Data: I’m relying solely on last.fm data since I learned that Spotify Wrapped only uses data through the end of October, which cuts off two whole months of listening. The numbers differ between Spotify and last.fm, which makes me wonder if one of them is being dumb, or some scrobbles aren’t making it to last.fm. The Musicorum project turns your last.fm stats into a Wrapped-style report.
What I Listened To
- 4100 unique tracks
- 1650 artists
- 2700 albums
Genres
My most-listened genres were:
- Indie
- Electronic
- Indie rock
- Indie pop
- Rock
My Favorite Music from 2021
Top Played
My top artists were:
- Islands (414 plays)
- Ladytron (326 plays)
- Tame Impala (300 plays)
- OK Go (233 plays)
- Spoon (217 plays)
My top played song was Feel the Way I Want by Caroline Rose, which I listened to 141 times.
My Best of the Year Playlist
Here’s my curated playlist of favorite songs from 2021:
New Music Discovery
I try to listen widely — a quarter of the artists I listened to were new to me. I also listened to more albums and tracks from artists I already knew. Overall 35% of the tracks I listened to were new, and 40% of the albums.
How Much I Listened
I listened to the most total tracks ever since I started tracking: just over 16,000 plays. That added up to 45 days worth of listening, or almost 1100 hours.
2021 Listening Compared to the Past
I listened to slightly more music than last year, on average one more song a day.
My listening has grown pretty steadily over the past ten years, reaching the levels I listened back in college.
How I Listened
I continued my habit of making one giant playlist that I add through during the year called “2021 New Music,” where I add anything that interests me enough to give a second shot (so sometimes I have to delete stuff if it’s not as good as I thought on second listen). I also listened a lot to my weirdo “synthwave” playlist, plus some writing playlists I made. Sometimes I’ll put on a whole album while I’m cooking.
I fell off my habit of listening to Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” and “Release Radar” playlists, where I usually get new music, but still seemed to try a good number of new musicians. I listened to more of Spotify’s auto-generated playlists created based on existing songs or playlists, so that exposed me to new material.
I usually listen for a couple hours during the workday, but always do when I’m writing. Putting on headphones helps me go into focus mode. Using my bluetooth speaker, I’ve been listening while I make brunch on weekends or bake, and try to put it on if I’ll be cleaning or doing chores. I also listen while I’m on my bike, though I didn’t ride as much in 2021.
Almost all my listening is on Spotify, unless I’m in the car where my bluetooth is annoying so I mostly listen to CDs (which don’t get tracked) — but I haven’t been driving much this year. I used to like putting on the radio but have found the musical zeitgeist has apparently diverged too much from mine over the pandemic, so pretty much the only stations I can bear now are KEXP, our local public radio station, and the classical station.
4 replies on “Music of 2021”
Second shot!
2021 felt like it went on forever, even as that time flew by. We started off with a horrifying insurrection against the US government that has gone essentially unpunished, nearly guaranteeing us a future repeat. Even after Biden was inaugurated, Trumpers continued to claim that he was secretly acting president or would take office at some other special date. The politics and strain of 2020 and early 2021 left me wrung out, but fortunately I was able to make some changes and get support that helped. The rest of the year hasn’t helped — doom punctuated by a few moments of shared levity — but I’ve been in a better headspace to manage it.
We were all about the risk mitigation this year, so the grand highlight of the year is that we successfully did not get COVID! I continued working from home, going through an accommodations process to keep telecommuting over the summer when my work reopened in the midst of the Delta variant surge. We’ve continued to remain cautious about seeing people in person, and I spent 80 hours on video calls for fun or personal projects. In an unexpected yet seemingly inevitable turn of events, we’re finishing the year as we started it, sheltering in place from the Omicron strain this time.
Highlights of 2021
Got vaccinated and boosted!
Did not get COVID!
Got to see some friends and family for the first time in years!
Finished my novel rewrite!
