Let’s temporarily forget all those big debates about whether society is moving into a monoculture, or how much meaning is lost when data dictates music trends, or how little most working artists get paid from streaming services: It’s Spotify Wrapped time!
Yes, it’s that time of year when Apple Music users feel left behind, and the Western world’s most dominant streaming-music service tells people more about their personalities than most therapists can. Spotify’s annual data dump about what its users listen to is here. The topline data says pop is on top, with Taylor Swift’s global dominance on Spotify perhaps proving the move toward monoculture is indeed real. But it’s everyone’s individual Wrapped findings that can prove most insightful. Or regretful. Or meme-worthy.
A handful of The Globe and Mail’s biggest music fans are here to show you just how happy, surprised, or even shocked they were when Spotify showed them what they listened to most this year. Listen along while you read with our 2023 Spotify wrapped playlist.
You’re Dead Meat if you don’t listen to The Tubs
I try to listen to a new album every day – a privilege afforded to me by the streaming era, but one that is antithetical to the habits of most streaming listeners. Playlists are king. I get that. My consumption habits basically make me an Elder Millennial version of Principal Skinner from The Simpsons – “Am I out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.”
But I’m constantly on the hunt for statements: music you can really spend time with and learn more about with each listen. Albums scratch that itch. A song is rarely enough, and a playlist takes me out of my element. Based on a tweet (xeet?) last winter whose author I can’t remember, I decided my album-of-the-day would be the debut by The Tubs, a Welsh-slash-English jangle-pop band so new they are probably considered obscure, but who I have now decided are very important to me, personally.
Dead Meat, released in January, throws the urgency of punk, the hooks of great pop and the earnestness of Richard Thompson in a blender at top speed. It barrels toward you and through you in just 26 minutes. It’s a statement. And so it’s very little surprise that the first five songs on this record are my top five songs of the year. – Josh O’Kane, arts reporter
Any major Dan fan will tell you
Any major dude will tell you that I am a Steely Dan fan. And now Spotify Wrapped has verified the status. According to the numbers, I spent 1,427 minutes with the Dan, my most listened-to artist. What Spotify doesn’t know is that when I wasn’t listening to that band, I was reading about them: Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan, by Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay, is my favourite music book of the year.
The algorithms suggest I would be at home in Victoria, where people enjoy Bruce Cockburn and Gordon Lightfoot, in addition to the Dan. I’d also be at home at Carnegie Hall – a couple of live albums recorded there, including Chicago At Carnegie Hall Complete, were in heavy rotation in 2023. But is it even 2023? My top-played tracks were Little Feat’s Long Distance Love from 1975 and the Dan’s Midnite Cruiser from ‘72. Spotify recognized that I play albums all the way through. What they probably could have guessed but were too polite to mention is that I’m 60 years old. Time to retire? To Victoria? The dudes are trying to tell me something. – Brad Wheeler, music reporter
Practical playlist magic
This year, Spotify Wrapped labelled me an “Alchemist,” stating that listening is my “laboratory” and that I create my own playlists more than other listeners do. I do, in fact, have many a playlist for specific moods and purposes, ranging from the typical (“Christmas!” and “Workout” are two I’ve been building for years), to the slightly more offbeat. “Apartment Karaoke” was made specifically because my boyfriend plays guitar and has an amp and microphone among his music equipment (I may have serenaded his neighbours on occasion). The playlist “Français [kiss emoji]” is where I’ve gathered, you guessed it, my favourite French songs by such artists as Édith Piaf, Jacques Dutronc and La Femme, while “alt pop lady birds” is a list of what I believe are the greatest hits of Tove Lo, Charli XCX, Peaches and the like.
