My most listened to Spotify Tracks (Kind of)
I listen to a lot of music most of the time and the variance in songs that have been my favourite over the years is wide so I thought I would note down some of the tops from my https://stats.fm tracking as well as the memories I associate with those. This means it only takes into account spotify listening and also only since I got spotify in 2019 or so.
1. Nujabes
Nujabes is what I've been using as sleep and background music for a few years now, and even with a timer to turn it off after a certain amount of time, and there being hundreds of songs in the playlist it does mean the numbers are quite up there for all of his bits instead of just the one or two of his that are my favourites. I will discuss the ones I like below rather than going by numbers.
1.1 四季ノ唄 (Shiki No Uta)
This one seems to be listed twice but between them I've listened to it 672 times for 3,194 minutes. The ending theme to the anime Samurai Champloo it is not actually by Nujabes at all but by MINMI, however it is part of the Nujabes albums so it is going on here as that. It is very chill.
1.2 Luv (sic) Hexalogy
This one is actually a series which was re-released in 2015 with all of them compiled into one, however only one of them is available on spotify outside of this album (Luv(sic.) pt3 (feat. Shing02)) on the 2005 Modal Soul album. They are all vaguely different with different people involved but they're pretty good. In terms of stats it's a little fucked with duplicates but the album specifically (including the instrumental versions of the songs) I have listened to 4,173 times with 20,935 minutes. It is difficult to pick a favourite of the 6 so I won't.
1.3 Feather (feat. Cise Starr & Akin from CYNE)
This one is probably my favourite song from Nujabes that isn't from Samurai Champloo. The lyrics are pretty cool and it has some funny references. I have listened to this one 386 times for 1,120 minutes.
The other music by him is also good but a lot of his stuff probably isn't on spotify so I'm missing out a bit. He's probably up there in my favourite artists purely off of the music, and when I went to Japan in 2024 I went to Usagi Ramen, the shop owned by his brother that plays his music in the background, and bought one of their t-shirts, so in a way I even have merch.
2. Dramaturgy - Eve
Unsurprisingly given my profile pictures across my online presence but I am a fan of this song and it has been a favourite of mine for a long time. Clocking in on spotify with 322 streams and 1,245 minutes, I love listening to the different layers of the song. I'm still not really sure what the words mean though. I'm generally a big Eve fan but this one stands quite significantly above the rest, and I've been listening to this well before using spotify.
3. Uta - Imperial Circus Dead Decadence
I think when idke got 900pp with Hard Rock on this map I watched that play enough that I was able to acclimatise to the sort of throat gurgling sounds and actually really enjoy the heavier parts as well as the soulful actual singing that is involved. There are a few other ICDD songs I like but this one seems to tickle the right part of the brain. This one only has 135 streams and 1,125 minutes but I have played the map on osu! quite frequently and this was one I listened to often before I had spotify too.
4. Devil Town - Cavetown
I am sort of surprised this is so high but I think it is one of the earliest songs I found after getting spotify and it has some really cool harmonies so I was probably just looping it while taking the bus to campus. This one has 343 streams and 1,122 minutes.
5. サンキュー！！(Thank You) - Home Made Kazoku
I had completely forgotten this song but listening to it now I do remember it a little. It's quite funky but I have no memory of knowing what the song was called or the band that did it. I was probably listening to this while doing work experience in 2021 as it has a similar vibe to the playlist I had then. This has 211 streams and 944 minutes played.
6. 夜に駆ける - YOASOBI
This one isn't actually my favourite YOASOBI song any more but it was also out before the one that is now my favourite. From memory the name is something about dancing through the night and it is very catchy. YOASOBI has a pretty good voice and also I think the way the piano is sort of soloing in the background for the whole thing instead of just doing chords or the tune the voice does is cool also. This one has 206 streams and 862 minutes. I think it is one of the most popular songs in that meme format that's like "me when I hear the song vs me when I look at what the lyrics mean".
7. Moscow - Autoheart
This is another one from the cavetown era of my listening and I think I found the chorus particularly satisfying to listen to. This one reminds me more of my first year bedroom than the bus too so maybe both went through a looping period. This one has 226 streams and 830 minutes listened.
8. The Dawn of Reiwa - COMA-CHI, Uyama Hiroto, Coma Chi
Another song where I have no memory at all of the metadata but it is one of my most listened and not from the bulk Nujabes playlist. After listening just now I do remember it but I'm surprised it made it this high. It has some cool different sections across the songs as well as a mixture of english and japanese lyrics, and apparently I am the #1 listener on stats.fm for this song. Poggers? 811 minutes and 173 streams. I have never watched the below music video.
9. Stolen Dance - Milky Chance
After discovering these guys in the menu of the Fifa 15 demo with "Down by the River" Milky Chance are a band I actually own a CD from rather than just spotifying which I ripped and put onto my Google Play Music (RIP). While I liked most of their "Sadnecessary" album Stolen Dance was my favourite for reasons I can't put my finger on. 808 minutes streamed and 162 times.
10. Jikanga Nai - KIRINJI
Just like The Dawn of Reiwa I have listened to this one a lot in some playlist without really clocking what it was called (name in Kanji on spotify but not on stats.fm) or the artist. It is a similar vibe to Thank You and The Dawn of Reiwa so I'm imagining maybe actually these were all in the same playlist. (Editors note after a small hunt they are not in the same playlist). 170 streams and 784 minutes.
