Category: music

My favorite musical artists: COVID edition

My favorite musical artists: COVID edition

Every few years I like to look at the list of songs I’ve liked in Spotify so I can see who my favorite artists are. It’s not that I don’t know who they are, it’s just interesting to quantify them and sometimes I’m surprised who is present and absent from my Top 10 list.

The last time I did this was just a year ago, but I think both Spotify and COVID have changed my tastes a lot more than a typical year would have.

Here’s where it currently stands, in order of total number of liked songs.

  • Enya
  • VAST
  • David Byrne
  • The Naked and Famous
  • Max Avery Lichtenstein
  • Ludovico Einaudi
  • R.E.M.
  • The Connells
  • Sia
  • Lucy Wainwright Roche

Changes since 2019 (with explanation)

Added: The Naked and Famous (went to see in concert and great new album in 2020), Max Avery Lichtenstein (new album and discovered old ones), The Connells (a band I liked in college that I rediscovered), and Lucy Wainwright Roche (known, but started liking more)

Removed: Brett Dennen (no new material and just grew tired of him), Iron & Wine (same reason), Beatles (George Harrison obsession died down), Two Lone Swordsmen (not liking newer material as much).…

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My favorite music

My favorite music

People always ask “what’s your favorite music”—a harder question to answer than it might seem. Rather than try to stab in the dark, I resort to data analytics. Obviously.

I recently found this wonderful website called Skiley that you connect to your Spotify account and it spits out all sorts of wonderful data.

In a previous post, I listed my favorite artists by play count. Skiley assigns a weighting based on recently played as well. This helps distinguish between all-time favorite into what I’m playing more at the moment.

So, what did I learn:

  • Ludovico Einaudi, Passenger, Of Monsters and Men, David Byrne, Iron & Wine have moved up, probably due to recent concerts and/or albums
  • Sia has moved up because I recently dug into her back catalog
  • Imogen Heap is a new discovery
  • VAST, Two Lone Swordsmen, and Enya have historically been favorite artists but I don’t listen much anymore

There is a lot of fascinating data on Skiley, but my favorite is where it breaks down the genres of music it thinks I like, some of which I’ve never heard of.…

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My favorite musical artists

My favorite musical artists

When someone asks me this, I can always rattle off a few I’ve always loved, but then everything else is this giant soup and I can’t really rank them. So, I like to take a scientific approach.

I looked at songs I’ve liked in Spotify and found the artists with the most likes and this is the list I came up with for my Top 10:

  • VAST
  • Ludovico Einaudi
  • Enya
  • David Byrne
  • Brett Dennen
  • R.E.M.
  • Sia
  • Iron & Wine
  • Beatles
  • Two Lone Swordsmen

It’s interesting how many of these were not really on the tip of my tongue but clearly I like them! I did the exact same exercise in 2013 and here’s what changed.

Changes since 2013

Added Ludovico Einaudi, Brett Dennen, and Sia, three artists completely new to me that I now adore.

Added Enya, who I’ve always liked, but as I listen to more music as background with people around, I’ve shifted towards more mellow music.…

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