I’ve been streaming music since seventh grade. I’ve loved music even longer. My closest friends from elementary school would tell you that in grade four, I was constantly singing songs from musicals and it was the most annoying shit in the world. I love how the cumulation of recaps of what I listened to every year reflects such a clear image of the evolution of my music taste over time, notably because my taste is usually very concentrated in the handful of artists I obsess over.
2020
My first ever Spotify Wrapped is unfortunately lost media since the image wasn’t backed up and the only place I’d sent it was on Google Chat, known at the time as Google Hangouts, with my middle school Google account that was deleted when I moved school divisions in high school, deleting all files sent by the account even though we still have access to the rest of the messages. Therefore this is assembled through the data I do still have (the top 100 songs playlist, texts from the time, my memory).
As you can probably infer just by this snapshot of the top, this year was only show tunes ; I was 12-13, a theatre kid, hardly knew of much else to listen to. There were only three non-musical tracks in my top 100, one being a song thatI didn't even listen to, it just kept getting recommended to me, so technically just two out of 99 : Vanilla Twilight by Owl City and Lucky by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat. Owl City and Jason Mraz are important to take note of for the next few years. Shoutout my aunt who's the reason I got into both those artists.
TOP SONGS
The Tree on the Hill - The Lightning Thief Musical
Bring on the Monsters - The Lightning Thief Musical
Drive - The Lightning Thief Musical
My Grand Plan - The Lightning Thief Musical
Prologue/The Day I Got Expelled - The Lightning Thief Musical
TOP ARTISTS
LOST TO TIME. Rob Rokicki (composer of TLTM) was probably there. I also distinctly remember Leslie Odom Jr.
TOP GENRE
Show tunes
LISTENING MINUTES
LOST TO TIME, but confirmably higher than 2 142 minutes by a noticeable margin, since that was what my friend Net got that year and I « won » (thus creating the silly little competition where we would compete to see who had the most each year).
2021
Here we can see my taste starting to be defined beyond musical theatre, though that's still here and definitely not going away until 2024. I started with fun quirky niche pop music that came from Owl City and Jason Mraz and a lot of Broadway and Broadway-adjacent people, but we can even see the beginnings of the alt path with the top song, C'mon. A quote from myself from the day Wrapped came out that year : « a shame that it only records january to october, i only started listening to the real punk shit in november » (foreshadowing)
TOP SONGS
C’mon - Panic! At The Disco & fun.
Love You Like the Movies - Anthem Lights
Carry On - fun.
Love Someone - Jason Mraz
3 Things - Jason Mraz
TOP ARTISTS
Owl City
Jason Mraz
Rob Rokicki
Lea Michele
Duncan Sheik
TOP GENRE
Broadway
LISTENING MINUTES
12 531 (Net won this year with 39k)
2022
fall out boy is the greatest band in the world god i love those guys. fall out boy sweep. 28 out of the top 100 were them. the pop punkiest year i've ever had, and yet the top genre is still show tunes.
TOP SONGS
G.I.N.A.S.F.S. - Fall Out Boy
20 Dollar Nosebleed - Fall Out Boy
Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes - Fall Out Boy
America’s Suitehearts - Fall Out Boy
What A Catch, Donnie - Fall Out Boy
TOP ARTISTS
Fall Out Boy
My Chemical Romance
Panic! At The Disco
fun.
Owl City
TOP GENRE
Show tunes
LISTENING MINUTES
80 990 (beating Net, who had 40k) My most minutes out of any year so far.
MINUTES WITH TOP ARTIST (fababoi)
26 616 (top 0,001%) — 32,9% of my year
A really important development is not visible in the top 5s : a defining song for the rest of my music taste going forward is Wilson (Expensive Mistakes) (by Fall Out Boy again) at #58 because it was the beginning of my poptimism. My pretentiousness about « mainstream music you hear on the radio » was never something I expressed to other people, but I was a pretentious self superior little shit deep down about current pop music when I was a kid, and the thing that really broke through to me was how much I enjoyed Wilson and the rest of MANIA the album. MANIA doesn't crack these top 100s proportionate to how important of an album I consider it, so it warrants the manual shoutout lol
2023
Arrival of Mika !!! I was honestly shocked to see him beat out MCR for second place as I'd only gotten into him in August. He'll be more important in the years to come though. Another really pop punk year. Still Spotify insisted my top genre was Broadway.