One hyper-specific playlist I created this year for little to no reason, aside from curiosity, was “Political Taylor,” featuring songs by Taylor Swift with more overt social commentary. I’ve curated the Swift songs with prominent feminist themes (e.g. mad woman, The Man, Slut! (Taylor’s Version)) but also ones that have revealed her political leanings as of late, including the anti-gun violence single Only the Young, the pro-LGBTQ anthem You Need to Calm Down, and the lament for the state of her nation in Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Kid. Don’t ask me why I did this – alchemy, according to Merriam-Webster, is an “inexplicable or mysterious” practice. – Kate Wilkinson, content editor in the Opinion section
A wedding unwrapped
If the songs on my 2023 Wrapped had a familiar ring to them, it’s because I listened to them for the express purpose of ring-wearing. That’s right: In defiance of my haters (me, as a teen, believing I’d be alone forever), I got married in May, so my year in music was defined by love and logistics.
There were nods to the artists that appeared in my painstakingly curated, 10-hour compilation of the coolest love songs I know, including Nao and Snoh Aalegra, whose Find Someone Like You is a stone-cold classic. (Of course, our DJ failed to use my playlist during my wedding’s cocktail hour as requested, electing instead to play what I had previously described to friends as “the nightmare option:” orchestral covers of top-40 pop songs. He also played Sandstorm three consecutive times at one point, but that’s another story.)
And it only made sense that Wrapped highlighted the musicians who provided the soundtrack to essential parts of our wedding day: the songs we walked down the aisle to (Daniel Caesar for her, Burna Boy for me and our wedding parties), and our first dance (in which we bolted some YouTube choreography onto Donovan Woods’s Clean Slate).
Look, Wrapped remains not my favourite thing. I don’t like that a company dissects my data and basically throws it in my face at the end of the year in splashy infographics. But then again, one of the most incredible days of my life came about thanks to the wedding industrial complex, so am I really in a position to judge? Seven months later, any reminder of my wedding day – well, to paraphrase Daniel Caesar, that’s the best part. – Adrian Lee, editor in the Opinion section
I am Easy to Parody
Well, if Spotify Wrapped is any indication, it turns out that I am a 45-year-old depressed and divorced dad. My favourite genre? Modern rock. My favourite band? The National. Followed by three other entries into the genre that’s best described as sad, melancholy guys with guitars (see also: Frightened Rabbit, Death Cab for Cutie, The War on Drugs, etc.). And while I would love to pithily argue about Spotify’s data collection – it stops in mid-October, allegedly, and I have listened to A LOT of sad but not-dad tunes since then – the designation as old and inclined toward downer tunes rings very true. I am never allowed the aux. My definition of “upbeat” is apparently mystifying. (Weirdly, the first non-sad dad song on the overall list is by Blink-182, followed by Taylor Swift – but her Folklore/Evermore era, where she is aiming for the greying, emotionally broken demographic.) Moreover, I do have a Sad Dads tee (one of – and I did count – six National apparel items I own). Maybe in 2024, I’ll try therapy. And if that doesn’t work: I’ll try another dad-approved genre: improvisational jazz. – Jessie Willms, SEO editor
The Idol soundtrack: Pretty good, actually
For once, I stayed on top of the zeitgeist and many of my most-played songs are actually from 2023, as opposed to relistening to old favourites. My number one? The wonderfully vapid and catchy World Class Sinner from HBO’s The Idol. I keep going back to Rachel Aroesti’s review in The Guardian, where she writes that though Idol the show was poorly received, Idol the soundtrack (which show creator and pop idol himself The Weeknd had a hand in obviously) proves the “best delivery method for a slippery, uncomfortably nefarious send-up of pop stardom is probably pop music itself.”
So once again, television and film influenced my listening habits. Soundtracks to Barbie, movie of the summer, and TV’s Succession, which had its final season this spring, placed highly on my list, too.
