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${company} year-in-review

written by arc

published on 2024-10-09

Hello everybody!

This year rather than sharing the results of a certain popular music streaming platforms “year-in-review”. I decided to take a little bit of ownership over my data back and write this post instead!

Throughout this post I am going to include links to artists bandcamps or websites as best I can. The best way to support these artists is as directly as possible and purchases go much further than streams. When it’s not possible to link something more direct I will unfortunately have to link to them on my faceless ${corporation} of choice’s page.

So without further ado…

Welcome to ${company} year-in-review!

Let’s start off with some goofy stats. This year I listened to:

That is wild to me. I mainly use ${company} for discovery so on one hand it’s not surprising but also what?! That is at least 4 new artists every day assuming it tracks a full 365 days. ( I don’t think it does. )

Top 5 Artists

To dive deeper into the artists for a second, my top five is interesting.

  1. Watsky
  2. Rise Against
  3. Studio Thumpy Puppy
  4. Qumu
  5. Rainbow Kitten Surprise

It is dominated by two throwback picks from when I was in middle/high school. Both Watsky and Rise Against got me through high school.

On Rise Against side, Life Less Frightening and Survive are probably some of my favorites. I can sing just about every song they wrote from 2004 through 2011. Straight bangers the whole way if you are into it.

For Watsky, xInfinity was my album. I enjoyed a good bit of the albums before it but xInfinity was my jam. Chemical Angels might be one of my favorite songs on the album outside of the bonus track Exquisite Corpse which features a whopping 7 other artists.

Studio Thumpy Puppy is not a surprise whatsoever. They did the soundtrack to my current favorite game, In Stars And Time. ( Go play it if you haven’t yet. ) So I have had them on repeat whenever I need instrumental since the day I finished the game.

Qumu is an interesting pick but it fits alongside Studio Thumpy Puppy in that I often listen to them when I need instrumental lyric-less music. Some of my favorite songs are their version of Coconut Mall and TLOZ: Spirit Tracks Overworld music.

Rainbow Kitten Surprise is great. The music is a nice vibe and the songs are chill. The vocalists voice is unique and unlike any other that I have listened to. One of my favorite songs is Hide and I like how it tackles the struggles of being LGBTQIA+ in a situation where you aren’t able to come out. It’s given extra emotion coming from the vocalist as it’s more or less about his coming out and what he faced.

Top 5 Songs

Pivoting to songs is also interesting. I am extremely surprised by what is on here.

  1. Overload - Akintoye
  2. People Eater - Sodikken
  3. Bobby Boucher (ADAM SANDLER) - Pertinence, DDK
  4. I I I - Houshou Marine, Kobo Kanaeru
  5. FIGHT! - Aests

One thing all these artists have in common is that these are the only songs by them that I listen to. I actually don’t know much about any of them but perhaps this is a sign that I should listen and find out more. Due to this I am just going to go over how these songs make me feel and/or what I like about them.

First up is Overload by Akintoye. This song is fast and a bop. That’s really it. It’s got some good energy, the lyrics are more or less about the artists potential to be great and how others want a piece of that. The chorus is also just straight catchy and definitely exudes an ego that when combined with the guitar and synth(?) just feels great.

People Eater by sodikken I definitely did listen to quite a bit but I did not think it was enough to land second. The song is just kind of… weird? Not in a bad way, it’s just very interesting. Looking at the lyrics closer than my casual listening, it appears to describe a toxic relationship. The instruments feel all over the place in certain bits and the song does evoke a feeling of sadness.

Bobby Boucher (ADAM SANDLER) by Pertinence, Featuring DDK is another song that’s just a bop. At one point they rap in an Adam Sandler style. Song is just silly and fun, good rhythm and good rhymes. I likely added this just because I was in the car when it came on and was vibing to it. Thus it landed here, I guess I vibed to it a little more than I thought.

III by Houshou Marine and Kobo Kanaeru was my summer song. I don’t know anything about the artists other than that they are popular vtubers. I jammed to this on the way home from work many a day. Windows rolled down and just generally being a terror. The songs got nice instrumentals. The lyrics are fun even if I had to look for a translation.

FIGHT! by Aests is such a fun song. I have long wanted to make a video to this song. It just screams AMV time. Great beats, fun lyrics, impeccable energy. It just feels great and honestly should be higher on this list.

The ones that didn’t make the cut…

I am honestly kind of disappointed about this. Not that I hate what I did get but there are so many other cool artists that I thought would be here. I don’t think I’m going to get into all the details like I did above but I am going to list out some artists and songs that I think deserve attention.

and so many more

but I think I am going to save some for next year…

As I mentioned previously, try to support your favorite artists as directly as possible. Streaming only goes so far.