LAST.FM WRAP-UP 2023!

Forget Spotify Wrapped (especially since, as I’ve blabbed my friends’ ears off about, I don’t even have a Spotify)—according to my last.fm, which has been tracking all the music I’ve listened to since mid-2011, and which I’ve been painstakingly curating to maintain perfect accuracy this year:

I listened to 27,115 total songs last year, which comes out to 74 a day!

Monthly averages ranged from a low of 57 (May) to a high of 97 (December).

The listening time isn’t super reliable with last.fm’s user-sourced database, so I can’t report on that, but I’ve conservatively estimated that it’s around 100,000 minutes, which is four and a half hours a day, or 69 straight days.

Compared to previous years, this is the second-highest number of songs I’ve ever listened to, behind only 2020 (28,616), because, ya know, pandemic. (Third was 2022 with 26,530 songs.) A big reason I’ve listened to so much this year is that I can now listen to music all night at work while I write!

My most-listened artists and albums are below.

TOP 10 MOST-LISTENED ARTISTS OF 2023!

Note the three musical mollusks! (Squid, Colossal Squid, and My Octopus Mind)

  1. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - 1,459 plays second year in a row!
  2. té - 1,022 plays new discovery!
  3. LITE - 835 plays new discovery!
  4. Colossal Squid - 747 plays new discovery!
  5. Cassels - 700 plays +40 in rank
  6. GoGo Penguin - 570 plays new discovery!
  7. Nine Inch Nails - 569 plays −5 in rank
  8. ††† - 539 plays did not chart last year
  9. My Octopus Mind - 530 plays new discovery!
  10. Squid - 446 plays +7 in rank

MOST-LISTENED ALBUMS OF 2023!

  1. Colossal Squid - Swungert (2019) - 42 play-throughs
  2. LITE - Strata (Preview) (2023) - 39
  3. Good & You ? - e.p. I (2022) - 38
  4. Melt Yourself Down - Pray For Me I Don't Fit In (2022) - 35
  5. Squid - O Monolith (2023) - 35
  6. Cassels - The Perfect Ending (2019) - 32
  7. Colossal Squid - A Haunted Tongue (2023) - 32
  8. Gallops - At Data Point (2023) - 27
  9. Loyal Divide - Bodice Ripper (2011) - 26
  10. My Octopus Mind - Faulty at Source (2020) - 26
  11. A Burial At Sea - A Burial At Sea (2020) - 25
  12. Cassels - A Gut Feeling (2022) - 25
  13. GoGo Penguin - Between Two Waves (2022) - 25
  14. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse (2023) - 25
  15. Thank - Torture Cube / Dead Dog in a Ditch (2023) - 25
  16. Black Sky Giant - Primigenian (2023) - 24
  17. Jarcrew - GHOSTIE (2023) - 23
  18. Té - それは、鳴り響く世界から現実的な音を『歌』おうとする思考 (2007) - 23
  19. Chiyoda Ku - Selecta Perspective (2023) - 22
  20. Thank - Thoughtless Cruelty (2022) - 22
  21. ††† - ††† (2014) - 21
  22. GoGo Penguin - Everything Is Going to Be OK (2023) - 21
  23. Té - ゆえに、密度の幻想は綻び、蹌踉めく世界は明日を『忘却』す。 (2012) - 21
  24. ††† - PERMANENT.RADIANT (2022) - 20
  25. LITE - Multiple (2019) - 20
  26. And So I Watch You From Afar - The Endless Shimmering (2017) - 18
  27. Clark - Sus Dog (2023) - 18
  28. Life In Vacuum - Lost (2023) - 18
  29. LITE - Phantasia (2008) - 18
  30. Té - まして心と五感が一致するなら全て最上の『音楽』に変ずる。(2008) - 18
  31. Water From Your Eyes - Everyone's Crushed (2023) - 18
  32. War Widow - Night Falls Fast (2023) - 18

TOP CLASSIC!

This award goes to the album I listened to the most this year which I discovered at least a full calendar year prior.

And the winner is (again)… with 13 play-throughs (again)…

Mujuice - Cool Cool Death! (link)
(electronic/synthpop/idm) [Russia] (2007)

I can’t describe how much I love this album. Randomly found through the pirate site’s thread on Russian music recommendations, this dark, moody, immaculately produced synthpop album shepherded me through the lonely first few months of covid quarantine that were coupled with a redoubled heartbreak. It’s an immensely comforting album for me, one that finds the beauty in the pain and wallows in it, dances in it. While only five of the album’s thirteen tracks feature Mujuice’s brooding vocals, the instrumental ones speak for themselves, layering complex emotions over glitched timbres and beautiful melodies that evoke freezing landscapes and yet are layered with warm tones and crackles.

Shout-out to the runner-up, Belfast math/post-rock band And So I Watch You From Afar’s 2009 self-titled debut album (link), which I listened to 10 times!

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