Tackled health issues and got some diagnoses!
Ate a lot of brunch!
Creative Time
I spent about 240 hours on creative work (Scrivener, blogging, and photo editing). I decided not to technically participate in NaNoWriMo this year, but instead adapt it to myself with a daily time goal instead of word count goal.
See my 2021 Creative Annual Review.
Play
Reading
I read 175 books in 2021. See my 2021 reading review.
Music
I listened to the most tracks I ever have in a year. I feel more comfortable listening to music at home than at work, even though I could wear headphones at the office. My bluetooth speaker also makes it convenient to listen while I’m doing other stuff around the house. See my 2021 listening report.
Joy
I love brunch, so I decided to take advantage of never having plans by making us a variety of delicious brunches on Sundays (and some Saturdays).
I tried to appreciate the beauty in my garden throughout the seasons, and thanked my past self for the gift of early spring crocuses. I’ve paid that forward again with a garden bed full of bulbs that should bloom from February through June.
Fun
I got more and more into the IndieWeb and my own websites. I realized that blogging and doing things on my website is something I barely even consider a task, and what I tend to turn to when I don’t want to work on something else.
Friends and Family
I started going to Homebrew Website Club meetings pretty regularly, and made friends with other website geeks around the country.
I got in a couple friend dates doing outdoor activities, like blueberry picking and visiting the pumpkin patch. We played a Masks TTRPG game for a few months.
We were able to see my parents twice and my sister once briefly, for the first time in four years. We went to my cousin’s (rescheduled from spring 2020) wedding on the peninsula (even though I only felt comfortable staying for about an hour).
I took a couple gal pals on an introductory low-key backpacking trip in the fall.
Dates + Vacations
We didn’t really get a vacation in 2021 😥 A disappointment after the hope of vaccination — though staying safe (and keeping others safe) is a much higher priority, and I recognize skipping vacation is a very privileged problem to have.
We took a week off work in late August but stayed home except for a quick overnight to Port Townsend at a tiny hotel that had no reception and only two other rooms. We had another week off in December, but had to cancel an AirBnB stay in Ocean Shores because of an unusual snowstorm and record cold temperatures.
Before we were vaccinated, I didn’t feel safe going anywhere, even outdoors because I was worried about how many people would be out and whether they’d keep their distance and wear masks. Once we got our double shots, we started doing day trip excursions to outdoor locations. It was good to get out of the house a few times at least! Compared with 2020 I was very happy to feel comfortable going anywhere.
Health
My mental health was in a bad place in January 2021 — worse than I realized — and I decided I needed to make changes. My health coach for the first six months of the year helped me follow through on things when I was having a hard time. After a long wait, I finally was connected with a therapist. I started to meet a friend for masked walks, after not seeing anyone I knew besides my husband for more than six months, and none of my friends since March 2020.
At the start of the year, I tried making myself take at least one weekend day off from doing anything work-like, and discovered that instead of helping me relax and recover, it was agonizingly painful.
I endured an insomnia cognitive behavioral therapy program in the spring, which was utterly miserable, and garnered mediocre results.
We got vaccinated as soon as we could, with the second shot taking effect at the end of May. I was thrilled to get together with more friends in person as soon as they were vaccinated in June. Like everyone else, I looked forward to a slightly more normal summer, and even hoped we’d be able to take a vacation down to the Oregon Coast. I was able to see my parents briefly. Then Delta hit.
I got more and more stressed as the day to return to work approached, and suffered from some terrible stress-triggered ailments. My workplace opened basically right as Delta was cresting. I panicked and realized I couldn’t do it, and requested accommodations — so I have been continuing to work from home, although that process turned out to be VERY stressful and anxiety-inducing and made me feel even worse for a while. For now I am good through February 15, and will have to resubmit to keep staying home, so I feel that looming over me. It’s really frustrating to feel up in the air for months.
