Yo this speaks perfectly to this weird lil anxiety that I get around this stuff. Like if you're learning a song on guitar or something you need to pause and reverse it a thousand times, and if you're listening on Tidal all you can think is "oh no, what am I doing to my algorithm?" Makes you do a thunk about all the subtle pernicious ways capitalism is making us all a little more needlessly stressed out for no good reason. AVAA!
man absolutely. the spotify wrapped is in my head all year around and for what? i barely care or think about my 2024 wrapped couple days after its release but all year long i was like "i need to stream this song more so it will show up in my top 5"... this society is broken lol
Just try not to care too much about it. As long as you like the music you're listening to at the moment, you're good and you'll discover new things. Spotify Wrapped is kind of a fun thing for me that I stop thinking about the day after.
yeah!! my top song this year was one i learnt on bass. my taste was heavily influenced by that, i am gonna root around for songs that have interesting basslines and listen to them a lot as im learning lol
9:27 spotify wrapped feels like an extension of (self) surveillance, desensitizing us to the feeling of being watched, evaluated, and judged in our private places in our private behaviors and then shaping our choices
my top song was my own band's song (we got back together and I was relearning our songs on guitar). Spotify also has a cringe "AI podcast" feature that is 4 minutes of AI DJ's talking about your favorite music and they were talking about how incredible and diverse my band is and that they hope I get to see them perform live soon
"Flattening" is a good word for what algorithms have done to most people's listening habits. My dad is a big audiophile but not a super "critical listener," however he was always finding new music, challenging stuff, an array of genres. He used to listen to Aphex Twin, OutKast, Iggy Pop, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Motorhead, BT, lots of Brazilian music, just a huge eclectic mix of stuff that he clicked with in different moods and times. Over time he's become a huge proponent of the algorithms (Apple Music, in his case) and has pretty much surrendered to them. It's kind of sad now, when I go to his house the stereo is always on but I don't think anyone could name what's playing, it's sort of a smoothed over mix of Neo-Soul-ish stuff that is very unchallenging and palatable. You'll never be surprised or confronted by anything, it's just there, it sounds good enough on the nice stereo, whatever. And even if something that really IS impactful or good does somehow wind up on there, no one is really paying attention anyway. Just one small anecdotal example, but I just find it sad that the search for and connection with the actual creators and their intent has been supplanted by a more-or-less one-button solution that just keeps you happy enough.
@@lazhwardafsharzadaArt is experienced, not consumed. Imo, thats the thesis of this comment, this video, and rants I've gone on as well. Once art becomes a product for consumption it loses it's identity, and thus, loses the dialog it was trying to engage in.
@@casadastraphobia what? How can you experience art if you don't consume it? Lmao, that's like saying feel the music but don't listen to it lol. Because how else would you do with music? We listen to it, and by listening to it we are consuming it.
The whole point about "flattening" is fucking HUGE because I actively notice that about my listening habits these days. I used to scour music for hours finding new things, and now these days I have trouble venturing out of the small sphere that the Spotify algorithm has crafted for me. It fucking sucks. You made a ton of valid points in here that I also never really thought about or maybe have and never fully contextualized. Great video man
Such a refreshing video to see during this week of annual Wrapped mania. Everything you said regarding statistics is incredibly relatable as someone who was obsessed with lastfm scrobbling back in high school. Even without the desire to display certain numbers as a badge I felt compelled to rigorously track every instance of listening I had for the sake of accuracy- a sense of fulfillment that I had knowing my "genre spread" and other meaningless reports. I used to feel anxious that I would eventually forget songs and albums that I felt meant the world to me at the time, and that I needed some external service to constantly remind me of their existence, lest I forget them. Nowadays I have a much healthier relationship with music being off of Spotify as well, and it still warms me to see my family members sharing their graphics and stories when we all visit for the holidays, but it doesn't fill me with the same sense of connection as when we share music with one another that we found otherwise and our non-numeric enjoyment of it. I've had the wonderful experience of losing touch with a song I love and getting to rediscover it again out in the wild. I have the privilege of getting to own the music I enjoy with the satisfaction of knowing I get to directly support the creator of that art, without gaslighting myself to the superfluous notion that my 0.003 cents actually contributes to the artist. I would be curious to hear your thoughts on "rating" sites such as Album of the Year and Rate Your Music, as I feel they foster a similar semi-adjacent avenue of unhealthy consumption of music as content. I find that they're great for archival and for asynchronous exploration/discovery of certain genres or regions, but the overt focus on more numbers and values has some undeniable effect on the way someone approaches an album for the first time. Edit: Oh yeah, here's my three for this year: Song: The Beatles- A Day in the Life (my wife and I's first dance) Album: Earl Sweatshirt- Voir Dire (soul healing music) Artist: Chappell Roan (can't get out of the car before listening to Good Luck Babe)
As an active RYM user, I really do love using the site as a tool for exploration. I think that's where its best purpose lies. However, I cannot deny that the numbers can play a role in my choice to listen to certain new-to-me artists or albums. That being said I feel like this site has connected me to music more than ever and I'm very grateful for its existence as a resource. I often find some really fascinating user reviews on there too, but the comment boxes tend to get distracted by pointless arguments. I think it's a site that has its upsides and its downsides for sure. On the idea of rating albums, I find it an interesting way of expressing my level of attachment to a record. Rating things has always been a fun activity for me and I don't try to approach it from an "objective" or "scientific" angle as that just seems silly to me. Back to the RYM album scores, I pay much more attention to the ratings my friends give on release pages since it gives me much more useful context to work off of. I understand their tastes a lot better than the RYM community's taste at large and it helps me see which type of person something appeals to so I might know which angle to approach it, along with gathering the other information the site gives me on it. Personally I've been loving my time with the site but YMMV as I believe it all depends on how you use it
I started using Album of the Year this year, and it's cool that it makes me think harder about what exactly I like and dislike about whatever I'm listening, but it also conditions me to assign a numeric rating to everything, so I quickly started avoiding it. I mostly use it to help me filter through my interests (there's just too much music to listen to).
i don't pay a lot of attention to the ratings (on the other hand, when an artist has a lot of music, the volume of ratings can sometimes indicate which projects are must-listens and which ones you can wait to check out later), but the huge and easy to navigate catalogue on RYM has created a practice in my life similar to how i love digging through crates at a record store. i look for beautiful cover art, names on the front or the back that i recognize, and sometimes a record just catches your eye. both processes aren't perfect though. i'm always nervous i'm missing my next favourite record, and just how the pricing at record stores will always be biased to a certain kind of taste and not just the wear and tear on the LP, RYM has a lot of gaps in their community. a lot of brilliant and popular records will be on that website with 0 reviews and just a handful of ratings! just like how you might find a great album in the $1 bin, you can't let that discourage you!
That's exactly why I stopped using lastfm for a while! I got so obsessed in an unhealthy way with linking my account to shazam to count when I listened to CDs...for what reason? I know what artists I connect with the most and I have much better conversations about music when I'm just sharing music with someone else as opposed to when I'm sharing data with someone.
For me it's pretty fun to see what I've listened for the past year. I don't use any playlist from spotify that isn't mine. So, this year, it was a lot of Kendrick, Denzel Curry, Racionais MCs (Brazilian OG rap group) and other stuff that I like to listen. Usually I curate on my own, I search for artists to listen on other platforms, usually I like to find some hidden gems, and then I go to spotify to listen to that specific artist. When I tried to listen to spotify's playlists I regretted every single time.
I switched to Tidal this year. They show you how many songs you've streamed from each artist in real time for each month. No minutes or percentages or even top songs. And honestly I think that's enough to satisfy the "what HAVE I been listening to"
Tidal is great. Years ago I signed up for Jack whites record club and got the hifi for 5 bucks a month, and I keep that sub going 😅 not sure if it still works, I'm no longer in the club and still keep the discount. Worth looking into
What made me feel the most empty this Spotify wrapped was that all year I was thinking this is the greatest year for music I've lived through. Almost all my favourite artists dropped albums. We had the greatest rap battle in history and it felt like the culture in music is shifting in a positive direction. But when I got my wrapped it was just another year. 5 more artists. 5 more songs and it felt soo empty. You break down why so excellently Professor, this video was a great one! My top albums in 2024 to me felt like: Chromokopia - Tyler the Creator Charm - Clairo I Lay Down My Life For You - JPEGMAFIA Dark Times - Vince Staples The Drake Kendrick Beef (come on it's basically an album worth of songs anyway) Although I discovered Billy Woods this year and so listened to Maps maybe three hundred times.
My #2 song this year, Feather by Nujabes, I think I played on purpose maybe twice. It's just a song I'm not likely to skip, so spotify serves it to me often (it did this with DSCO by Sweet Trip for years). Spotify CONSTANTLY tries to push me the same few DOOM songs even tho I make a point to skip them every time, but it's because when he died I binged all his stuff for a couple of days. I suspect that dead artists/ended bands are especially attractive to the platform because they're basically cycling money around the industry without having to think about the artist at all. Spotify desperately wants me to listen to Nujabes or DOOM on there bc it's pure profit for them, and they know that if they keep rolling that dice I will end up hearing a pleasant song until it becomes unpleasant for me. Spotify has kinda consumed my life this year because I obsessively followed new releases and playlist manicured them, but I am fully aware of tons of music I missed or sidelined because I was so focused on this one modus of listening. It's a habit I'll break next year. Also, my wrapped was very dominated by early-year releases bc I was so focused on current year, but that kept meaning more and more albums as the year went on. The only artist I leaned in on hard enough to statistically overpower that effect was Doechii. Spoify doesn't even HAVE bbldrizzy, or 6:16 in LA, or most of the catalog of my favorite rapper I learned about this year, Your Favorite Color.
Thank you for this video, Professor. I've been a spotify subscriber for almost 6 years at this point, and I've grown increasingly disinterested in using it, but continued anyway because the devil you know etc etc. But you really opened my eyes with this video to the way that this company wormed its way into my brain that I was aware of on some subconscious level - for years now I've always had that "will this impact my wrapped?" question nagging in the back of my brain every time I listen to music. This video was what I needed to wake up to it. I'll be doing research tomorrow to see which music platform would be a better fit for me. I truly miss the days of iPods and mp3s. There wasn't a better feeling than the first ride on the bus the morning after you added new songs to your iPod. No ads, no monthly subscriptions, no worry about algorithm and metrics. Just listening to what you want. Thank you for the reminder of how music is supposed to be.
I like the idea of a "Wrapped" as a concept, cause as a neurodivergent person it kinds of gives me perspective into the lives of people I know and even love and I guess it also encourages conversations about music, which I am always down to have. My only problem with it is that it promotes using Spotify, which as an artist I am very against. Personally I just scrobble all my stuff.
Same. I've been trying to rid myself of many algorithms (deleted Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Threads and Spotify in the recent years, although I also switched to Bluesky and RUclips Music), and Last(dot)fm is enough for me to scratch that itch.
This really affirmed my background thoughts about this whole discourse around wrapped and the constant algorithmic quantification of art. I enjoy looking at it, but it always reflects a very brief moment in my year when I had songs playing in the background or some other weird moment when I wanted to listen to a single song over and over again. My best album and song this year was You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To by Knocked Loose. The whole album is just banger after banger and flows so well. My favorite song off the album and probably the song that best describes my year is the closer Sit and Mourn, which is just this long harrowing feeling of marching across an open desert into oblivion with the sand pelting your face as you try to weather it. You don't know what lies on the other end or when this storm will finally let up, but you know you have to get through it. Probably have only listened to it a few dozen times but every time it makes me well up with this determination. Thanks Skye.
Wonderful as always professor! Here are my tops that I'm feeling from the year Song - Skating by Vince Guaraldi Artist - Kendrick Album - Remember That You Will Die by Polyphia
AVAA, I really think you're right about the panopticon aspect of spotify wrapped. This year my spotify wrapped and top 100 songs feels pristine, but I think it'd be nice if I had more songs on it that say more about my experience of music this year. Part of that is that a whole bunch of insanely good albums came out this year, but I feel like I need to drill down into more specific taste. I think it's worth considering for next year. That being said, I like that spotify wrapped gives me a look back at my year. Some things I didn't expect to be on there are there because I listened to them a lot earlier in the year. They weren't really my perception of the year as the wrapped released, but it made me remember that yeah, I listened to a ton of MF DOOM like I do every year, and I had about a month where I was listening to MIKE albums near exclusively. Anyway, the albums I've been thinking about this year from my own perception are DAMN, I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU, and Beware of the Monkey
What do you use to listen to music? Because unfortunately streaming is the only affordable way to listen to a lot of music. I used to use SoundCloud, it's still streaming, but better in many ways... Until it wasn't. I feel like Tidal has its own issues too.
@@elijahclaude3413you don’t need to listen to everything ever created. Buy whatever you love and get the other stuff when you want/can. It’s really that simple. After a year of no Spotify you’ll have $120 of music you picked. Own, etc. I have only been doing this for 6 months and it’s way better for me. I bought old albums even (OutKast, Biggie) and new ones too (Denzel, Doechii, Pete&Bas). I actually fuck with the music as opposed to just listen/stream. It’s a massive difference in my consumption.
@elijahclaude3413 I buy my music as well. If you have an mp3 player and a disk drive you are golden. I also like to support the local music community. I’m not from the USA and I’m not from the biggest city but there’s plenty of local music.
