I was enjoying my personal music chart from Spotify’s “2022 Wrapped” until the report hit me with an insult:
“You’re a comfort listener. You stick with the songs you like, by the artists you like, from whenever and wherever. Why rock the boat?”
They intend it as a compliment, I guess. But I don’t think anyone wants to be known as a person who just sticks to the “familiar favorites.”
In fact, I don’t think I am. But that’s the way Spotify sees me because that’s how I use Spotify. I pay it $10 per month to stream specific songs that I already know I like.
Where Spotify’s algorithm went wrong is assuming that I only get my music from Spotify. In fact, it’s just one part of the complicated mix of ways that I, like a growing number of people, get music these days.
You can discover new music through Spotify, most notably through their “radio” feature that finds songs similar to one you already like. I also follow a few playlists of new and hit songs.
But my music discovery primarily comes from other places: several channels on SiriusXM, mixed DJ podcasts, specific shows on the BBC Sounds app, YouTube, or even channel surfing. As much as I love terrestrial radio (I do run this website, after all), I am an abnormal member of my demographic and usually can’t find much music that I want to hear on Upper Midwest broadcast radio. Sorry guys.
I distinctly remember when and where I heard my most-listened-to Spotify song, Paisa Pit by El Dusty and DJ Cesar K-OSO. I was on U.S. 93 south of Las Vegas in May, on my way to the Kingman KOA after visiting Death Valley. The song was played on SiriusXM’s Caliente and I loved it so much that I used the radio’s replay function to listen to it several times more before finding a scenic overlook, where I snapped a picture and then liked the song on Spotify. They tell me I’ve played it 47 times. Seems too low.
(Urban Dictionary says paisa is a word mostly used by Spanish-speaking people to describe others from their home country. I am 45-year-old white guy from Minnesota. What did I say about not fitting my demographic?)
My #2 song, Precision by Junior Simba, was first heard on both Pete Tong’s show on BBC Radio 1 (via the BBC Sounds app) and from Judge Jules‘ Global Warm Up podcast. I don’t recall if I ever heard it anywhere else and there’s no Wikipedia entry to show if it even reached the U.S. charts. It should have.
The #3, #5, #7, and #9 songs all show that music discovery isn’t just about new music, it’s also about songs you missed the first time around. I added King of My Castle by Wamdue Project, We Come 1 by Faithless, and Lady – Hear Me Tonight by Modji to Spotify after hearing them on SiriusXM’s Utopia channel. I added Talk by Two Door Cinema Club after seeing the music video while channel surfing one night (and was then surprised to hear it playing in the Duluth Target a month later).
Are those four “gold” songs in my top ten a sign of aging? No, definitely not. Can’t be.
I’d like to think my increased listenership of older songs was a result of the Top 40 doldrums that we’ve been going through (even Top 40 stations sounded mellow this year as they played older favorites to make up for the lack of big hits). My 2020 and 2021 top ten lists only had two “gold” songs, and there was only one in 2019.
My 2022 list doesn’t include a mainstream hit until you get to #10, Break My Soul by Beyonce, though I’m not its target demo. But the lyrics about quitting your job and finding yourself sure resonated as I headed out on summer roadtrips between jobs.
If my phone were actually monitoring my listening like a PPM device, my top ten chart would be very different. What isn’t on my Spotify list are big hits that I liked enough to listen when they played on Pitbull’s Globalization or Diplo’s Revolution, but not enough to add to my Spotify playlist.
It’s a conundrum not just for my personal music chart but for music charts in general. What is a hit, anyway? How much should streaming count versus radio airplay? Should radio play more songs that are streaming hits, or stick to the familiar favorites? It’s a topic recently covered by radio researcher and programmer Sean Ross based on his own roadtrip experience.
One thing’s for certain: nothing is for certain.
(Google tells me that’s the lyric to a song I’ve never heard. Guess I’ve got some more music discovery to do.)