Tag Archives: music

My 2021 music trends with Last.fm and Spotify

Last year was another year of really loving Hamilton it seems – along with some pop and instrumentals.

This visualization is a little off because it’s based on data from the last 365 days and not 2021, but it’s close and I like it.

My top ten artists:

Leslie Odom Jr. – for Hamilton
Lin-Manuel Miranda – Hamilton again
Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton – obvious
Weezer – because I loved their Teal Album
Vitamin String Quartet – due to their instrumental versions of songs from Bridgerton
Call Me A Hole – actually a mash-up of Nine Inch Nails and Carly Rae Jepsen on YouTube
Poppy – all because of one cover of a t.A.T.u. song
Montaigne – thanks to making the new theme song for My Brother, My Brother and Me
Lil Nas X – because Matt was surprised I didn’t know any songs by him and claimed I actually did. Turns out, I had heard Old Town Road but didn’t know who performed it
Spice Girls – because my neighbors started blasting Spice Girls at 3 in the morning and it put me in the mood to listen to more

My top albums:

Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) by Lin-Manuel Miranda
Bridgerton (Covers from the Netflix Original Series) by Vitamin String Quartet
Weezer (Teal Album) by Weezer
All The Things She Said by Poppy
Spice by Spice Girls
Heaven & Hell by Ava Max – but only one song I think
Nena by Nena – again because of one song
Release Me by The Like – thank you Barnes & Noble for making me listen to this all day until I loved it over a decade ago
7 EP by Lil Nas X
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? by Billie Eilish

My top tracks mostly make sense given the top albums and artists, although there are few stragglers – numbers 9 and 10 don’t have artists or albums that show up on my top ten lists.

Call Me A Hole, Nine Inch Nails / Carly Rae Jepsen Mash-Up – I can’t believe this was my most played song, although I’ll note that it’s actually tied with a real song haha
All The Things She Said by Poppy – tied for first
Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down) by Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton
Kings & Queens by Ava Max
Guns and Ships by Leslie Odom Jr.
Nur geträumt by Nena
Old Town Road by Lil Nas X
Technicolour by Montaigne
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) by Dead or Alive
Merry Happy by Kate Nash

Spotify Wrapped gave some interesting bits of information, but I don’t think it reports as clearly as Last.fm – plus, Spotify only considers data from 1/1 through 10/31.

Looks like I’m pretty average as Spotify users go.

I really have no idea what this means. I don’t think I’ve ever thought to myself “time to listen to some spooky and bold music.”

This, on the other hand, seems super accurate! I didn’t even realize how accurate it was, but now I love it.

As for live music, 2021 was obviously better than 2020. I went to one concert – The Aquabats, The English Beat, and Dead Man’s Party; it was awesome! I saw one virtual concert – The Aquabats! Legion of Righteous Comrades! You Pick the Set List! Livestream Concert! That title sure had a lot of exclamation marks. I saw a singer/guitarist at a small event.

I also saw The Nightmare Before Christmas Live-to-Film Experience at the Banc of California Stadium, which features Danny Elfman, Paul Reubens, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Billie Eilish, and Ken Page. Plus, at the end Steve Bartek of Oingo Boingo joined Danny Elfman on stage to play Dead Man’s Party.

And I can’t leave out more Hamilton! I saw Hamilton at the Pantages twice in 2021!

My music trends in 2020 with Last.fm

It looks like this year I really liked Hamilton again with Leslie Odom Jr. and Lin-Manuel Miranda tracks swapping places and both passing The Orion Experience, which was number one for the past two years yet fell to fourth this year. Jack Stauber’s Micropop and Shawn Wasabi are newcomers to the top!