Thank you for describing this uncanny feeling I got looking through wrapped this year. I don’t think there has been another year where I enjoyed music as much as this year, and there is no quantifiable number Spotify can give me to show that
Song - Words2LiveBy by El Cousteau ft. Earl Sweatshirt Album - Where the Heart is by Sweet Pill Artist - That Mexican OT because that's what we would put on at work while closing AVAA
AVAA Sky! I completely understand and agree with the points you made. I never thought people made playlists to listen while they sleep for their wrapped to look a certain way, that feels a bit crazy to me. For me I’ve always used wrapped just as a synopsis of my year instead of something I need to use to fit in. With that being said I think the albums I listened to the most according to feeling/ lasting impact would be(not in order): Brat - Charli XCX The Forever Story - JID MMATBS & GNX - Kendrick Scrapyard - Quadeca The rise and fall of a Midwest princess - Chappell Roan
My top 3 albums: Phoebe Alice Lou - Shelter Peach Pitt - From 2 to 3 Damien Rice - O This year to me had a heavy emphasis on rejoicing in the sadness. Being sad is such a potent part of life and these albums encapsulate that feeling for me through and through. I was waiting for this video even though I didn’t realize I was and I couldn’t agree with ya more! CDs are the staple for music in my car and I plan to keep it that way. Funnily enough though, I think it would be cool if RUclips did something like spotify wrapped in terms of your most watched channel, etc. You, my good sir, would 1000% be my number 1. AVAA Prof
My top songs are generally the stuff Spotify decides to play after my bedtime playlist runs out. Which means many of the songs I have no memory of ever hearing at all
I feel like I engaged with more music this year than my non Spotify streaming year end suggests.. and I think it’s because I spent a lot of hours listening to you talk about music. Aside from that this year felt quite empty as far as listening to a few things a lot. Tyler, Yuja Wang specifically playing Philip Glass’s Étude no 6, and The Cure Disintegration in preparation for their new album. In reality I listened to it maybe twice but the first time was such a memorable experience that it defined a big part of my year.
I wanted to talk about this for so long, so thanks Prof. Skye. My top albums for this year are as follows 1. WILLOW'S Empathogen - I was planning on studying in my school library for some upcoming exams; when I arrived and sat down I opened Spotify and saw an ad, a suggestion, something that showed that the album was available for listen. I had to this point never given a WILLOW record the time of day, but I just went "f*** it" and went through. My plans to study were immediately cancelled and I spent the entirety of the planned session playing and replaying what I think to be one of my favourite albums of all time now 2. Tyler, The Creator's Chromakopia - I've never been aware of the wider music industry and have rarely been a part of "album drops" and their culture until this year, and I think Tyler gave the best experience I've had of it. The teaser's were the most hyped inducing things I've ever been a part of, from music videos to official song leaks from tiktok, it felt magical being a part of an event and getting hyped about it with friends. It is my favourite Tyler album simply because of how much that experience added to it, and it sounded damn good to boot. 3. Outside Air's Forever - After a year of my favourite band's silence, I got the devastating news this year that they essentially broke up, or more so, split off into a duo and an individual. They continued to make and put out songs but the duo was set to embark on their first album as Outside Air, and I was excited to hear new music from some of the most talented people I've heard in my short life on here. 4. Kendrick Lamar's GNX - I got into Kendrick the year before he would have one of the greatest runs in hip-hop history I have ever witnessed. Last year was more of an introduction, getting acquainted with TPAB and MMATBS and getting a taste of his work. This year I went through all of it, with the beef adding fuel to the fire of my love for his work, and he tops it off with a whole new project that I get to enjoy off first listen, and dissect with the rest of the world, something I had previously never done or been a part of, which makes GNX special to me on the level that Chromakopia is. 5. Lil Yachty's Let's Start Here. - It's a project from the year prior but I managed to fall head over heels over it this year. Id only ever heard a few tracks from it which I really loved from last year, but then I decided to take the plunge after randomly finding Fantano's review on it. He was describing "the BLACK Seminole." And how it was akin to a Pink Floyd track which I really loved "Great Gig In The Sky" and I wanted to hear what that sounded like, so I paused his review and went to check for myself. It was better than I had imagined, so I went through the whole thing that night. The transitions, the sound signature, the vocals and the fact that this was a LIL YACHTY PROJECT FLOORED ME. It is undeniably my most listened to album this year and to this point, my favourite album of all time. Thank you
I’ve always had a distaste for Spotify wrapped for several of the reasons you bring up, but ofc I’m too curious not to look. Love your point about how what you feel like was your biggest/most listened to music of the year IS your biggest music of the year, not what Spotify tells you. Our narratives are definitely much more powerful, intriguing, and human than a little counter. Also, I hadn’t thought about the cult of individuality thing. When you said how music is something we do together, it really drove that point home for me. Wrapped is definitely one factor driving us to consume music individualistically and obsess over ourselves (from an imagined and fabricated outside perspective). Sharing music with others and learning/celebrating the tastes of others is some of the most rewarding experiences music has to offer
Quarters of Change (small indie band from Brooklyn), Kendrick Lamar, and a bunch of people at the intersection of Jazz and House. Great video Skye, can probably be extrapolated much more broadly than just music!
so top 3 albums and probably artists too: 1. taylor swift - tortured poets department 2. charli xcx - brat and the brat remix album 3. zach bryan - the great american bar scene
AVAA! kendrick was for sure the most impactful for me this year. mavi’s shadowboxing was absolutely remarkable. finally, my own music had a hold on me this whole year. it was a fantastic year for music in general!
I knew I had to watch this video the moment I saw the title and I saw it's by you I already had a few issues with wrapped, firstly, maybe on a pity note, because it starts celebrating a "whole year" of music when the year hasn't even finished yet, so automatically if an artist decides to drop anything in December, they're screwed. I left using Spotify years ago (first to Deezer and now I use Apple Music) and knowing how little Spotify paid artists was my biggest incentive (and listening to songs in any other app shows how BAD the audio quality is on Spotify, it's scary how it remains the main platform even with all the issues it has and how little it cares for artists and the music itself, so I already had this idea that Wrapped was mostly a marketing gimmick to make people share their brand, and I've never considered the aspects of individuality and brand loyalty that you brought up And your point about quantification really made me think on how a lot of the larger fanbases (some of them people refer to Stan Twitter) opperate on always having to quantify their favorite's success in an imaginary warfield against other fanbases instead of celebrating the music. Even in a microscale, there's always a risk of the fanbase eat itself because the fans are always finding ways to compete with each other and bringing the numbers to back them up. Of course I don't see a problem people sharing their Wrapped and feeling curious about their listening habits thruought the year, but I wish more people would bring this conversation on the quantification of music and how the pursuit for individuality makes us bland (something that I've never thought about before watching this video), so thank you for that I don't always comment because many times I watch your videos on TV (and there are some videos I still have to watch, sorry about that), but I really want to express how I appreciate your views and approach for album reviewing. Greetings from Brazil :D
As a near 30 year old I love to see what I listened to thru out the year with wrapped it sorta transports me back to a feeling or place But I didn’t think too deeply about the formatting of people and their taste based on perception Entertaining take ultimately very thought provoking
I FEEL like I listened to Lord Huron, Ashniko, and Silversun Pickups the most this year. I couldn’t tell you any album name, but I CAN tell you that I thoroughly appreciated every time one of their songs began playing. I love seeing everyone else’s music feels for the year.
really appreciate this. articulated a lot of feelings that i personally was experiencing regarding the commodification of an art form. definitely feeling a severe spiritual sickness that comes with streaming as a model and by extension the quantification of literally everything you do within the panopticon of the internet.
AVAA! I usually like the reflective nature of Spotify Wrapped, a platform I am scared of leaving because I've been on there for 15 years or so. But it has been particularly bad and unrepresentative this year. Partially because it's way worse after the layoffs, and most importantly because the best album of the year, Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee is not on Spotify (partially as an act of rebellion against Daniel Ek) and I've been listening to little else outside of that album.
I spent most of this year listening to some of the worst recieved albums in recent memory. VULTURES 2 was my top album,I listened to eternal atake 2 a lot as well. I don't think a lot of people in the post-spotify wrapped world would admit to that and that makes me sad. And if you think my crusade of "bad music" is about to stop,i plan on going thru the Soulja Boy backlog. And don't think i was trolling or torturing myself,i like both albums.
If you say you listened to it more, it is mathematically true even if you've heard something else more times. Real attention and engagement with art doesn't just happen by hitting the play button. In photography, there is an important distinction made between just looking and actually seeing while in the act of making photos. You must be engaged to create and you must be engaged to appreciate.
"flattening" feels very accurate. i stopped using sny streaming service for music years ago because of ads getting in the way of me listening to music. I've been hoarding full discographies for bands in the form of MP3s for much longer than these music streaming services have been popular. i'm perfectly happy to just open up winamp and play my jams that way! and i often encourage my loved ones to start doing it too. you never know when a streaming service will remove the music you love. you never know if that song you care about will suddenly disappear from the internet entirely. i enjoy finding obscure things and often i find that i wind up the last source for locating those songs when the media gets deleted or removed for whatever reason. there's a lot of joy that can come from manually hunting down new music rather than having some algorithm determine what it thinks your music taste should be. why box ourselves in when there's so many interesting kinds of sound in the world that you could discover for yourself? sorry for my rant, btw. i just feel strongly about this subject lol great video!
Always tried to articulate my dislike of spotify wrapped to my friends, but I'm dismissed as ruining fun. Loved your points and glad to have caught this premiere. My #1 album must have been OK Computer by Radiohead My alarm is the clock intro to Pink Floyds "Time" so that's gotta be #1 song To pick a different artist from those two, I really got into all the albums of King Crimsons first run, probably spent most time listening to them. AVAA!
you're the only person in your field with an actual principled stance on Spotify. love to see it as a nothing artist Spotify already felt wasn't even important to pay at all.
This year felt to me like Jeff Buckley, old school funk and in the last couple of months a great appreciation for jazz, especially Japanese jazz - thanks for the great video!
AVAA Skye! I’m so blessed to be able to listen to People who Aren’t There Anymore by Future Islands, Adult Contemporary by Chromeo and Why Lawd? by NxWorries
Hello professor! I just recently found your channel and am slightly blown away by how well you're able to articulate your thoughts in one take with no real editing. Guess it comes with the job. Anyway, I have a somewhat unique perspective in that I wasn't all that invested in music until some time last year. I obviously listened to music and had preferences, but hadn't really looked into it enough to appreciate the meaning that it can have. So that makes this year my first full year being truly invested in what was going on, both in current music and the significant amount of releases from the past that I had missed out on. On Apple Music, the platform that I've used pretty consistently throughout the year, they go even further than the annual review of what you listened to, releasing a recap every month. And despite the valid criticisms I've heard of these recaps, I've continually been looking forward to and reading them each month. Yes, that makes me 13x worse than those who are just into the annual recap, and it definitely does impact what I go on to listen to in some way, but I still feel like it's been a tool for good to some degree. Each month, it's really just given me a chance to reflect, both on the actual music that I listened to within the time frame, and on the significance of it: what exactly that music means to me and why I chose to listen to it so much. Or even if I'm disappointed that an album/artist didn't make it on there, reflect on how that music means enough to me to be disappointed. I also think that a year is fairly arbitrary amount of time, so I'm going to ignore the time frame and give some music that has meant a lot to me recently: Ants From Up There - BCNR has dominated my listening for a long time now, and is just all-around incredible Igor - Tyler the creator, Velocity : Design : Comfort - Sweet Trip, and We Got It From Here... - ATCQ are all albums I got into recently and have really connected with Everything put out lately by Cameron Winter has been beautiful, including his just released album Heavy Metal, which is very much worth checking out Thank you for what you do on here, your analysis is always interesting and I find your videos weirdly engaging for the format they're in.
This is why I just listen to music on RUclips. I'm not bothered by ads, don't care about metrics and most of the artists I listen to can be discovered through RUclips (not premium) Definitely listened to a lot of Kendrick (MMTBS in particular) mixed in with a bit of Max Richter, Hans Zimmer (LOVE OST's), Emile Mosseri, JID, SchoolBoy Q and Mac Miller (I also vividly remember a month where Frank Sinatra was SLAPPING for me) Only regret is that I haven't listened to Ab Soul more
AVAA professor Honestly I agree with a ton of the points in this video. I remember in the beginning of the year my whole top ten spots were from Black Thought’s Cheat Codes and then for the rest of the year I decided to not listen to that incredible album to get it out of the list, and now the album is ingrained in my mind as just something to get out of the way. It has made me appreciate one of my favorite albums of all time much less which pisses me off
Spitting as always Professor Skye. Much of the talking points on data remind me of some things that Byung Chul-Han talks about in "The Transparency Society" and our obsession with needing EVERYTHING to be made visible and quantifying everything, leaving no room for "negativity". We are cyborgs in a sense already with our phones being our extra limb that's just not integrated directly in our bodies, but I appreciate what you speak to here bc the danger of that slippery slope is us becoming the same and becoming dull blown robots. Top 3 albums listened this year: 1. Two Star & The Dream Police (Mk.gee) 2. Leather Blvd (B-Cool.Aid) 3. Díptico (Agustín Pereyra Lucena) R.I.P.
One of my top songs was Alright by Kendrick, while I like the song I felt like I listened to other songs much more. And then it hit me that because I tend to listen to my own playlists I must’ve been subjected to Spotify’s “shuffle” and I put quotations because apparently Spotify’s shuffle feature doesn’t actually shuffle songs at random but instead curates a queue of songs they THINK you’ll like. This also would explain why I have Denzel Curry who I once again like but only would have one song or two once in a while, and freakin Kanye West despite not following up with his recent projects. I know there is a lot of discrepancy around this but I am one of those people that have self proclaimed ‘diverse’ music taste. I just like collecting and sorting songs into playlists and exploring music history and culture. But until Spotify sorts out shuffle or I listen to specific songs exclusively for data spread, my wrapped will look like an only rap fan when it could have prog rock, contemporary jazz/fusion, indie pop, hell even video game music. Just something that I would be satisfied to say represents me. My top songs were: Share My World by Mary J Blige, Stir Fry from Migos, and Raydar by JID In addition will recommend video game stuff because I want to get more people on game, so to speak. Atlus is most well known for their Persona games and music and while they are great and only get better with each entry, music from the sister series Shin Megami Tensei is so unique in that it fuses grunge, electronica, and traditional eastern music to fit the atmosphere of post apocalyptic Tokyo. The 5th game and it’s rerelease is arguably the strongest
1. Black and Blue - I’d play the first few tracks driving down to go swim with a couple of old swim buddies in the bay before work on foggy LB mornings 2. Short and Sweet because I’d play it for my girlfriend whenever she was having a bad day 3. Untitled EP my friends and I have been working on writing every Wed for the past few months Love your vids Prof. Skye keep it up!
