Monday, December 9, 2024

Music Makes The World Go 'Round

Do you remember when we were kids and wanted to find out what the hottest music was that week? All we had to do was listen to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 on Sunday. Maybe your favorite song made it to number one, maybe it didn’t even make it to the top ten.  But many people listened, and we were all on the same page.  It was comforting, in a way. Nowadays, music is much more niche and fractured. Everybody is consuming songs in different ways – YouTube, I Heart Radio, Spotify, Sonos, the actual radio, albums (again!), and concerts. Sometimes artists bubble up to the top of the heap and we all know about them – here’s looking at you Taylor and Beyonce – but most of the time, it seems artists draw much smaller audiences.

Enter Spotify’s “Wrapped”.  For the uninitiated, Wrapped is a summary of all the stats of music detail that a person listened to in the prior calendar year.  Categories include Top Artists, Top Songs, Top Podcasts, how many minutes of music they consumed, etc.  Each year, our family shares their stats in our group chat. And each year, it gets more and more enlightening. There are a few artists on my children’s lists that I swear I have never heard of – Wild Party? The Brothers Johnson? Nope.  Therefore, I decided that I am going to make a play list including both of their Top 5 songs so I can hear what the young folk are into these days!

Reviewing my husband’s stats, it is clear that he is securely stuck in the ’80’s (love ya, honey). My daughter declared my top artists “a funny mix”. When pressed, she listed out: Chopin, Jelly Roll, Fleetwood Mac. Point taken. Well, I always did have diverse music tastes.

The other thing I like about the Wrapped summary is it has a separate category for Top Five Podcasts. I particularly like this category because it is an opportunity to learn about unfamiliar podcasts.  There are often new ones popping up and are worth a listen.

So much content!

Thanks for reading.

Eve



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