Examination of a Time Capsule
Reflections on what this project does and does not capture.
This post is a part of a series I’ll write through all month long as we explore a tradition I hold as a means of personal reflection and creativity. The tradition being an end of the year playlist of the songs I’ve discovered over the last year.
You can hear those playlists on Apple Music Playlist and find most of the songs on Spotify
I shared in the initial post about my Year of Discovery Project that I could go back and see a few hints as to where I was as far as head and heart space as songs stood out to me.
One of the things I tend to remember is where I might have been as I was listening to a song. Other times, I remember who I was with or the people I made it a priority to share those songs with.
When I think back on this year, it’s interesting because there are several things I immediately think are different.
The algorithm works different in Apple Music and that’s not a bad thing. Spotify would spit out several different ways to discover music, and the release radar was usually my favorite way to do that, but it meant I was constantly listening to the same artists - usually releases I was already aware of.
The “game” of exploration and finding gold is more involved. I have to go and seek out what I’m looking for and some genres in particular are a bit harder to seek out. Tejano, Tex-Mex, Conjunto - anything that is Spanish and pushed by radio is a bit harder to find. There are some decent playlists but further and farther between than with Spotify.
I think I officially like Apple Studio Sessions more than Spotify Singles. There’s a few examples of some great covers or re-workings of songs and one of my favorites is Carin Leon’s take on Ben Rector’s “Love Like This”
One of the things I have been asking is if this project accurately captures my actual listening habits and I can say that it does a better job than the “official” look back playlists. I think about parents who post the Bluey Theme Song and Encanto’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” as their tops songs - that’t not necessarily THIER favorite songs but in context they’ve played it over and over and over to get their kids to quit running around the house for more than 30 seconds.
My end of the year Replay from Apple Music included mostly songs from a playlist of instrumental music I had put together for my time substituting as the high school art teacher. I’ve got a few discoveries early on but it takes awhile to sort through the instrumental songs.
In a conversation I had with Armond Wakeup this week, I mentioned that the numbers on the Spotify Wrapped and Apple Music replay’s are just fancy PowerPoint presentations getting data from an Excel Spreadsheet - but they only tell us what the music service told it to tell us.
This is where my handmade playlists do a better job of showing me information I can rely on. I’m manually cataloguing and then sifting in my listening habits, and when I go back through to aggregate them into one big playlist of favorites, I have context for why they belong on the playlist - not just one data set - playing time, play counts, and what time I listened to it. The variables changed, and it makes for a better reflection. Like how I know that I found a LOT of songs via TikTok and I also know that the opening 1/3 of Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” is an EXCELLENT run of music and it deserves the space it gets on my list and it was an album I listened to a few songs more than others. Like Fortnight is my jam. I listened to that Post Malone album non-stop for a while.
My list starts with Kendrick’s run of diss tracks, and should include “6:16 in L.A.” so it’s unfortunate it’s not on streaming. What a moment. “GNX” rightly deserves a spot at the top because I will randomly spout off a few lines of a song here and there - sometimes under my breath and always probably “hey now, say now” - Kendrick has the crown this year, and he brought L.A, along with him.
I also have several tracks from notable hip hop releases in the Christian Hip Hop space including a great album from Swoope, a mixtape from DJ Mychel V and producer 1995 with EVERYONE, nobigdyl., and I couldn’t not include one of my favorite projects from 350. An album that won’t make the list but should be on is the latest from Andy Mineo that’s not available on streaming. I’m hoping a 2025 release will be and I’m sure it will male it to end of year 2025 list.
So much to soft through and I’m still mostly scratching the surface. How about you? Did your playlists reflect how you feel you listened to music this year? Why or why not? Did you end up with “rain sounds” or “box fan #3” as your top song? Would you consider cataloguing your music discoveries and how would you organize it?
Looking forward I’ll share a few favorites that are a bit of sleepers and not-so-strong favorites, I’ll write more about Taylor Swift and Kendricks projects and some big thoughts around The Beef. We’ll also talk about albums I missed so get your suggestions ready!