Eight years of my favourite songs
Alternate title: I don't have a musical bone in my body but if I don't listen to music at least eight hours a day I might shrivel up and die. So I thought it might be fun to write a bit about my favourite songs from the last five years. While I listen to them. And maybe cry!
(Warning: If you disapprove of Spotify this post will also make you cry. I apologise. I know people don't like machines telling them what to listen to, and I totally understand that. Plus, Spotify is yet another Bad Thing and I should get off it. I will. This is part of the last hurrah. Spotify's Discover Weekly is, no joke, the highlight of my Monday. No one knows me like the Spotify algorithm knows me.)
So I wrote out my top ten-ish each year... and it got really long. Way too long and absolutely uninteresting. So I moved it to a new listening page in the notes. This is the shorter-but-still-too-long version.
2017's top song was Old Skin by Arnór Dan and Ólafur Arnalds. This is pretty representative of what I was up to in 2017 and a year or two before. A lot of Ólafur Arnalds and Ásgeir and stuff.
In 2018 the top hundred was very similar to 2017. Number one was Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel. This is a Halt and Catch Fire thing. Number two was Once Again by Hang Massive, just six minutes of new age percussioning. I mean sure, why not.
Top in 2019 was Confirmation by Westerman. Third was Snowflakes by Felix Riebl and Emily Lubitz - almost all these listens happened in two train journeys, on repeat. 2019 makes me look like a big Mating Ritual fan and I'm really not. A lot of 2019 was similar to 2017 and 2018.
2020 is where it starts to get interesting. I got organised. I made playlists. I fell in love with my Discover Weekly. Also, you know, we were in lockdown for three quarters of the year.
The top song was La Vie En Rose by Lucy Dacus. This became emblematic of a story I was writing and once I finished the story I couldn't listen to it anymore. So it came top despite only six weeks of listening. It's such a lovely song? That first shimmering note is enough to get me welling up! I also got into dreampop and back into Beirut and just generally had a big year in music.
Early in 2021 I watched Matthias & Maxime and as a result I listened to Song For Zula by Phosphorescent 730 times. The opening gives me shivers. A rare example of a non-Spotify rec. Second, Spinning Away by Brian Eno and John Cale. Third, Every Day Is a Sunday by El Ten Eleven and Kishi Bashi which I always put on if I need to walk somewhere fast. Honestly, I still love all these 2021 songs. All one hundred of them. Very evocative of where I was and what I was doing.
2022 number one was No One Dies From Love by Tove Lo, which I listened to 483 times and, later in the year, live! Not the first time Spotify got me to a gig. Some very strong songs that year and I wasn't sure what would come out top. It could have been zange by Bongeziwe Mabandla. I listened to that four hours straight on a car drive. Number eleven was Heaven Up There by Palace. I mention it because I was listening to it over the year cutoff - otherwise it would have been top five for sure. It is extremely emo.
In 2023 I declared my playlist of the best of Discover Weekly closed at twenty hours and 296 songs long and started a version two. Random Haiku Generator by Sin Fang, Sóley & Örvar Smárason was the last on the first version, and my top song of the year. Very repeatable. Obviously. Second was Questo Corpo by La Rappresantante di Lista because I love a song by women who sound like they might be about to beat me up.
2024's top song was Alone by Yoke Lore which I listened to 448 times. Second was Union by Deptford Goth. I knew these two would be top two but I wasn't sure what order. They feel kind of similar? Or maybe it's just because of how I associate them with a real moment and place.
Genuinely excited about all the great music I will be hearing in the future and what will be my next one track mind. If anyone has any music recs please send them my way! I like... well, most things honestly.