This year, I treated myself to a Spotify premium account. I’ve been using Spotify for free since it launched a few years ago and I decided the site had brought enough joy to my life that I should give them some money. The perks were worth it – no commercials, full albums and, most important, I could download songs to my iPod to listen in the car. Which is probably where the majority of these 14,325 minutes happened.

One of the main reasons I love Spotify is the ease of finding new music. I’ve always loved music – in college I had my own radio show and I also interned at a local progressive rock station – and I’ve always taken pride in discovering new artists before they got big. Also, after working at a radio station, I realized how little music they actually play and how much of it is controlled by what genre the station is attached to. With Spotify, every Friday I had two playlists of new music to listen to – New Releases and Discover – and I found so many great artists.

Jukebox the Ghost is one of the bands I found this year. According to my Spotify stats, I listened to them for 13 hours. Their bouncy sound was just what I needed during the rainy spring and I remember they were my commute soundtrack for several days and then I would come home and put them on and dance around the kitchen while dinner was cooking.(Though I do find it funny that they were a top artist but none of their songs are in my Top Songs list…)

I also want to point out that Bastille made my list and they didn’t even have an album come out this year (Other People’s Heartache Part 4 was just released so that doesn’t count in my stats, though I had it on repeat all day Friday). They had a single – Quarter Past Midnight (I listened to that so much I have the lyrics committed to memory) – and they teamed up with Marshmello for Happier. It is just that every time I would listen to those two songs, I would eventually want more and I’d flip over to the “This is Bastille” playlist and listen to both of their albums, the special cuts, and the previous OPH compilations.  There is no denying that they are becoming one of my favorite bands.

Honorable mention goes to The Wombats since I listened to Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life on repeat for several days. I think it was the first new album by a band I was a fan of that came out this year so it got extra attention since I was mostly single hopping in my playlist up until then.

And Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Film goes to Dylan Gardener. He is a young musician starting out but don’t be surprised if you start hearing him on the radio a lot in 2019. His new single – Privacy – is very catchy but also shows that he is thinking outside the box since his first two albums are bouncy pop and this song feels a little more dirty. Can’t wait to hear the full album to see what part this song plays in the story he is telling.

YOUR TURN! Do you have a Spotify Wrapped List to share?  If not, what do you think your top songs were this year? Any new artists that you discovered? Share in the comments or link to your 2018 music post!