“Tonight the moonlight makes the floor of the Great Hall into a game board.”
First line in The Betrayals by Bridget Collins
This is another one of those posts where I’ve come up with a reason to talk about books and music at the same time. As most people know, Spotify Wrapped dropped a couple of weeks ago and I loved Spotify telling me what kind of person I am through music stats. For this post, I’ve paired the info I got with a book, but really, this is just an excuse to talk about music.
Just note that I’ve taken screenshots of the different stats and they’re obviously in Danish, but I will translate when necessary.
The Number of Genres I Listened To
I explored 25 different genres in 2022, which sounds like a lot to me but I’m also pretty sure Spotify has at least 100 different sub-genres of pop. So it adds up, I guess.
For this stat, I’m picking a book I think spans multiple genres instead of being firmly rooted in one. And my choice is The Betrayals by Bridget Collins, a book I couldn’t possibly describe with just one genre. I’ve previously gone with the easy but ambiguous choice of calling it literary fiction, however, arguments could be made for calling it dark academia, historical fiction, fantasy and even science fiction.
My Favorite Song
My favorite song of the year is Sweet Night by V, and I didn’t discover this song until mid-October which means it rose to my number one spot in about six weeks. I’m still very obsessed with it and with V whom I’ve now discovered is a person that exists (I know, I’m late). But I listened to the song 139 times in those six weeks and I’ll admit that I cried during the first 30 times. Every time. I was a mess.
But what book does this song remind me of? The lyrics are about discovering you feel something more for a friend but wondering whether it’s too late to do something about it, and I cannot unsee the parallel to Half Wild by Sally Green, the second book in her Half Bad Trilogy. I don’t want to say too much because of spoilers but there are small things in the lyrics of the song that just match up perfectly with that book.
The Number of Artists I Listened To
According to Spotify, I listened to 641 different artists but that has to be wrong, right? That’s too many! I don’t think I could name even 100 right now. Can I get a list of those 641, Spotify?
But for the book, I thought I’d mention one written by multiple authors and my choice is The Haunting Season, a collection of wintery short stories. It features stories from two of my favorite authors, Bridget Collins and Natasha Pulley, and it’s the perfect book for this time of year.
My Favorite Artist
My favorite artist of the year was Scarlet Pleasure because I listened to them for 1,143 minutes and was among the 0.5% of the most dedicated listeners. I was excited to see who my favorite artist was going to be because I didn’t feel like I had listened a whole lot to one in particular. And while I do consider Scarlet Pleasure my favorite artist in general (not just this year), I don’t think they’ve ever claimed that top spot before. I’m glad it finally happened.
Matching a book to this stat means I’m looking at their band name and picking a book with a red cover. And lots of red in the title? Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, the second book in his Gentleman Bastard series about Locke Lamora and his gang of thieves.
My Top 5 Artists
Like I mentioned before, I had no idea who my number one would be so I was obviously just as clueless about my top 5. And honestly? I have no idea what Harry and Louis are doing there. They both released new albums this year but I didn’t actually like them except for a couple of songs. Which I guess I must have liked a lot. BTS was more obvious to me and that’s despite me not having listened to them before October. I somehow fell into a hole of watching videos about them on YouTube and found out I actually liked a few of their songs, which are basically the only songs I’ve listened to since then.
In order to match a book with this top 5, I figured that the overall theme was internationality since I have four different nationalities represented within those five (Danish, Italian, Korean, and British). A book with the buzzword “international” is The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker because it takes place in a very multi-cultural New York. It primarily has Middle Eastern influences but it still paints an image of New York as a place where you can meet people from all over the world.
My Listening Personality
My Listening Personality is The Devotee. According to Spotify, that means that when I love an artist, it’s true love and I know all the lyrics to all their songs because I listen to them over and over and over again. Which I guess is pretty accurate. I rarely listen to new artists and prefer to stick to the ones I know.
The defining traits of The Devotee are familiarity, newness, loyalty and uniqueness so I tried to find a book that matches those traits. My choice is a book I read recently and that is Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore. It has a familiar fantasy feel by following a royal family in a secondary world where people also have magical abilities, yet it still manages to do something new and unique with it so the book truly surprised me several times. Finally, loyalty is a huge theme in the book so I think it checks all the boxes.
I listened to music for 23,194 minutes in 2022 so music is a huge part of my everyday life, making this post very necessary. But let me know what you think of it! Also, please share your own Spotify Wrapped stats in the comments because I’m very interested, especially in knowing what your favorite song was!
