduction to Caroline Spence; I’m still getting to know her other work in addition to this track.
Harbor, which has been at the top of my list for several years in a row.
I do love holiday music, too, though not so much what you hear on the radio or in stores and the like. I’ve been working on this playlist for a couple of years now; it’s in no particular order, just seasonal songs that I look forward to. This year, I found myself listening to a variety of versions of “Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella,” which I heard for the first time in an adaptation of A Christmas Carol several years ago. I know it’s a little late for holiday music, but if you’re someone who is joyfully holding on to the musical season this year, enjoy!
I’d love to hear your favorite songs, albums, or playlists from 2023, or anything you’ve changed or discovered about how you interact with music this year.
I have one more class on the schedule this year; I hope to see you there! You can register by clicking the image below.
