When I saw my Spotify Wrapped for 2025, there was a little bit of disappointment in the sense that it didn’t really reflect my listening tastes for the year.
As I review lots of audio products each year, I tend to use services such as Spotify for testing. When it comes to battery drains or using sports headphones, I usually plug in a playlist and let it go.
So seeing some of the choices that made it to the top of my list and I felt that wasn’t quite representative of who I am. But more than that, was the focus on tracks – and the same tracks over and over.
Quite frankly, I feel my music tastes are being stunted by my approach to just listening to singles and tracks that catch my attention. In 2026, I plan to take action.
Too many singles, not enough albums
I don’t see listening to playlists on music streaming services as a bad thing at all, despite numerous articles on the web arguing that it can have a negative impact on listeners.
I can understand the criticism of it becoming background noise, the lack of discovery in terms of curation and algorithms feeding you what it thinks, as well as the loss of the album experience – but I’d say these are not new issues and shouldn’t be laid solely at the digital feet of music streaming services.
Addressing the background noise criticism – well, isn’t listening to music on the radio the same thing? And that goes for music discovery as well. If, in the past, I was going to listen to a certain radio station, I wouldn’t get a wide range of music to listen to but a siloed experience, either based on the radio station itself (it’s not as if Jazz FM will start playing pop anytime soon) or the DJ curating the song list. I’d always be in the hands of someone or something else when it comes to music curation.
I have some sympathy on the album experience front, but the chopping up of albums to put singles front and centre started a long time ago, and has tuned our sensibilities into listening to one or a few tracks rather than making our way through an album.
My feeling is not to unplug from music streaming services, and least not totally, but to shift attitudes back in time to when I was younger…
Time to invest in a portable music player
I’ve tried in the past to reclaim my attention span from listening to singles or EPs. After all, the one thing about streaming services is that they can provide a broad swathe of an artist’s library. There’s not only the present but much of the past to tuck into as well. I used to listen to albums in full, but then at some point I stopped.
I’ve listened to David Bowie, though I’ve not finished his discography – I tend to get sidetracked around the early 2000s, which admittedly did not seem like the best period for his music. I’ve listened to The Beatles – so many albums in such a short span of time. I’ve started on The Rolling Stones but found the early stuff a little hard-going. I’ve also started, quite randomly, on Soundgarden recently. But I find it tough to stick through and listen to a whole album. My attention keeps being distracted.
I’ve found that my music tastes have become rather samey. There’s a whole world of music out there, and I’m limiting myself to a small piece rather than a bigger chunk. My knowledge of music history is also not as strong as it could be and that’s something I want to change going forward.
Do I know who My Bloody Valentine are? Sure. Could I tell what kind of music they play? Absolutely not. That’s a weird and odd sort of contrast – a sign of a fractured music experience that I think we all go through, where we know about bands but our experience of them is small.
So I’m planning to be more adventurous when it comes to music. Even Hip Hop and R&B, which I’ve listened to since I was young, I don’t have huge amounts of knowledge about. Several years back my brother gave me Busta Rhymes, Jeru the Damaja, and Wu-Tang Clan CDs, but I’ve yet to listen to them.
I think the reason why I’ve struggled to get back into listening to albums is not just because of playlists, algorithms and all that stuff. I think the main reason is having a smartphone and not a portable music player.
I remember the time when I’d curate my own albums to an iPod or a small Creative Zen player and go through them. Sure, there was the option to shuffle through all the tracks I’ve added to the player, but more often than not, I’d listen to an album in full. That’s the experience I’m missing.
I don’t think of my smartphone in the same way. It’s a device I dip in and out of, not something that holds my full concentration. To get me back into the music game proper, to listening to albums instead of singles, I’ve got to change tact.
I think I’ll invest in a portable music player. I see there are iPod Classics selling on eBay…