What can I say? Where else do I find music these days if not on other forms of pop culture that I’m consuming, be it the big screen or on social? A TikTok Billboard Top 50 was even launched this year to track what’s trending. I knew Doja Cat’s dreamy Agora Hills (who was my other obsession this year) was going to be big before I heard a version of it sped up and set as backing music for an IG Reel. But it doesn’t matter who heard it first – a hit is a hit. – Ming Wong, art director
Songs for the seasonally depressed
My Spotify Wrapped felt like a time capsule of the year with my top artists correlating with the seasons, my moods and big events.
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January was consumed by the ambient folk band Florist, which soundtracked snowy days and weekends spent indoors. It feels fitting that in March, a month mostly of miserable weather with tiny glimmers of future warmth, I listened to a lot of singer-songwriter Alex G, whose folksy, indie rock combines despair with hope. I remember walking along slushy Toronto streets listening to the yearning Miracles, from his 2022 album God Save the Animals.
In June, I listened mostly to The Beatles, a perennial favourite since I was a 12-year-old discovering my parents’ record collection, and what I listen to when I bake. And that month, I just happened to bake nine cakes (yes, nine) for a friends’ wedding. Trust me when I say whipping up lemon buttercream frosting at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday is much more enjoyable when Here, There and Everywhere is playing in the background.
Spotify described me as a “Vampire” because I like to “embrace a little … darkness.” This seems like an accurate description – no one ever lets me DJ a party because I’ll inadvertently put on the saddest song and kill the mood. But even a vampire can appreciate a good bop. My July was all about Beyoncé, as I listened to Renaissance on repeat in preparation for her concert in Toronto. – Samantha Edwards, audience editor
Late to the party (Rebecca’s Version)
If my Apple Replay for 2023 had a theme – and it would, if I was a Spotify user, but Apple Music users aren’t graced with all the bells and whistles of Spotify Wrapped – it would be “late to the party.” Three out of my five top artists – Bad Bunny, The National and Taylor Swift, if you count Taylor’s Versions – had new albums in 2023, but my most-listened-to songs by them were from 2022 or earlier (my top T. Swift track, thanks exclusively to its tear-jerking placement in the Cousin Richie episode of The Bear, was Love Story – alas, not Taylor’s Version). In the case of Stromae, that’s me catching up on his blisteringly good 2022 album Multitude; and in the case of Car Seat Headrest, well, that’s me catching up on a listening tip from a friend about a decade ago.
I often find myself using year-end lists to do just that: play catch-up on all the great music, movies, shows and books I might have missed over the course of the year that was. So I wouldn’t be too surprised if my 2024 Apple Replay looked much the same, thematically.
One thing that I am surprised by, however, is that Troye Sivan didn’t crack my list. I could have sworn his 2023 album Something to Give Each Other is all I’ve listened to since its release in October – or at least Still Got It, which, in my opinion, is one of the year’s best songs – but there’s no arguing with data, I guess. – Rebecca Tucker, arts editor
A tune for every mood
While I used to create a new playlist for each season, that habit has faded, and I default to the ready-made playlists by Spotify. This year, my top five songs may represent my many moods of 2023, or they may simply be a reflection of what makes perfect algorithmic sense for Spotify to have defaulted to playing for me.
The song Somaw by Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara and American neo-soul singer Angie Stone takes first place, maybe because it is a mashup between of my favourite genres: global beats (I listened to the “Global Groove” playlist on repeat through my travels, on plane rides or road trips) and R&B.
Late Night Talking by Harry Styles is No. 2, likely a jam for the mood-boosting walks in my neighborhood, but if I happened to be on a run or going to the gym, you can bet I’d be playing No. 3 on the list: You Wish by Flyana Boss, a song I discovered on social media with pure girl-rapper chaotic energy. For help setting a cozy, at-home reading ambience is the classic old-school hit, What You Won’t Do For Love by Bobby Caldwell, at No. 4, and for all the times I said “Hey Google, play bachata” before I started cooking: El Pañuelo by Romeo Santos and Rosalía takes the fifth spot. – Aruna Dutt, associate Pursuits editor
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