AVAA!! If I'm being honest about my songs that I feel have been on repeat this year for me, they're Is There Really No Happiness by Porter Robinson, Falling in Love Again by Joyce Manor, Father Time by Kendrick, and 3 Summers by Jeff Rosenstock. Some of these are on my Wrapped, some aren't, but these are 4 songs I think about basically every day. Numbers aren't everything, I think Skye is right that this comment says more about me and my tastes than my entire Wrapped does
my top 3 songs for the year, not according to spotify: 1. NO GOD IN THUNDERDOME by HEALTH (my fav song, it's hard to put into words how much i love this song. even though it was originally written for a GTA game i don't even play, there's a sort of haunting beauty to it that im obsessed with) 2. Slaves & Bulldozers by Soundgarden (I've been listening to them since as far as I can remember because my dad loves them and their hits are played often on Sirius XM channel 34 lithium, the 90's angry rock/grunge station that he also loves and listens to constantly. but this was the first song of theirs i found and fell in love with all on my own, not because of him or that channel, and it quickly became my favorite song of theirs) 3. Professional Griefers - Vocal Mix by Deadmau5 and Geard Way (a classic, early 2010's era techno song with the king of emo music. tbh, i was obsessed with this song around a decade ago when i was 14 and emo, and then i completely forgot it existed for many years until i randomly stumbled upon it again a few months ago. and i quickly became obsessed with it, partly because of nostalgia, but also because there's just something about Way's delivery and my brain loves to chew on the borderline-nonsensical lyrics.) my top 3 albums, not according to spotify: 1. Songs of a Lost World by The Cure (i had been wanting to listen to more of them, then found out they released a new album! i decided to test out my fancy new Bluetooth headphones i bought myself with a black Friday deal as an early Christmas gift, and was blown away. Some day, when I have the time and energy, I'm going to write an essay on how I believe this album acts as a closer to their career, although i don't know if they plan on releasing any more new music) 2. DAMN by Kendrick Lamar (I decided to give the album a long-overdue relisten while on a flight, and goddamn was there shit i missed the first time around, from songs I forgot I loved, to a new understanding of what the album was about, what it says about Kendrick himself. and fully reaffirmed his spot as my fav rap artist) 3. RAT WARS by HEALTH (my 2nd fav band's newest album. every song got added to my main playlist, the only song i really skip is the last, and it's probably my most-replayed album to date)
AVAA, but really, this may be your best video to date (that I've seen) and I wholeheartedly agree. I'm 33 and I already feel too old for this shit. People would rather be passively submissive to streaming algorithms than explore on their own or support their local scene. It just makes me sad.
artists 1. porter robinson 2. underscores 3. hi im chris songs 1. presumably dead arm (617 session) by sidney gish 2. vanilla twilight by owl city 3. easier to love you by porter robinson albums 1. ceebo let go! by hi im chris 2. wallsocket by underscores 3. sock-footed teddy hyde honorable mention to detahjae and lone, borealis that album had me in a chokehold for like a month
I used to live in Carson City... great little town. Anyway, I never thought of the wrapped thing in that way, but you're 100% right, especially for teenagers. I would have curated a playlist to play and up my numbers. I already think about streaming to show my support for an artist, and fully admit to streaming songs for 35 seconds until it counts as a listen and then jumping to another track I want to boost the numbers on. I can totally see people having that same mindset for their own numbers.
Been checking your videos for a few days since stumbling upon your Mahashmashana review and I love how your brain works. I love the perspective. It would be a dream to have a brain like yours pore over our record. Put the criticality back into music criticism.
im really glad to see this video as ive been thinking the same thing for a while. i feel like, while it is cool to see data at the end of the year, its definitely a much better method in my opinion to instead come up with your own lists based on what you think you listened to most, or what impacted you the most through the year. as for my list as i expected, and feel is much more accurate than my wrapped: my top albums (based on how much i found myself going back to them, not best albums to come out this year) would have to be: -DEFINITELY 'retrovision' by honey revenge (a BANGER album that i listened to a TON this year) -'ikigai' by futuristic -'and then there was moses' by kvng moses -why not 2' by grieves -and honestly probably 'hybrid theory' by linkin park (since i went back on a listening journey through their old albums, even though meteora is actually my favorite, i definitely gave hybrid theory more of chance to shine this year) some top songs would be -DEFINITELY 'hellhound' by deathbyromy -'the pines' by 070 shake -'i'm not yours' by the haunt -'small talk' by russ -'euphoria' by kendrick and a lot of others but i'll leave it at that :)
This year I spent a lot of time driving to and from school/work and almost all of that time was spent listening to King Gizz. I think I had 300 hours with them, which is probably not too far off from how much I've driven this year. My next four, based on both numbers and my personal opinion, were White Denim (love the album with Raze Regal), Kikagaku Moyo, Mong Tong, and l'Eclair. As a second year uni student, I was really embarrassed that my stats and favourite artists were so weird. Everyone's Spotify wrapped seemed so much cooler than mine, but outside of maybe one or two top played songs everyone's was largely of the same selection. I wanted to post something to my instagram about it but I was too embarrassed to do so. I don't know why I felt so disappointed that my taste is so much different than anyone else but I guess by your thesis this isn't a bad thing.
Saw Mong Tong at the White Hotel last year, and Kikagaku several times. Both introduced to me by Spotify, where else would I have heard them? Don't be embarrassed by your list, everyone else was not cool, your list was!
AAVA, this really is an awesome video, and I appreciate you for making me question the way I engage with music. Aquemini by Outkast, Full Moon Fever by Tom Petty, and shadowbox by Mavi were probably my 3 albums of my year. I’d heard the first two before, but I bought their CD’s and used them so much on the way to and from school. Mavi’s album was amazing and just continued to grow on me. Also shoutout to Vince Staples, I really got into his stuff this year. And I cant forget the new Bon Iver EP (and the rest of their work)! And finally, shoutout to all the stuff on the top 40 like Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter for always being on at work!
Since 2021, when I embraced my Africanhood, I started listening to a lot more African artists and their music. I swear a whole year, I listened to more African music than any other genre combined. When I tuned into my Replay, I noticed my genre of the year was Hip Hop. Although it is possible, I find it odd. The primary reason is because African music is not listed as such, they either called Worldwide, Afrobeats, afro-beats (with an hyphen), alte, pop, amapiano 😔 For some reason, this genre is not centralised, it's very disappointing. If the algorithm is based on repetition, it's very hard for it to recommend me African music because apparently I was listening to "worldwide" and then changed to something different, when they're actually the same genre. But if I listen to Kendrick, Metro Boomin, Future, the algorithm will go "Oh! You like Hip Hop? Bet! Here's more"
Really felt what you said about flattening in the video. Just as a society we flatten ourselves to be so many different things. Wether thats ‘likable’ or ‘successful’ or whatever else! for me if I had to give my spotisky ripped my top artist would 100% be Mitski. This was the year I got the chance to finally see her live and wow she is just incredible. I think I listened to The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We at least 20 times on vinyl. And I know for sure I listened to I Bet On Losing Dogs all the time. Number two would probably the the artist Roar. Also another artist I got to see live for the first time that just blew me away. He is just so good. Number three feels like a tie for me between Adrienne Lenker and Akira Yamaoka. Akira Yamaoka composed the silent hill two soundtrack and I’ve listened to it in full on vinyl at least once a week for like two months. And Adrienne Lenker’s music has just defined the last 3-5 months of my life especially her album songs. also I LOVE your videos.
This video mended a part of my soul I didn't know had a crack. AVAA my list: -better oblivion community center (the band with Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers) -Scrapyard (album by Quadeca) -Shoegaze/dreampop (the genre couse why not)
When I found myself nervous about clicking some random videos on RUclips to keep my RUclips algorithm and recommendation section neat and clean, I realized how these algorithms were "flattening" my sonic sphere and keeping me shackled.
Really resonating with the idea that data creates the reality it chooses to measure, rather than reflecting some kind of objective truth. I mainly do all of my listening on Spotify, where by minutes my most listened to artist is the peerless Johnny Cash. But without doubt, the year belongs to my second and third most listened to artists Kendrick and Chappell. It was through Kendrick that I had a real renaissance in my hip hop listening habits after spending the last few years in other genres. It was because of his work this year that I went back and listened his back catalogue as well as reconnecting with wayyy more hip hop in general (also finding this channel). Similar with Chappell as a gateway into listening to way more contemporary and classic pop music. The influence that those artists had on my year is immense and reflects a deeper truth than Spotify captures. AVAA Prof!!
AVAA, I think you perfectly expressed what I was feeling this year about Spotify Wrapped. It kinda makes listening to music feel like a game where you have to get the 'best' score. I noticed halfway throughout this year that I was putting on a playlist when I would go to sleep just to get a bigger amount of total minutes listened. (pretty sad if you think about it) so I switched to using a mp3 file player on my phone since I have quite a big CD collection. this way I could just enjoy my music without having to 'worry' about stats that at the end of the day don't matter. My top 5 albums this year are: Dark Times - Vince Staples KOTMSV2 - Denzel Curry Samurai - Lupe Fiasco No Need For Alarm - Del The Funky Homosapien Vaudeville Villain - MF DOOM The decision to listen to my music without it being tracked is honestly surprisingly freeing.
Another aspect of this is it is the gentler side of the kind of stats that Spotify has on people who listen through it, which includes what volume a song is played at. This is willingly shares with distributors and labels of course. Just not with the listener. Enjoy and admire the viewpoint as ever Skye 🙏🏼 AVAA
I never use the algorithm. I read reviews music news etc and listen to what sounds interesting. Whenever I listened to stuff Spotify recommends it's usually dull. My most listened to artist this year was Cardiacs, which love or loathe them is certainly not flat.
ive always loved things like spotify wrapped but purely for my own enjoyment because i like seeing data in general and its cool to see personalized data about something i care about so much. this is why i never share my wrapped. even when my friends ask me to see it i don't show it to them because i know it will ruin it for me and make it more of a competition and make me conscious of it throughout the year. instead it gets to be a little treat at the end of the year where i can go back and see all the songs i was really into earlier in the year that i forgot about. i will say this year's wrapped sucked though, and you do make good points here :)
Hey just wanted to let you know that, although I only watch one of your videos every now and then, when I do it is always interesting, entertaining, engaging, and well: always positive. Thanks a lot for that ❤ Also, nice Bathrobe!
It is It's difficult for me to fully remember what music impacted me as long ago as January, but thanks to Prof Skye the past month has been filled with Fievel is Glauque, so that would probably be on my Spotiskye Wripped. AVAA!
AVAA, had a weird mix of music this year: My number 2 album would Tantric Bile's Unbidden - which I think might be the coolest contemporary jazz album out! Some truly insane things happening on it Number 2 would be Brat - no explanation needed, on the other side of the globe so I had a real Brat winter Number 3 would have to be Kim Gordon's The Collective - which I think is the first time I've really genuinely enjoyed trap/trap-adjacent music
AVAA! my spotisky ripped 2024: 1) kendrick lamar - for obvious reasons, but also because i listened to mr morale a bunch (also what got me into your channel!); i even got a kdot tattoo as my first tat this year 2) apsilon - german rapper who raps/sings a lot about the anger and the fears of (Turkish) 3rd generation migrants whose grandparents came to Germany as guest workers in the 60s; he's put out his first album "haut wie pelz" and i would loooove to hear your thoughts on it one day haha 3) voir dire by earl sweathshirt - this album got me through a rough time beginning of the year, even though i barely listen to it currently
ur spotisky idea is great and I actually bee doing this with some friends for some time now, usually around late november when the whispers about wrapped start we tell each other what we think our top 5 songs, albums and artists look like and also when we think something won't show cuz it ain't on streaming, for example i thing watch the party die and 6:16 would've been in my top 5 if it would've been on streaming. I also like to stay as true as possible on my wrapped (mostly cuz I forget that wrapped exist a month later) cuz i think its a good opportunity to put ppl u know on to good music or be put on to shit urself. At worst ur getting clowned for a few days and literally a week later its already irrelevant and at best u can introduce someone to a certain artist/album/song that could become they favorite. what I feel like my top 5 most listened was: Artists: Kendrick, Zel, JID, Newjeans, future (Spotify said Kendrick, Zel, Kanye, JID, Travis) Albums: KotMS , GNX, WE DON'T TRUST YOU, Blue Lips, American Dream and maybe Might Delete Later or Chromokopia (IDK spotify didn't gave me my most listened albums) Songs: Like that (my hype before the beef was crazy), hot one, America has a problem kenny remix, euphoria, and then probably either supernatural or right now by nwjns (spotify said Not like us(apparently I've listened to this song almost 400 times), euphoria, like that, hot one, and otonoke by creepy nuts, I feel like if the diss tracks weren't there it would look pretty similar to what i felt my top songs where)
My top song of the year: Sound and Vision Top Artist: Masayosi Takanaka (a guitar magician who brings joy through music) and Keith Jarrett! (Thanks for your homework prof, I really find his KoIn concept live album a perfect choice for study bgm) Top Album: The New Sound (I love Holy, Holy and Terra so much) AVAA, love from Suzhou, China!
love this video. very much agree. also as a person who is VERY forgetful i love the wrapped for showing me what i forgot i was listening to which is another little present it gives me.
I consider my streaming numbers just straight up another category- some of my favorite bands I won’t even listen to until I have the record in my hands and then I’ll basically only listen to that, the record is not added to a playlist. Dig the rant!
