Ancestors

Written by SQLAllFather on 2025-01-01 at 20:29

I left Spotify in 2021 and started listening to my own music collection. I already had the MP3s and/or the CDs from which to rip them, so I hosted them on my Plex server and started listening to them using the excellent Plexamp mobile client.

One thing I missed from Spotify was the "wrapped" listening summary... but I'd always believed I could improve on what Spotify delivered. This winter break I spent some time implementing a solution in Microsoft Fabric. I used data from my Plex server's SQLite database for recent years, and from the JSON files that Spotify will send you if you make a GDPR data request for older years. I standardized enriched both data sets with the open source MusicBrainz database, and then visualized some Spotify-inspired vanity metrics in Power BI.

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[#]Notify #Plex #Plexamp #YearInReview #Music #Metal #MicrosoftFabric #PowerBI

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Written by SQLAllFather on 2025-01-01 at 20:30

This year I listened to music for over 85K minutes.

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Toot

Written by SQLAllFather on 2025-01-01 at 20:31

This year I listened to over 2200 songs.

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Descendants

Written by SQLAllFather on 2025-01-01 at 20:33

My top song for the year is Versvs Christvs by Behemoth. Apparently I listened to this one song for over 43 hours this year, which seems perfectly reasonable to me. Magnificamus te.

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Written by SQLAllFather on 2025-01-01 at 20:35

All of my top 5 songs this year were by Behemoth. To be fair, I think my to 50 were, but the report only shows the top 5.

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Written by SQLAllFather on 2025-01-01 at 20:37

I wonder why my year's genre cloud is dominated by the words "black" and "metal." Just one of those mysteries, I guess.

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Written by SQLAllFather on 2025-01-01 at 20:39

I listened to 109 different artists in 2024. This is pretty typical for my listening habits on Plexamp. My "artists per year" numbers of Spotify were often near or over 1,000 because Spotify was constantly pushing at me crap I would never want to listen to. When I filter out the garbage (artists with very low listen counts and durations) the number is much closer to 100 than to 1,000.

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Written by SQLAllFather on 2025-01-01 at 20:41

My top band of 2024 was Behemoth? I'll bet no one saw THAT coming!!

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Written by SQLAllFather on 2025-01-01 at 20:46

Although Behemoth is my current musical obsession, I do listen to lots of other music. Tiamat is a decades-long favorite, while Schammasch is a new-to-2024 discovery. Who knows where they'll show up next year?

That's what I have so far. I'll probably keep tweaking the solution throughout the year, but I'm pretty pleased with how this came together... and today is pretty much the last day I can share a 2024 retrospective without feeling like I missed a deadline somewhere.

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Written by SQLAllFather on 2025-01-01 at 20:52

Even though it's not super relevant for today, I also love the ability to compare and contrast different years. But am I including these screen shots to show off my report, or as evidence that I do actually listen to music other than Behemoth?

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