Stats for Nerds: Over-analyzing my 2022 Spotify Wrapped

Greetings, fellow music listeners, and welcome to another end-of-year post! Every year, Spotify gives me and every regular listener a super-detailed summary of most-listened-to songs and artists and other stats that only a nerd like me would be interested in 😊🤓😹 This year I especially enjoyed looking at mine, and thought I’d share my thoughts with you. Enjoy!

Total listening time: 24,787 minutes

My total listening time according to Spotify this year was 24,787 minutes, or roughly 413 hours. Since there are 8,760 hours in a year, this means that I spent an average of 1 hour every day listening to some form of music. VEry inTerestIng… To be honest, I expected this number to be a bit higher, especially after seeing some of my fellow music-lovers’ stats that they’ve shared. It does make since though; I spent a solid couple of months without regular phone access,a nd I do spend quite a bit of time watching YouTube or listening to audiobooks when I could be listening to music instead. I shudder to think of how many hours I’ve spent on YouTube this year 😅😆😹

Music Personality: Voyager

The next thing that Spotify unwraps for you every year is a description of your musical trends and tastes. As a lover of all things personality test related, I was particularly intrigued by this part of Spotify Wrapped. That said, the title of Voyager makes a lot of sense for this year: while I do have a playlist of old reliables that I listen to just about every day, I’ve also become a lot more adventurous in exploring different genres and artists. A lot of my new discoveries came from Instagram/TikTok, songs I heard in stores, and music that was played at my summer job. I’ve come a long way since middle school, when I just about exclusively listened to Owl City and a handful of other contemporary Christian artists!

Top Artists and Genres

Unsurprisingly, my top artists this year included Owl City, Imagine Dragons, OneRepublic, and Coldplay. All of these artists have some of my all-time favorite songs, and I’m somewhere between Casual Aficionado and Completely Obsessed Fangirl with regards to all of them. I also greatly enjoyed some of the new albums from all of these artists and groups, especially Scaled and Icy from Twenty-One Pilots and the new three-volume album from Imagine Dragons. The latter actually released some of their super-old music from 2005-ish this summer, and discovering this made for a very good day 😊

Here are some blog posts that I’ve written with songs by my top 5 artists for 2022:

• Twenty One Pilots – Smithereens
• Single on Valentine’s Day Playlist – 10 Reminders that You’re Loved
• Imagine Dragons – Next to Me (HIGHLY RECOMMEND – this song is SO BEAUTIFUL it made me CRYYYYYYYY🤩😻😭)
• OneRepublic – Counting Stars
• Imagine Dragons – Whatever It Takes
• Imagine Dragons – I Bet My Life
• Coldplay – Army of One
• Coldplay + Big Sean – Miracles (Someone Special)

I was overjoyed to discover that, once again, my top artist for 2022 was Owl City. Spotify put me in the top 0.05% of listeners, which meant that I got to see Adam’s artist message and that ADORABLE smile. Totally made my day, that did 😊 I shared the message (and the smile) in an Instagram reel, and am unashamed to admit that I have watched it many times since then.

Here’s a look at my top genres for 2022:

Again, not surprised at all by these results. Though I would have appreciated having a more “indie” taste in music, I also appreciate having a common love for lots of the same songs as my fellow 18-24 year olds (or so). 2010s kids, unite!

Top Song: This is the Future by Owl City

My top song for 2022 was “This is the Future” by Owl City. This is one of my all-time favorite songs, and one that I feel has defined my life in recent years, so it makes sense that it was the most-listened-to song for this year. I am curious though – What was going on in life on August 15 that caused me to listen to this song so many times?

Here’s a list of some of the posts I’ve written with Owl City songs, including some of the most adorable Christmas songs you’ve ever heard:

• This is the Future
• NEW SONG 2021!!! Remix of Jesus Freak
• Always (this post has three parts – it’s one of my favorites)
• To the Sky
• Humbug (seriously this song is so cute)
• Be Brave (okay… I’ll be brave)
• 9 New Owl City Songs You Might Not Know Existed (Plus free stickers!!)

Top 5 songs of 2022

Last but not least, here are my top 5 songs of 2022. Unsurprisingly, two out of five are from Owl City, one is Imagine Dragons (the one that’s so beautiful it pretty much makes me cry a little every time it comes on), and one is “The Phoenix” by Fall Out Boy. This was one of the songs that likely contributed to Spotify’s designation of Voyager for the year, as it is way beyond anything that I would typically listen to. Once I discovered it, though, I became a little bit obsessed, as it is quite catchy. Here’s the post that I wrote earlier this year about this surprisingly deep song 😎🎶🔥

If you haven’t already, you can view your own Spotify Wrapped 2022 here : )

My Spotify playlist

Of course, I have literally hundreds of playlists on Spotify, but this one contains all of the songs that I love above all others and would recommend that you listen to without any reservations whatsoever. I also have a directory-style post that explains how this playlist is organized and has links to all of the posts I’ve written so far for each song therein. Enjoy!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this delightfully nerdy (at least to me) over-analysis of my 2022 Spotify Wrapped stats. Did you look at yours for this year? What did you discover? I’d love to know!

Happy listening!