Phil's 2021 Music Wrapped

 

[Editor's note: this is something I wrote in 2022, reflecting on my 2021 listening habits after seeing a bunch of my friends uploading their Spotify Wrapped packages. I built my own. I'm uploading these here as part of my effort to get the things I occasionally have to spend time scouring FB for in a single place.]

I've been really enjoying the 2021 Spotify recaps, but I don't use Spotify,* and my usage is split across three apps:
  • Roon (for use around the house)
  • Apple Music (for lossy streaming: walking the dog, driving, anytime I don't have wifi or I'm using Bluetooth for playback)
  • Tidal (for lossless and HD streaming/local playback, i.e. whenever I have wifi + good headphones, no cell service, or I'm at my office)
Tidal doesn't track statistics beyond top tracks, but between Roon and Apple Music I have more than 1280 hours of listening in 2021. Which means I'm listening to music more than 14% of the time, and almost 44% of the time I'm awake. This doesn't count any time listening to Tidal or vinyl, which is a substantially-non-zero amount of my time too. And in that time, I haven't listened to any one artist for more than 14 hours, which tells you how eclectic and varied my taste is!

Weird to see how my usage varies between services, too. Roon is mostly stuff I really like; Apple is a combination of things I hear on TV, Shazam out in the world, or think of randomly and tell Siri to play; and Tidal is mostly stuff I like and happen to have downloaded on my phone when I get stuck somewhere without cell service or wifi. And it's HILARIOUS to me that Taylor Swift is the only artist on all three lists. Super weird too that Massive Attack and the xx don't appear on the list ... apparently I mostly listen to them on vinyl at this point?

It's not a schmancy, animated, social media-friendly analysis, but it tickled me to do it.



*They pay artists very poorly, and I don't think they have a viable long-term business model, so I'm reluctant to give them my data or rely on their service.





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