Listening

This started out as a post, Eight years of my favourite songs, but it's too long and too boring. So I put it here instead. For a quick rundown, read the post.

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.)

2017

Pre-2017 I used to use Google Music, also a lot of 8tracks.

1. Old Skin - Arnór Dan, Ólafur Arnalds
2. Minimum - Charlie Cunningham
3. The John Wayne - Little Green Cars
4. Ran - Future Islands
5. Stealing Cars - Nadine Shah
6. TV Queen - Wild Nothing
7. My Love - the bird and the bee
8. If My Heart Is Broken - Black Kids
9. Heimförin - Ásgeir
10. Sun in the Morning - Future Islands
11. Long Way - Gordi

2018

1. Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel. This is a Halt and Catch Fire thing.
2. Once Again - Hang Massive
3. Chandelier - Sia
4. Umpqua Rushing - Blind Pilot
5. Distance Between - Twin Oaks
6. Generator ^ First Floor - Freelance Whales
7. Minimum - Charlie Cunningham. Last year's number two
8. Varsity - Henry Jamison

After which it gets very similar to the year before.

2019

1. Confirmation - Westerman
2. On the Nature of Daylight - Angèle Dubeau, La Pietà
3. Caroline - Banfi. Why did I like this so much. It's so sad!
4. The Name of Love - Mating Ritual
5. Snowflakes - Felix Riebl, Emily Lubitz. Almost all these listens happened in two train journeys, on repeat.
6. Forte - Zoë Keating

After this it gets very Mating Ritual and previous songs. All of this is making me look like a big Mating Ritual fan and I'm really not. Apart from Semicircle Song by The Go! Team, at number fifteen. Which surprises me it's so low, I listened to it a lot.

2020

1. La Vie En Rose - Lucy Dacus. I listened to this song hundreds of times over only six weeks.
2. Sway - Tove Stryke. This didn't come from my Discover Weekly, it was a friend
3. Repeat Until Death - Novo Amor
4. Same (Alternate Version) - Josie Dunne
5. When I Die - Beirut. I was massively into Beirut about ten years previous to this, and Spotify brought it back.
6. Savant - ViVii. Got me into dreampop, along with number fifteen, Silently by Blonde Redhead
7. Comforting Sounds - Mew, Copenhagen Philharmonic
8. A Fan - Jonathan Something
9. The Whole Of The Moon - Mystery Jets
10. Wings - Birdy

This is where shit got real. In my music listening. Unlike previous years almost all of the top hundred were new entries. The first repeat was number seventy two - Forte by Zoë Keating. Reflecting my new commitment to my Discover Weekly and also saving my favourites better so I could listen to them on repeat. Also being in lockdown for three quarters of the year.

2021

1. Song For Zula - Phosphorescent. This did not come from Spotify, it was the film Matthias & Maxime. Played it 730 times.
2. Spinning Away - Brian Eno, John Cale
3. Every Day Is a Sunday - El Ten Eleven, Kishi Bashi. If I have to walk somewhere fast? This is on repeat.
4. Weekend Visit - Pole Siblings. I don't remember deliberately playing this a lot. As in, not putting it on repeat. But obviously I played it a lot!
5. Ten Headed Beast - Hundreds
6. Wild Guess - Spector
7. Our Mutual Friend - The Divine Comedy
8. Make Me A Song - Eleanor Friedberger
9. Ally McBeal - Morabeza Tobacco
10. The Castle - Flaming Lips

Honestly, I still love all these songs. All one hundred of them. At number twenty: Chain Reaction by Diana Ross. Definitely not a Discover Weekly one but I listened to a lot of Diana Ross that year.

2022

1. No One Dies From Love - Tove Lo. 483 times, peaking on 29 July 2022. What happened on 29 July 2022? Not much according to my diary.
2. Différente - Mesparrow
3. zange - Bongeziwe Mabandla
4. Hand Out the Drugs - Kite
5. Hold Me Closer - Cornelia Jakobs. Spotify gave me this before Eurovision.
6. Geneva - Superpoze
7. Paraphernalia - Temples
8. Life and Death - Metronomy
9. Honey - Alba August. Honestly, bit of a surprise this is top ten.
10. Bouncy Castle - Dino Brandão
11. Heaven Up There - Palace. Including this at number eleven because I was listening to it over the year cutoff - otherwise it would have been top five for sure.

This is one year the top song and artist didn't match - Saudade by Mesparrow was number nineteen so Mesparrow took the top artist spot.

2023

1. Random Haiku Generator - Sin Fang, Sóley & Örvar Smárason. 375 plays, starting on 21st August so pretty close to the year cutoff.
2. Questo Corpo - La rappresantante di lista
3. Summer of '42 - Kishi Bashi
4. Forever Nevermore - Sea Wolf
5. Summer Sadness - Jacob Bellens
6. Buen Viaje - Anni B Sweet
7. Automatic Driver - La Roux
8. Napoleon On the Bellerophon - Beirut
9. Hyperborea - Sans Parade
10. Map of Manhattan - Sorcha Richardson

Last year's number one here at thirty-two.

2024

1. Alone - Yoke Lore. 448 times
2. Union - Deptford Goth
3. All of Me Wants All of You (Live) - Sufjan Stevens
4. The Gift - Storefront Church
5. Summer Sadness - Jacob Bellens
6. Hyperborea - Sans Parade
7. House on Fire - Plants and Animals
8. Theodore - Malky
9. Weeping Willow - Sébastian Schuller
10. Leave This Island - Maximo Park

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