Music

Listening Habits

My Music Listening Habits for January 2020

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I keep wanting to change these up to be by artist instead of album but there doesn’t seem to be a 5×5 generator that does artists and has images. Sounds like an excuse to do some coding, but I’m not sure it’s possible because it feels like something someone would have done.

So anyway, it’s back to albums. Which gets a little sloppy looking this month.

So, there has been one major change this month. Around the turn of the year, I got an email through work for 6 months of Spotify Premium. I usually don’t really go for limited time offers but 6 months is a pretty good chunk of time, so I decided to go in on that. I’m enjoying using Spotify, but I doubt I keep the subscription after the 6 months are over. In general, I prefer to buy music. It has been pretty nice for discovery however.

Most of that discovery doesn’t show up on this 5×5 grid though. It’s hard to make it to the top monthly list when you get played maybe 2-3 times within a playlist of others played 2-3 times. Going by the numbers, it didn’t really increase my overall monthly Scrobbles either.

I am honestly a little surprised that Sigrid is still my most listened to artist. She has consistently held that spot since I started listening to her music, and she has become my most listened to artist of all time. I’ve gone through several phases of listening to her music which has helped. There was a time listening to the Sucker Punch album, which is Sigrid’s most recent album. Then I was listening to tracks from live shows that are currently unreleased, some on Youtube (which also gets scrobbled). Then there was a period of listening to the previous two EP releases, Ray and Don’t Kill my Vibe. More recently, with Spotify, I’ve found a cache of tracks that are only on Spotify.

I want to roll of Sigrid to Amanda Tenfjord. Her music came recomended on some Sigrid fan channels due to her similarity in overall style to Sigrid. The music sounds similar, the album art sounds similar, she is also Norwegian. There were jokes that she was secretly Sigrid, though there is a definite difference in the vocals. I am probably not an expert enough to properly describe it, but Amanda Tenfjord has less range and sounds a bit more Tenor… maybe? Like there’s more low end going on in her voice. Plus there is a slight difference in their accents.

Moving on.

Still a lot of Tessa Violet sprinkled throughout the playlist. I mentioned last month that I expect her to stick around for a while, though I’m starting to wonder just how long. I don’t really like all of her songs like I do other artists who stick around for a while. Another one that’s all over this 5×5 is Carly Rae Jepsen. I’ve enjoyed Carly’s music for a while, but Spotify has kind of opened up a nice little world of alternate takes and songs from her library. I particularly like this take on No Doubt’s Don’t Speak.

It’s not a super interesting take, but It’s a weird contrast to the usual super upbeat music of Carly Rae Jepsen. Also, back in the day, I used to listed to Tragic Kingdom a lot, so I have an underlying love for No Doubt as well.

The only thing left that’s particularly notable here is the soundtrack to Gris, coming in at number 4. Gris is a video game I was playing earlier this year and both the visuals and the soundtrack are excellent. It’s got a really nice ambient sort of piano vibe going that’s great for background music.

Listening Habits

One Year, One Decade, in Music

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A lot of people recently started posting their Spotify year end reviews to social media. I don’t really use Spotify for music, but I do use Last.fm. In fact, I’ve used Last.fm off and on since 2005.

There are a few low points, I had basically zero Scrobbles for 2015 for example, and it was a lot lower while I was using Windows Phone, in general, but it’s still a pretty good snapshot of music habits. and changes. So rather than just settle for a year, i wanted to look over a year, and the last decade of music.

The top level kind of feels like it should be Artist. Across both lists of top 10 artists for the year and decade, only three make both lists. Taylor Swift, Sigrid, and The Who. I kind of feel like Taylor Swift doesn’t really need much said. She was literally named Artist of the Decade, she does music across various genres, basically like her or hate her, everyone knows who she is.

Sigrid is more notable on this list. I’ve talked about Sigrid in previous monthly posts quite a bit. She is notable because she is in third place for the decade, and in my overall list, and every single one of those listens is from 2019. Most of them are from the last 6 months. In more recent weeks I’ve been listening to less Sigrid, but I know that will change when she releases a new album. I can’t even really say that for Taylor Swift at the moment. I’ve only recently started listening to her most recent album, Lover, and so far, I’m really not feeling it like Reputation or 1989 or Red.