First Line Reader 
I saw that first line and never clicked faster! 🤗 I don’t even know what I love most – the fact that this post is about music, the fact that you gave us Danish graphics that I obviously had a ton of fun trying to translate, or the fact that you snuck both The Betrayals and Bitterblue into this post!! 🥰
Also, I think I’ve heard Sweet Night before, but I never really payed too much attention because the melody didn’t immediately captivate me 😅 HOWEVER … now that I knew this is your top song, I obviously had to listen more closely and actually bothered to understand the lyrics – and I am obsessed!! It’s so good! 😭 So maybe I’ll have to check out BTS more closely in the future after all…
As for my own Spotify Wrapped, I think I already told you that my stats are abysmal and that I barely got around to listening to anything this year. My top spots are all taken by classical composers, with Tchaikovsky clocking in at #1… Which isn’t really that surprising because a) I can listen to instrumental stuff while working and b) I don’t really tend to listen to songs on repeat and when I do, it’s usually an orchestra piece because I’m extraordinarily lazy and would rather memorize how everything sounds than count rests to figure out which bar an entrance is supposed to be. So I study anything we perform in extreme detail! 😁 However, Imagine Dragons and EAV both still managed to snag a spot in my top artists, so I guess that’s something. And my top song of the year was Call Me a Dreamer by Kings Elliot – which, to be fair, I am still fairly obsessed with 🥰
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You know, I had a feeling that at least one person wouldn’t mind the Danish in this post 😉😂
And the fact that I have made you love Sweet Night means that this post is already a major success! 😍 Obsessed is also my primary word for that song and that emoji 😭. I also had to listen to the lyrics properly before it really caught me but then the lyrics combined with his voice made me feel so much and I just love that song with my entire being!!
I can relate to very little about your Spotify Wrapped, though. Classical music and you don’t listen to songs on repeat? Can you teach me the trick on how not to do that because I only listen to songs on repeat and I think it makes me sick of songs faster? 😅 But I can’t help it!
I listened to Call Me a Dreamer, which I hadn’t heard of before, and while it’s not completely my taste, it was so calming and exactly what I needed just now! I’ve been outside in -5 degrees all day so it felt like my shoulders were permanently stuck around my ears but now I feel so relaxed 😄 But yeah, I can definitely understand why you’re obsessed with it!
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Unfortunately, I don’t think I really have a trick for you, either 😅 Unless I love a song beyond measure and am determined to learn the lyrics, listening on repeat is just not something I do. I’m fairly fast at memorizing melodies and once I’ve done that, I’m pretty much sick of the song and will put it on pause for a while… Which means I am a terrible person to ride in a car with because I WILL sing along to whatever music is playing and inevitably get the words completely wrong 😂 So I’d say my method has its downsides, too 😉
And I’m glad Call Me a Dreamer was able to help you relax a bit! That song actually snuck up on me, too – at first I wasn’t completely sold, but the lyrics and the fact that I’m still not entirely sure whether the “you” in the song is a person or the feeling of being happy has me so entranced that I just can’t stop listening 😁
Also, consider me extremely jealous of your -5 degrees – we hit -20°C this morning and my car refused to start 😭 Which means I had the absolutely wonderful experience of having to ring my neighbors’ doorbell at 6:45 in the morning, begging them to take me into town with them so that I wouldn’t be late for school. (Their light was on, so I figured they were heading out. But I still nearly died of social awkwardness.) However, at least I know my neighbors now and learned how to install a new car battery? 😅
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The situations you get into 😂 Had I stood in -20 degrees with an uncooperative car, I would probably just figure “Well, I tried” and then accepted I couldn’t go anywhere 😅 Like, the school would understand, right? 😄 But I’m glad you solved it (and didn’t die of social awkwardness!) and even learned something!
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Well, if I hadn’t asked my neighbors for a ride, I would have had to call the school to let them know about my predicament, which would have been at least as awful… Not to mention that falling behind on the curriculum is extremely stressful! And I don’t get paid for lessons I don’t teach, either… So I guess this was the better option? 😅
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This is a very fun and unique post! I love Sweet Night- I never really look for song lyrics so I didn’t know what the song is all about, but the melody was really sweet. I’m glad to know what it’s about now xD His voice is also soo good, have you listen his other OST Christmas Tree? It has the same feeling with Sweet Night 😀
Anywaysss I’ve never heard about The Haunting Season before but it sounds like something I would enjoy so I’m adding it to my TBR!
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Thank you! 😄 I also don’t normally pay attention to lyrics but there were some lines in that song that had me listening a little harder. And you’re so on point with the Christmas Tree recommendation! I do know it because when my Sweet Night obsession died down a little, I became obsessed with Christmas Tree instead 😁 I just need that man to drop an album soon!
I hope you end up liking The Haunting Season!
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