Here’s my top 10 (as shown above but put into text in case the image breaks):

Rank	Artist	Scrobbles	2019 Rank	2019 Scrobbles
1	Leslie Odom Jr.	175	3	98
2	Lin-Manuel Miranda	164	2	105
3	Jack Stauber’s Micropop	115
4	The Orion Experience	100	1	111
5	Shawn Wasabi	81	16	17
6	Royal & the Serpent	75
7	Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton	62	12	21
8	Daveed Diggs	60	18	16
9	Звери	59	20	15
10	SilverLetomi performing a WoW parody of I’m Still Standing by Elton John (but scrobbling from YouTube yields an incorrect artist name)	57

My top albums aren’t a surprise given the artists

Rank	Album	Scrobbles	2019 Rank	2019 Scrobbles
1	Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) by Lin-Manuel Miranda	394
2	Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) by Various Artists	227	1	350
	(Above two combined)	621
3	Micropop by Jack Stauber’s Micropop	99
4	Cosmicandy by The Orion Experience	75	2	110
5	Overwhelmed by Royal & the Serpent	74
6 (tied)	Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum by Tally Hall	49	3	53
6 (tied)	Лучшие by Звери	49	9	15
8	Otter Pop (feat. Hollis) by Shawn Wasabi	41	98	2
9	In Character by Blood and Water	38
10	‘Cause I’m a Liar (Kokichi Oma Fan Song) by Mcki Robyns-P	28

My top tracks are mostly Hamilton!

Rank	Track	Scrobbles	2019 Rank	2019 Scrobbles
1	Overwhelmed by Royal & the Serpent	75
2	Guns and Ships by Leslie Odom Jr.	60	54	4
3 (tied)	I’m Still Standing by SilverLetomi	57
3 (tied)	Right Hand Man by Lin-Manuel Miranda	57	1	68
5	Guys Don’t Like Me by It Boys!	49	5	35
6	Aaron Burr, Sir by Lin-Manuel Miranda	48	14	13
7	Otter Pop (feat. Hollis) by Shawn Wasabi	41
8	Sleep It Off by Blood and Water	38	117	2
9	What’d I Miss by Daveed Diggs	37	12	13
10	The Reynolds Pamphlet by Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton	34	42	5

I certainly saw less live bands in 2020, which obvious.

Koo Koo Kanga Roo with Kepi Ghoulie at Chain Reaction

Wait, where’s number 2? There is no number 2.

But there were some virtual shows:

The Aquabats!: Kooky Spooky! Halloween Party!
The Aquabats!: Kooky Kristmas Party

I really hope we can get back to seeing live music next year!

My music trends in 2018 with Last.fm and Spotify

Let’s take a look at my Last.fm account for last year, which I enjoy doing at the start of each year. The Orion Experience took the top spot. They weren’t even in my top 10 artists of 2017. Suburban Legends and The Aquabats also broke into the top 10 after not being in it in 2017. Звери dropped from number 1 to number 3, but Hayley Kiyoko went from number 10 to number 4.

Here’s my full top 11 (since 10 and 11 were tied).

Cosmicandy by The Orion Experience takes the top album spot, which isn’t a surprise to me because I’ve been listening to The Queen of White Lies, Obsessed With You, and The Cult of Dionysus off that album a ton.

Here’s the top 10 albums.

These were the top 10 tracks of 2018 for me. Only one song isn’t in English, just like 2017.

Spotifywrapped.com gives some interesting highlights from Spotify:

I started 2018 by listening to Для тебя by Звери.
The first artist I discovered was Big Black Delta… and I have no idea who they are right now.
I listened to 10,675 minutes listening to Spotify.
I spent 7 hours listening to The Orion Experience, my top artist.
My top artists were The Orion Experience, Camila Cabello, Suburban Legends, Звери, and Let’s Get It. I wonder how Last.fm doesn’t have Camila Cabello higher? I listened to her a lot. Sometimes Last.fm tracks artists with different names. For example, if a song features another artists, it might be considers “Artist A featuring Artist B,” separate from both A and B.
Top songs were We Don’t Care, Carnivore, Hit Me Up, Into It, and The Queen of White Lies.
Top genres were pop, indie, rock, punk, and hip hop.
My top 100 playlist was generated and can be found here or below.
I listened to non-mainstream artists 80% more than the average Spotify listener.
My oldest song played was “Did You Ever Have to Make up Your Mind?” by The Lovin’ Spoonful.
I listened to more Pisces artists, which Spotifywrapped notes includes Camila Cabello and Kesha, than any other sign. Hm, and I’m a Pisces too.
It suggested I broaden my horizons with this playlist.