11. Forever Lost - The Magic Numbers
This is another one where it has a cool thing going in the chorus with the harmonies going in different directions and it also reminds me strongly of being in the Isle of Wight so I was probably there when I was listening to it the most. With 778 minutes and 185 streams this one was clearly on loop as well.
12. The Words I Never Said In D&B - Mage
This is another one predominantly from an osu map - I got a bit skill issued and so started grinding it and that made me like the song so I had it on loop sometime around when Mhzz left NUOT (rest in peace). It is apparently an edit of an existing song but I wasn't a fan of that one clearly. This has 752 minutes and 148 streams.
13. 真夜中のドア～Stay With Me～ - Ms.OOJA
I think at some point in 2023 I had a classic sounding Japanese songs period as this is a quite recent cover of an old song. Shoutout to "Flyday Chinatown" which the has been removed from spotify since I listened to it frequently but the Ms. OOJA version stands strong, and I would put it on par with this one. 692 minutes and 135 streams.
14. Pulaski at Night - Andrew Bird
This is a song where I first heard it in like 2021 during the pandemic and thought "wow this sounds insanely familiar" but could not find where I had heard it before as it isn't in any popular media apart from Orange is the New Black which I have not seen as I am homophobic. This one makes me think of being at home in lockdown as my mum had just hopped on the "record yourself playing every part of one song" grind and so I helped her do a rendition of this, and just recently we brought it back in a small performance at my grandfather's birthday party where I sang for the second time ever in front of my whole family and the first time while also playing the violin (it went insanely poorly). This has 148 streams and 685 minutes but this one was probably inflated a little as I was learning the violin part and the words.
15. Plume - Caravan Palace
I found Caravan Palace through Lone Digger on youtube back in 2017 or whenever it made the rounds and thought they were funky so followed them and then right when I was in the middle of my sixth form manga binge phase they released their "Chronologic" album with this one being my favourite because of the beat and the singing. I listened to this one on loop while I was finishing the zombie manga I am a Hero from 12pm to 5am while I should have been revising for A level maths and so it always makes me feel slightly out of it when I hear it. This has 225 streams and 677 minutes, making up half of my listening of the whole album.
16. still feel. - half•alive
I don't think I've liked any half alive songs half as much as I liked this one but I did also watch the music video a lot. This is another legacy song from before I had spotify so it's nice to see it's made its way up the listening leaderboard despite losing most of my stats. This one I've clearly listened to a lot over the years but it makes me think specifically of Can Dansa, an airbnb in Spain that I have gone to 3 times in total now over the last 9 years or so. Weirdly a lot of music that I had on Google Play reminds me of this but I think it's because I had just started using that right before going on this holiday in 2017 and so I had a relatively limited library (Super Driver from haruhi also reminds me of this place because I watched Haruhi in this house and then that week while I was still in Spain a Will Stetson cover of super driver got ranked on osu! so I was then grinding that out too). 159 streams and 635 minutes.
17. 勇者 - YOASOBI
This one is my actual favourite - it is the opening to Frieren and I think I like the singing and the instrumentation better than the other YOASOBI song on this list. I have played it a lot on Taiko while in Japan for real as well as on osu! and Frieren is one of my favourite shows of all time probably so it is sort of synonymous with all of those experiences too. 195 streams and 631 minutes.
(Editor's note - I sort of regret giving so much space to the ones that I can't remember at all. Maybe it would have been better to sort these all by associations rather than just the order they appear. Maybe I'll do another post where I do top 5 by year. The next few are not in order as I skip a few from the Isle of Wight and the 2021 work experience)
18. Lisztomania - Phoenix
I was listening to this song on repeat in the summer of 2022 while reading Dune for the first time, a book that I have made a large part of my personality since, so listening to it gives me the same sort of vast world vibes that Dune does. Similarly when I read Dune now this song appears in the back of my head. That said it does not really fit the vibe of Dune if you properly analyse it. 163 streams and 625 minutes.
19. 迷彩 - Sheena Ringo
Wimble has recently been yammering about Sheena Ringo and it turns out I have listened to this one a lot in my time (600 minutes and 159 streams). I think the guitar and other instrumentation were a big draw as I am not actually massive on Sheena Ringo's voice (not that it's bad but I think it's edited a little weirdly sometimes).
20. good 4 u - Olivia Rodrigo
I think this one I found while I was listening to Paramore a lot and it ended up catching a similar brain worm. I remember The Avenue in Southampton particularly with this one for some reason so maybe it was another on loop while I walked to campus song (205 streams and 590 minutes). I would say I prefer paramore vastly (specifically misery business and still into you).
Debrief
This has been an interesting road to travel but it is a shame how much the stats do not actually represent what I would say are particularly defining songs for me as a character. In the future I may do a better write up of these but in no particular order here are some that weren't in the top 20 but I would say were at one point in time the main thing I listened to:
Liberty of Norton Folgate - Madness
Mildly lesser known album by madness I had on my iPod Touch 2011.
Bravely Default OST - Revo
Written by a member of the band who did several of the Attack on Titan openings (which I also have listened to a lot) I had a 2.5 hour rip of this soundtrack on my Google Play Music and it was my most listened to song for a long time.
Super Driver - Aya Hirano
Haruhi opening and also a banger.
Chasing Light - Brothers of Metal
This song was at the top of my playlist I listened to while commuting around Japan in 2024 and so it gives me fond memories and feelings of exploring the city.
Picture Perfect - Monkey Majik + m-flo
Also from the 2021 work experience era I think it was one of the first bands I had heard that did a mixture of japanese and english but sort of particularly well.