I got boosted as soon as I realized being overweight counted, in mid-late November, so should be as protected as ever currently — just in time for Omicron. I’m getting worried again, and still really hope not to get COVID quite yet. I know we’re all going to get it eventually, but I’d like for us to know more about long COVID before I resign myself to my fate, if it can be avoided.
Over the summer I began to tackle a bunch of other health issues, seeing a nutritionist, a cardiologist, and another specialist, which led to new diagnoses and medications. Finally in late fall this year, I felt like my medications were in a decent spot, with more minor tweaks happening now.
Household
At the start of the year, I created a new reading space for myself downstairs.
Over the summer, the blackberry in our backyard erupted, and we brought in a team to raze it to the ground.
Then we used Yardzen to create a plan for the backyard, which we’re hoping to get installed in 2022.
Spending and Saving
House payoff – on pace for March 2035 assuming no extra principal payments
Saved ~25% of our gross pay in long-term savings (I’m including extra mortgage principal payments, retirement accounts, and our joint investment account)
Saved ~12% of our take-home income in short-term savings
Meta
I continued doing quarterly reviews this year.
This year I moved my reading report and listening report over to my other site since they are intake-focused rather than things I’ve made or done.
I continued using the Kanban method to track tasks and keep them front-of-sight in 2021. For part of the year, I used stickers on a calendar to track whether or not I’d exercised and written, but that habit fell off. I also stopped logging all my workouts in my notebook.
Reflection
Although this year sucked, I feel like we did as well as we could considering our personal imperative to not get COVID. If 2020 was a year of survival, 2021 was a year of adaptation.
I took advantage of telecommuting to follow up on a lot of medical issues, since remote appointments use up a lot less time and energy. I hope we can keep remote medical appointments for anything that doesn’t require a physical examination. I made a lot of headway on my medical issues (my therapist called me out on trying to fix everything at once, she was not wrong 🤷♀️). Getting a diagnosis has been somewhat life-changing, helping me improve the way I think about things.
I put in a lot of work on boundary-setting this year, and am proud of myself for realizing that I didn’t feel safe returning to the office (causing stress which triggers other physical ailments), and asking for the help and accommodations that I need to stay safe and healthy. I have also gotten closer to several of my friends after pushing through more personal and frank conversations.
So I’m coming into 2022 in a much better place than a year ago, even if I still struggle sometimes. I’m working on accepting myself and learning to let myself be bad at things, and trusting people not to bail on me because I’m not perfect. I have no idea what the year ahead will bring, but the work I’ve put in over 2021 should help with whatever it turns out to be.
Liked Rob Sheffield on the Joys of the CD, Music’s Least-Glamorous Format by Rob Sheffield (Rolling Stone)
I still have a CD player in my car so I hung onto my favorite 20-30 albums, and I somewhat regret getting rid of my collection. It wasn’t ever as big as my parent’s, but I had ~50-70 jazz CDs (donated to the local HS music department so hopefully someone’s still using them) plus probably a hundred albums. Some indie shit I probably couldn’t replace if I wanted (I like to think I’ve become slightly more thoughtful about what I give away in my wiser 30s 😂).
But to be fair, my listening has shifted a lot since college, so the music I listen to most I don’t have on CD, and I got rid of a bunch of albums that I had kinda outgrown, so maybe it’s not a bad thing. I’ve only bought one or two CDs a year for the past decade, indie bands I wanted to give some extra support (and listen in the car).
There’s something about having a tangible object that makes it easier to flip through your collection and pull out things you haven’t listened to in a while. Growing up I was obsessed with learning to recognize every song that came on, so I was constantly comparing against the back of the CD. I liked looking through the liner art, and had a great visual memory for what the cover of every album was. Now it’s hard for me to remember what artist performed what song – I think that physical object of the jewel case was an anchor point for my memory. I also listen to playlists primarily these days, and know only a single song (or handful) by any given artist.
