2023 last.year wrap-up!
It's finally here, it only took like 9 hours for them to process, we have our https://www.last.fm/user/wizwilzo/listening-report/year last.year.
I'll (maybe) be referring to these posts to make some comparisons throughout this post:
2022 last.year post
2021 last.year post
[apparently i didnt make a 2019 post]
Let's dive into it.
Right off the bat, our scrobbles are back to average. A big reason for this is that in 2022 I did a ton of traveling to Europe and to Philadelphia, but this year I got a very average amount of scrobbles I would say. Here's the last.fm graph:
There's a LOT to go on here. 2023 was the year I discovered bizarrap, 2023 was the year Coco Moon released. Those are two big things that defined my 2023, of course theres sooo much more too.
Let's start off on artist. I knew Owl City would top it off because of the new album which I really enjoy despite critics absolutely ripping it to pieces. It's genuinely an amazing album and a great comeback from his previous Cinematic album. All the tracks in the album are typically super long, lots of them are 5+ minutes or even 6+ minutes. And it's super consistent. The standout track to me was easily "Learn How to Surf" which attracted me from the 5 second teaser before the album was dropped. I knew that song would be a banger. It's kind of like my "Get Away" from Simulation by Virtual Riot of this album, Coco Moon.
Aside from Coco Moon, I did go through a lot of his old discography and lots of them ended up in my rotation, there's too many to name, but it's worth shouting out "This Isn't The End" from Mobile Orchestra, a perfect emotional sad song that I didn't even know Owl City was capable of writing, even with my high standards of him. It's an amazing song with amazing lyrics, storytelling, and progression. Man that song is amazing, it's still in my rotation today, I never get sick of it. Usually when I get attached to songs they're happy blissful earworms or great lyrics and singing, but this one is my first sad song, though it has a positive and hopeful message to it.
Now we just wrote two paragraphs about Owl City but hes my #1 Artist of 2023 so he deserves it. Next up is Bizarrap, and I still need to make my artist review for him. He's actually coming out with a new song tomorrow with Young Miko which I'm excited for. Anyway, to quickly define him... "BIZA NEVER MISSES!!!" I discovered him from the Shakira collab and literally all of his songs are so good. Like 90% of them have just amazing production, I love his beats and the raps that go along with it. It's always upbeat, heat, fire, and very driving. He loves beat switches and beat drops and rap verses, hence the name bizarrap. There's like 15-20 songs from his body of work that made their way towards my playlists and rotations in 2023, and man it just added so much flavor to my playlists. So great man, I love Bizarrap. My favorites are probably the Shakira, Rauw Alejandro, Arcanangel, Tiago PZK, Morad, Quevedo, MHD. There's too many for me to go on.
Next up is Porter Robinson, which was just a byproduct of me spamming his Nurture album so consistently throughout the year. It's a top notch emotional vocal electronic album, which really evokes these emotions of both happiness yet also loss at the same time. Just his chords and melodies and instrumentation create such a freeing scene with so much imagery for the listener to close their eyes and imagine themselves drifting to a different world to. I looped the entire album start to finish one time going on a bike ride and it was amazing, I felt so free. But anyway, yeah, I just never stopped listening to "Musician" along with "Mother," "Look at the Sky," "Something Comforting," and so many others. I'm sorry I legit can't name anymore because then I hvae to name like all 10 songs. Man that album is amazing I NEED TO STOP WRITING SO MUCH AHHH OK
Then #4 IS TAYLOR SWIFT. TAYLOR SWIFT WHOOOOOOOOOO. OH MY GOD OH MY GOD. There's A LOT TO GO OVER HERE. I watched the eras tour film in early November, and from then on I had a slow stint of watching her live performances where before you knew it I started going HOGWIRE on her. I watched everything, I watched her old vlogs, her live performances, her interviews, and most intensely I started SPAMMING THE SH*T OUTTA HER MUSIC.
