Sorry it's been a minute since I've updated you on my very exciting life. I've just been trying to recover from Spotify Wrapped.
I have a really intense love-hate relationship with Spotify Wrapped. On one hand, it's really cool to see what music I've been listening too, but mainly I think it's a device designed to embarass the crap out of people. Somehow, the thing I'm most embarrassed about this year wasn't the fact that "Man or Muppet" from The Muppets was in my top five most streamed songs, or that I played Vienna by Billy Joel 504 times between January 3rd and October 31st. What topped the cake this year was Spotify telling me where "My Sound Town" is, and apparently it's Provo, Utah. I had no idea I liked the same music as a lot of Mormons, escpecially because I listen to a lot of comedic music with ocassional anti-religion sentiments. I then thought that maybe it's because I listened to The Book of Mormon soundtrack every now and then, but nowhere near often enough to have it show up on my Wrapped, and I doubt that's super popular in Utah anyway.
When I went back to the slide to look for more clues, at the bottom it said "For fans of Nathan Pacheco, The Muppets, and Jason Segel." Now calling me a fan of The Muppets is the understatement of the century, I don't have any strong feelings about Jason Segel however I get why Spotify would think I like him, but who is this Nathan Pacheco guy? Upon further investigation (Wikipedia) I learned that he's singer-songwriter whose discography is mostly Christian worship music with the notable execption of working on one song for The Muppets. The song is "Let's Talk About Me," and despite my adoration for The Muppets, I had no idea what this song was. I looked it up, and I vaguely remembered it from the movie, but hardly. I'll link the song here in case you want to check it out, but it's kind of... um... let's just say I've never heard a song so clearly written by Bret McKenzie. Anyway, Nathan's Wikipedia article did say that he's a Mormon, but it didn't mention Utah at all. Are they really into The Muppets in Utah? I feel like there are still parts of this mystery that I've yet to figure out. Expect updates.
This year, I made more of an effort than ever before to not rig my Wrapped. The first year I got Spotify, I didn't know about Wrapped, so I was incredibly embarrassed about my results. I don't remember what they were exactly, but I know Bridgit Mendler was on it, and I was self-conscious about that for some reason. I wasn't totally innocent about this this past year. I did listen to a lot of Taylor Swift in my sleep, and there was a point where I just played a lot of music I'm not embarrassed about on my iPad while I was out. For 2024, my New Years resoulution is to not make any conscious effort to rig my Spotify Wrapped.
Here's some of the slides from 2023's Wrapped if you're interested:
