Music I Listened to in 2025

What’s going on, Internet? This is a snapshot of what actually happened with my music listening in 2025.

Not what I loved most. Not what I’d put on a list of favourites. Just what got played, when music was on, across the year.

A lot of that listening happened in the car, often with the kids. That single detail explains more of these stats than any genre preference or artist loyalty ever could. When music needs to work for everyone, the numbers skew toward pop, punk, and familiar records that don’t demand much attention.

Year in numbers

Here’s how the year shakes out:

The big takeaway here isn’t volume. It’s consistency. Music was on most days, but usually as something happening alongside other things rather than the focus of the moment.

What the numbers show

Looking at artists and albums by raw listen counts mostly shows what survived repetition.

That’s why certain albums and artists show up high even if I never consciously chose to listen to them front-to-back. The data reflects gravity, not selection.

A note on tracks and repeats

If you drill down to individual tracks, the picture gets messier.

A small number of songs soak up a disproportionate number of plays. Some of that comes from familiar, easy picks that work in the car. Some of it comes from repeat requests once a song sticks.

Artist	Track	Plays
Elemeno-P	Verona	36
Icona Pop	I Love It	29
Lorde	What Was That	21
Miley Cyrus	Flowers	20
Britney Spears	Toxic	19
Taylor Swift	Cruel Summer	18
Paramore	Misery Business	17
Foo Fighters	Everlong	16
The Offspring	Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)	15
Bowling for Soup	1985	15
NOFX	Linoleum	14
Lady Gaga	Bad Romance	14
Eminem	Lose Yourself	13
The Living End	Prisoner of Society	13
Taking Back Sunday	MakeDamnSure	12

Albums by the numbers

Looking at albums instead of tracks smooths things out a bit, but it’s still important to read this as what surfaced repeatedly, not what I sat down and listened to front-to-back.

These albums came up often because individual tracks were pulled into radio, playlists, or similar-song queues. In some cases that’s down to large libraries or genre overlap rather than deliberate album plays.

Album	Artist	Plays
Love & Disrespect	Elemeno-P	114
Virgin	Lorde	111
K-Pop Demon Hunters (Soundtrack)	K-Pop Demon Hunters Cast	62
You Can’t Kill God With Bullets	Conway	60
Blush	Niamh Crooks	58
The Buddhafinger	Tadpole	53
MAYHEM	Lady Gaga	44
Endless Summer Vacation	Miley Cyrus	43
Supreme Clientele 2	Ghostface Killah	39
Icona Pop	Icona Pop	39

Scrobbling captures what was played, not why it was played.

I wouldn’t call any of these my favourite albums of the year. What they represent instead is a mix of deliberate listens, kid-driven repetition, release-week curiosity, and algorithmic gravity. Taken together, they tell a more interesting story than a simple ranking.

Love & Disrespect
This really is a great album 20 years later, and I did intentionally listen to it front-to-back a couple of times. That said, the play count is heavily inflated by my son discovering Verona and listening to it on repeat. The album’s position is a mix of genuine appreciation and one song becoming a household favourite.

Virgin
This got a lot of attention when it was released. At around 35 minutes, it’s short enough to run front-to-back without effort, which made it easy to revisit while travelling. The plays here reflect a concentrated release window rather than long-term rotation. I still have What Was That on rotation.

K-Pop Demon Hunters (Soundtrack)
This one came entirely via my son. He came home from preschool already obsessed with it, most likely after hearing it played in class. A few of the kids clearly had older siblings who’d seen the movie. We ended up watching it together, and I played the soundtrack front-to-back a few times during drop-offs, usually finishing it off after the kids were already at school.

You Can’t Kill God With Bullets
This was a genuine front-to-back repeat listen. Conway in good form, and an album I chose to spend time with properly. Relegated to gym listening as it’s getting harder and harder to play this particular type of rap music around the family.

Blush
Another intentional listen. At 23 minutes, it’s a very digestible project and easy to replay in full. The numbers here reflect repeat album listens rather than radio or playlist pull.

The Buddhafinger
A fully intentional revisit. Still holds up after 20 years, and one I went back to front-to-back rather than picking individual tracks.

MAYHEM
I listened to this front-to-back on release, but the total plays were boosted by PlexAmp mixes throughout the year. Tracks popping up out of order did a lot of the work here, which blurs the line between choice and convenience.

Endless Summer Vacation
This one is almost entirely a single-song story. Flowers was huge in our house when it came out and carried over into the start of this year before being replaced by Icona Pop and Elemeno-P. I don’t really remember listening to the album front-to-back this year, despite what the numbers suggest.

Supreme Clientele 2
A 45-minute project across 20 tracks that I listened to twice, front-to-back. I’m glad I heard it, but I don’t expect to return to it often. The play count reflects release day focus rather than lasting pull.

Icona Pop
This album’s position is almost entirely driven by I Love It. That song became a regular pick for morning drop-offs and afternoon pick-ups, which quietly inflated the album’s numbers without much intentional album listening.

Seen this way, the list makes more sense. Some albums are there because I chose them. Others are there because kids, timing, track related radio, or PlexAmp mixes kept pulling them back into rotation. That tension is exactly what scrobbling captures well, and exactly what it can’t explain on its own.

What I Actively Sought Out This Year

These are the albums I chose to listen to deliberately. Usually front-to-back. Often a handful of times. Most of them barely register in the numbers because intentional listening doesn’t scale the way background or radio-driven listening does. My listening attention is split between music, podcasts, and audiobooks. Our current living situation also makes it harder to blast new music on proper stereo equipment the way I used to before we moved up north.

That’s fine. This list exists to capture what the data misses.

Lorde - Virgin
As mentioned above.

Tom Scott – Anitya
A 12-track album that clocked 31 plays, which works out to almost three full listens. It doesn’t look significant in the stats, but it was one of the few records I actually sat with this year. Focused listens, no radio bleed, and a live performance at the Civic Theatre that helped it stick. Due to the deeply personal nature of the project I’m not likely to return to it like I do his other projects.

Trainspotting — Rome Streetz & Conductor Williams
My favourite release from the wider Griselda affiliates this year. Conductor Williams provides minimal, spooky, often wonky beats that give Rome plenty of space to work. The Method Man verse is a banger. This one will be heading back into my gym rotation.

Ponu — Mokomokai
Mokomokai’s third studio album and a noticeably more mature release. Less violent and aggressive than the previous two, but still driven by the same sharp flows and heavy beats. It sounds grown up without losing its edge.

You Can’t Kill God With Bullets — Conway The Machine
Conway back on form. I only had a couple of weeks with this before the year wrapped up, but it was a genuine front-to-back listen and an easy one to return to. This will stay in rotation going into 2026.

Reject 3 — Conway The Machine
An unfortunate leak of a highly anticipated follow-up to the Reject series. Despite the circumstances, Conway sounds like his best self here. Whether this ever sees an official release remains to be seen.

Coast Arcade — Coast Arcade
Local rock done well. Easy to put on, easy to enjoy. This one is perfect on the deck with a beer in the sun, and that feels like exactly the right context for it.

Everybody’s Looking At Me (single) — Eminem
Not an album, and was a surprise. A track from the vault released in 2025 as part of the cringe STANS documentary soundtrack. I’ll take more of these 20 year old Eminem tracks any day.

This doesn’t include any of the music I hear week after week in RPM and SPRINT classes at the gym. I’ve got clear favourites there too, but that’s a different kind of listening and probably deserves its own post.

Fuck it. 2026 is about listening to more good music.

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