01 January 2022

Most Played Music from 2021

Most played 2021

For the last few years, I've set up a smart playlist on my iTunes account which lists the top 25 tracks played from the releases in a particular year. This stays live and updates as I play more, so it seems a good day to share the outcome.

There are seven different artists on the list; in order of where their tracks appear (highest place first) they are:

  1. Public Service Broadcasting (3)
  2. Marillion (3)
  3. Maximo Park (5)
  4. CHVRCHES (7)
  5. Faithless (1)
  6. The Killers (4)
  7. Bear McCreary (2)
Maximo Park is the earliest release in this list (with the album Nature Always Wins) and Marillion the last (Be Hard on Yourself). The CHVRCHES album (Screen Violence) is incredibly catchy and went on repeat a fair bit. The single entry from Faithless was a remix of last year's I need someone, which was one of my favourite tracks from their 2020 album. The Killer's tracks all come from Pressure Machine, which was their muted and introspective release this year, with shades of Springsteen. Bear McCreary's entries come from the soundtrack for Foundation, which is truly excellent.

The most played track overall was People, Let's Dance by Public Service Broadcasting. This comes from their album Bright Magic, which takes Berlin as its focus and moves further away from their trademark approach of stringing samples together with catchy music. It's a fantastic album.

I absolutely love the Marillion release, but it steps outside this as it is the first track from the album An Hour Before It's Dark which comes out at the start of March 2022. The three parts of the track took 2nd through 4th place.

If I had to pick one album for the year, it would probably be the CHVRCHES one, by a whisker, over Public Service Broadcasting but that could easily change with my mood. CHVRCHES is darkly upbeat, and PSB is catchy and introspective.

What were your most played, and what do you love about them?

1 January 2022

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