I saw some concerts:

Suburban Legends in Downtown Disney – 3 times
Goldfinger with The Suicide Machines, Buck-o-Nine, and Suburban Legends at the House of Blues, Anaheim
The Fury of the Aquabats 20th Anniversary show with C.J. Ramone

And I watched some musicals:

The Book of Mormon at Segerstrom
Allegiance at the Aratani Theatre
The Unauthorized Musical Parody of Jurassic Park at the Rockwell: Table & Stage
Dear Evan Hansen at the Ahmanson Theatre
Wicked at the Pantages

My music trends in 2017

Using Last.fm makes it easy for me to check what I listen to most, and every year I like to look back at the previous year. Звери took the number one slot, beating out Distemper by a single play. Sia was my number one in 2016, and she dropped to number three in 2017.

The only artist from 2016’s top ten that made it to this year’s is Taylor Swift, who jumped from number ten to number five.

I always find it interesting that some I listen to some songs a lot but not many other songs by that artist. A lot of songs in my top ten most played tracks are by artists that didn’t make the top ten.

I actually only went to one concert in 2017, which is kind of crazy. I finally got to see Regina Spektor, who absolutely amazing and so cute live. She might have forgot the words to a song once or twice, and I don’t mind a bit!

My music trends in 2016

Every year, I like checking my Last.fm account to see what music I played the most the previous year. This year, my most played artist was Sia. Given that I definitely know I play her music a lot, this doesn’t come as a surprise to me. She’s not my sixth most played artist overall in addition to number one in 2016.

This graph shows just how much more I listened to Sia than anyone else. It also amuses me that Instalok is number six considering I listen to his parody songs that use Overwatch footage.

Four of my most played tracks were by Sia. I only listened to her during the second half of the year as well. I have a Spotify playlist made on July 6 that consisted of the music Anela played while I was driving, and it was during that drive that she introduced me to Sia I think (although I did go on to find new tracks by her that I loved). “Kill Em with Kindness” and “You Don’t Own Me” (which Suicide Squad made me love) was also from that same playlist actually.

Despite enjoying ska concerts, no ska song broke the top ten (although two ska bands were in my top ten most played artists. I guess I must listen to a lot of different Suburban Legends and Half Past Two songs.

I wonder what I’ll listen to in 2017.

Suburban Legends, Skapeche Mode, and more on 1/14

I went Reel Big Fish concert a couple weeks ago featuring Starpool, The Maxies, Skapeche Mode, and Stupid Flanders at the Observatory. I didn’t get chance to share any photos. Better late than never.

After watching The Maxies on the main stage with gem, I switched rooms to watch Stupid Flanders. That’s also where I ran into my friend, Amit.

gem left Stupid Flanders to be sure to catch all of Suburban Legends. I missed the first half of the first song or so by the time I got over there. It was packed, and we were separated.

After Suburban Legends’ set, I switched back to the Constellation Room for Skapeche Mode. Can you guess that they do Depeche Mode covers?

I got nice and close! Skapeche Mode has great energy, and I love fun 80s tunes. Plus, they’re pretty friendly! I actually ran into Bryan, the trumpet player, at SDCC.

gem managed to find me at this point even though we couldn’t text. Signal was so bad that our text messages were actually lagging by 20 minutes or so.

After their set, gem and I chatted with Bryan briefly, and I got this photo with Skapeche Mode’s singer. Note the David Bowie homage.

Last was Reel Big Fish. By that time, I just wasn’t feeling it too much anymore. Plus, there was a lot of weed around us, so we left after a couple songs. We did, however, run into Brian Klemm, guitarist for Suburban Legends. I think this is the happiest I’ve ever seen gem. Plus, when I asked Klemm about the band since this is their last tour, he confirmed that they’re not breaking up and should still be playing locally. Awesome!

Ending 2015 with the Ska Luau VI and a NYE party

Following tradition, I ended 2015 by attending the Ska Luau on the 30th and going to a New Year’s Eve party at the Carters’ on the 31st. It was a lot of fun!

gem and I were looking good at the Ska Luau. I need to work on evening my tan.

The two of us were rocking our Suburban Legends shirts! The Luau featured the Magnolia Polynesian Dance Troupe, Karate in the Garage, Hooray for Our Side, Suburban Legends, and Starpool. What a sweet line up!

