Twenty-nineteen was a fantastic year in music for me. I added nearly 400 new songs to my library, expanded my genre horizons, discovered several new artists, and collected tons of old music videos.
As per tradition, let’s take a look at my top-played songs in iTunes and my streaming music habits for the year. I will also review my musical decade.
2019’s Top Song
Following the trend of the past two years, my top-played song comes from a soundtrack: “Come Alive” by Years & Years and Jess Glynne. The song appears on The Greatest Showman: Reimagined soundtrack.
I’ve been obsessed with The Greatest Showman since I watched it in December 2018. The movie itself was great—I especially loved the romance between Zendaya and Zac Efron’s characters—but the soundtrack is what really snared me. I was literally downloading the soundtracks from hoopla during the movie. And I played those bad boys nonstop.
Now, “Come Alive” has two other versions: the original version primarily sung by Hugh Jackman and a reimagined version by Craig David. I have nothing against the those versions. The original is good, while Craig David’s version is a solid pop remake. But the Years & Years’ version has this funky, old-school-Michael-Jackson vibe that makes it the undisputed champ in my book. It commands me to crank it as loudly as possible every time I play it.
English-Language Songs
There are six English-language songs on the list. That’s a decent spike from last year, when there was only one.
My second and third highest ranking English songs are both by Ariana Grande. Although I bought Ariana’s first two albums, I mostly lost track of her after “Bang Bang” and “Dangerous Woman” came out. In fact, she hasn’t ranked on one of my lists since 2015 with “Almost is Never Enough” from the Mortal Instruments soundtrack.
This year, I reacquainted myself with Ariana’s discography by borrowing her Sweetener and thank you, next albums from hoopla. The lead singles from the two albums ended up with identical play counts, but “God is a Woman” edges out “7 Rings” in my opinion. Ariana sounds glorious, and the bass line slams on my stereo. It sounds like the musical baby of Hozier’s “Take Me To Church” and Katy Perry’s “E.T.”
The rest of the English songs are all surprisingly (or unsurprisingly if you’ve been paying attention) from soundtracks. Kehlani’s “Gangsta,” the aforementioned singular English song from last year, is still on the list. It dropped from three to thirteen, but I’m obviously still burning a hole in the track. It just doesn’t get old.
“The Greatest Show” by Panic! At The Disco is the second song on the list from The Greatest Showman: Reimagined. This version wins over the others because it’s three minutes shorter than the original and Brendon Urie’s voice best suits the song. Side note: it took me a long time to learn the lyrics. It’s so full of alliteration and tongue twisters that I kept messing up. I still have to concentrate when I sing along.
Lastly, there’s “Power is Power” by SZA, The Weeknd, and Travis Scott. This single, which comes from the Game of Thrones tribute album For the Throne, popped up while I was browsing Freegal in May. Talk about an automatic download! I had recently discovered SZA through her CTRL album. That album included a decent verse from Travis on the song “Love Galore.” I knew The Weeknd from his song “I Can’t Feel My Face” and his cameo on Beyoncé’s Lemonade song “6 Inch.” My conclusion? This collaboration was guaranteed awesomeness.
And I was totally right. “Power is Power” is amazing. It’s the perfect theme song for a show like GoT: epic, intense, powerful, sensual. If you don’t believe me, check out the original music video for the song, which is comprised of scenes from GoT. It makes me want to finally check out the show.
Honorable Mentions:
- “You Don’t Own Me” – Grace (from the Suicide Squad soundtrack)
- “Formation” – Beyoncé
J-Pop Songs
Oh, J-Pop…2019 was not a good year for you. The genre had only one entry, ruining its recent slow comeback in my library. Weirdly enough, this year’s top song (“Face My Fears”) is by the same artist (Utada Hikaru) and from the same soundtrack (Kingdom Hearts) as last year’s top song (“Chikai”).
“Face My Fears” is a beautiful song. The piano sets up the first verse for Utada and that indescribable quality in her voice that always makes me teary-eyed. Then Skrillex’s techno/EDM beat kicks in for the chorus…and wow! That whole instrumental section is fire. For some reason, I always catch myself doing Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” hand dance during that part. Ultimately, the vocals give the song weight, while the beat keeps the song from getting too emotional.
Honorable Mentions:
- “Take Off” – 2PM (2018’s top song)
- “Possibility” – BoA & Daichi Miura (last year’s #7 song)
K-Pop Songs
K-Pop songs appear eight times on my list. That’s down three from 2018 but still two more than I had in 2017. Plus, there are more songs from K-Pop than any other genre. Not bad.
My top K-Pop song (and my second most-played song overall) is BoA’s “Camo.” “Camo” is my jam. BoA is selling that same type of uber diva energy she brought in “The Shadow” and “Copy & Paste.” I love that from her. The music video does the song proud too. Her dancing is on point as usual, and she looks fierce in every outfit.
I also collected a nice mixture of new and old hits from many of my repeat offenders: Ailee, Lee Hi, BTS, Sunmi, and BLACKPINK. Y’all already know how much I love those guys, so let me highlight a couple of the new voices.
The girl group TWICE broke my top 10 with their song “TT.” My first encounter with them was their quirky zombie music video for “Ooh-Aah,” which I caught on the MNET Channel. I usually avoid so-called “Bubblegum Pop,” but somewhere between that video and the songs I heard on Pandora and Spotify over the years, I became a fan.
“TT” is my all-time favorite TWICE song. It’s so catchy and energetic. When I hear those first few notes, I immediately take my hands off the keyboard and get ready to dance. It starts with the shoulders. I have to admit that I didn’t understand the song’s title at first, though.
Another new face is Hyolyn. Hyolyn has been on my lists for Sistar songs like “Give It To Me” and “Alone” from 2012-2014, but never for her solo songs. Her fabulously raspy voice is one of the most unique and versatile ones out there, effortlessly moving from playful to sultry to vulnerable.
“Dally” surprised me when it popped up on Spotify’s “K-Pop Daebak” playlist because I didn’t know Hyolyn had anything new out. I instantly loved the song. It falls into the seductive end of her range, with flirty vocals that contrast well with Gray’s smooth delivery, an addictive chorus, and a somewhat raunchy music video. The woman knows her brand well.
Honorable Mentions:
- “Me & You” – EXID
- “Lo Siento” – Super Junior & Leslie Grace
Other Music Stats
As usual, I’d like to share some information about my streaming habits. Spotify, the only music service I used this year, sent me a link to my annual musical overview in early December. I got to see stats and other general information about 2019 and this past decade.
2019 Wrapped Stats
This time around, I didn’t stream much music. Spotify reports that I listened to 229 different songs and listened for 2,369 minutes.
That’s 122 fewer songs and 1,881 minutes less than in 2018. In fact, I spent the least amount of time listening to music on Spotify since I started using the service in 2015 according to one graphic.
The numbers aren’t as bleak as they look. I only used Spotify less because I owned the songs I listened to the most. Those songs obviously aren’t represented in my Spotify stats.
With that said, here are my 2019 Wrapped stats from Spotify:
Those top-played songs and artists aren’t particularly accurate. As a free user with a single playlist, I have no control over which songs play when. Yes, I like f(x), and I did add a bunch of their songs to my playlist, but I doubt I listened to the group enough to make them my top artist. Same goes for my top songs list.
My Decade, “Wrapped” and in iTunes
Interestingly, Spotify also provided the following summary of my top-played artists and songs of the decade:
Now, this list is more accurate, probably due to the brief period when I had a paid account. EXO is one of my favorite K-Pop bands, and I did play the crap out of their song “Call Me Baby” during my three-month subscription. The funny thing is that I own that song and three others on the list now.
As much as I enjoyed my Spotify stats, I wanted a more complete picture of my musical decade. So I decided to analyze my iTunes stats myself.
To get my top iTunes songs of the decade, I added up the play counts of the top songs on my lists since 2010 (the earliest data I have) to see which ones had the highest plays overall. Here are the results:
- “Copy & Paste” – BoA
- “Hurricane Venus” – BoA
- “Without You” – Mariah Carey
- “Alone” – Sistar
- “I Am the Best” – 2NE1
Using a similar method, I tallied up the artists who had the highest play counts overall with their songs this decade in iTunes. This is what I came up with:
- BoA
- Glee Cast
- Ailee
- 2NE1
- Mariah Carey
None of my iTunes songs appear on my Spotify list, of course, but BoA and Ailee appear on both lists as my top artists (#1 and #3 on iTunes versus #2 and #4 on Spotify). Having two BoA songs on my iTunes list further supports Spotify’s claim that she is one of my top artists.
Conclusion
So, that’s what I listened to in 2019.
My English-language music stats progressed well this year. My library is clearly about to be conquered by soundtracks. I also expect R&B to make its presence known soon, even though none of those songs showed up on the list this time. I’ve been collecting a lot from artists (past and present) in that genre lately.
As for J-Pop, I have to do better. I plan to dive back into the genre this year. My old J-Pop faves like Koda Kumi, Ayumi Hamasaki, Namie Amuro, and Mika Nakashima are all available on Spotify now. It probably won’t take long to find a bunch of new songs that I must have.
K-Pop had a slightly off year. It’s probably a temporary slide, partly caused by my decreased Spotify usage (as I said) and partly due to the fact that I just didn’t discover many new/new-to-me K-Pop songs. Did I not find more songs because I didn’t listen to Spotify much, or was I not listening to Spotify because there weren’t that many good K-Pop songs to find?
In any case, here’s to a great musical year in 2020 as well.
Photo Credit: “6005590.jpg” @ BRRT from pixabay via Canva.com