Extra AVAA! You've nearly perfectly described what I haven't been able to put into words at all-unedited to boot. My spotisky is TOBACCO, Spirit World Field Guide by Aesop Rock, and everything Spencer Krug (you may remember him from Wolf Parade)
I don’t like the algorithm only showing me what it thinks I’ll like but when it comes to reviewing the songs I’ve enjoyed most over the course of the last year of my life, wrapped is cool
Only reason I have Spotify is because of how easy it is to switch between music, podcasts, and audiobooks. Absolutely hate the company but having a platform with everything is really helpful when I’m at work trying to find something to listen to quick, but when I really wanna listen to music it’s usually somewhere else
Kendrick, JID and Nas were the soundtrack this year. Album wise probably Soul Burger, Kings Disease III and The Forever Story. AVAA! Really great points all throughout this. Going to keep in mind that framing of “flattening” where maybe otherwise I’d broadly label enshittification. These last few months in particular it’s felt like an explosion, I’ve discovered so much interesting music through recommendations and community discussions and educators like you. 9 second applause for Culture United. 👏 It very much feels like I’m building a healthier relationship with the art I value and a stronger understanding of how to interact with it. This year has been the push I needed to focus on creating. Which has been pretty consistent and genuine and not forced for once! To know that there are many others out there, inspired by the same things, ready to push me to be my best, is powerful. The year had some ups and some DOWNS but I come out of it feeling much more capable and balanced. And more aware of the endless sources of motivation around us.
this is something i was literally talking about yesterday but didn’t know how to quantify. like i get that the concept of wrapped & recaps are fun but the fact that they at this point have been positioned as social capital and thereby selling points for buying into and artificially using specific platforms makes the whole thing feel less meaningful and interesting than it should be. like there’s music happening in my life in so many different contexts that isn’t quantified in these lists, there’s context that’s missing - that in my mind - makes some listening sessions less meaningful than others but because these lists only factor in quantity they don’t care that i didn’t like *insert artist here*’s 22 track album that i listened to in order to give friends thoughts on more than i liked individual singles that i found through other means, it cares that the former was an hour and a half longer than the latter. i don’t fault people that take this concept at face value and have fun with it but the concept feels weird to me. anyways, great video! my Spotiskye Ripped™ is Kendrick Lamar for GNX ofc but even more importantly to my year it was the individual drops that resonated the most - favorite track is still Watch the Party Die (or w/e he named it in his head lol) even though I did love GNX as well. Tyler the Creator for CHROMAKOPIA & how it furthers the expansion in perspective mainstream hip hop is experiencing after albums like 4:44 & MMATBS. Kehlani for CRASH because I love her voice and a lot of those songs were stuck on repeat for how infectious they are.
AVAA my top song of the year (from the heart) is geez Louise by underscores. That song is my current favorite of all time and I listened to that album in may and it is my favorite album of all time as of right now Spotify wrapped from the heart: Songs: Underscores - Geez Louise Glass Beach - Bedroom Community STOMACH BOOK - Our Story
Completely agree with your take especially when you mentioned the obsession you would’ve found yourself in had you been a teen when wrapped dropped. I myself was a slave to my data points in 2022 and thankfully I’ve dropped this notion as time has gone on. My top artists this year were roc marciano, mach-hommy and al.divino the latter two barely showed up on my wrapped lists because of how much of their music I use local MP3s, further emphasizing your point.
I feel you on a lot of this rant. And i do agree broadly, but I do feel like there is some value, even though i hate that word... So maybe i should say theres some qualitative experience that comes from being able to quantify certain things. I used to use SoundCloud exlcusively, and didnt get wrapped. I always felt left out by not having that summary, not just because everyone else was doing it, but also because it was really cool to actually see a count of how much i actually listened to certain musics. Its like the difference between knowing you spend a lot of time on social media, vs actually seeing how much time youve spent scrolling. Granted, that's more negative than music. But the ability to count and record these elements is itself an experience that allows you to appreciate how much you enjoy said music. I think the quantitative should only be in service of the qualitative rather than the exclusive thing. Being more human is not just enjoying experience, but being able to become aware of your enjoyment of that experience too! All that said, its still fuck Spotify and all these other corpos. We should definitely take back the power from them and have our own tools for both listening to lots of music and even quantifiying it if you so desire.
If you agree why did you spend a lot of that justifying wrapped? This is why Spotify still reigns supreme in the streaming world. Because everyone seems to think sayin: ‘fuck corpos’ on YT or to your friends to virtue signal is good enough - ya know, as opposed to actually *doing* something about your beliefs and about a company that constantly screws over artists and currently supports the military industrial complex.
@@RBGRBGRBGRBG 1 - Because nuance matters. It's not so clear that Wrapped is the problem. I agree with the problem of streaming services, but the problem predates that, it started with the monopolization of music labels. And I dont think its streaming in and of itself, but the monopolization of streaming platforms. I agree that quantifying things can be problematic, but I dont think its always a problem, and can even be beneficial. 2 - I do a lot more than this, just because this is all you see doesn't mean this is all I do. I agree that some people may do that, but I dont. Further, I still think it is useful for people to voice these opinions, or 'virtue signal', because it gives others an idea that they're not alone in these thoughts. We send these signals for a reason... to call for action... or at least we should. 3 - Sorry if it wasn't clear, but the action I'm calling for is in fact to build alternatives to Spotify and wrapped and more. I think in order for us to take that power back, its not enough to just not use the thing, we have to create alternatives that people can use instead. We can't solve these issues by just opting out, we have to come together to do something else. 4 - I think part of building alternatives is to understand why the current methods work in the first place. I'm a designer by trade, so i often think about why people use and enjoy (or dont) the products that they do. A big part of it is the sheer power of monopolization, ie giving little to no alternatives, but there is still a good amount of design (both through dark patterns and good design) that makes these products /companies so powerful. 5 - I'd be happy to ditch spotify if there was a better way to listen to all the music I want to listen to. I've tried quite a few other platforms and none of them function as well as Spotify. And that's a low bar, because Spotify is not that great in terms of UX design. But that's how this stuff works. So yeah, in short, I said all that because I think its important to say. Lol If you wanna help build a better world and not just complain about people's YT comments, I endeavor you to consider working with me to build some of those alternatives if you like.
@@RBGRBGRBGRBG Interesting, I thought I replied to this, but seems not. I'm definitely doing more than this lol, but I do think its useful to share these thoughts as well, to find other people interested in doing more. I think nuance is important. I dont think that quantifying things is necessarily bad, as Prof Skye puts forth in the video. I do think there's some interested experiences and 'good' that can be had from quantifying qualitative experiences so long as it does not become the goal of having the qualitative experience. One of the reasons Spotify is so popular is because there are so few good alternatives. I'm interested in building alternatives, and that requires understanding what makes Spotify and the like so powerful. If you're interested in that too, I welcome you to join me ... unless all You do is complain about other people's comments.
@@elijahclaude3413 if there are even a ‘few’ good alternatives, make a change? Stop giving money to a shitty company? But the point is, more than likely, you won’t. because like most Spotify users, you’re addicted. Spotify has sucked people into an experience which most feel like they can’t back out of now as they’ve spent so much time curating said experience for themselves on the platform, over who knows how many years on average, that getting off Spotify would be admitting all that time curating their own little musical world was essentially for nothing. Not to mention they’d be losing all their personal data (playlists etc). And so you and most others on Spotify would rather justify their experience. Respectfully disagree. I don’t need a quantitative list of my listening history. And that’s not even really what I’m talking about. But if you do appreciate a ‘quantitative list’… there are places you can get it that aren’t Spotify. Is the point
AVAA! Even though it just came out my album of the years gotta be GNX. I also loved ABNH by Doechii. Third favorite release this year is probably Fabiana Palladino’s self titled she’s making classic dance synth pop records and I wish she wasn’t so underrated. She’s signed to Jai Paul and her dad is Pino Palladino the famous session musician (played with The Who, D’Angelo, David Gilmore, more) but her record is great in its own right, if you needed a co-sign though she’s got them all from the best of em
this video actually provided me with more insight about my apple replay than my apple replay itself, because it’s not about the amount of minutes i listened to any album but rather how each of those minutes spent listening impacted me and how i felt!! also here my top 3 albums on FEELING!! Brat - Charli xcx, Imaginal Disk - Magdalena Bay, and You Like Music - death’s dynamic shroud & galen tipton
AVAA Ok, so here’s my a little recap of what I’ve listened to the most this year. During the first week of January, I rewatched Magnolia, by PTA, and I ended up obsessed with it, but what I didn’t see coming was that I’d become even more obsessed with Fiona Apple. Since they were dating when the movie was shot, I decided to give her a chance and OMG. Quickly, When the Pawn became one of my favorite albums ever, I listened to it on repeat during the beginning of the year. She’s definitely my artist of the year, since on the next months I started exploring more the rest of her discography. Two artists I listened a lot to this year basically for the same reason are O Terno and Franz Ferdinand, and that’s because they were the most meaningful concerts I went to this year. The O Terno one especially stuck with me, they are a Brazilian band that I really love which broke up this year, so the show I went to was their last one, couldn’t be more especial. I went to it with my mother and we waited for hours to have a good spot, such a great memory. I also had a huge brockhampton phase, basically, for two months, I wasn’t able to listen to anything else (??), but I can’t say those weren’t fun days. I can’t remember when, but I had a similar thing with Pet Sounds during one month and I’m really happy that I could finally buy the vinyl. Now to finish my “little” recap that has gotten wayyy to long, I’m passing through a Beatles phase at the moment, I mean, I listen to them since I was a child because of my father (for coincidence, help was the song I listened to the most while growing up), but now I’m really getting into them, exploring their discography, watching the movies among other things. Just for the record, the new releases I’ve listened to the most were scrapyard and brat (mostly because of my girlfriend). They are both very important to me and your reviews on them truly helped me appreciating them more. I guess that’s it, if you’re still reading, I just want to thank you for all the great content, I’m only 15 and your videos really help me not only discovering new music, but also, they teach me a lot about life. I also want to apologize for any grammar or spelling mistakes, since English is not my my main language (your videos also help me practicing my listening lol) ❤❤
The Spotify Wrapped this year has been disappointing, and I don't think anyone is missing out. Over the year, Spotify has significantly changed its layout, which now feels uncomfortable. I can barely discover new music and am stuck with songs from my own playlists being repeatedly recommended. As a result, my listening history has become really boring this year, and I no longer get recommendations for new albums from artists I follow. Last year's Spotify Wrapped was exciting imo as they used data in a very creative way to show the genres I listen to and the cities where those genres are popular ik it sounds silly, but the algorithm this year seems off-it didn’t really reveal anything new to me. I’m considering switching to Tidal because of the current state of my music library tbh and I know I love music of various genres, and do not wanna be labeled in any way.
And agreed with everything you said about Spotify. I listened to leisure panic by Dan Kelly (great Australian album) on cd in my car on repeat. The new sound by greep was my no. 1 album on Apple Music. And im pretty sure I put the first devo album on the turntable the most, to get to the satisfaction stones cover.
I feel like Wrapped is giving people a semblance of what Lastfm used to provide back in the day. But I feel like Lastfm was more of a proper space for nerding out about your tastes, while Wrapped only gives you a glimpse into your yearly musical habits and then moves on. I don't think I ever questioned using such services much but I agree with your take that it can breed unnecessary competitiveness or perfectionism. Also, love your thought that your "most played" can be what you feel, regardless of the actual numbers. In that sense, I think for me 2024 was: Nick Cave's "Wild God", revisiting Aldous Harding's "Warm Chris" and the new Pavement documentary that I managed to catch at a film festival last month. AVAA
Yo this speaks perfectly to this weird lil anxiety that I get around this stuff. Like if you're learning a song on guitar or something you need to pause and reverse it a thousand times, and if you're listening on Tidal all you can think is "oh no, what am I doing to my algorithm?" Makes you do a thunk about all the subtle pernicious ways capitalism is making us all a little more needlessly stressed out for no good reason. AVAA!
pernicious. great word. ACAA
Same! I turn on anonymous browsing on RUclips when I'm trying to learn a song on guitar.
man absolutely. the spotify wrapped is in my head all year around and for what? i barely care or think about my 2024 wrapped couple days after its release but all year long i was like "i need to stream this song more so it will show up in my top 5"... this society is broken lol
Just try not to care too much about it. As long as you like the music you're listening to at the moment, you're good and you'll discover new things. Spotify Wrapped is kind of a fun thing for me that I stop thinking about the day after.
yeah!! my top song this year was one i learnt on bass. my taste was heavily influenced by that, i am gonna root around for songs that have interesting basslines and listen to them a lot as im learning lol
9:27 spotify wrapped feels like an extension of (self) surveillance, desensitizing us to the feeling of being watched, evaluated, and judged in our private places in our private behaviors and then shaping our choices
mmhmmmm this is a good way to view it
my top song was my own band's song (we got back together and I was relearning our songs on guitar). Spotify also has a cringe "AI podcast" feature that is 4 minutes of AI DJ's talking about your favorite music and they were talking about how incredible and diverse my band is and that they hope I get to see them perform live soon
I did not know Spotify had that feature!?
what’s your band!
@@scootmaloot4583 The Beautiful States, and the song is "Worm". If you give it a listen I'd love to know what you think!
@@johnwerner69I think the ai DJ thing is only in certain countries, I never had it fortunately, sounds horrible
What the band
"Flattening" is a good word for what algorithms have done to most people's listening habits.
My dad is a big audiophile but not a super "critical listener," however he was always finding new music, challenging stuff, an array of genres. He used to listen to Aphex Twin, OutKast, Iggy Pop, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Motorhead, BT, lots of Brazilian music, just a huge eclectic mix of stuff that he clicked with in different moods and times. Over time he's become a huge proponent of the algorithms (Apple Music, in his case) and has pretty much surrendered to them.