We ran into our friend Bryan who’s the trumpet player for Skapeche Mode and Failed to Victory. All the bands performed amazing sets. I’d never heard Karate in the Garage, so that was a treat. I’d only seen Hooray for Our Side once, and they gave a great performance. Suburban Legends and Starpool are two of my favorite bands, and they somehow always exceed expectations. I didn’t take many photos of Suburban Legends. There choreography is so awesome that still photos wouldn’t do them justice. However, I have some videos of them playing and dancing in the playlist at the top of this post.

Starpool came out in a bang of confetti!

Throw my hands up and shout! I love when they perform this. You can see T-bone Willy Wonka and an Oompa Loompa on stage too. My ears were ringing all day the next day.

I brought a lot of food to the New Year’s Eve party – brownies, lemon bars, and biscuit pizzas.

I told Henley that I had a gift for him in the car, and he was pretty excited. He was so adorable asking if it was time to open it yet. He needed some help getting it unwrapped!

He seemed pretty happy with his new Buzz Lightyear! As it turns out, he had really wanted one too. While I was undoing the ties to get Buzz out of the package, Henley repeatedly gave me hugs. He’s so cute.

We suggested he open gem’s gift while I got Buzz out of the box. gem gave him a jacket that looks like a polar bear, complete with bear ears of course. He’s wearing it in that photo, although he didn’t want the hood.

Dev’s dog, Happy, is totally a lap dog.

Here’s me and Dev! He’s one of my oldet friends. We met in 8th grade.

I guess Mike likes my brownies! Actually, he was wondering why Dev scooped them out of the pan with a spoon.

gem made cheesecake ice cream as gifts and left them in a freezer. I realized that Gracie and Jon forgot to take one, so we began discussing the ice cream. Somehow we realized we could heat up my homemade brownies and serve them with gem’s homemade cheesecake ice cream.

Super success! A picture doesn’t really do it justice, but trust me that it was delicious.

And that was my New Year’s Eve! Thanks to Alex, Darnell, Henley, gem, Devin, Lorena, Gracie, Jon, Mike, Dev, and a couple people who I didn’t really know (sorry, I forgot names after a day already) for a fantastic end to 2015!

My Merry Christmas

My Christmas was certainly merry, and I hope everyone else’s was too. This is my little Christmas tree. I hadn’t put the homemade ornaments on it yet, but I forgot to get a photo with them and the gifts. Whoops.

This is at my aunt’s house on Christmas Eve. We do our main celebrating and gift exchange on Christmas Eve, while Christmas day is more relaxed. This photo was just my generation of the family. That’s my cousin Haley on the left, my cousin Mitch under his gifts, and my brother on the right.

Here’s another of Mitchell. He’s pretty awesome.

Now I’m standing with my grandma, my aunt, and my mom. My grandpa is on the right.

Here’s one of me and Pete. He’s trying to hold up a photo on his phone he took of my grandma’s butt.

What happened to grandma’s shoe? Weird.

Here’s a couple gifts from gem! She gave me a Bluetooth speaker, a set of bear sheets (I can’t wait to get into bed tonight), and a ukulele! Amazing! I brought my ukulele with me today when I went to my parents’ for Christmas day to practice. I’m trying to play Martian Girl by the Aquabats. Yes, gifts from me are missing from this post. I’ll talk about them some other time!

Thanksgiving weekend

This might not have been a Thanksgiving spent in Hawaii, but it was still nice and fairly packed full of action. I spent most of Wednesday evening attempting to create pumpkin pie blondies. While I’ll still eat them, I’d say they didn’t work out. Oh well! Thanksgiving morning I woke up at 4 to get an early start and to drive Anela to LAX. On the way home, I stopped by my dad’s to say hello and then headed home for a nap. In the afternoon, I went to my aunt’s in Redondo Beach for Thanksgiving. That’s her dog, Tommy, at the top.

He was pretty freakin’ adorable. I spent the evening with my aunt, uncle, and two cousins. It’s been great getting to know my cousins as young adults. Usually my mom, stepdad, and sometimes brother come too, but this year they didn’t come. I found out that Mom and Pete were painting the house this weekend instead. Oh well. We had a delicious meal, watching Jurassic World and Shark Tank, and played Bananagrams, Rummikub, and Triominos. My cousin Haley left fairly late in the evening to do Black Friday shopping. I didn’t even realize that stores were open at midnight. It seemed crazy to me. More on this very soon…

I left a little after 11 for Irvine. After getting home, I met with gem. For Black Friday from midnight to 8 AM, Spectrum was going to have free carousel and Ferris wheel rides. Now that I knew stores were open at midnight, it made much more sense.