The Who is also a bit notable. Of all of the artists I’ve listened to over my lifetime, The Who has been the one consistent group I’ve come back to. I started listening to them back around 1990 when I first got a CD Player stereo of my own and have listened to their music ever since. Before that time, most of my music listening comprised of stuff my cousin was listening to like Madonna, Michael Jackson and Debbie Gibson, as well as the soundtracks to the Ninja Turtles movies and Oliver and Company on Cassette tape. They don’t really top any of my “favorites lists” but they are reliably always “up there”.

The rest of the top artists for the decade are all pretty representative of my primary musical tastes, though I honestly listen to a pretty wide cross section of genres overall. BT, Daft Punk, Skrillix make up some of my interest in electronic music, other like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Ke$ha making up the pop music aspects. I pick up a ton of singles by less known artists, but they tend to get pushed down the list simply by sheer volume numbers of bigger named artists.

The last particularly notable point I want to add for artists is Tessa Violet. I’ve only just started recently listening to her music and I expect to see her popping up more in 2020.

So what about individual Albums. On some level, this is just a more spread out version of the top artists lists. Funny enough, Sigrid’s Sucker Punch is my top album on both. Taylor Swift is higher over all, but her music is spread out over several albums. The same for Avril Lavigne. Sigrid does have several albums listed, but Don’t Kill my Vibe and Raw are both EPs and not full albums, and “In the Moment” is sort of a fake album that’s attached to live tracks.

Top tracks gets a little more interesting, at least on the side of Top for the decade, since it better pulls out singles I have listened to a lot. The top for the year isn’t that interesting, 13 of the top 15 are all Sigrid Tracks. Number 12 is “Why so Serious” by Alice Merton and number 14 is “Ready for it?” by Taylor Swift.

Sia doesn’t even show up in my top ten artists, but “The Greatest” is my single most listened to track. The Gorillaz are sort of int he same boat. I’ve even listened to a lot of other tracks by both artists, but “The Greatest” and “Stylo” both top these two on an individual basis. Also, despite being number 14 for the year, “Ready for it?” blows away the top Sigrid track, “Basic” for the decade. Which is to be expected since I’ve been listening to “Ready For it?” for a lot longer. Meanwhile, I’m not sure I’ve listened to Telephone or Bulletproof at all int he last few years. Which just shoes how one track can fall out of rotation despite clearly being dominant for a while.

Something that’s probably worth adding, that skews a lot of these lists, I still do listen to CDs, especially for artists I really like. I’m sure if I could track CD listens that Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne would be higher, since that’s my primary way I’ve listened to both of them. This also makes BT come off a lot lower. I really really love BT’s music, but a lot of what I listen to there is on CD. Also, BT’s “These Hopeful Machines” is 2 continuous 45 minute+ tracks, mixing the tracks of “These Humble Machines” into one. Last.fm doesn’t really track these sort of things very well.

Listening Habits

My Music Listening Habits for November 2019

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Another month, another round of music. There’s not as much need for as much intro this round so I’m just going to jump right into it.

So, while Number 2, 3, 9 16, and 19 are all Sigrid albums, the top spot this month goes to Lusine with Sensorimotor. I’ve been enjoying the whole album, but I’ve had this particular video in rotation on Youtube for a bit.

It’s got a nice sort of ambient feel to it. Speaking of Ambient, While moving the Lusine album to my phone, I remebered I had the Overwatch based Lucio album downloaded. Which puts it at number 5. It’s alright, nothing super stellar, but it’s nice chill background beats. Number 7 also falls into this category a bit. The soundtrack for the anime film Armitage the Third has been a long term favorite of mine. It’s a CD I’ve owned and listened to for probably 20 years now.

Armitage isn’t the only older stuff I’ve thrown in this month. Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill was definitely my most listened to album back in the 90s. Alanis was one of my first real musical obsessions. I’ve also been listening to more The Who recently as well.

Number 11 has a new comer to my rotations. I was browsing through Amazon’s sale albums and on a bit of a whim, picked up the album Rise by Molly Tuttle. She’s a Bluegrass artist and man she can pick and play a guitar. It also helps that she also has a nice pleasant voice to accompany the guitar.

Also new… ish, is number 8. Kristina Skyberg’s one and only album. It’s all in Norwegian, so I don’t really know what she is singing, but it’s very very good. I say Kristina is newish to the list because Kristina is Sigrid’s backup singer during live shows.

Lastly, I wanted to mention the Native American Flute Lullabies. You listen to one album with multiple artists, and it spams out and fills in three slots. List a little bit annoying. Basically though, it’s exactly what it says, and it’s nice music to sleep to.

