I always enjoy checking out my year in replay as curated Apple Music. It’s a great reminder of the many tracks I’ve consumed over the year and it’s always interesting to see how my music “fixations” shift from one year to the next.
#1 artist? A new discovery for me in ’23 in the form of Swiss/German symphonic metal group, “Ad Infinitum”
#1 album on rotation? A throwback to my (slightly) younger years courtesy of the 20th anniversary re-release of Linkin Park’s sophomore album, “Meteora”. Vale Chester, gone way too soon
#1 genre? No great surprise to see it was “Metal”
(which I do enjoy, but my tastes are honestly far more eclectic)
Then, there’s always the surprise entry, this time courtesy of the #1 song. I was expecting to see perennial favourites “Muse” in top spot with one of their tracks that’s consistently on high rotation for me…
But no! In a shock first place for 2023 was a singer/songwriter I’d never heard of prior to August last year, with a song that was released even later than that and a music genre I’d never paid any attention to before in my life…
How あいみょん’s (Aimyon’s) song “Not OK” ended up as my #1 for the ‘23 is somewhat of a mystery, but I guess this is what happens when you start using J-Pop as one of several tools in the quest to learn a language. And besides… I reckon it’s pretty catchy
Happy music listening in 2024 folks!!