It's kind of sad now, when I go to his house the stereo is always on but I don't think anyone could name what's playing, it's sort of a smoothed over mix of Neo-Soul-ish stuff that is very unchallenging and palatable. You'll never be surprised or confronted by anything, it's just there, it sounds good enough on the nice stereo, whatever. And even if something that really IS impactful or good does somehow wind up on there, no one is really paying attention anyway.
Just one small anecdotal example, but I just find it sad that the search for and connection with the actual creators and their intent has been supplanted by a more-or-less one-button solution that just keeps you happy enough.
I love it when people consume art in different ways
@@lazhwardafsharzadaArt is experienced, not consumed. Imo, thats the thesis of this comment, this video, and rants I've gone on as well. Once art becomes a product for consumption it loses it's identity, and thus, loses the dialog it was trying to engage in.
@@casadastraphobia what do you mean with that it loses its identity?
@@casadastraphobiaCan people not do both?
@@casadastraphobia what? How can you experience art if you don't consume it? Lmao, that's like saying feel the music but don't listen to it lol. Because how else would you do with music? We listen to it, and by listening to it we are consuming it.
The whole point about "flattening" is fucking HUGE because I actively notice that about my listening habits these days. I used to scour music for hours finding new things, and now these days I have trouble venturing out of the small sphere that the Spotify algorithm has crafted for me. It fucking sucks. You made a ton of valid points in here that I also never really thought about or maybe have and never fully contextualized. Great video man
I feel like it would be bad business for Apple to not have bot armies in comment sections everywhere speaking lowly about their competitors
@arzabael what are you even replying to 🤔
Such a refreshing video to see during this week of annual Wrapped mania. Everything you said regarding statistics is incredibly relatable as someone who was obsessed with lastfm scrobbling back in high school. Even without the desire to display certain numbers as a badge I felt compelled to rigorously track every instance of listening I had for the sake of accuracy- a sense of fulfillment that I had knowing my "genre spread" and other meaningless reports. I used to feel anxious that I would eventually forget songs and albums that I felt meant the world to me at the time, and that I needed some external service to constantly remind me of their existence, lest I forget them.
Nowadays I have a much healthier relationship with music being off of Spotify as well, and it still warms me to see my family members sharing their graphics and stories when we all visit for the holidays, but it doesn't fill me with the same sense of connection as when we share music with one another that we found otherwise and our non-numeric enjoyment of it. I've had the wonderful experience of losing touch with a song I love and getting to rediscover it again out in the wild. I have the privilege of getting to own the music I enjoy with the satisfaction of knowing I get to directly support the creator of that art, without gaslighting myself to the superfluous notion that my 0.003 cents actually contributes to the artist.
I would be curious to hear your thoughts on "rating" sites such as Album of the Year and Rate Your Music, as I feel they foster a similar semi-adjacent avenue of unhealthy consumption of music as content. I find that they're great for archival and for asynchronous exploration/discovery of certain genres or regions, but the overt focus on more numbers and values has some undeniable effect on the way someone approaches an album for the first time.
Edit: Oh yeah, here's my three for this year:
Song: The Beatles- A Day in the Life (my wife and I's first dance)
Album: Earl Sweatshirt- Voir Dire (soul healing music)
Artist: Chappell Roan (can't get out of the car before listening to Good Luck Babe)
great comment
As an active RYM user, I really do love using the site as a tool for exploration. I think that's where its best purpose lies. However, I cannot deny that the numbers can play a role in my choice to listen to certain new-to-me artists or albums. That being said I feel like this site has connected me to music more than ever and I'm very grateful for its existence as a resource. I often find some really fascinating user reviews on there too, but the comment boxes tend to get distracted by pointless arguments. I think it's a site that has its upsides and its downsides for sure. On the idea of rating albums, I find it an interesting way of expressing my level of attachment to a record. Rating things has always been a fun activity for me and I don't try to approach it from an "objective" or "scientific" angle as that just seems silly to me. Back to the RYM album scores, I pay much more attention to the ratings my friends give on release pages since it gives me much more useful context to work off of. I understand their tastes a lot better than the RYM community's taste at large and it helps me see which type of person something appeals to so I might know which angle to approach it, along with gathering the other information the site gives me on it. Personally I've been loving my time with the site but YMMV as I believe it all depends on how you use it
I started using Album of the Year this year, and it's cool that it makes me think harder about what exactly I like and dislike about whatever I'm listening, but it also conditions me to assign a numeric rating to everything, so I quickly started avoiding it. I mostly use it to help me filter through my interests (there's just too much music to listen to).
i don't pay a lot of attention to the ratings (on the other hand, when an artist has a lot of music, the volume of ratings can sometimes indicate which projects are must-listens and which ones you can wait to check out later), but the huge and easy to navigate catalogue on RYM has created a practice in my life similar to how i love digging through crates at a record store. i look for beautiful cover art, names on the front or the back that i recognize, and sometimes a record just catches your eye. both processes aren't perfect though. i'm always nervous i'm missing my next favourite record, and just how the pricing at record stores will always be biased to a certain kind of taste and not just the wear and tear on the LP, RYM has a lot of gaps in their community. a lot of brilliant and popular records will be on that website with 0 reviews and just a handful of ratings! just like how you might find a great album in the $1 bin, you can't let that discourage you!
That's exactly why I stopped using lastfm for a while! I got so obsessed in an unhealthy way with linking my account to shazam to count when I listened to CDs...for what reason? I know what artists I connect with the most and I have much better conversations about music when I'm just sharing music with someone else as opposed to when I'm sharing data with someone.
For me it's pretty fun to see what I've listened for the past year. I don't use any playlist from spotify that isn't mine. So, this year, it was a lot of Kendrick, Denzel Curry, Racionais MCs (Brazilian OG rap group) and other stuff that I like to listen. Usually I curate on my own, I search for artists to listen on other platforms, usually I like to find some hidden gems, and then I go to spotify to listen to that specific artist.
When I tried to listen to spotify's playlists I regretted every single time.
Brasil tá em todas
Weekly playlist has shown me some great songs that I love or at least like. But not all songs are a hit.
@@matheusmoraes6252 Sempre né pai, nois representa 🔥
@@DanJuega Definitely you can find some gems there, but usually is the same stuff all the time, idk. Maybe my taste bugged the algorithm or something
@fabioeliasreisritter8827 I mean it's far, far from perfect, but I found it worthwhile to check it out in my experience.
Not even gna give my spotisky list just messaging to say I love how you casually flex your family, that level of success I strive for 1day
Most played albums this year
1 Alvvays: Blue Rev
2 Idles: Joy as an Act of Resistance
3 Kendrick: DAMN
fuck yeah alvvays. blue rev my favourite album of all time
BLUE REV LOVERS UNITE 10/10 BABY
GREAT top three!!
I forgot about joy as an act. I need to revisit that one and brutalism as well. Blue rev and damn are amazing too!
I switched to Tidal this year. They show you how many songs you've streamed from each artist in real time for each month. No minutes or percentages or even top songs. And honestly I think that's enough to satisfy the "what HAVE I been listening to"
Tidal is great. Years ago I signed up for Jack whites record club and got the hifi for 5 bucks a month, and I keep that sub going 😅 not sure if it still works, I'm no longer in the club and still keep the discount. Worth looking into
Tidal is cheaper than Spotify and has better sound quality, there is no reason not to use it at this point
@@dilbophagginztidal is like 2x the price for the good sound
What made me feel the most empty this Spotify wrapped was that all year I was thinking this is the greatest year for music I've lived through. Almost all my favourite artists dropped albums. We had the greatest rap battle in history and it felt like the culture in music is shifting in a positive direction.
But when I got my wrapped it was just another year. 5 more artists. 5 more songs and it felt soo empty. You break down why so excellently Professor, this video was a great one!
My top albums in 2024 to me felt like:
Chromokopia - Tyler the Creator
Charm - Clairo
I Lay Down My Life For You - JPEGMAFIA
Dark Times - Vince Staples
The Drake Kendrick Beef (come on it's basically an album worth of songs anyway)
Although I discovered Billy Woods this year and so listened to Maps maybe three hundred times.
My #2 song this year, Feather by Nujabes, I think I played on purpose maybe twice. It's just a song I'm not likely to skip, so spotify serves it to me often (it did this with DSCO by Sweet Trip for years). Spotify CONSTANTLY tries to push me the same few DOOM songs even tho I make a point to skip them every time, but it's because when he died I binged all his stuff for a couple of days. I suspect that dead artists/ended bands are especially attractive to the platform because they're basically cycling money around the industry without having to think about the artist at all. Spotify desperately wants me to listen to Nujabes or DOOM on there bc it's pure profit for them, and they know that if they keep rolling that dice I will end up hearing a pleasant song until it becomes unpleasant for me.
Spotify has kinda consumed my life this year because I obsessively followed new releases and playlist manicured them, but I am fully aware of tons of music I missed or sidelined because I was so focused on this one modus of listening. It's a habit I'll break next year.
Also, my wrapped was very dominated by early-year releases bc I was so focused on current year, but that kept meaning more and more albums as the year went on. The only artist I leaned in on hard enough to statistically overpower that effect was Doechii. Spoify doesn't even HAVE bbldrizzy, or 6:16 in LA, or most of the catalog of my favorite rapper I learned about this year, Your Favorite Color.
"Its fun like the soda machines are fun with all the buttons" killed me 😂
Thank you for this video, Professor. I've been a spotify subscriber for almost 6 years at this point, and I've grown increasingly disinterested in using it, but continued anyway because the devil you know etc etc. But you really opened my eyes with this video to the way that this company wormed its way into my brain that I was aware of on some subconscious level - for years now I've always had that "will this impact my wrapped?" question nagging in the back of my brain every time I listen to music. This video was what I needed to wake up to it. I'll be doing research tomorrow to see which music platform would be a better fit for me.
I truly miss the days of iPods and mp3s. There wasn't a better feeling than the first ride on the bus the morning after you added new songs to your iPod. No ads, no monthly subscriptions, no worry about algorithm and metrics. Just listening to what you want.
Thank you for the reminder of how music is supposed to be.
I like the idea of a "Wrapped" as a concept, cause as a neurodivergent person it kinds of gives me perspective into the lives of people I know and even love and I guess it also encourages conversations about music, which I am always down to have. My only problem with it is that it promotes using Spotify, which as an artist I am very against. Personally I just scrobble all my stuff.
@@HexZero happy to see people are still using Last like the "old days" (very recent days, lol).
@@ThomAvella 🖐🏽 I love Last.fm. My account is going to be 20 years old in February 🤯
Same. I've been trying to rid myself of many algorithms (deleted Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Threads and Spotify in the recent years, although I also switched to Bluesky and RUclips Music), and Last(dot)fm is enough for me to scratch that itch.
@ThomAvella last fm is the best for me, bc i LOVE tracking my music
If most young people are neurodivergent it makes it neurotypical 😮
This really affirmed my background thoughts about this whole discourse around wrapped and the constant algorithmic quantification of art. I enjoy looking at it, but it always reflects a very brief moment in my year when I had songs playing in the background or some other weird moment when I wanted to listen to a single song over and over again.
My best album and song this year was You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To by Knocked Loose. The whole album is just banger after banger and flows so well.
My favorite song off the album and probably the song that best describes my year is the closer Sit and Mourn, which is just this long harrowing feeling of marching across an open desert into oblivion with the sand pelting your face as you try to weather it. You don't know what lies on the other end or when this storm will finally let up, but you know you have to get through it. Probably have only listened to it a few dozen times but every time it makes me well up with this determination. Thanks Skye.
Wonderful as always professor! Here are my tops that I'm feeling from the year
Song - Skating by Vince Guaraldi
Artist - Kendrick
Album - Remember That You Will Die by Polyphia
AVAA, I really think you're right about the panopticon aspect of spotify wrapped. This year my spotify wrapped and top 100 songs feels pristine, but I think it'd be nice if I had more songs on it that say more about my experience of music this year. Part of that is that a whole bunch of insanely good albums came out this year, but I feel like I need to drill down into more specific taste. I think it's worth considering for next year.
That being said, I like that spotify wrapped gives me a look back at my year. Some things I didn't expect to be on there are there because I listened to them a lot earlier in the year. They weren't really my perception of the year as the wrapped released, but it made me remember that yeah, I listened to a ton of MF DOOM like I do every year, and I had about a month where I was listening to MIKE albums near exclusively.
Anyway, the albums I've been thinking about this year from my own perception are DAMN, I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU, and Beware of the Monkey
Preemptively giving this video 👍👍. I cancelled Spotify years ago and I don’t miss it at all!
What do you use to listen to music? Because unfortunately streaming is the only affordable way to listen to a lot of music.
I used to use SoundCloud, it's still streaming, but better in many ways... Until it wasn't.
I feel like Tidal has its own issues too.
SAME AND BUYING MUSIC IS SO FUN NOW. I HATE SPOTIFY
@@elijahclaude3413you don’t need to listen to everything ever created. Buy whatever you love and get the other stuff when you want/can. It’s really that simple. After a year of no Spotify you’ll have $120 of music you picked. Own, etc. I have only been doing this for 6 months and it’s way better for me. I bought old albums even (OutKast, Biggie) and new ones too (Denzel, Doechii, Pete&Bas).
I actually fuck with the music as opposed to just listen/stream. It’s a massive difference in my consumption.
@elijahclaude3413 I buy my music as well. If you have an mp3 player and a disk drive you are golden. I also like to support the local music community. I’m not from the USA and I’m not from the biggest city but there’s plenty of local music.
Song: euphoria
Album: TMNT - Mutant Mayhem
Artist: Kendrick Lamar
Love that TMNT movie!