(Related? Structures of Thought)
I think there’s a place for both CDs and playlists in a musical library – I’ve benefitted from both styles of listening. But I do miss my five disc changer from my youth… hooked up to massive speakers nearly 3′ tall in my living room so they could punch some damn volume 😂 (No idea if they were any good or not 🤷♀️)
I also think it’s worth remembering we got rid of our CDs for a reason… they do take up a lot of space and jewel cases are shit… but now we’ve spent time without them we can recognize what we’ve lost along with them.
I keep thinking about looking up a used CD player, maybe I’ll actually get around to it once day 🤷♀️😂 I’m curious how much I would listen to CDs if we upgraded the music system in our car and Bluetooth wasn’t an enormous pain – would I revert to mostly Spotify playlists on my phone? 🤔
We discussed syndicating notes from your website to Twitter at yesterday’s Homebrew Website Club in light of the upcoming Twitter ownership transfer, as a way to demonstrate existing POSSE technology and encourage more people to adopt IndieWeb approaches. I expressed that I struggle with *whether* I want to do this rather than *how*. What seems like it should be a simple step — posting to Twitter from my website — reveals itself as a complex decision rooted in how I want to present myself online.
Tl;dr: having one place to host all my content is simplest, but means being ok with uniting all aspects of my identity.
What I’m doing now
Dividing my writing across four platforms
I consider each platform to have a distinct purpose, so I silo where information belongs in my mind,* even when I own the silos.
* I also have this struggle with notebooks, and can’t write the wrong info in the wrong notebook. It’s a problem 😂
The platforms where I post now and their purpose
I started my blog Cascadia Inspired in 2011 as a way to help me adopt the Pacific Northwest as my home, and over the years my focus has shifted to creative work. My blog hosts long-form articles, photo collections, and personal accountability — in short, anything about making things.
articles about creative work
personal accountability
nature photos and excursions / trip reports
In 2020, I transformed tracydurnell.com from a dead portfolio website to a digital garden, a place to save information and start to think about it, without having high expectations of myself for producing high quality writing or original insights. My intention for this site, up to this point, has been to track and process my intake.
bookmarks and replies
personal data, like tracking my reading and listening
Wanting to reduce my use of Instagram and Twitter, I joined micro.blog in 2021. I use the microblogging service to post (mostly boring) things from my daily life. What I post on my micro blog is personal, rooted in connection.
day-to-day fluff (e.g. what I baked)
And I still have my Twitter account, which I created in 2014 and have used sporadically since, finding it addictive. I knew it was a problem when I started composing tweet commentary in my head as I walked around during the day. Periodically, I go through my past tweets and purge most, granting myself a clean slate from past opinions. I have to resist falling back into the habit of commentary, which I in particular needed to be careful of when I worked in local government. I hold onto this silo because I get very little interaction on my blog or this website, so Twitter remains in my communication stack for promotion.
anything I want people to actually see (e.g. IndieWeb events, friends’ accomplishments, personal promotion)
social and political commentary, when I can’t restrain myself 😎(preferably in my drafts folder here)
What writing belongs where?
The boundaries blur as I write more online…and add platforms
Now that I have more channels, I’m struggling with where exactly other content I want to make should live:
Personal accountability posts (like quarterly reviews) currently go on my blog, with the reasoning being that it’s about creative work and work-life balance…but it’s also very personal information, so maybe it makes sense to live here, where my other “currently doing” info lives? As I experimented with weeknotes this fall, I also posted those on my blog.
I’ve transferred my listening reports and reading reports here from my blog, where I used to post them before this incarnation of tracydurnell.com. I’ve been tracking listening and reading here, so it made sense to bring over the analysis of that too.
Sometimes I want to post personal posts about my life that don’t quite fit on my blog. I have tried posting those on micro.blog, but it doesn’t feel quite right. It also doesn’t necessarily feel right to mix them in with my feed of intake, here.
How long need commentary be to “count” as a blog post? Should some articles I post here instead live on my blog, if they are related to creativity or nature?
