Spotify Wrapped: 2025

Friday is for music. Today, it’s Spotify Wrapped week of course. And the 250th ‘Something for the Weekend’ playlist!

I always listen to a lot of Brian Eno. He’s there in my Wrapped the last few years. He’s also on my turntable, and in my cassette deck, and definitely in the slot of my CD player. I said this even just the other day:

I wasn’t really too bothered about my Spotify Wrapped this year. I have thoughts every few weeks about ditching the app altogether. But it’s also just too damned convenient. I like to listen to music when I’m walking, I like to listen to audiobooks and podcasts sometimes too. I have a portable CD player, and a portable cassette player, I like bags…I could carry a small bag of tapes (and in fact I usually do when I go to work each day). I could take a stack of CDs. I could get a Dumbphone.

But I won’t.

I like making playlists, and sharing them too:

But I really do think that Spotify is my third or fourth option.

Most days I listen to CDs or tapes when I’m working and when I’m home from work and doing other writing. I might go Spotify on the way there, or during some of the day if I’m on a particular run with something. This year I made playlists connected to my MA:

I went from things that inspired some of the stories I was writing ^

— to a list of every single direct artist or song mention in my finished manuscript ^

— to an actual “soundtrack” to my novelette — like a ‘movie soundtrack’ just for a book, or in this case a long story.

Spotify was very useful to me this year. And I reconnected with TOOL’s album Aenima in a big way, because it also informed that novelette:

Dog walks around town and TOOL was on. Same with in the car occasionally, or on the walk to work. I sometimes share the album covers of what I’m listening to on Instagram and more than one person commented with “move on”- or “what’s with the TOOL obsession?”-styled comments.

I definitely didn’t.

I was using TOOL like a key to drop into the story, each chapter in it named after songs from the album. It became my submersion , my way of plunging down into the world of the story, the era, the vibe.

But I reckon that I listened to the album at least as much on CD, maybe more:

Living between music on my phone, and old, dead formats on my headphones, or even out loud on a turntable at home, has meant that I’m completely confused about what I have most listened to. And when. And how.

I knew I played Underworld a lot this year, and always Eno as I said. But I could have guessed that Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Tangerine Dream might all be in my Top 5. But I listened to them on vinyl and tape and CD and YouTube more than I obviously did on YouTube. Same goes for a few other things (Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music especially):

I’m usually expecting Joni Mitchell or Billie Holiday or Cyndi Lauper to turn up too. Fleetwood Mac for sure. But at least I wasn’t a guy listening to The Beatles all day (for once). Or Bob Dylan. They’ve both been in my Top 5 before. So good to break that pattern I guess.

I don’t quite believe that the Chimp Crazy nor the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 scores for, respectively, a TV doco series and a video game, were in my Top albums this year. But I’m not ashamed that they are.

The last thing I want to be is someone posting about it and going “accurate”. Um, dur, it’s data. Of course it’s accurate.

But data on its own is boring. Lists without analysis or unpacking are dumb. That’s what is good about having YouTube as may favourite TV and radio station. I wrote about the cello last weekend —

— next thing I’ve got a 70-track/clip playlist on YouTube of various full albums, single performances and entire concerts that runs for hours and will keep getting updated. That’s point of view. That’s story. That’s the chance at least to build a list and add point of view to that, and make a story from it. That’s madness, quite possibly. But it’s better than just data. Than just saying “accurate”. It’s also more for me than the performative listening of Spotify Wrapped and lists.

But hey, I do this every year, or just about. And so do you. And I’m really just setting this up for you to add to — any surprises (pleasant or otherwise) on your Spotify Wrapped, if it’s a game you play?

And if you don’t, I quite understand.

And was your Spotify Wrapped “accurate”?

Mine was so accurate my Spotify Listening Age was even my exact actual age. So. Um. There.

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Now, speaking of playlists, here’s the 250th time I’ve made a weekend playlist for you (and for me):

Spotify wouldn’t be calling me just a 49 year old if it was judging that playlist.