We started with the carousel ride, which was right next to a live DJ. Fun!

Next up was the Ferris wheel. It was freezing, but it was fun! There was free ice skating as well, but we decided it was too cold for that. We went to Macy’s to look for a bathroom, and next thing I knew, we were shopping. I had to send a Snapchat to Haley. Just a few hours earlier, I thought Black Friday shopping at night was silly, yet here I was, 3 in the morning, sucked into stores. I didn’t buy anything though.

After a short night of sleep, I went with gem to her parents’ for a large Thanksgiving meal. Here’s gem’s niece, Selah, laughing. She’s beautiful! I’d seen photos of her, but this was my first time meeting her. How lucky I was!

Selah liked gem’s homemade ice cream. Was that the Earl Grey or the apple pie? No idea.

She got a little on her face! 🙂

She likes playing with phones and seemed to like the camera. We took this selfie! I was careful to ensure she didn’t call 911. She did that recently at their house.

Here’s Selah playing with gem’s ukulele. She hit it like a drum, but when she held it up to smash it down, gem took it away. She’s so adorable!

I played two games of chess with gem’s nephew, Caleb. He kicked my butt. gem and her brothers had a family jam session too! I thought that was really cool.

After that? Black Friday shopping again somehow. There’s nothing I really want in particular, and nothing jumped out at me, but it was still fun.

On Saturday, I visited my mom, Pete, and James. I had offered to help paint the house, but they actually had finished. We played Scrabble and ate chili. Yum! We also came across some old school photos. Can you find me? This is from kindergarten. And this one is from first grade. Later Saturday night I read some of Aeneid, finished Iphigenia at Aulis, and watched Big Hero 6. Exciting evening!

Sunday morning I awoke early to pick up Anela from LAX. I actually drove over 350 miles this weekend, which is impressive considering I didn’t actually go out of town. On the way home, we stopped at Original Pancake House for breakfast! We had blueberry pancakes and Swedish pancakes. Tasty tasty.

In the evening, I finished the weekend by eating leftovers and watching Frozen with gem. We also had these treats! I baked pumpkin pie blondies recently. They tasted decent though they were too strong and too soft and mushy. I considered them failures. gem thought to cover them in dark chocolate. It was a nice improvement; they were much tastier!

Spotify’s Discover Weekly, a great way to discover new music

Spotify introduced the Discover Weekly playlist, giving users custom playlists of new music based on their usage. So far, it’s been pretty amazing for me. If you haven’t tried it yet, check Browse > Discover > Discover Weekly.

Checking my Last.fm reveals that in the last week, nine of my top ten played songs were from my Discover Weekly playlists from the last two weeks. Spotify’s algorithms seem spot on; they certainly know what I like. Discover Weekly is a single playlist that’s updated every Monday. Because I want to save them, I make a new playlist that’s a duplicate of my Discover Weekly. When the Discover Weekly is changed, I still have my duplicate.

One song it recommended was Obsessed With You by The Orion Experience. It recommended it to me two weeks ago with the introduction of Discover Weekly, and it’s now my 38th most played song ever according to Last.fm. That’s crazy. I guess I listened to it a lot. Whoops.

I’ve been looking for ways to discover new music, especially since there are some kinds of music that I enjoy but about which I don’t know much. This is a perfect way to discover new music! And in the interest of discovering new music, here’s a selection of tracks that I’ve enjoyed from my Discover Weekly playlist:

The Orion Experience – Obsessed With You
The Bird and the Bee – F-cking Boyfriend
I Fight Dragons – The Geeks Will Inherit The Earth
MisterWives – Twisted Tongue
Beautiful Small Machines – Counting Back To 1
Crayon Pop – Bar Bar Bar
Garfunkel and Oates – Gay Boyfriend
Morgan Laurence – Come On! Come On!
Dixie Flatline – Just Be Friends
Noah and the Whale – 5 Years Time

If you use Spotify and haven’t checked out your Discover Weekly playlist yet, you’re missing out every week you don’t take a look!