So let's set the stage. Before November, I only listened to the full Speak Now TV album when it came out and the 1989 TV album when it came out because I've always been her casual fan. I was actually quite excited for 1989 TV because there are some bangers in there, most notably at the time I was looking forward to "Style." So up to this point I had less than 40 maybe 50 scrobbles of Taylor Swift. Then I watch the eras tour movie, and IN THE SPAN OF TWO MONTHS I END UP AT 537 SCROBBLES... AND TAYLOR SWIFT IS MY FOURTH MOST PLAYED ARTIST. That's on pace for AROUND 6 * 500 = 3,000 SCROBBLES IN A YEAR. I knew I abused her discogrpahy so hard those last 2 months, and I was very nervous going into the last.year review to see if she would end up in my top 5. I had a good feeling about it because there was a big gap from #4 Madeon to #5 NOTD I checked once. But for Taylor Swift to end up at my #4 spot is actually CRAZY. I legit had 2 MONTHS to stream her and THOSE 2 MONTHS WERE A DREAM because I DID IT. I DID IT. My listening routine as of late has literally just been oscillating from my oc EDM music to my Taylor Swift playlist. So you can say that half of my scrobbles are solely Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is half of my listening routine, Taylor Swift is practically a genre to me, Taylor Swift IS THE MUSIC INDUSTRY.
So to get 537 scrobbles while watching 5 OF HER FILMS... The Eras Tour film (twice too!), Reputation tour film, Fearless tour, 1989 tour film, and her Miss Americana documentary ALL IN THE SPAN OF 2 MONTHS... man I am DIFFERENT. I'm a dedicated swiftie and no one has emerged to the scene faster and hotter than me. My spamming has been crazy. I WATCHED 5 OF HER UNIQUE FILMS AND DIDN'T REGRET IT. AND I'M ONTO RED AND SPEAK NOW FILMS NEXT.
And here comes my FOURTH PARAGRAPH ABOUT TAYLOR SWIFT BECAUSE MAN we just will have to wait and see how she will perform in my 2024 last.year.... with Rep TV anticipated to come out this year, it's going to be some NASTY WORK. RECORDS WILL BE BROKEN THIS YEAR!!!
And then my #5 is Madeon, I love his album Good Faith and similar to Nurture, it's just been very consistent in my rotation. I love "Miracle" and "No Fear No More" among so many others. Man I'm sorry we gotta go back to Taylor Swift because I JUST COOKED UP 4 paragraphs for her when I thought 2 was a lot for Owl City. WOW!!!
PS: MY SISTER LITERALLY HAD LIKE 1200 STREAMS FOR TAYLOR SWIFT THROUGHOUT THE YERA, MEANWHILE I HVAE 500 IN 2 MONTHS.. LIKE WHAT?? LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO IDK WHAT SHE HAS TO DEFEND HERSELF FOR SAYING SHES MORE OF A SWIFTIE THAN ME HHHHHHH.
I'm going to repaste this graphic because I'm not trynna scroll back up and down again while writing this LOL. Let's move on to Albums.
Now my #1 and #2 Album are the juggernauts of NURTURE AND GOOD FAITH. Wow, if I were to guess, I would've guessed Coco Moon, but this makes sense. Since those are my #1 and #2, it deserves some love, so here I will show it some love.
And it's the same case for Madeon's Good Faith. Such a vastly similar yet vastly different album from Nurture. I'm sure these this duo of Porter and Madeon and the duo of Nurture and Good Faith define a lot of EDM listeners across the world. So good man. Good Faith just has this addicting vocal production to it that's so crisp and satisfying, along with so many components of French House and Gospel along with the heavy array of synths and leads that just create stories with stories, synths within synths. The "Good Faith Era" is really something special, and I'll forever thank Madeon for that.
Mooooooooooving on, we now got Coco Moon. Since I did it for the first two, I'll just continue it. Tons of consistency again, and yea now you get what I mean by the lengths. Adam really does add a lot of sections to his songs, lots of times you feel like the song should be over but before you know it you're only halfway through and a new section is ramping up.
Great album from Owl City, and this one really strongly cemented him as my #1 favorite artist of all time. Before this, I had a bit of hesitation, but with Coco Moon in 2023, it proved that he's timeless, authentic, and incredible. This was still the great EDM I once loved and still love. There's so many incredible synth solos in "Learn How to Surf," "Adam, Check Please," "and "Field Notes."
Now we got I love Everything That You Hate About Yourself coming in at #4 which I TOTALLY did not expect, but it makes sense. I discovered this artist Phangs and this album through the Spotify Discover Weekly playlist which is my go-to for discovering new music and also highly underrated I would say.
