As one of only a handful of people in the world that uses Apple Music instead of Spotify, it is my moral duty to share my experience with the world.
At the end of each year, my Spotify friends would all share their top albums of the year, how many minutes of music they’ve listened to, etc. All of this was conveniently provided for them by their platform. I decided to take matters into my own hands and dig deep into my Apple Music data.
How much music have I listened to?
Over a 10 year period, I have listened to around 17,500 hours of music. That’s around 729 days or a full two years of listening.
There isn’t a clear pattern in my listening behavior over the year.
When during the week do I listen to music?
During the weekends, I’m off doing something else rather than listening to music.
If I do listen to music, it’s around the times that I like to go to the gym during the weekend.
Monday to Friday I’m listening on my way to the office and while working.
There’s a short listening break during lunch.
There’s a little hint here that I work longer hours on Mondays than on Fridays.
You can also see the times when I catch the train early in the morning and start listening from 4 or 5 am.
When I do listen, it’s for an average of 36 minutes uninterrupted, but up to 8+ hours in a single session.
What do I listen to?
The best evidence for being an all-eater comes from this next plot.
My top listened to songs are split between upbeat/metal/EDM songs for the gym (Extermination, Montero, Ditch, Deadwood, goosebumps, Selecta, Patakha Guddi) and
contemplative and highly loopable songs (Misty Mountains from the Hobbit, The World We Knew by Frank Sinatra, Past Lives, Aldrig by Benny Andersson, Vikt på mina axlar by Alex Lejonhjärta, Exit Music by Radiohead).
Interestingly, the image is slightly different if we plot the top 20 songs by minutes played rather than by count. At the top we now have “Pirates of the Caribbean Medley” from Hans Zimmer’s “Live in Prague” album, which I frequently listen to at the gym.
“Lingus”, a 10-minute jazz masterpiece by band Snarky Puppy, “1/1” by Brian Eno from “Music for Airports”,
the great Egyptian classic “Alf Leila We Leila” (“A Thousand and One Nights”) by Umm Kalthum is a whopping 42 minutes. A little lower down is another of Umm Kalthum’s songs, “Enta Oumry” (“You Are My Life”), at 52-minutes, and perfect for long drives.
Sometimes, there’s a whole album with normal length songs that ends up on repeat.
Each song is too short to make it to my top 20 songs by play time, and since I repeat the whole album rather than an individual song, any individual song is less likely to end up in my top 20 song count. Here in the top albums we find my favorite album to sleep to on the train, “Black Holes and Revelations” by Muse. Then there’s relaxing lounge music for me (Mad Men, Paris Terrace, Piano by Benny Andersson), for babies (Baby lullaby), and for dogs (Dog Music). There’s some musicals (Les Mis. and Hamilton), other film music (Interstellar, Howl’s Moving Castle, Frozen 2, Narcos), mixed in with some hip hop (Life of Pablo, Heroes and Villains) and jazz (Sinatra: Best of the Best and We Like it Here by Snarky Puppy).
How do I find songs to listen to?
I most often find songs through my ‘For you’ page. They’ve changed the labels on these with the app updates, but I believe this is the main
landing page, which also has my “Recently played”. Since I tend to listen to the same songs over and over again, that’s where I find them.
I think “Home” and “For you” might be the same thing, just as “Listen Now” and “Browse” might be the same thing.
In any case, around 10% of the time, I’m looking up downloaded songs in my Library. This is often during flights, long train rides with bad internet connection, or when I want a playlist that I have made.
It’s nice to stop and reflect on one’s patterns and behaviors. Looking back, I remember when and where I was listening to each of these albums. This was as therapeutic as flipping through an old journal with anecdotes and memories. From the statistics lies a story of waking up in the middle of the night to catch a train to get to work, stories of music that I listen to for different exercises (“Goosebumps” until my calves give in, or scrolling back to minute 02:00 for the 02:14 and 02:44 drops in the Pirates of the Caribbean Medley), working on my laptop while dog sitting a very cute corgi named Henry, falling asleep with a big smile on my face listening to George Carlin’s stand-up special “Complaints & Grievances”, connecting with a person so entirely different from me over Howl’s “Moving Castle”, sitting up a couple of nights dissecting the drum beat and bass in the second half of “Lingus”, explaining to a colleague how the piano piece “Aldrig” sounds like a person having a conversation with themselves, filled with doubt but overcome by resilience, or seeing family members face light up with joy as I put on Umm Kalthum’s songs—giving them glimpses of their youth. Data by itself does not tell a story, but there’s a story behind each of these data points.
All in all, this was 10 years of listening turned into one post with beautifully unnecessary statistics. Until next time.
Uploaded 2025-11-20