I recently started to add recipes to this website, which makes sense as basically another reference. But I’ve been thinking about developing more pages about specific topics that would be more original content — reference for other people, but thinking for me. Should those live on my blog?
How about a collection of photos? I’ve thus far limited Cascadia Inspired to PNW nature content, so I haven’t had a place to post non-nature shots or from outside the northwest — but photography clearly falls into the blog wheelhouse of “things I made.”
What is the best way to present my writing online?
As I juggle this increasing number of decisions, and want to add more varieties of content, it’s raising bigger questions, namely:
Should all of my writing and information live in one spot? I’ve been writing at Cascadia Inspired for ten years*, so I don’t want to erase that history. Yet this site bears my name. Does it make sense that the website under my name — likely the first impression people get about me — hosts my arguably shittiest work, while my highest quality work is off on another site? 🤔 *Dramatic music plays*
* And apparently I posted about my ten year blogiversary on Twitter but not on my website 🤦♀️
Am I comfortable having my full identity represented in one place?
It comes down to identity: I have faceted elements of my online identity onto different platforms, but the boundaries are mutable.
If you only read my micro.blog, you’d think all I care about is reading and baking. My Twitter account is mixed content-wise, but overall with the intent of demonstrating I’m thoughtful and enthusiastic. My blog presents a clearer picture of my interests and personality since it hosts my accountability posts, but paints me perhaps more philosophical and reflective. And this digital garden is the most unfiltered of my writing, covering the broadest range of my interests, but in slapdash quality.
Having only one platform would certainly make the decision-making process about where to post things easier. But even here on tracydurnell.com, I segment info by having a separate RSS feed for my read posts, which I exclude from my main digital garden RSS feed — in a way, filtering what identity is shared by different feeds.
The questions I need to answer before POSSEing my tweets
Do I want to post the kinds of things I’d post to Twitter here on my digital garden, or on my blog? Self-promotion might make sense to post from my blog, and promotion of others or events from here. Is the tone similar enough, or would it be jarring? Could it even be beneficial to mix in some more professional tone posts here? Would having some posts of a different tone impact my comfort in continuing to write freely and naturally on this site? Can I handle writing (briefly) about things I make here and not on my blog?
Do I want to expand this site beyond ‘intake’? Is it even expanding what I post here, considering I write enough commentary that it’s hard to say I’m not ‘making’ anything here 😉 Can adding tweets here also make me feel more comfortable adding the other things I want to add, like photos?
Is it too weird to post a note about an article on the same website? Tantek pointed out this could be addressed by excluding notes from the main feed, so readers could subscribe to notes separately.
Would I feel comfortable with my daily life posts from micro.blog also appearing on Twitter? Maybe. I use a chattier voice on micro.blog and try to be somewhat more professional on Twitter. It feels more vulnerable to share real life things to the broad and sometimes hostile audience of Twitter.
Generally, am I also comfortable expanding the range of what I share on Twitter? Posting more would probably be beneficial, but also means engaging with the site more often, which is dangerous to me.
How about posting what I would post on Twitter on micro.blog and syndicating from there? Yeah, this I’d be ok with.
Are there things that I post to Twitter that I would not want to lose? Generally no, though perhaps my framing when I share articles adds value — an editor’s note, if you will.
In thinking all this through, my instinctive balking at combining my writing streams may be more resistance to change than reasoned refusal — there are a number of potential benefits I’ve raised in this exploration. Instead, the problem is more in feeling comfortable freely expressing myself everywhere I am online, and letting go of my ‘work voice.’ As an anxious person who struggles with caring too much about what others think of me, this is rooted in fear of rejection. How much do these platform personas benefit me, and how much do they hold me back?
Also posted on IndieNews
We discussed syndicating notes from your website to Twitter at yesterday’s Homebrew Website Club in light of the upcoming Twitter ownership transfer, as a way…