Nonsequitur Life

After the way 2022 ended and 2023 began as far as my music habits, I wasn’t sure what this year’s stats were going to look like. Aside from an excessive amount of plays by The Killers. That much was a given.

The results were really not all that surprising—they rarely are—and it was very heavy on The Killers followed mostly by the Wicked White soundtrack. Fall Out Boy, Matchbox Twenty, and Semisonic all put out new albums. The Killers and Toad the Wet Sprocket put out new greatest hits albums. Those do show up in the numbers, but some not as much as I would have expected.

As the months ticked by, numbers gradually returned to a more normal level, but overall plays are still down from last year. Though I did finally get Last.fm up and running on my phone so now anything I listen to away from my computer gets tracked after so many years of missing those numbers.

Last.fm has a fancy new year-end wrap-up this year too, so I got to see even more useless information on my listening habits. I did consider just taking screenshots of all the various components and pasting them into this post, but I really didn’t feel like formatting that many graphics when all I really want to do is take a damn nap.

Yes, hello, Covid cough is not conducive to sleep, somebody free me from this fresh hell.

*hack*

*cough*

*wheeze*

Anyway.

Seeing things laid out in a grid as opposed to just a bunch of numbers is interesting. You can see the two weeks when Last.fm wasn’t running and not tracking anything. And there were a lot more days than expected that I didn’t listen to anything at all, or only listened to a handful of songs.

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In 2023 I listened to a grand total of …

… 14,676 plays of

… 996 tracks from

… 222 albums by

… 92 artists.

This is down a hefty chunk from 2022. Which is a bigger drop than the one from 2021 to 2022. That isn’t terribly surprising, but it is the lowest numbers have been since 2011.

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The first song of the year played was … Can’t Fight Against the Youth by Panic! At the Disco.

The last song of the year played was … Papa Gene’s Blues by The Monkees.

Across all of Last.fm…

I was #7 overall for listening to Brandon Flowers.

I was #4 for listening to the Battle Born album by The Killers.

I was #2 for listening to Fire in Bone by The Killers.

I have no idea how many active users Last.fm actually has, but I certainly didn’t expect to rank so high on any of these points. The fact that all three were Killers related is amusing but not at all surprising.

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Top 10 Most Played Artists…

1.) The Killers … 5,735 plays

2.) Panic! At the Disco … 1,339 plays

3.) Brandon Flowers … 1,183 plays

4.) O.A.R. … 1,045 plays

5.) The Monkees … 528 plays

6.) Fall Out Boy … 523 plays

7.) The Fray … 461 plays

8.) Matchbox Twenty … 391 plays

9.) Splender … 367 plays

10.) Nine Days … 358 plays

Honorable mention: Toad the Wet Sprocket, The Young Veins, Ingram Hill, Train, Avicii, Elton John, Sara Bareilles, Stage, Matt Nathanson, Survivor, P!nk, Gavin DeGraw, Semisonic, Better Than Ezra, Tim Blane

Most of these are as high as they are because of the Wicked White soundtrack. It’s much like so many years ago when the Ben & Marina playlist was in heavy rotation. It’s a mix of artists, but when you listen to the whole thing on repeat, the numbers add up.

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Top 10 Most Played Albums…

1.) Sam’s Town – The Killers … 989 plays

2.) Battle Born – The Killers … 933 plays

3.) Day & Age – The Killers … 758 plays

4.) Flamingo – Brandon Flowers … 685 plays

5.) Too Weird to Live Too Rare to Die – Panic! At the Disco … 673 plays

6.) Imploding the Mirage – The Killers … 560 plays

7.) Wonderful Wonderful – The Killers … 495 plays

8.) The Desired Effect – Brandon Flowers … 491 plays

9.) Hot Fuss – The Killers … 465 plays

10.) The Arcade – O.A.R. … 370 plays

Honorable mention: more from The Killers, Panic! At the Disco, and O.A.R., Matchbox Twenty, The Fray, Fall Out Boy, The Young Veins, Splender, The Monkees, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Avicii, Ingram Hill, Matt Nathanson, Survivor, Nine Days, Elton John, Stage, Semisonic

The most amusing part of the top ten here is that Panic!‘s Too Weird album landed that high because of two songs played on repeat as opposed to listening to the whole album. Granted if a Panic! album is going to rank high on the list, Too Weird is the most likely candidate.

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Top 10 Most Played Songs…

1.) Can’t Fight Against the Youth – Panic! At the Disco … 296 plays

2.) Fire in Bone – The Killers … 284 plays

3.) Collar Full – Panic! At the Disco … 187 plays

4.) boy – The Killers … 185 plays

5.) Runaways – The Killers … 155 plays

6.) The Days (RX3) – Avicii & Brandon Flowers … 154plays

7.) Battle Born – The Killers … 146 plays

8.) The Way it Was – The Killers … 145 plays

9.) Carry Me Home – The Killers … 131 plays

10.) Caution – The Killers … 123 plays

Honorable mention: (a lot) more from The Killers and Panic! At the Disco, Brandon Flowers, O.A.R., Elton John, Survivor, Nine Days, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Fall Out Boy, The Monkees, Darren Hayes, Ingram Hill, Sara Bareilles, The Airborne Toxic Event, The Fray, Duran Duran, Foo Fighters

See: top 10 albums RE: Panic!‘s standing. Can’t Fight Against the Youth and Collar Full were both played on repeat a lot because…reasons. Also I had to scroll through practically the entirety of The Killers‘s discography to get to more artists for the honorable mentions.

It was a very Killers heavy year in case you hadn’t noticed.

Jinx doesn’t mind what we listen to as long as she can dance to it.

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Hard Habit to Break Chicago