2025 Music Retrospective

The below "new approach" isn't all there is to be said about my music consumption this year, but it's a major part of it.

A new approach to music discovery

Prior to this year, my approach to music discovery looked like this:

• Listen to songs I already like, and let Spotify auto-play (usually related/similar) songs after I finish listening to specific songs or albums
• Take album recommendations from friends or the internet and listen through those albums
• Occasionally find a song, artist, or album that I really liked, and then maybe obsessively listen to their stuff until I'm fully saturated on their content
• Decide it's time to branch back out and begin exploring again

But something I noticed is that I would really like certain songs or albums only after listening to them multiple times, and sometimes those "multiple times" could be spread out over a long period of time. I usually add a song to my "Liked songs" in Spotify, but that doesn't mean I'll listen to it again anytime soon. If it took two listens for me to really like something, and there is a very long gap between my first listen and second listen, it feels like there is some level of "wasted" time or opportunity with regards to how quickly I can gain appreciation for a song I've heard once.

This also incurs a concern that I might listen to a song once, and never listen to it again, but if I had listened to it again, there could be high reward in terms of appreciation.

So for a big chunk of this year, I tried an approach that was aimed at getting me to more frequently listen back to albums that caught my interest.

At the beginning of a "cycle", I would use one of the music discovery methods (from auto-play, or recommendations) and then if an album caught my interest enough that it felt like it was worth listening to more, I created a new playlist and added the full album to the playlist. I then gave the playlist a name, pretty much always a random phrase that popped into my head at that exact moment. I then AI-generated an image, based on the name I came up with and my current sentiment in that moment, and used it as the playlist cover image.

Then for any other albums I liked within this time span, I added those to that current playlist as well, until the playlist hit around 3-5 albums total.

The idea was then that in moments when I didn't have anything specific I wanted to listen to, I would turn to this playlist as my default just-play-something playlist. This way, I would continue to expose myself to these albums repeatedly, and perhaps develop an appreciation for them, to a degree that I wouldn't have if I had just let the albums float by and maybe chance upon them later.

Usually after a month or two, I would feel like I had consumed the albums from that playlist enough, and I would start a new cycle for the next new album that interested me.

Another note on why I did this at the album level rather than for individual songs: Part of my general music discovery process is that if I like one or a couple songs on an album, I usually end up liking a lot more of the other songs on the album, as I listen to it over time. This is part of the core theory of why I started this playlist approach, to create a structure of exposing myself to all the songs in an album over time.

How did this go?

It started strong and then fizzled towards the end of the year.

I really liked the cadence at the beginning. It felt like I was developing more of an appreciation for the albums I was adding.

There was a flaw from the start, though, or maybe not a flaw but just something for me to be aware of. I might add an album to one of the playlists and not end up liking the album beyond my early listen. But I think that's okay. The point of this is to see what I end up liking more after repeat listens. The ones I care about will stand out. But it does mean that there are just some "dead" albums in these playlists. Ones that I don't care much about but which are still there. I think that's okay. These playlists are meant to be "discovery" playlists.

There's another ambiguity. During this process, there are several albums that became major favorites. However, I don't know if I can attribute that appreciation as being caused by this playlist approach, or if they inevitably would have become one of my "obsessions" after a first listen. I'll never know the answer to this, but what's important is that I found them and kept listening to them. That being said, I do think that the playlist approach had an impact here, at least to some extent. It kept the music on my radar, made it feel imminent, and brought me back to it as a sort of default, which perhaps I wouldn't have done as much otherwise. (Primarily I am thinking about albums from the band "Larry and His Flask" for this big win.)

I do truly feel that I developed deep appreciation for several albums due to this process. The real value here was in giving me a place to keep albums that I wanted to pay more attention to. So I don't lose them when I at first become interested. I don't have to scramble and search and remember which albums I wanted to focus on. They were right there in my current-cycle playlist. This aid on its own did a lot for helping me to have the focus I needed to pay proper attention to the albums I felt interest in.

Why did it fizzle toward the end of the year? I think partly it's because I became a bit more Broadway-focus in the last few months. Probably it started once I was exposed to Into The Woods, and suddenly I switched into theater-mode and I didn't need to track these in the playlist style. For some reason, theater just feels like a different part of my music journey and so I instinctively did not want to integrate show albums into my music discovery playlist process. And I think that's fine. The real effect here is that I was way more interested in the theater music than doing proper music discovery like I was doing for the rest of the year before then. And then once I mostly got past that Broadway phase, I made one more "cycle" playlist, but it was way more fragmented and I wasn't feeling the drive to add albums to it and listen back to it.

Will I do this again next year?

Maybe, maybe not. I'm interested in exploring other ways to manage music interest. I still believe in the principle that structured repeat exposure can lead to developing an appreciating for music that otherwise I wouldn't get. I'm not sure my above approach is the perfect one.