Listening Habits

My Music Listening Habits for October 2019

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I did a sort of prototyped this sort of post briefly on JoshMiller.net but deleted it because I kind of want to keep that site just being a landing page and not a blog. I also originally considered doing it weekly but that feels too frequent so instead I’m thinking monthly. Anyway, Last.fm, the music tracking app/service. I’ve been using this when I can, since 2005. It’s one of my favorite services out there because I love tracking my music listening habits. I have not been able to use it all the time. For a while I listened to music on devices that weren’t supported, or via apps that weren’t supported. I do always come back to it.

I want to start with last months’ top album Scrobbles.

Most of the bottom half are low number listens but the top half in the top ten or so are the real bulk of listens. Number 1, Number 5, Number 8, and Number 23 are all Sigrid. Sigrid has been my current music obsession. She has quickly risen to like number 3 or 4 in my overall by artist since I started listening to her a few months ago. As part of my music blogging, I want to explore individual artists some so I won’t go into a ton of detail. There actually would be more Sigrid scrobbles but some of my tracks don’t have proper Info attached so they don’t scrobble as anything.

Notable though with Sigrid, this month I went and saw her live, in St. Louis. And it was awesome. The opener at the live show was Number 2 on this list, Raffaella. I bought her 6 track EP, Ballerina, after the show and I’ve been listening to it quite a bit as well.

Number 3 and Number 14 are both Alice Merton. I’ve listened to Alive Merton longer than Sigrid, but I’ve been adding a few more tracks of hers ot my playlist recently. She’s put out a new extended version of her album Mint, so I expect her to continue to show up for a while. Another artists I really enjoy that I’ve been trying to add more of is Kiesza at Number 6 on this list. Kiesza has a pretty amazing voice that I really can’t get enough of.

Number 4 is a bit more mainstream, with Kesha, or is it still Ke$ha? I don’t know. I had been listeneing to the newer single Praying for a while and recently decided to give the rest of the album a listen. There’s some pretty good stuff in there. I particularly like the one about Godzilla.

Anyway, I’m sure I will have the chance to talk about more of these albums in more detail in the future. I want to switch a bit, since this is the first post in this (hopefully) series and touch a bit on my overall 5×5 listing. Mostly to give a bit more overview on my overall listening habits over the past, 14 years.

Like I said above, Sigrid has already jumped way up there, with Sucker Punch coming in at Number 2. The spread here also includes a lot of my other favorites. Taylor Swift gets three albums in this top 25, as does BT. Avril Lavigne and Katy Perry have several appearances, though Katy ranks quite a bit lower. Technically Daft Punk has 3 as well, since they did the two Tron sountracks.

Anyway, like I mentioned above, I kind of want to talk more about music I listen to, both more mainstream and not. Hopefully with some monthly summaries, but also with some intermixed spotlight moments along the way.

Live Shows

Sigrid @ The Ready Room feat Raffaella (10/08/2019)

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I don’t go to a lot of concerts, and of the 7 total I’ve been to of any merit, 4 of them weren’t really anything I would have necesarilly chosen. Three of them were country music that my wife and daughter wanted to see (Toby Kieth & Kip Moore, Lee Brice, Travis Tritt). Though the shows were enjoyable, country music isn’t my first choice in music genre. The main issue honestly is most of the artists I would want to see tend to be at huge venues and cost a few hundred dollars a ticket, so it’s just not really affordable.

So when I was watching some Sigrid on Youtube and there was a little notice below about a show “nearby” in St Louis, I figured, why not let’s see what’s up. It turns out, it was super affordable, and it’s close enough that I could always drive there and back in one round trip, even if it meant a late night. I asked my wife if she wanted to go, and mentioned that it was cheap enough that even if she ended up not being able to, because of her various come and go health issues, the extra ticket wouldn’t be a huge bust or anything. Fortunately, she came along as well.

We opted to make a little mini vacation of it, and I took a couple of days off work. I joked that we were having a Scandinavian vacation, since we went to IKEA (Sweedish-ish) during the day before seeing Sigrid, who is Norwegian, that evening. The day after we also went to the St Louis Zoo.

The show itself was at a little club called The Ready Room. I couldn’t find a ton about the place online before the show so I wasn’t super sure what to expect. It wasn’t a particularly large venue, and the maximum capacity listed was 750 people, so at the very least, it was going to be a fairly small crowd. We arrived around an hour early, plenty of parking available ont he street too which was nice. The excitement of the show kind of got ramped up here as we walked past the tour bus parked on the side of the building. There were a dozen or so people lined up outside, so we walked next door to a sort of open space pizza spot called Pie Guy Pizza for a quick bite to eat.