@ it was so good and the soundtrack is phenomenal
Thank you for describing this uncanny feeling I got looking through wrapped this year. I don’t think there has been another year where I enjoyed music as much as this year, and there is no quantifiable number Spotify can give me to show that
Song - Words2LiveBy by El Cousteau ft. Earl Sweatshirt
Album - Where the Heart is by Sweet Pill
Artist - That Mexican OT because that's what we would put on at work while closing
AVAA
Thank you. The quantification of something qualitative, like the enjoyment of music, is exactly what I have been thinking about a lot.
AVAA Sky! I completely understand and agree with the points you made. I never thought people made playlists to listen while they sleep for their wrapped to look a certain way, that feels a bit crazy to me. For me I’ve always used wrapped just as a synopsis of my year instead of something I need to use to fit in. With that being said I think the albums I listened to the most according to feeling/ lasting impact would be(not in order):
Brat - Charli XCX
The Forever Story - JID
MMATBS & GNX - Kendrick
Scrapyard - Quadeca
The rise and fall of a Midwest princess - Chappell Roan
My top 3 albums:
Phoebe Alice Lou - Shelter
Peach Pitt - From 2 to 3
Damien Rice - O
This year to me had a heavy emphasis on rejoicing in the sadness. Being sad is such a potent part of life and these albums encapsulate that feeling for me through and through. I was waiting for this video even though I didn’t realize I was and I couldn’t agree with ya more! CDs are the staple for music in my car and I plan to keep it that way. Funnily enough though, I think it would be cool if RUclips did something like spotify wrapped in terms of your most watched channel, etc. You, my good sir, would 1000% be my number 1. AVAA Prof
My top songs are generally the stuff Spotify decides to play after my bedtime playlist runs out. Which means many of the songs I have no memory of ever hearing at all
You no you can turn that off though? It's like the first thing I did when I got Spotify cause I don't like random shit. Just want what I want.
I feel like I engaged with more music this year than my non Spotify streaming year end suggests.. and I think it’s because I spent a lot of hours listening to you talk about music. Aside from that this year felt quite empty as far as listening to a few things a lot. Tyler, Yuja Wang specifically playing Philip Glass’s Étude no 6, and The Cure Disintegration in preparation for their new album. In reality I listened to it maybe twice but the first time was such a memorable experience that it defined a big part of my year.
I wanted to talk about this for so long, so thanks Prof. Skye. My top albums for this year are as follows
1. WILLOW'S Empathogen - I was planning on studying in my school library for some upcoming exams; when I arrived and sat down I opened Spotify and saw an ad, a suggestion, something that showed that the album was available for listen. I had to this point never given a WILLOW record the time of day, but I just went "f*** it" and went through. My plans to study were immediately cancelled and I spent the entirety of the planned session playing and replaying what I think to be one of my favourite albums of all time now
2. Tyler, The Creator's Chromakopia - I've never been aware of the wider music industry and have rarely been a part of "album drops" and their culture until this year, and I think Tyler gave the best experience I've had of it. The teaser's were the most hyped inducing things I've ever been a part of, from music videos to official song leaks from tiktok, it felt magical being a part of an event and getting hyped about it with friends. It is my favourite Tyler album simply because of how much that experience added to it, and it sounded damn good to boot.
3. Outside Air's Forever - After a year of my favourite band's silence, I got the devastating news this year that they essentially broke up, or more so, split off into a duo and an individual. They continued to make and put out songs but the duo was set to embark on their first album as Outside Air, and I was excited to hear new music from some of the most talented people I've heard in my short life on here.
4. Kendrick Lamar's GNX - I got into Kendrick the year before he would have one of the greatest runs in hip-hop history I have ever witnessed. Last year was more of an introduction, getting acquainted with TPAB and MMATBS and getting a taste of his work. This year I went through all of it, with the beef adding fuel to the fire of my love for his work, and he tops it off with a whole new project that I get to enjoy off first listen, and dissect with the rest of the world, something I had previously never done or been a part of, which makes GNX special to me on the level that Chromakopia is.
5. Lil Yachty's Let's Start Here. - It's a project from the year prior but I managed to fall head over heels over it this year. Id only ever heard a few tracks from it which I really loved from last year, but then I decided to take the plunge after randomly finding Fantano's review on it. He was describing "the BLACK Seminole." And how it was akin to a Pink Floyd track which I really loved "Great Gig In The Sky" and I wanted to hear what that sounded like, so I paused his review and went to check for myself. It was better than I had imagined, so I went through the whole thing that night. The transitions, the sound signature, the vocals and the fact that this was a LIL YACHTY PROJECT FLOORED ME. It is undeniably my most listened to album this year and to this point, my favourite album of all time.
Thank you
i have most of the same feelings about spotify wrapped, but i got the biggest dopamine hit when it told me i was in the top 500 jane remover listeners
dude i love frailty what did you think of the new album?
I’ve always had a distaste for Spotify wrapped for several of the reasons you bring up, but ofc I’m too curious not to look. Love your point about how what you feel like was your biggest/most listened to music of the year IS your biggest music of the year, not what Spotify tells you. Our narratives are definitely much more powerful, intriguing, and human than a little counter.
Also, I hadn’t thought about the cult of individuality thing. When you said how music is something we do together, it really drove that point home for me. Wrapped is definitely one factor driving us to consume music individualistically and obsess over ourselves (from an imagined and fabricated outside perspective). Sharing music with others and learning/celebrating the tastes of others is some of the most rewarding experiences music has to offer
Quarters of Change (small indie band from Brooklyn), Kendrick Lamar, and a bunch of people at the intersection of Jazz and House. Great video Skye, can probably be extrapolated much more broadly than just music!
so top 3 albums and probably artists too:
1. taylor swift - tortured poets department
2. charli xcx - brat and the brat remix album
3. zach bryan - the great american bar scene
AVAA! kendrick was for sure the most impactful for me this year. mavi’s shadowboxing was absolutely remarkable. finally, my own music had a hold on me this whole year. it was a fantastic year for music in general!
I knew I had to watch this video the moment I saw the title and I saw it's by you
I already had a few issues with wrapped, firstly, maybe on a pity note, because it starts celebrating a "whole year" of music when the year hasn't even finished yet, so automatically if an artist decides to drop anything in December, they're screwed. I left using Spotify years ago (first to Deezer and now I use Apple Music) and knowing how little Spotify paid artists was my biggest incentive (and listening to songs in any other app shows how BAD the audio quality is on Spotify, it's scary how it remains the main platform even with all the issues it has and how little it cares for artists and the music itself, so I already had this idea that Wrapped was mostly a marketing gimmick to make people share their brand, and I've never considered the aspects of individuality and brand loyalty that you brought up
And your point about quantification really made me think on how a lot of the larger fanbases (some of them people refer to Stan Twitter) opperate on always having to quantify their favorite's success in an imaginary warfield against other fanbases instead of celebrating the music. Even in a microscale, there's always a risk of the fanbase eat itself because the fans are always finding ways to compete with each other and bringing the numbers to back them up.
Of course I don't see a problem people sharing their Wrapped and feeling curious about their listening habits thruought the year, but I wish more people would bring this conversation on the quantification of music and how the pursuit for individuality makes us bland (something that I've never thought about before watching this video), so thank you for that
I don't always comment because many times I watch your videos on TV (and there are some videos I still have to watch, sorry about that), but I really want to express how I appreciate your views and approach for album reviewing. Greetings from Brazil :D
As a near 30 year old I love to see what I listened to thru out the year with wrapped it sorta transports me back to a feeling or place
But I didn’t think too deeply about the formatting of people and their taste based on perception
Entertaining take ultimately very thought provoking
I FEEL like I listened to Lord Huron, Ashniko, and Silversun Pickups the most this year. I couldn’t tell you any album name, but I CAN tell you that I thoroughly appreciated every time one of their songs began playing. I love seeing everyone else’s music feels for the year.
really appreciate this. articulated a lot of feelings that i personally was experiencing regarding the commodification of an art form. definitely feeling a severe spiritual sickness that comes with streaming as a model and by extension the quantification of literally everything you do within the panopticon of the internet.
AVAA! I usually like the reflective nature of Spotify Wrapped, a platform I am scared of leaving because I've been on there for 15 years or so. But it has been particularly bad and unrepresentative this year. Partially because it's way worse after the layoffs, and most importantly because the best album of the year, Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee is not on Spotify (partially as an act of rebellion against Daniel Ek) and I've been listening to little else outside of that album.
PS: Hope you find the time to make a video on that incredible album one day, would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on it.
I spent most of this year listening to some of the worst recieved albums in recent memory. VULTURES 2 was my top album,I listened to eternal atake 2 a lot as well. I don't think a lot of people in the post-spotify wrapped world would admit to that and that makes me sad. And if you think my crusade of "bad music" is about to stop,i plan on going thru the Soulja Boy backlog.
And don't think i was trolling or torturing myself,i like both albums.
Soulja boy has some heat ngl, but about 75% is trash lol 😂
Ea2 is an enjoysble album
If you say you listened to it more, it is mathematically true even if you've heard something else more times. Real attention and engagement with art doesn't just happen by hitting the play button. In photography, there is an important distinction made between just looking and actually seeing while in the act of making photos. You must be engaged to create and you must be engaged to appreciate.
"flattening" feels very accurate. i stopped using sny streaming service for music years ago because of ads getting in the way of me listening to music. I've been hoarding full discographies for bands in the form of MP3s for much longer than these music streaming services have been popular. i'm perfectly happy to just open up winamp and play my jams that way! and i often encourage my loved ones to start doing it too. you never know when a streaming service will remove the music you love. you never know if that song you care about will suddenly disappear from the internet entirely. i enjoy finding obscure things and often i find that i wind up the last source for locating those songs when the media gets deleted or removed for whatever reason. there's a lot of joy that can come from manually hunting down new music rather than having some algorithm determine what it thinks your music taste should be. why box ourselves in when there's so many interesting kinds of sound in the world that you could discover for yourself? sorry for my rant, btw. i just feel strongly about this subject lol great video!
Always tried to articulate my dislike of spotify wrapped to my friends, but I'm dismissed as ruining fun. Loved your points and glad to have caught this premiere.
My #1 album must have been OK Computer by Radiohead
My alarm is the clock intro to Pink Floyds "Time" so that's gotta be #1 song
To pick a different artist from those two, I really got into all the albums of King Crimsons first run, probably spent most time listening to them.
AVAA!
Wait, Tidal gives 1 cent per stream? Wow! That's way better than spotify
you're the only person in your field with an actual principled stance on Spotify. love to see it as a nothing artist Spotify already felt wasn't even important to pay at all.
This year felt to me like Jeff Buckley, old school funk and in the last couple of months a great appreciation for jazz, especially Japanese jazz - thanks for the great video!
AVAA Skye! I’m so blessed to be able to listen to People who Aren’t There Anymore by Future Islands, Adult Contemporary by Chromeo and Why Lawd? by NxWorries
it feels surreal to hear somebody else speaking about something that's been in the back of my head for ages
Lord help us, he learned the pause function.
Hello professor! I just recently found your channel and am slightly blown away by how well you're able to articulate your thoughts in one take with no real editing. Guess it comes with the job. Anyway, I have a somewhat unique perspective in that I wasn't all that invested in music until some time last year. I obviously listened to music and had preferences, but hadn't really looked into it enough to appreciate the meaning that it can have. So that makes this year my first full year being truly invested in what was going on, both in current music and the significant amount of releases from the past that I had missed out on.
On Apple Music, the platform that I've used pretty consistently throughout the year, they go even further than the annual review of what you listened to, releasing a recap every month. And despite the valid criticisms I've heard of these recaps, I've continually been looking forward to and reading them each month. Yes, that makes me 13x worse than those who are just into the annual recap, and it definitely does impact what I go on to listen to in some way, but I still feel like it's been a tool for good to some degree. Each month, it's really just given me a chance to reflect, both on the actual music that I listened to within the time frame, and on the significance of it: what exactly that music means to me and why I chose to listen to it so much. Or even if I'm disappointed that an album/artist didn't make it on there, reflect on how that music means enough to me to be disappointed.
I also think that a year is fairly arbitrary amount of time, so I'm going to ignore the time frame and give some music that has meant a lot to me recently:
Ants From Up There - BCNR has dominated my listening for a long time now, and is just all-around incredible
Igor - Tyler the creator, Velocity : Design : Comfort - Sweet Trip, and We Got It From Here... - ATCQ are all albums I got into recently and have really connected with
Everything put out lately by Cameron Winter has been beautiful, including his just released album Heavy Metal, which is very much worth checking out
Thank you for what you do on here, your analysis is always interesting and I find your videos weirdly engaging for the format they're in.
This is why I just listen to music on RUclips. I'm not bothered by ads, don't care about metrics and most of the artists I listen to can be discovered through RUclips (not premium)
Definitely listened to a lot of Kendrick (MMTBS in particular) mixed in with a bit of Max Richter, Hans Zimmer (LOVE OST's), Emile Mosseri, JID, SchoolBoy Q and Mac Miller (I also vividly remember a month where Frank Sinatra was SLAPPING for me)
Only regret is that I haven't listened to Ab Soul more
AVAA professor
Honestly I agree with a ton of the points in this video. I remember in the beginning of the year my whole top ten spots were from Black Thought’s Cheat Codes and then for the rest of the year I decided to not listen to that incredible album to get it out of the list, and now the album is ingrained in my mind as just something to get out of the way. It has made me appreciate one of my favorite albums of all time much less which pisses me off
Spitting as always Professor Skye. Much of the talking points on data remind me of some things that Byung Chul-Han talks about in "The Transparency Society" and our obsession with needing EVERYTHING to be made visible and quantifying everything, leaving no room for "negativity". We are cyborgs in a sense already with our phones being our extra limb that's just not integrated directly in our bodies, but I appreciate what you speak to here bc the danger of that slippery slope is us becoming the same and becoming dull blown robots.
