Let's face it: I'm in way over my head with this whole university thing. For some reason I decided to become an Honours student, conduct research on perceptual dialectology in South Asia and become an editor of an academic journal. Mistakes were made. Because on top of that, I'm still a runner, a damaged granddaughter and a blogger who is hopelessly behind on her content. It's been a hectic year, with little time to share my travel stories. But we all know mental health is more important than a conspiracy theory about the Titanic. So today I decided to slow down for once and write something fun. Something outside my usual niche. Something that we can all have a good laugh about. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to tell you about the beautiful disaster that is my Spotify Wrapped.


I discovered Spotify in 2014. The laptop my grandma gave me for my college career had the app preinstalled. I loved it right from the start. I still prefer CDs though, because I like to have physical copies of the music that I absolutely love. Since 2014, Spotify has kept me from so many financial disasters in the music world. Getting a feel for artists before buying an entire album is my favorite thing about Spotify. This year was a little different though. In January, I discovered the Desi category. Since that day, I've been looking forward to the complete mess that 2019's Spotify Wrapped would be. And I'm not surprised that even though Spotify claimed that my taste changed with the seasons, all of the are heavily influenced by Bollywood. Winter still looks a lot like what you'd expect from a basic white girl, with Mike Posner represented twice. Spring is when I started learning Hindi and decided to listen to the Bollywood Blast playlist on the train to university. It escalated from there, but Spring was also when I really started to get into The 1975. No surprises here.


Summer is more of the same, like Spring but amplified. This is how I'll remember 2019 when it comes to music. I listened to Bollywood Blast all the time while studying for finals. My friends thought I'd finally lost it, until I explained that listening to music in a language you don't speak is ideal if you want music in the background of your study sessions without it becoming a distraction (and then I shot myself in the foot by learning Hindi). Spotify, however, decided that this slide should be accompanied by a fragment from Pressure by The 1975. With good reason. I listened to this song on repeat in the early days of summer. After my grandma's death in May, I became a bit of an insomniac, prone to nightly episodes of pure panic. I'd sit for hours at my desk, just staring at my laptop and panicking badly unless Pressure was playing on repeat. That's how I'll remember the summer of 2019; The dark half of twilight and Pressure. I'm okay with that, bittersweet as it now seems.


Then Fall came. And I literally don't know of the artists shown on that slide. Here's the thing: I can't afford Spotify Premium at this point in my life, so whenever I'm out and about, I am forced to listen to albums and playlists on shuffle. At some point, I just stopped paying attention to the artists in playlists that weren't my own. As a result, I know that I must have listened to these artists; I just can't name any of their songs.

Moving on to my favorite artist of the year. I was worried about this one; the forced shuffle might have skewed this category in favor of some Indian dude as well. But I needn't have worried. My artist of the year is The 1975, which none of my friends will find surprising. Apparently I listened to their music for 17 hours just on Spotify. Not counting the times I listened to my physical copy of their album. And definitely not counting those endless days out of the African roads, when I was listening to So Far (It's Alright) on repeat all day. These 17 hours are just the tip of the iceberg. What's worse: I can exactly pinpoint those 17 hours. A few nights in June and three weeks in November made up the bulk of them. By the way, I'm very skeptic about Chocolate being my favorite song of theirs. You know, the sleepless nights with Pressure and all that. But I digress. And no, Spotify, I don't want to thank The 1975 for being my favorite artist of the decade. There's nothing more awkward and anxiety-inducing to me than tweeting a popular band. They have more than enough random fans bothering them as is.


My World Citizen slide once again confirms that I mainly listen to South Asian music and The 1975. Spotify's pick for my US artist is hilarious: They picked Khalid. I haven't listened to the guy's music in ages. To make it even better, they paired his picture with Halsey's verse from Eastside. Great job guys, great job. And then this gift keeps on giving: I get Davina Michelle for my Dutch pick, and I listened to one song of hers maybe four times before the radio killed it. My fifth country to show up here is Puerto Rico, represented by a guy named Farruko. I have literally no idea who this man is. Neither his face, nor his name, nor his song ring any bells.


The next slide might not be able to top the absolute mess that the previous one was, but it sure is a beautiful mess too. Spotify tries to claim I'm genre-fluid, but they really had to work hard to come up with more than three genres. Pop, I understand. Latin, sure, I have a vague memory of a few trips to uni with Spanish instead of Hindi. But then we get a lot of variations on Indian pop. Good effort, Spotify, but you really didn't have to call me genre-fluid when I so clearly do not fit the label.


Finally, I can get to my songs of the year. I only recognize Mike Posner's Move On at first sight, and Leah Nobel's Coffee Sunday NYT. Leah Nobel was my favorite artist when I first got dragged into the weird world of Caroline Calloway. Her song fits the lazy influencer vibe that Calloway gives off. It calms me down when I'm panicking. It's a good song. The same goes for the Hindi songs on this list. Okay, maybe half. The other half just somehow always pops up in the forced shuffle.


So 2019 was... interesting in terms of music. But Spotify Wrapped doesn't end there. No, I suddenly get to hear Sheppard as the start of my decade recap. A true blast from the past - the last time I listened to Sheppard must have been July 2018. My interest in the band decreased rapidly after 2016. It's not the only thing that has decreased over the years though: My time spent on Spotify is also significantly less than it used to be. I love the graph with this information. It shows exactly when I was stressed and miserable. The moment I started university, I didn't need to rely on music for my happiness anymore.


My songs of the decade are accurate. I moved on from my favorite band from my high school days, Train, to generic pop to depressing pop to awful Dutch rap music. Then came George Ezra and I ended up with South Asian tunes and The 1975. I've grown and changed a lot, just like my list shows. I'm no longer the girl who listened to Train because it reminded her of home in the US. I'm now that weird old university student who listens to music in a language she barely speaks. It's all good though. This really is who I am. But I do feel attacked by 2017. I was going through a lot when I listened to De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig. I didn't need a reminder of that lapse in my judgment!


Spotify saved the biggest surprise of them all for the very end: My artist of the decade. And it's SHEPPARD. My first guess would have been Train. The 1975. Even De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig would have made more sense since the dark days of June 2017 were full of Sterrenstof, the only song of theirs that I can tolerate. But Sheppard... I loved them in 2015. I still like their music. But I rarely listen to them. I have no idea how they became my artist of the decade. Oh well. Weird things happen. Let's focus on next year now. My main goal when it comes to music: Making my Spotify Wrapped for 2020 and the next decade even more chaotic than this one.