What Spotify Wrapped Missed
Jam of The Week, The Article
Happy December! Happy Christmas Shopping Anxiety Season! And of course HAPPY SPOTIFY WRAPPED DAY!
What Spotify Wrapped Missed
I do earnestly love what Spotify does by telling us about ourselves through our music. It’s also a great moment for everyone who uses Apple Music to be bitter about not getting all their data presented to them in a beautiful, sparkly, Instagram story-friendly report.
Here’s the problem with Spotify Wrapped. Spotify is no longer what it *used* to be. It was a music-sharing app for smaller indie acts to get ears on music no one would be able to find otherwise. Now, it’s legalized Limewire. That means that people go here to listen to the biggest artists in the world and, in particular, listen to the same songs over and over again. For reference, artists make ABOUT $0.0035 per stream. Which is still more than the $0.0000 they got from getting their songs pirated, but far from the heyday of Tower Records.
(Kev’s Note; Tower Records exists again! So does Toys R Us! WE WILL LIVE FOREVER!!!)
So this week I’m going to expose my Top Artists and Songs and tell you what I think Spotify missed.
Ok. Look. Listen…..ok. Let me explain the Taylor Swift thing.
1989 is one of the best pop albums that has been released in my lifetime. 1989 is Taylor Swift’s “Thriller”. When she started re-releasing all her albums to own them outright, I had 1989 circled on the schedule like it was a homecoming game against the local cupcake football team. There are all bangers here, even the very corny (CAMP! IT’S CAMP, ACTUALLY) “Welcome To New York” is great. It’s an album where Taylor also leans into a musical production that I’m an absolute sucker for which is 80’s style synths and stabs. I love that stuff. A quick detour of my favorite artists who also use this Style (see what I did there? I can force-feed people Taylor Swift references too @ NFL).
CHVRCHES
My main issue with the list above is that I listen to Spotify in a way that I think a lot of people do. I listen to Spotify to get an earworm out of my brain. I am very guilty of spinning the same song over and over and over again because it’s stuck in my head and I *need* it to be gone. That tends to throw my algorithm out of whack. Hence, Drake is my second most listened-to artist. I have not enjoyed a Drake album since Take Care. I did not like “For All the Dogs” and you can’t make me feel differently. There is no way Drake was my second favorite artist of the year. That didn’t happen. Do you know that did happen? I got Circo Loco stuck in my head and used Spotify to listen to that track on repeat to exercise the demon. That song uses another production trick that I’m an absolute sucker for. 90’s samples. I love seeing songs get new life through sampling, remixes, and interpolation. A few other masters of this craft…
De La Soul
De La Soul’s music, most of all their debut album (3 Feet High and Rising, which came out in 1989), is a masterclass in breathing new life into classics. This year, their music was finally added to Spotify’s app. De La’s place in the discussion of the evolution of Rap as a genre is largely forgotten or underrepresented because they’ve been missing from the world’s biggest music streaming platform. So here are some examples of my favorites:
A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays"
So that’s a not-so-quick recap of about half the things I felt should have been in my “Spotify Wrapped”. If I kept going this article would be too long and I know y’all do not have time for that.
If you need a “Jam Of The Week” after all that 1.) You are a sicko 2.) I got you.
JAM OF THE WEEK
Early 2000s Pop Club Mix at a New York House Party | Tinzo
If you are anything like me, you might use music to enter a “flow state” of perfect focus and concentration. The ability to skip around and change songs immediately on Spotify is the worst thing for the flow state. If you need an hour of uncut music that features the elements I just wrote about, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better mix than Tinzo’s.
What’s on your Spotify Wrapped? Did you like your mix or do you think there was some big-time misinformation in there? Let me know!
Pure Comedy vol. 2 in Annapolis next week (December 8th)! Buy Tix
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As always, thank you for reading. Always Working On It.
-Kevin