My Top 100 Songs of 2014: In Which the Author May Like Paramore a Bit Too Much

18,885 minutes. Or 314.75 hours. Or more than 13 straight days.

That’s how much time I have spent in 2014 listening to music on Spotify. How do I know? They told me.

The streaming music service launched a Year In Review web app this week that not only spotlights the most-played artists and songs of the year, but also gives Spotify users data about their own listening habits.

You can find out your own stats by clicking to Spotify’s site here. But what follows is my own navel-gazing. Or it’s Spotify placing a mirror in front of my navel and commanding, “You there! Gaze upon it!”

How can I resist?

1. The Author does not stray from his beloved genres — Rock, Pop and Pop Punk

Spotify_Top_Genres_2014

Somehow this adds up to 102 percent. Huh? Classifications? Rounding? Spotify… do you even math?

Yep, those are pretty much my music tastes.

I am a Pittsburgher; all of us citizens are lobotomized at birth and have important sections in our brain replaced with a small boombox tuned to 102.5 WDVE classic rock. I cannot deny my city-instilled love for it.

I’m not sure how Spotify classifies each genre, but I do listen to a lot of pop and alternative rock beyond my classic rock roots, so the numbers are accurate enough.

2. The Author will make no secret of his adoration for Paramore

Of my 100 most-listened-to songs of the year, 13 come from the instruments of the alternative band Paramore. Which, yep.

Paramore is a great popish-punkish band, and in my heart I am a middle school girl, so I have a natural attraction to their music. Seeing Paramore live in Anaheim was perhaps the best show I’ve attended in my 14 years on Earth, and I would jump at the chance to see them again.

If you have waved off Hayley Williams and Paramore as only for teenage girls like myself, I would urge you to give them another try.

Do you lean more to punk and rock? Go with their second album “RIOT!” Bigger into Pop and Top 40? Check out their most recent self-titled album. Then we’ll discuss.

3. The Author does not only listen to Paramore, ya putz

According to Spotify, I do in fact hear other songs in my life and do not simply skip them to get back to that sweet, sweet Paramore goodness.

They even cobbled together a chart of my 10-most-listened to songs.

Spotify_Top_Songs_2014

Ol’ JimJam listened to these songs the most often this year.

Other stats they gave? I listen to Spotify most often on Mondays (averaging 2 hours in the day) and Fridays (which is when I do a lot of Lyft driving and listen through my phone). I also use the service 46% of the time on my computer and 54% through my phone (again, Lyft driving). This is the kind of user-data gathering I appreciate, as long as you clue me into it.

4. The Author’s other tastes run the pop-rock gamut

Here were the other artists that appeared more than once on my 100-most-listened-to songs:

  • The Black Keys
  • Bruce Springsteen
  • Calvin Harris
  • Hall & Oates
  • Ellie Goulding
  • Elton John
  • Grouplove
  • Mumford & Sons
  • Panic At The Disco
  • Paul McCartney
  • Vampire Weekend
  • The White Stripes

Spotify even put together a little list of my five most-listened-to artists. How sweet of ’em.

My Most-Listened-To Artists -- I honestly couldn't have told you what Grouplove looked like before I saw this picture.

My Most-Listened-To Artists — I honestly couldn’t have told you what Grouplove looked like before I saw this picture.

5. You, the Reader, can partake in the Author’s mediocre tastes!

Spotify is kind enough to spit out your 100-most-listened-to songs into a playlists so that friends (or enemies!) can plug your favorite tunes straight into their earholes.

So go ahead. What follows is the playlist Spotify created from my listening habits. These were the songs that entered my brain in the year of our Lord 2014. Enjoy them before 2015 comes around and kicks them the hell out.

——

Also, hell yes I listened to the Frozen soundtrack a lot. It’s dope.