TOP SONGS
Sunshine Riptide - Fall Out Boy
Planetary (GO!) - My Chemical Romance
The Music Or The Misery - Fall Out Boy
Hum Hallelujah - Fall Out Boy
It’s Hard To Say “I Do” When I Don’t - Fall Out Boy
Shoutout : Origin of Love by Mika, with which I absolutely fell in love later in the year, and just missed the cut at #6
TOP ARTISTS
Fall Out Boy
MIKA
My Chemical Romance
Panic! At The Disco
Paramore
TOP GENRE
Broadway (Somehow. Literally none of my Top 100 was Broadway, and the only musical songs at all were from the Mamma Mia film soundtracks.)
LISTENING MINUTES
55 409 (Net won with 70k)
MINUTES WITH TOP ARTIST (fababoi)
23 365 (top 0,005%) — 42,17% of my year
2024
Now THIS was the year I started feeling really good about music. The pop punk and musicals almost exclusively era was fun and all but I felt a bit stuck honestly and I didn't exactly know where to go from there but starting the end of 2023 with Mika and then actually flourishing in 2024 I found so much new stuff. 2024 also happened to be the best year in recent memory for pop music so that definitely helped. Chappell Roan happened this year. all in all very fun very woman-centric. Damn I love music.
TOP SONGS
Jane Birkin - MIKA
Origin Of Love - MIKA
Stuck In The Middle - MIKA
Touches You - MIKA
Good Luck, Babe! - Chappell Roan
TOP ARTISTS
MIKA
Chappell Roan
Fall Out Boy
Paramore
WILLOW
TOP GENRE
they didnt do genre this year lmao. probably pop punk. which makes it the first year where it isnt musicals
LISTENING MINUTES
69 274 (Net won again with 75k)
MINUTES WITH TOP ARTIST (mika)
34 296 (top 0,001%) — 49,5% of my year
FUN FACT : My top listening day was January 26th, where I listened for 712 minutes, which is just under 12 hours. I know exactly why this was my top listening day because of this message I’d sent the night before. This was the night before I finished this huge project for my grade 11 integrated french/history class that I was stressing about the whole time 💀💀💀
2025
I listened to both As Cruel as School Children by Gym Class Heroes and Saviors by Green Day for the first time in January and that kinda defined the rest of the year
TOP SONGS
Bobby Sox - Green Day
On My Own Time (Write On!) - Gym Class Heroes
Shoot Down the Stars - Gym Class Heroes
Viva La White Girl - Gym Class Heroes
Stray Italian Greyhound - Vienna Teng
Shoutout : Origin of Love by Mika, who got the exact same placement as 2023 at #6
TOP ARTISTS
MIKA
Fall Out Boy
Gym Class Heroes
Chappell Roan
Green Day
TOP GENRE
Pop punk
LISTENING MINUTES
36 753 (Net got 75k, rah rah. also he got 76 for listening age which was funny) Much less streaming this year, since I got a CD player ^_^
MINUTES WITH TOP ARTIST (mika)
9 010 (top 0,001% — I was ranked the #202 listener worldwide which is insane to me because of how little I listened to him compared to LAST year. Got me asking wait hold on a second how high did I rank last year then ???) — 24,5% of my year
It's honestly wild to see 40 Mika songs in my top 100, how did that even fucking happen dude. I didn't even listen to a lot of Mika comparatively, as you can see my Mika listening minutes only amount to a quarter of my listening compared to 2024's almost half... Ya he's still my top artist but. like what. Statistics are weird bro. Also REALLY interesting how Fall Out Boy by contrast only has two songs (LOTRO and Young and Menace) in the top 100.
moving forward
The day after Wrapped 2025, I finally switched to Deezer because lmao I cannot with a company that invests in war drones, runs ICE ads on its platform, and out of all the streaming services compensates artists the least. I have no idea how the Deezer recap looks like and what stats it does and doesn’t share so next year’s review will probably look different.