Top 2% of Adele Listeners - #SpotifyWrapped

03 Dec Top 2% of Adele Listeners – #SpotifyWrapped

Posted at 05:42h in Newsletter by Karena de Souza 0 Comments

It’s been a musical kind of week. Especially if you are in the half of the world that uses Spotify to enjoy music.

“Have you opened yours yet, Mum?” my daughter asked. Like so many others, I pulled the bow and unravelled my 2021 #SpotifyWrapped.

Here are some stats that Spotify spotted:

I listened to 11,583 minutes of music (not including the track that is playing as I write this!) Interestingly, there were 60 different genres of music.
Lovely Day is my top song
My top artist is Adele, and I am among her top 2% of listeners.

My secret life revealed through the magic of musical AI

60 different genres of music

It turns out that I listened to 1,020 different artists. Across 60 different genres. That was eye-opening!

Huh.

Margaret O’Brien recommended Thais: Meditations as the perfect way to close my Happy Body sessions. I find the music empowering and expansive. Similarly, the Les Choristes soundtrack – an ethereal experience in Latin and French – brings me peace as I journal.

Pata Pata (Miriam Makeba) is the rhythm of my childhood and never fails to put me in a good mood and boost my energy.

I discovered the music of Finnish artist, Anni Pohto. Her tracks kept me company earlier in the year as the editing tedium of punctuation and em-dashes replaced the creative high of stringing words together in my first book “Contours of Courageous Parenting – Tilting Towards Better Decisions”. Her recently released music video titled “everywoman” is a celebration of women however and wherever we show up – a rant against the airbrushed Barbies. Can you spot my friend Sana Fayyaz in the video?

I tested out a range of binaural beats and sounds of nature as I experimented with writing to music. I thought I would like the birds, but they are too distracting. Whales? No. Water didn’t work either. It turns out that I write best to movie soundtracks with lots of piano. Go figure! But for my deep work, I turn off all the music.

Beatles. James Taylor. Lumineers. Carly Simon. A mix of the various memories of my childhood, my solo years, my husband and the influence of our children. Oh, and of course every teen growing up in London in the 1970s has to have a good dose of ABBA & Queen in the soundtrack of their life.

Lovely Day

When the day that lies ahead of me
Seems impossible to face
When someone else instead of me
Always seems to know the way

Then I look at you
And the world’s alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it’s gonna be
A lovely day

Lovely Day is indeed one of my top songs. That makes sense.

When I started Write of Passage in September I got drawn into a conversation (read rabbit hole) on “the best music track to write to”. A little gem dropped into the chat (ping me to claim your credit here!) was to set my morning alarm to the wonderful sound of “Lovely Day”. It has revolutionized my relationship with my snooze button. Go on. Borrow the idea. I dare you not to wake with a smile on your face and a bounce in your step!

I did find the NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) reference very curious/ghost in the AI machine. Many friends from that class are writing about Web3 and NFTs! And I am writing about Future of Work, Climate and Parenting. So … how did the AI know?

Adele

I was surprised to see that I am among the top 2% of Adele listeners! I am a fan. Like me, she spent many of her formative years in Tottenham. I lived close enough to the Spurs stadium that we dare not move our car when a game was going on for fear of losing our parking spot.

I am drawn to her voice, the architecture of the music and the rat-a-tat rhythm of her lyrics. Rolling in the deep, Rumour has it and Someone Like You showcase her vocal range and ability to use different melodic structures. Easy on Me is growing on me. I listen for the musicality of her phrases and the way she writes emotion. Maybe some of that can translate into the way I write my essays.

And tying all my interests together, Adele wrote a 007 movie theme song! Our choir is practicing Skyfall for the 2022 Spring concert. While I read music, I prefer to learn my choral music aurally. So her catchy but challenging track has also been playing in the background. On repeat.

What did #Spotifywrapped unwrap for you?

Have you unwrapped your #Spotifywrapped? What did the stats say about the way you listened? Did it surface some great memories? Were you startled to discover some things about yourself?

I listened to