Listening

I've been listing the new music I discover each month on my monthlog entry. I also wrote about my 2025 Spotify Wrapped in Music this year 4th December 2025 and childhood music memories in Old songs that I have sung 11th May 2026.

The following 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

2025

1. as long as I'm lost with you - the great stoyan duo x305
2. Sharpen the Knives - Oskar Haag x266
3. Berlin Without Return - Voxtrot x99
4. Five Seconds - Twin Shadow x83
5. Careful You - TV On the Radio x70
6. Imagined Light - Topshe x64
7. Preludes 117 - Debussy, Dan Golding x63
8. Mondo 77 - Looper x61
9. East Coast - HAFFWAY x50
10. Myth - East Coast x47

The Debussy is the Untitled Goose Game song I had on repeat during my birthday party. Wrecked my Wrapped for those kids. Last year's number one isn't in the top hundred at all, which doesn't surprise me. All the top ten I first listened to this year and all but two were from my Spotify Discover Weekly. Debussy is the fault of the Goose, and Imagined Light is from the film All We Imagine As Light.

It's been 1 week, 1 day since the last update ↑ Top