Top 3 albums listened this year:
1. Two Star & The Dream Police (Mk.gee)
2. Leather Blvd (B-Cool.Aid)
3. Díptico (Agustín Pereyra Lucena) R.I.P.
One of my top songs was Alright by Kendrick, while I like the song I felt like I listened to other songs much more. And then it hit me that because I tend to listen to my own playlists I must’ve been subjected to Spotify’s “shuffle” and I put quotations because apparently Spotify’s shuffle feature doesn’t actually shuffle songs at random but instead curates a queue of songs they THINK you’ll like. This also would explain why I have Denzel Curry who I once again like but only would have one song or two once in a while, and freakin Kanye West despite not following up with his recent projects.
I know there is a lot of discrepancy around this but I am one of those people that have self proclaimed ‘diverse’ music taste. I just like collecting and sorting songs into playlists and exploring music history and culture. But until Spotify sorts out shuffle or I listen to specific songs exclusively for data spread, my wrapped will look like an only rap fan when it could have prog rock, contemporary jazz/fusion, indie pop, hell even video game music. Just something that I would be satisfied to say represents me.
My top songs were: Share My World by Mary J Blige, Stir Fry from Migos, and Raydar by JID
In addition will recommend video game stuff because I want to get more people on game, so to speak.
Atlus is most well known for their Persona games and music and while they are great and only get better with each entry, music from the sister series Shin Megami Tensei is so unique in that it fuses grunge, electronica, and traditional eastern music to fit the atmosphere of post apocalyptic Tokyo. The 5th game and it’s rerelease is arguably the strongest
1. Black and Blue - I’d play the first few tracks driving down to go swim with a couple of old swim buddies in the bay before work on foggy LB mornings
2. Short and Sweet because I’d play it for my girlfriend whenever she was having a bad day
3. Untitled EP my friends and I have been working on writing every Wed for the past few months
Love your vids Prof. Skye keep it up!
AVAA!! If I'm being honest about my songs that I feel have been on repeat this year for me, they're Is There Really No Happiness by Porter Robinson, Falling in Love Again by Joyce Manor, Father Time by Kendrick, and 3 Summers by Jeff Rosenstock. Some of these are on my Wrapped, some aren't, but these are 4 songs I think about basically every day. Numbers aren't everything, I think Skye is right that this comment says more about me and my tastes than my entire Wrapped does
Man I love you videos! Thank you for taking the time to make them!
my top 3 songs for the year, not according to spotify:
1. NO GOD IN THUNDERDOME by HEALTH (my fav song, it's hard to put into words how much i love this song. even though it was originally written for a GTA game i don't even play, there's a sort of haunting beauty to it that im obsessed with)
2. Slaves & Bulldozers by Soundgarden (I've been listening to them since as far as I can remember because my dad loves them and their hits are played often on Sirius XM channel 34 lithium, the 90's angry rock/grunge station that he also loves and listens to constantly. but this was the first song of theirs i found and fell in love with all on my own, not because of him or that channel, and it quickly became my favorite song of theirs)
3. Professional Griefers - Vocal Mix by Deadmau5 and Geard Way (a classic, early 2010's era techno song with the king of emo music. tbh, i was obsessed with this song around a decade ago when i was 14 and emo, and then i completely forgot it existed for many years until i randomly stumbled upon it again a few months ago. and i quickly became obsessed with it, partly because of nostalgia, but also because there's just something about Way's delivery and my brain loves to chew on the borderline-nonsensical lyrics.)
my top 3 albums, not according to spotify:
1. Songs of a Lost World by The Cure (i had been wanting to listen to more of them, then found out they released a new album! i decided to test out my fancy new Bluetooth headphones i bought myself with a black Friday deal as an early Christmas gift, and was blown away. Some day, when I have the time and energy, I'm going to write an essay on how I believe this album acts as a closer to their career, although i don't know if they plan on releasing any more new music)
2. DAMN by Kendrick Lamar (I decided to give the album a long-overdue relisten while on a flight, and goddamn was there shit i missed the first time around, from songs I forgot I loved, to a new understanding of what the album was about, what it says about Kendrick himself. and fully reaffirmed his spot as my fav rap artist)
3. RAT WARS by HEALTH (my 2nd fav band's newest album. every song got added to my main playlist, the only song i really skip is the last, and it's probably my most-replayed album to date)
AVAA, but really, this may be your best video to date (that I've seen) and I wholeheartedly agree. I'm 33 and I already feel too old for this shit. People would rather be passively submissive to streaming algorithms than explore on their own or support their local scene. It just makes me sad.
artists
1. porter robinson
2. underscores
3. hi im chris
songs
1. presumably dead arm (617 session) by sidney gish
2. vanilla twilight by owl city
3. easier to love you by porter robinson
albums
1. ceebo let go! by hi im chris
2. wallsocket by underscores
3. sock-footed teddy hyde
honorable mention to detahjae and lone, borealis that album had me in a chokehold for like a month
Underscores. That's the tweet
I used to live in Carson City... great little town. Anyway, I never thought of the wrapped thing in that way, but you're 100% right, especially for teenagers. I would have curated a playlist to play and up my numbers. I already think about streaming to show my support for an artist, and fully admit to streaming songs for 35 seconds until it counts as a listen and then jumping to another track I want to boost the numbers on. I can totally see people having that same mindset for their own numbers.
Been checking your videos for a few days since stumbling upon your Mahashmashana review and I love how your brain works. I love the perspective.
It would be a dream to have a brain like yours pore over our record. Put the criticality back into music criticism.
im really glad to see this video as ive been thinking the same thing for a while. i feel like, while it is cool to see data at the end of the year, its definitely a much better method in my opinion to instead come up with your own lists based on what you think you listened to most, or what impacted you the most through the year. as for my list as i expected, and feel is much more accurate than my wrapped: my top albums (based on how much i found myself going back to them, not best albums to come out this year) would have to be:
-DEFINITELY 'retrovision' by honey revenge (a BANGER album that i listened to a TON this year)
-'ikigai' by futuristic
-'and then there was moses' by kvng moses
-why not 2' by grieves
-and honestly probably 'hybrid theory' by linkin park (since i went back on a listening journey through their old albums, even though meteora is actually my favorite, i definitely gave hybrid theory more of chance to shine this year)
some top songs would be
-DEFINITELY 'hellhound' by deathbyromy
-'the pines' by 070 shake
-'i'm not yours' by the haunt
-'small talk' by russ
-'euphoria' by kendrick
and a lot of others but i'll leave it at that :)
This year I spent a lot of time driving to and from school/work and almost all of that time was spent listening to King Gizz. I think I had 300 hours with them, which is probably not too far off from how much I've driven this year. My next four, based on both numbers and my personal opinion, were White Denim (love the album with Raze Regal), Kikagaku Moyo, Mong Tong, and l'Eclair. As a second year uni student, I was really embarrassed that my stats and favourite artists were so weird. Everyone's Spotify wrapped seemed so much cooler than mine, but outside of maybe one or two top played songs everyone's was largely of the same selection. I wanted to post something to my instagram about it but I was too embarrassed to do so. I don't know why I felt so disappointed that my taste is so much different than anyone else but I guess by your thesis this isn't a bad thing.
Saw Mong Tong at the White Hotel last year, and Kikagaku several times. Both introduced to me by Spotify, where else would I have heard them? Don't be embarrassed by your list, everyone else was not cool, your list was!
AAVA, this really is an awesome video, and I appreciate you for making me question the way I engage with music. Aquemini by Outkast, Full Moon Fever by Tom Petty, and shadowbox by Mavi were probably my 3 albums of my year. I’d heard the first two before, but I bought their CD’s and used them so much on the way to and from school. Mavi’s album was amazing and just continued to grow on me. Also shoutout to Vince Staples, I really got into his stuff this year. And I cant forget the new Bon Iver EP (and the rest of their work)! And finally, shoutout to all the stuff on the top 40 like Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter for always being on at work!
Since 2021, when I embraced my Africanhood, I started listening to a lot more African artists and their music. I swear a whole year, I listened to more African music than any other genre combined. When I tuned into my Replay, I noticed my genre of the year was Hip Hop. Although it is possible, I find it odd.
The primary reason is because African music is not listed as such, they either called Worldwide, Afrobeats, afro-beats (with an hyphen), alte, pop, amapiano 😔 For some reason, this genre is not centralised, it's very disappointing.
If the algorithm is based on repetition, it's very hard for it to recommend me African music because apparently I was listening to "worldwide" and then changed to something different, when they're actually the same genre. But if I listen to Kendrick, Metro Boomin, Future, the algorithm will go "Oh! You like Hip Hop? Bet! Here's more"
AVAA! Thank you for always providing different perspectives, Professor. My top album of this year was Charm by Clairo
Really felt what you said about flattening in the video. Just as a society we flatten ourselves to be so many different things. Wether thats ‘likable’ or ‘successful’ or whatever else!
for me if I had to give my spotisky ripped my top artist would 100% be Mitski. This was the year I got the chance to finally see her live and wow she is just incredible. I think I listened to The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We at least 20 times on vinyl. And I know for sure I listened to I Bet On Losing Dogs all the time.
Number two would probably the the artist Roar. Also another artist I got to see live for the first time that just blew me away. He is just so good.
Number three feels like a tie for me between Adrienne Lenker and Akira Yamaoka. Akira Yamaoka composed the silent hill two soundtrack and I’ve listened to it in full on vinyl at least once a week for like two months. And Adrienne Lenker’s music has just defined the last 3-5 months of my life especially her album songs.
also I LOVE your videos.
This video mended a part of my soul I didn't know had a crack. AVAA my list:
-better oblivion community center (the band with Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers)
-Scrapyard (album by Quadeca)
-Shoegaze/dreampop (the genre couse why not)
When I found myself nervous about clicking some random videos on RUclips to keep my RUclips algorithm and recommendation section neat and clean, I realized how these algorithms were "flattening" my sonic sphere and keeping me shackled.
Really resonating with the idea that data creates the reality it chooses to measure, rather than reflecting some kind of objective truth. I mainly do all of my listening on Spotify, where by minutes my most listened to artist is the peerless Johnny Cash. But without doubt, the year belongs to my second and third most listened to artists Kendrick and Chappell. It was through Kendrick that I had a real renaissance in my hip hop listening habits after spending the last few years in other genres. It was because of his work this year that I went back and listened his back catalogue as well as reconnecting with wayyy more hip hop in general (also finding this channel). Similar with Chappell as a gateway into listening to way more contemporary and classic pop music. The influence that those artists had on my year is immense and reflects a deeper truth than Spotify captures. AVAA Prof!!
AVAA, I think you perfectly expressed what I was feeling this year about Spotify Wrapped. It kinda makes listening to music feel like a game where you have to get the 'best' score. I noticed halfway throughout this year that I was putting on a playlist when I would go to sleep just to get a bigger amount of total minutes listened. (pretty sad if you think about it) so I switched to using a mp3 file player on my phone since I have quite a big CD collection. this way I could just enjoy my music without having to 'worry' about stats that at the end of the day don't matter.
My top 5 albums this year are:
Dark Times - Vince Staples
KOTMSV2 - Denzel Curry
Samurai - Lupe Fiasco
No Need For Alarm - Del The Funky Homosapien
Vaudeville Villain - MF DOOM
The decision to listen to my music without it being tracked is honestly surprisingly freeing.
Another aspect of this is it is the gentler side of the kind of stats that Spotify has on people who listen through it, which includes what volume a song is played at. This is willingly shares with distributors and labels of course. Just not with the listener. Enjoy and admire the viewpoint as ever Skye 🙏🏼 AVAA
I never use the algorithm. I read reviews music news etc and listen to what sounds interesting. Whenever I listened to stuff Spotify recommends it's usually dull.
My most listened to artist this year was Cardiacs, which love or loathe them is certainly not flat.
ive always loved things like spotify wrapped but purely for my own enjoyment because i like seeing data in general and its cool to see personalized data about something i care about so much. this is why i never share my wrapped. even when my friends ask me to see it i don't show it to them because i know it will ruin it for me and make it more of a competition and make me conscious of it throughout the year. instead it gets to be a little treat at the end of the year where i can go back and see all the songs i was really into earlier in the year that i forgot about. i will say this year's wrapped sucked though, and you do make good points here :)
Hey just wanted to let you know that, although I only watch one of your videos every now and then, when I do it is always interesting, entertaining, engaging, and well: always positive. Thanks a lot for that ❤ Also, nice Bathrobe!
It is It's difficult for me to fully remember what music impacted me as long ago as January, but thanks to Prof Skye the past month has been filled with Fievel is Glauque, so that would probably be on my Spotiskye Wripped. AVAA!
