This is the start of a new monthly series where I’m gonna recap my listening stats of the last month and highlight some of the things that were sticking with me throughout it. It’ll hopefully be a breezy way to find something new to listen to, and maybe I can challenge you to get your time spent with your music up a little. I’m getting my insights into my listening habits from last.fm, which I can’t recommend enough if you want to see these types of trends and stats for yourself.
This January, I listened to 1583 songs (773 of them unique) from 176 artists. My top artist of the month was Queens of the Stone Age, primarily because I found a new-to-me live performance of theirs from 2007’s Les Eurockéennes de Belfort festival. I had that one on repeat, with almost a hundred plays making it my top album of the month.
My top track wasn’t actually from that show or even that band, surprisingly enough; the song I listened to the most in January was “Radiant City” by Deftones. I spotlighted it in my Greatest: 2020s post when I talked about its album, Ohms, and it’s probably what got me putting it on again and again.
Outside of that song and tracks from the QotSA show I mentioned earlier, I had a few songs that I kept coming back to in January. “Voodoo Doll” and “White Power Feud in Atlanta” by the Queers are some favorites, as is “Sang Real” by dredg. Speedy Ortiz has been creeping up in my favorite artist list ever since I saw them live with Cloud Nothings last year, and their self-titled track is one of their best. It really gives you a good idea of the vibe of the band, centered around Sadie Dupuis‘ singular dark, witchy, off-kilter, poppy-rocky-noisy vision. While waiting around for that concert to begin, a couple Tacocat songs came on over the PA, and they’re still in my rotation now. “Bridge to Hawaii” is one of the most infectious songs to come out in the last decade, and “You Can’t Fire Me, I Quit” is one of those that’s so well-written you almost feel like you’ve heard it before.
I’d implore you to give everything linked a listen, but if you only have time for one this month, I’d say to go with “Sang Real.”