Basically, I'll go with the flow. I seem to be on a break from the playlist approach now (at the end of the year), and I have a feeling that break will continue for a little bit.

But I don't think my value of discovering new music is going away anytime soon, so I wouldn't be surprised if I seek out new ways to encourage and cultivate that, or continue this playlist approach.

The playlists

Rabbit Enters Winter - Created Dec 21, 2024^[1]

Standout albums:

• "SELF-iSH" by Will Wood and the Tapeworms
  • Some of these songs became obsessions. I love them but they are kind of dark in a goofy, twisted way. Later in the year, I was generally hesitant to listen back to these because I guess I wasn't feeling like a return into darkness, but they are great songs.
• "Reality vs. the Optimist" by Kiss Kiss
  • I wish I listened to this one more, I liked it but Will Wood kind of dominated my focus of this playlist. Want to go back to this more in the future. Does have a similar vibe to the Will Wood songs.
• "Riding a Black Unicorn..." by Aurelio Voltaire
  • I surprised myself with appreciating these. If I recall correctly, I got drawn in by "When the Circus Came to Town" (given my circus/juggling interests), but many of the other songs kept me in. Some of them are also quite dark and graphic. And I just plainly do not like "The Dirtiest Song That Ain't". But "Riding a black unicorn" (the song), "The Mechanical Girl", and a couple of the others are high re-listenability to me. They are a bit silly and theatrical though. Not really my usual vibe, and it's not the most sophisticated feeling. I'm interested in exploring more Aurelio Voltaire (he's known for spooky Halloween music) but I made an initial attempt at some point and didn't catch onto the one or two other albums I checked out.
• "Rockin' the Suburbs" by Ben Folds
  • I discovered Ben Folds through a couple songs he did with Regina Spektor (who is one of my earliest music interests (started with the song Eet, and then when she did a SummerStage concert in NYC a couple years ago I got into a bunch of her other songs) and then decided to explore his other music, hence why this album got added here
  • I ended up liking a bunch of the songs in this album. Looking at the songs, though, "Zak and Sara" is the only one that stands out in memory, and I can't remember what most of the others were like. I liked them, though, and would listen more (though I honestly haven't much).

Somebody Called You (Thrumming) - Created Feb 27, 2025

Every album in this one was standout.

• "...And the Battle Begun" by Rx Bandits
  • This likely has a spot in my favorite albums of all time. The musical sound is so unique to me, I don't know what else to compare it to. I can't name top tracks, partly because I love most (if not all) of them, and partly because I honestly always forget what song the titles go with.
  • Surprisingly, I also find that I probably don't know most of the lyrics that well. I'm usually strongly lyric-minded. But even if the lyrics are not as memorable (or maybe just hard for me to follow because they are kind of fast paced), the sound of the music comes through extremely strong. There are totally still little snippets of the catchiest lyrics that I know, but these perhaps just aren't the type of songs that make me feel the need to memorize the lyrics (unlike Streetlight Manifest (my favorite band in the last few years), whose lyrics almost all become an instant need for being memorized)
• "Ten Stories" by mewithoutYou
  • I need to listen to this more (and listen to their other albums). Another unique kind of sound for me, which I really liked. Often giving spoken-word vibes, leaning into aggressive-rage spoken word (not like heavy-metal rage vibes, but like, someone really passionately and strongly and intensely speaking their spoken words. I love it. ^[2]
  • Associate this with an airport waiting for plane, I was listening to a bunch of the songs while waiting.
• "By the Lamplight" by Larry and His Flask
  • The caveat here is that Larry and His Flask was already waaaay on my radar, and I would have listened to them plenty whether they were in this playlist or not, but I do think that adding it to this playlist reinforced it and made absolute sure I would keep going back to it.
  • Larry and His Flask was the artist of the year for me, absolutely. If 2024 was the year of Streetlight Manifesto (and it was), 2025 was the year of Larry and His Flask (but still, look at all my other favorites in this overall list, there were so many standouts this year that I feel a little weird pointing LAHF as the #1, but it still feels right to say.)
  • What do I like so much? The strong vocals (the lead singer has a really nice voice), love the lyrics and general themes, and the musicality and folky vibes are all great.
• "The Script" by The Script
  • This feels like an "education" pick to me. Like, I was culturing myself with a classic. I don't know if The Script is supposed to be considered a classic. But it feels that way to me.
  • I ended up liking a lot of the songs, so definitely a win. They didn't stay on my radar after this playlist's cycle though.

Must also mention that the LAHF album has a song called "Muffled Thrums", which is not at all the reason I called the playlist "Thrumming", but I am enamored with that fact that it worked out like that.

I created this playlist during a car ride (and an image of that ride flashes into my mind when I think about the origins of the playlist title).