Song: your silent face by new order
Album: brat by charli xcx
Artist: wolfgang amadeus mozart
AVAA, had a weird mix of music this year:
My number 2 album would Tantric Bile's Unbidden - which I think might be the coolest contemporary jazz album out! Some truly insane things happening on it
Number 2 would be Brat - no explanation needed, on the other side of the globe so I had a real Brat winter
Number 3 would have to be Kim Gordon's The Collective - which I think is the first time I've really genuinely enjoyed trap/trap-adjacent music
AVAA!
my spotisky ripped 2024:
1) kendrick lamar - for obvious reasons, but also because i listened to mr morale a bunch (also what got me into your channel!); i even got a kdot tattoo as my first tat this year
2) apsilon - german rapper who raps/sings a lot about the anger and the fears of (Turkish) 3rd generation migrants whose grandparents came to Germany as guest workers in the 60s; he's put out his first album "haut wie pelz" and i would loooove to hear your thoughts on it one day haha
3) voir dire by earl sweathshirt - this album got me through a rough time beginning of the year, even though i barely listen to it currently
ur spotisky idea is great and I actually bee doing this with some friends for some time now, usually around late november when the whispers about wrapped start we tell each other what we think our top 5 songs, albums and artists look like and also when we think something won't show cuz it ain't on streaming, for example i thing watch the party die and 6:16 would've been in my top 5 if it would've been on streaming. I also like to stay as true as possible on my wrapped (mostly cuz I forget that wrapped exist a month later) cuz i think its a good opportunity to put ppl u know on to good music or be put on to shit urself. At worst ur getting clowned for a few days and literally a week later its already irrelevant and at best u can introduce someone to a certain artist/album/song that could become they favorite.
what I feel like my top 5 most listened was:
Artists: Kendrick, Zel, JID, Newjeans, future (Spotify said Kendrick, Zel, Kanye, JID, Travis)
Albums: KotMS , GNX, WE DON'T TRUST YOU, Blue Lips, American Dream and maybe Might Delete Later or Chromokopia (IDK spotify didn't gave me my most listened albums)
Songs: Like that (my hype before the beef was crazy), hot one, America has a problem kenny remix, euphoria, and then probably either supernatural or right now by nwjns (spotify said Not like us(apparently I've listened to this song almost 400 times), euphoria, like that, hot one, and otonoke by creepy nuts, I feel like if the diss tracks weren't there it would look pretty similar to what i felt my top songs where)
I love hip-hop’s embracement of physical media 👏
My top song of the year: Sound and Vision
Top Artist: Masayosi Takanaka (a guitar magician who brings joy through music) and Keith Jarrett! (Thanks for your homework prof, I really find his KoIn concept live album a perfect choice for study bgm)
Top Album: The New Sound (I love Holy, Holy and Terra so much)
AVAA, love from Suzhou, China!
love this video. very much agree. also as a person who is VERY forgetful i love the wrapped for showing me what i forgot i was listening to which is another little present it gives me.
I consider my streaming numbers just straight up another category- some of my favorite bands I won’t even listen to until I have the record in my hands and then I’ll basically only listen to that, the record is not added to a playlist. Dig the rant!
Extra AVAA! You've nearly perfectly described what I haven't been able to put into words at all-unedited to boot.
My spotisky is TOBACCO, Spirit World Field Guide by Aesop Rock, and everything Spencer Krug (you may remember him from Wolf Parade)
I don’t like the algorithm only showing me what it thinks I’ll like but when it comes to reviewing the songs I’ve enjoyed most over the course of the last year of my life, wrapped is cool
Only reason I have Spotify is because of how easy it is to switch between music, podcasts, and audiobooks. Absolutely hate the company but having a platform with everything is really helpful when I’m at work trying to find something to listen to quick, but when I really wanna listen to music it’s usually somewhere else
Kendrick, JID and Nas were the soundtrack this year. Album wise probably Soul Burger, Kings Disease III and The Forever Story.
AVAA! Really great points all throughout this. Going to keep in mind that framing of “flattening” where maybe otherwise I’d broadly label enshittification.
These last few months in particular it’s felt like an explosion, I’ve discovered so much interesting music through recommendations and community discussions and educators like you. 9 second applause for Culture United. 👏 It very much feels like I’m building a healthier relationship with the art I value and a stronger understanding of how to interact with it. This year has been the push I needed to focus on creating. Which has been pretty consistent and genuine and not forced for once! To know that there are many others out there, inspired by the same things, ready to push me to be my best, is powerful. The year had some ups and some DOWNS but I come out of it feeling much more capable and balanced. And more aware of the endless sources of motivation around us.
this is something i was literally talking about yesterday but didn’t know how to quantify. like i get that the concept of wrapped & recaps are fun but the fact that they at this point have been positioned as social capital and thereby selling points for buying into and artificially using specific platforms makes the whole thing feel less meaningful and interesting than it should be.
like there’s music happening in my life in so many different contexts that isn’t quantified in these lists, there’s context that’s missing - that in my mind - makes some listening sessions less meaningful than others but because these lists only factor in quantity they don’t care that i didn’t like *insert artist here*’s 22 track album that i listened to in order to give friends thoughts on more than i liked individual singles that i found through other means, it cares that the former was an hour and a half longer than the latter.
i don’t fault people that take this concept at face value and have fun with it but the concept feels weird to me.
anyways, great video!
my Spotiskye Ripped™ is
Kendrick Lamar for GNX ofc but even more importantly to my year it was the individual drops that resonated the most - favorite track is still Watch the Party Die (or w/e he named it in his head lol) even though I did love GNX as well.
Tyler the Creator for CHROMAKOPIA & how it furthers the expansion in perspective mainstream hip hop is experiencing after albums like 4:44 & MMATBS.
Kehlani for CRASH because I love her voice and a lot of those songs were stuck on repeat for how infectious they are.
AVAA my top song of the year (from the heart) is geez Louise by underscores. That song is my current favorite of all time and I listened to that album in may and it is my favorite album of all time as of right now
Spotify wrapped from the heart:
Songs:
Underscores - Geez Louise
Glass Beach - Bedroom Community
STOMACH BOOK - Our Story
Completely agree with your take especially when you mentioned the obsession you would’ve found yourself in had you been a teen when wrapped dropped. I myself was a slave to my data points in 2022 and thankfully I’ve dropped this notion as time has gone on. My top artists this year were roc marciano, mach-hommy and al.divino the latter two barely showed up on my wrapped lists because of how much of their music I use local MP3s, further emphasizing your point.
Oh, the irony that an obsession with individuality turned us all the same......AVAA!
I feel you on a lot of this rant. And i do agree broadly, but I do feel like there is some value, even though i hate that word... So maybe i should say theres some qualitative experience that comes from being able to quantify certain things.
I used to use SoundCloud exlcusively, and didnt get wrapped. I always felt left out by not having that summary, not just because everyone else was doing it, but also because it was really cool to actually see a count of how much i actually listened to certain musics.
Its like the difference between knowing you spend a lot of time on social media, vs actually seeing how much time youve spent scrolling. Granted, that's more negative than music. But the ability to count and record these elements is itself an experience that allows you to appreciate how much you enjoy said music.
I think the quantitative should only be in service of the qualitative rather than the exclusive thing.
Being more human is not just enjoying experience, but being able to become aware of your enjoyment of that experience too!
All that said, its still fuck Spotify and all these other corpos. We should definitely take back the power from them and have our own tools for both listening to lots of music and even quantifiying it if you so desire.
If you agree why did you spend a lot of that justifying wrapped? This is why Spotify still reigns supreme in the streaming world. Because everyone seems to think sayin: ‘fuck corpos’ on YT or to your friends to virtue signal is good enough - ya know, as opposed to actually *doing* something about your beliefs and about a company that constantly screws over artists and currently supports the military industrial complex.
@@RBGRBGRBGRBG
1 - Because nuance matters. It's not so clear that Wrapped is the problem. I agree with the problem of streaming services, but the problem predates that, it started with the monopolization of music labels. And I dont think its streaming in and of itself, but the monopolization of streaming platforms. I agree that quantifying things can be problematic, but I dont think its always a problem, and can even be beneficial.
2 - I do a lot more than this, just because this is all you see doesn't mean this is all I do. I agree that some people may do that, but I dont. Further, I still think it is useful for people to voice these opinions, or 'virtue signal', because it gives others an idea that they're not alone in these thoughts. We send these signals for a reason... to call for action... or at least we should.
3 - Sorry if it wasn't clear, but the action I'm calling for is in fact to build alternatives to Spotify and wrapped and more. I think in order for us to take that power back, its not enough to just not use the thing, we have to create alternatives that people can use instead. We can't solve these issues by just opting out, we have to come together to do something else.
4 - I think part of building alternatives is to understand why the current methods work in the first place. I'm a designer by trade, so i often think about why people use and enjoy (or dont) the products that they do. A big part of it is the sheer power of monopolization, ie giving little to no alternatives, but there is still a good amount of design (both through dark patterns and good design) that makes these products /companies so powerful.
5 - I'd be happy to ditch spotify if there was a better way to listen to all the music I want to listen to. I've tried quite a few other platforms and none of them function as well as Spotify. And that's a low bar, because Spotify is not that great in terms of UX design. But that's how this stuff works.
So yeah, in short, I said all that because I think its important to say. Lol
If you wanna help build a better world and not just complain about people's YT comments, I endeavor you to consider working with me to build some of those alternatives if you like.
@@RBGRBGRBGRBG Interesting, I thought I replied to this, but seems not. I'm definitely doing more than this lol, but I do think its useful to share these thoughts as well, to find other people interested in doing more.
I think nuance is important. I dont think that quantifying things is necessarily bad, as Prof Skye puts forth in the video. I do think there's some interested experiences and 'good' that can be had from quantifying qualitative experiences so long as it does not become the goal of having the qualitative experience.
One of the reasons Spotify is so popular is because there are so few good alternatives. I'm interested in building alternatives, and that requires understanding what makes Spotify and the like so powerful. If you're interested in that too, I welcome you to join me ... unless all You do is complain about other people's comments.
@@elijahclaude3413 if there are even a ‘few’ good alternatives, make a change? Stop giving money to a shitty company? But the point is, more than likely, you won’t. because like most Spotify users, you’re addicted. Spotify has sucked people into an experience which most feel like they can’t back out of now as they’ve spent so much time curating said experience for themselves on the platform, over who knows how many years on average, that getting off Spotify would be admitting all that time curating their own little musical world was essentially for nothing. Not to mention they’d be losing all their personal data (playlists etc). And so you and most others on Spotify would rather justify their experience. Respectfully disagree. I don’t need a quantitative list of my listening history. And that’s not even really what I’m talking about. But if you do appreciate a ‘quantitative list’… there are places you can get it that aren’t Spotify. Is the point
AVAA! Even though it just came out my album of the years gotta be GNX. I also loved ABNH by Doechii. Third favorite release this year is probably Fabiana Palladino’s self titled she’s making classic dance synth pop records and I wish she wasn’t so underrated. She’s signed to Jai Paul and her dad is Pino Palladino the famous session musician (played with The Who, D’Angelo, David Gilmore, more) but her record is great in its own right, if you needed a co-sign though she’s got them all from the best of em
this video actually provided me with more insight about my apple replay than my apple replay itself, because it’s not about the amount of minutes i listened to any album but rather how each of those minutes spent listening impacted me and how i felt!!
also here my top 3 albums on FEELING!!
Brat - Charli xcx, Imaginal Disk - Magdalena Bay, and You Like Music - death’s dynamic shroud & galen tipton
AVAA
Ok, so here’s my a little recap of what I’ve listened to the most this year. During the first week of January, I rewatched Magnolia, by PTA, and I ended up obsessed with it, but what I didn’t see coming was that I’d become even more obsessed with Fiona Apple. Since they were dating when the movie was shot, I decided to give her a chance and OMG. Quickly, When the Pawn became one of my favorite albums ever, I listened to it on repeat during the beginning of the year. She’s definitely my artist of the year, since on the next months I started exploring more the rest of her discography. Two artists I listened a lot to this year basically for the same reason are O Terno and Franz Ferdinand, and that’s because they were the most meaningful concerts I went to this year. The O Terno one especially stuck with me, they are a Brazilian band that I really love which broke up this year, so the show I went to was their last one, couldn’t be more especial. I went to it with my mother and we waited for hours to have a good spot, such a great memory. I also had a huge brockhampton phase, basically, for two months, I wasn’t able to listen to anything else (??), but I can’t say those weren’t fun days. I can’t remember when, but I had a similar thing with Pet Sounds during one month and I’m really happy that I could finally buy the vinyl. Now to finish my “little” recap that has gotten wayyy to long, I’m passing through a Beatles phase at the moment, I mean, I listen to them since I was a child because of my father (for coincidence, help was the song I listened to the most while growing up), but now I’m really getting into them, exploring their discography, watching the movies among other things. Just for the record, the new releases I’ve listened to the most were scrapyard and brat (mostly because of my girlfriend). They are both very important to me and your reviews on them truly helped me appreciating them more. I guess that’s it, if you’re still reading, I just want to thank you for all the great content, I’m only 15 and your videos really help me not only discovering new music, but also, they teach me a lot about life. I also want to apologize for any grammar or spelling mistakes, since English is not my my main language (your videos also help me practicing my listening lol)
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The Spotify Wrapped this year has been disappointing, and I don't think anyone is missing out. Over the year, Spotify has significantly changed its layout, which now feels uncomfortable. I can barely discover new music and am stuck with songs from my own playlists being repeatedly recommended. As a result, my listening history has become really boring this year, and I no longer get recommendations for new albums from artists I follow.
Last year's Spotify Wrapped was exciting imo as they used data in a very creative way to show the genres I listen to and the cities where those genres are popular ik it sounds silly, but the algorithm this year seems off-it didn’t really reveal anything new to me. I’m considering switching to Tidal because of the current state of my music library tbh and I know I love music of various genres, and do not wanna be labeled in any way.
I swapped recently I can't really say it's perfect but it does feel less flat.
Top 3 Artists this year
- Billy Woods
- Jamie XX
- Charli
Top 3 most listened to albums
- History Will Absolve Me
- In Waves
- Brat
Makes sense
I always say there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure, only pleasure!!! Thank you
And agreed with everything you said about Spotify. I listened to leisure panic by Dan Kelly (great Australian album) on cd in my car on repeat. The new sound by greep was my no. 1 album on Apple Music. And im pretty sure I put the first devo album on the turntable the most, to get to the satisfaction stones cover.
I feel like Wrapped is giving people a semblance of what Lastfm used to provide back in the day. But I feel like Lastfm was more of a proper space for nerding out about your tastes, while Wrapped only gives you a glimpse into your yearly musical habits and then moves on. I don't think I ever questioned using such services much but I agree with your take that it can breed unnecessary competitiveness or perfectionism.
Also, love your thought that your "most played" can be what you feel, regardless of the actual numbers.
In that sense, I think for me 2024 was: Nick Cave's "Wild God", revisiting Aldous Harding's "Warm Chris" and the new Pavement documentary that I managed to catch at a film festival last month.
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