Doors opened shortly after we had arrived, and the line hadn’t grown much, if any, so we headed on in. The stage area was a mostly black room, but it was also much wider than it was deep, so there was a lot of width to the stage. I ended up standing right up front next to the rail, though off to one side. After a bit more wait, it was time for the show.

So, in addition to Sigrid, there was also an opening act, Raffaella, as part of the show. I’d never heard anything from Raffaella, so in the weeks leading up to the show, I added some of her tracks to my Amazon playlist. Probably my favorite song of the half dozen songs she has out is Balaclava, though in general, I rather enjoy all of her tracks.

I didn’t take any video of Raffaella, so you’ll have to settle for this iteration from Youtube. Funny enough, I had listened to this track enough that I was able to sing along for quite a bit of it during the performance. Her show was decent as well, though due to the wide nature of the stage, it felt a little crowded, since her band was set up in front of Sigrid’s Band’s gear.

Unfortunately, I only ended up with one sort of OK photo from Raffaella’s set. I wasn’t super satisfied with a lot of my photos from this event. My camera’s phone sucks, and I had inquired before hand about the camera policy of the club and got a sort of boiler plate reply that suggested I would not be able to bring my DSLR to the show. I had brought my daughter’s fixed lens midrange Nikon, but in the end, left it int he car, because I didn’t want to deal with if I would be allowed to bring it in or not.

After Raffaella’s set, there was a short intermission while the crew broke down the extra instruments and cleaned up the stage before the main act. I’ve watched a lot of videos of Sigrid’s Sucker Punch tour, so I had a pretty good idea of how the set would go. But still, it was quite exciting to actually be there as Peder, Kristina, Sondre and Kasper came out in the dark to take positions on stage. Then the familiar sort of ambient build up to the opening of Sucker Punch as Sigrid rushes out and starts singing the song.

I just want to say, it’s really something else to go see an artist that you really like, and get to be “right there”. Later, after the show, I commented to my wife that the whole thing made me really want to go see more live shows, but I’m spoiled now because I’ll probably never end up with this perfect combo again.

Having listened to all of these tracks really helped the whole experience as well, there’s something really fun about a crowd of people all singing along with each other all just in the moment. Sigrid puts on a really great show as well. She is constantly moving and dancing around the stage. She makes little call outs to the crowd. Possibly the best one, at one point she jumped out onto the platform on the backside of the railing in front of the stage and someone int he audience totally lost it. Sigrid commented that she “Didn’t expect you to scream like that.”

The band is great too, and sometimes I feel like they don’t get enough credit. Kasper does some great drum riffs, I particularly love him in the track Go to War. Sondre does some pretty good guitar work on the few times he gets to do his small moments to shine. I’m less familiar with Peder, as he is new to the group after some sort of unknown drama involving the old keyboardist. I also really like Kristina as Sigrid’s backup vocals. I’ve been listening to her album “Revet vekk” some recently. It’s all in Norwegian and has a way different vibe than Sigrid, but I find it pretty relaxing to listen to.

Anyway, I also really enjoy how every track sort of feels different. Some of them are heavy bouncy fast paced songs. Then you get more relaxed moments like in Dynamite, where Sigrid plays solo on the Keyboard, or Level Up where it was just Sigrid, Kristina, and Sondre.

My only complaint, which personally, isn’t a huge one, and I have no idea what the actual “blame” would be for it. Holy shit the show was loud. Like, literally, overwhelmingly loud at times. There were many times when I could basically only hear drums. There was a moment, probably during the heavy drum beats of Go to War, that I had resigned myself that I’d possibly be deaf after the show was over. I don’t know if the sound was cranked up too much, or I just wasn’t expecting it, or (most likely) I was standing 2 feet in front of one of the speakers, but it was LOUD. It was a good thing I was already pretty familiar with the music. Also, I suspect it was where I was standing, because my wife, who was standing behind/beside me, just off tot he side of the speaker, didn’t really mention having the same problem, even when I mentioned it.

Whatever the case, I would definitely go to another Sigrid Show, and I definitely want to go to more concerts in the future, though I may try to stick to smaller venues like this one, even if it’s not a band I am super familiar with. I’m going to wrap up here with the one video I did take, of my favorite Sigrid track, Basic.

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