During that car ride, I also used ChatGPT to get a couple of these recs -- specifically for Rx Bandits and mewithoutYou (for those specific albums I added) -- essentially seeding this playlist with those. Specifically I was asking ChatGPT for recs similar to Streetlight Manifesto. The pros and cons of AI for this can surely be debated, but clearly it paid off here.

Bubbles Rising to the Surface - Created April 8th, 2025

I think I like the title of the playlist more than the individual albums. HOWEVER, that's not to say I didn't like the music. Just not as memorable as other albums this year.

Still worth mentioning:

• "Absolution" by Muse
• "PIPER CoolSelection" by PIPER
• "Stick Season" by Noah Kahan
• "Fight With Tools" by Flobots
  • Flobots is one of my favorite artists. I don't know this album that well so I threw it in here. It honestly didn't serve that well here, I don't recall listening to it much in this playlist. Slowly appreciating this album over time, though. (My top Flobots album is "Circle in the Square". My entrypoint into Flobots was "Me & You (Happy 2gether)", which is their cover of the song by The Turtles. Love their cover of it so much - they rap/hip-hop-ified it.) I haven't found a hip hop group that I like as much as Flobots yet (I am very inexperienced in Hip Hop, so take that statement with a grain of salt.)

Enthused Disruption - Created May 14, 2025

I'm starting to realize that this whole "playlist approach" peaked with the first two playlists. Am I making a bigger deal about this than the impact it actually had??? Maybe.

This one had "Mr. A-Z" by Jason Mraz, "MAD!" by Sparks (their latest album), "Everything Besides" by Larry and His Flask (adding it here definitely made me listen to it and appreciate it), and "This is How We Get Better" by The Narcissist Cookbook (very interesting album, liked it).

Finding My Way Home - Created July 20, 2025

I'll say this one had high impact as well. If only because it got me listening to Midlake.

• "The Trials of Van Occupanther" by Midlake
  • Love a lot of these songs. Especially "Van Occupanther" and "Roscoe", with honorable mention to "Head Home" and "It Covers the Hillsides". This album took measurable real estate in my mind. It belongs in the list of top albums for the year (if I were to make one). The songs are on the chiller side. Don't remember exactly how I found them. But I love them.
• "Six Demon Bag" by Man Man
  • Liked some of the songs, but honestly never got that into it. Would listen to more.
• "All Eternals Deck" by The Mountain Goats
  • I think it's inevitable that I listen to more Mountain Goats in the future.
  • Liked a bunch of songs in this album. Not particularly standout, but I liked the vibe. Mostly chill too, slower songs.
  • Standouts are "Damn These Vampires" and "Age of Kings"

Fastly, Slowly, Breathe - Created October 2, 2025

This one is the "fizzle".

It started with me adding "Red, Yellow & Blue" by Born Ruffians. I liked some of the songs but still haven't listened to them much. Then in mid-November I added "The Ides" by Me Like Bees. I think I'm going to listen to Me Like Bees more moving forward, but I didn't really listen to them through this playlist, but instead in Spotify's shuffles after other songs I queued up, or through song radios for related music. Again, the "fizzle" is that I'm not really going to the playlist as my "default" currently, like I did earlier in the year. And then I added "The First Edition" by Kenny Rogers a couple days ago, but I'm not sure how much impact it'll have -- the song of interest was "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)", which is a funny song that showed up from my previously-hearted songs (I was playing my liked songs on shuffle).

End 'o the year

Bomb the Music Industry - this is the strongest artist in my mind for the last month or so. Otherwise, there's been a cycle of some theater stuff, and a little bit of Larry and His Flask and Streetlight Manifesto sprinkled in here and there. I kind of haven't been listening to that much music recently.

Oh yeah, must also give an honorable mention to Ludo's album "You're Awful, I Love You" -- especially the song "Lake Pontchartrain" - great song. Not part of the above playlists but snuck into my radar somewhere along the way.

The theater music I got into this year

• The Outsiders
• Octet (Dave Malloy, mostly the first track The Forest)
• Into The Woods
• Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812
• Ghost Quartet
• Bat Boy

I mentioned earlier that getting into some of these led to my playlist approach fizzling towards the end of the year. I'd say that's mostly attributed to Into The Woods, Great Comet, and Ghost Quartet. Outsiders was earlier in the year (April) and Octet and Bat Boy were minor influences on that. (Note, Outsiders in the above list is the only show I actually went to this year. I went to other Broadway musicals as well, but their albums did not dominate much listening time.)

In Conclusion

It was a great year for discovering new music.

There's definitely an Ebb and Flow to the cycles of consuming what I already like, exploring new music, and just not listening to that much stuff at all. Gotta respect that.

And as I said earlier, there are ups and downs (meaning, ambiguous benefits) of this time-based playlist approach. But I'm glad I tried it.