This album is very pop and very vocal heavy, with lots of synth breaks and drops of course. Very casual lightweight tracks. I really thought I would've listened to some Wave Racer album more than this, but wow I did spam "Digital Age" and "Product of the 90s" a lot. Those two are ABSOLUTE bops man, they're so good. Great album man, I'll always be coming back to this.
Now my #5 album which I did not expect/predict to be here, but I now understand. It's my favorite album from my favorite artist, and among the album consists of hawns-down my favorite song.
We have to mention how crazy it is for me to just fully dock THE ENTIRE ALBUM in my rotation throughout the year. Literally every song in that album is great man, and there are some that stand above the rest, obviously my #1 most scrobbled song "Thunderstruck" along with previously mentioned "This Isn't The End." There's also some nostalgic tracks in there, like "Verge," "Unbelievable," and "Bird With A Broken Wing." I remember listening to those songs as a middleschooler man. Those were some times, it's crzy how much I've grown up with Owl City. He's literally my favorite artist. I can't believe he somehow has 2 albums in my top 5, but he did it!
And now let's go on to tracks. #1 being "Sit like a Flamingo" I have to admit is somewhat embarrassing. I thought it would be a more meaningful or powerful song, but it's just a feel good tune that I never get sick of. I wish Musician was my top track tbh, but it's fine I'm not trynna corrupt things around here.
There's not much to talk about, all 5 of those songs are just tracks that have been in my oc rotation for the entire year. In fact, ALL 5 of those songs are still in my oc which is crazy. Somehow I still don't skip them, somehow I still don't get tired of them, somehow I still don't get sick of them. Some songs can make it for like 6 months or something, but there's this pack of like 10 songs that I've been carrying over from playlist to playlist over and over again as I make new ones. That's crazy longevity. So yeah, this category of songs was the pinnacle of longevity and consistency throughout the year.
It's also worth noting how we have "Learn How To Surf" also being my #5 tying with "WHAT THE HELL." Tbh, the entire #1-#6 being just 17 scrobbles apart is very crazy lol. There's no standout track that I looped I guess.
WE CAN FINALLY MOVE ON. I did say in my Spotify wrapped that I would save the yapping for the last.year wrap-up, and BOY did I deliver. Ok anyway very cool tidbit I guess. That track is nice, I like the drop and melody a lot. The verse is actually very unique too.
Not sure what to make out of scrobbles per album, but thats cool I guess lmao. Now the listening clock is interesting because it's very linear. Let's compare it to other years.
This is very cool to analyze. You can instantly recognize how bulky the 2023 is, and that's pretty much because of wireless earbuds and college. Before 2023, I would hardly listen to music in school, and mainly listen while doing homework afterschool from like 5pm to 11pm, you can that is quite evident. But in 2023 it kind of levels itself out and infills where I'm listening like pretty much all day lmao. There's a growth period from the morning to noon, but yeah thats cool to see. The main thing is how similar my 2018-2022 listening clocks are. They're pretty much all identical.
Next we look at these charts. We listen to the most music on Monday which makes sense, and the least on Saturday which makes sense. The decades thing is cool too. Dang that's actually a lot of 2020s considering we are only like 4 years in. But yeah the 2020s is when stuff got popping, all the monstercat releases, virtual riot, owl city, etc. It's worth nothing that Good Faith by Madeon is a 2019 album though.
Last.year definitely stepped up their game and made the reports more pleasing. These stats are cool. Nothing notable to comment about tho.
And this is where we end. This kid Josh is an airpods merchant lmao there's some hoggers out there. I beat my sister by a percentage point of scrobbles which feels AMAZING if you were to ask me. 2023 year has been the year where she became a fraud, and the year where she realized what it means and takes to be a real swiftie. That's the harsh truth. She has hands.
This post took me like 2 hrs to write, my eyes hurt cuz this screen is so white. Very satisfying session here though. I wrote a lot and LOTS OF IT WAS FLAMES TURNED INTO WRITING.
Lyric(s) of the Post:
You can run and you can hideYou can look and try to findTake a breath, open your mindTake it one day at a time
Half an Orange, Disero & Josh Bogert - Sit Like a Flamingo [Monstercat Release]
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