Jan. 5th, 2023 04:25 pm
all of me changed like midnight rain
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chicafrom3Happy 2023, several days late! I almost didn't bother posting this. But tradition is tradition, so even if I'm breaking it by being very late, at least I've got some stats to post.
2022 was very bad for me on several fronts, I hope it was better for you. And I hope 2023 is better!
According to last.fm, I listened to 7,730 tracks scrobbles in 2022, an average of 21 songs per day. I listened to 691 different artists, 465 different albums, and 3,038 distinct songs.
I also started seriously overhauling how last.fm tracks my music. I went through and removed all of my musical theatre bootlegs, because last.fm does not like them and they make my stats look messy; I've also started going through and fixing some other messy stats, including removing duplicate scrobbles and fixing tracks that are missing info or have wrong info (a serious problem with compilation and cast recording albums but also a problem on some older albums). This has led to some startling changes on my overall stats. I also realized that at least once before I made the decision to stop tracking my listening of bootlegs and then changed my mind and started tracking it again, so we'll see how long it lasts this time.
Anyway, as with last year, my listening this year included a lot of podcasts and Big Finish audios, which last.fm does not track. And also theatre boots, which it no longer tracks because I remove them to keep my stats looking nice. For the things which it does track:
My top artist was The Pogues, with 928 scrobbles, followed by Dropkick Murphys (920), Taylor Swift (792), Flogging Molly (629), and Declan Bennett (524). This is the exact same top five as last year, except last year's top five had RENT in the place of Declan and I didn't track musicals this year; last year once musicals were cut out Declan took fifth. I'm very predictable, okay. Top albums: Anthem by Flogging Molly (189), This Machine Still Kills Fascists by Dropkick Murphys (188), Midnights (3am Edition) by Taylor Swift (187), Rum Sodomy & the Lash by the Pogues (164), and Red Roses For Me by the Pogues (144). Red Roses For Me was also in fifth place last year, so that's mildly fun; the top three were all released this year (and all in October or November, which is also mildly fun). Top tracks: Sally MacLennane by the Pogues (31), Ten Times More by Dropkick Murphys (27), You and Me by Declan Bennett (25), Straight In Your Face by Declan Bennett (23) / Wake Up by Declan Bennett (23), These Times Have Got Me Drinking / Tripping Up The Stairs by Flogging Molly (23), Streams Of Whiskey by The Pogues (23). (I know that's not five but there was a tie.)
Lots of new albums this year! Flogging Molly released their first studio album in five years, Anthem. It is 100% a Flogging Molly album and I mean that in the best way possible; I fall to pieces every time I listen to The Parting Wave. Dropkick Murphys released This Machine Still Kills Fascists, an acoustic album they recorded on tour of unreleased Woody Guthrie songs, and it's absolutely fascinating of how it is both completely a DKM record and also completely unlike anything else they've done before. Ten Times More is probably my favorite song on the album but I really recommend listening to the whole thing straight through. I was expecting a new Taylor Swift rerecording but instead she took a hard left turn and released Midnights, her tenth original album, a return to synth pop and diaristic writing, and it's spectacular; I'm hard-pressed to pick a favorite, but right at this moment it's probably either Midnight Rain or The Great War. syndrome 81's prisons imaginaires is a really fascinating album -- I can't pick a favorite track, it has to be experienced as a whole -- and I keep going back to Arms Aloft's What A Time To Be Barely Alive more than is probably good for me.
Not actually new this year, but new to me; I picked up Peter Capaldi's album, St. Christopher, which was released last year. Absolutely gorgeous and stunning. The title track is possibly my favorite, but Beautiful And Weird is one that I keep going back to, too.
In 2022, I read 107 books according to Goodreads or 106 according to Storygraph, either way exceeding my goal of 100. I'm not 100% sure where the discrepancy is, but I suspect it's down to having reread something this year; both sites count rereads but I suspect Storygraph doesn't count it twice in the same year.
Anyway, as usual this includes a lot of trash reading, including continuing my readthrough of the BSC, a ton of comics, and a massive number of Doctor Who books. You can find my Goodreads year in review here. Goodreads informs me I read 13,658 pages; the shortest book was Nightmare Country issue 2 issue 2 at 26 pages; the longest book was The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow at 624 pages; the average length was 127 pages. The most popular book I read was Furyborn by Claire Legrand, shelved by 227,968 other people; the last popular was Shane Macgowan by Andrew Catlin, which was shelved by one other person (as to-read! I'm the only person on Goodreads to have read it! I don't know why I find that so funny). My average rating for the year was 3.7 stars.
I would share my Storygraph wrap-up but you apparently can't see it without an account. The key differences: Storygraph says that I read 14,679 pages, and the shortest book was Doctor Who: The Harvest at 2 hours and 4 minutes. The average length was 212 pages and it took me an average of 4 days to finish a book. The shortest time it took me to finish a book was 1 day (Doctor Who: Blood of the Daleks, Part 1), and the longest was 30 days (Furyborn). Average rating for the year was 3.75.
I like stats.
Some of the best books I read this year: You Feel It Just Below The Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor & Janina Matthewson, a tie-in to the podcast Within The Wires but also just utterly gorgeous and devastating post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction that unfolds slowly and disturbingly; The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig, a collection of words to describe the feelings and experiences that have no words to describe them; What If? 2 by Randall Munore, serious scientific answers to absurd questions and just a good time okay let me enjoy things; The Dollmaker, a slowly unfolding history of a woman's struggle to keep her family together in WWII-era Detroit; and the Endling series by Katherine Applegate, YA fantasy that melds an anti-war message, environmentalism, and a straightforward adventure story into something gorgeous.
I also just listened to so much Big Finish this year! So much. Big Finish took SO much of money. More than I can really justify. Anyway, some of my favorites that I listened to for the first time this year: all the new Ninth Doctor Adventures; The Lone Centurian, volumes one and two; Missy And The Monk; Class: Volume 3; Classic Doctors New Monsters 3; The Diary Of River Song 9; The Sixth Doctor And Peri Volume 1. (At least I think I listened to all of those for the first time this year? Time is blurry.)
I don't track what I watch re: TV or movies anymore and I'm not going to stress myself trying to remember! Jodie regenerated and it was lovely and emotional. That was the big thing re: TV this year. Some other things happened on my other shows and it may or may not have happened in 2022. Who can say. I watched some movies and I have no idea when.
No live theatre for me this year, again.
It's been a bad year for reasons I would prefer not to go into. I have held down a job for a full year, which has been nice, particularly since it doesn't suck and people don't yell at me all day. Hopefully I will continue to hold it down for another full year. I have a couple trips scheduled in the spring which I am nervous and also hopeful about. I still have fears about plague but, you know. Can't be a shut-in forever.
I owe you a Doctor Who post; I just finished another two PDAs. Coming soon.
2022 was very bad for me on several fronts, I hope it was better for you. And I hope 2023 is better!
According to last.fm, I listened to 7,730 tracks scrobbles in 2022, an average of 21 songs per day. I listened to 691 different artists, 465 different albums, and 3,038 distinct songs.
I also started seriously overhauling how last.fm tracks my music. I went through and removed all of my musical theatre bootlegs, because last.fm does not like them and they make my stats look messy; I've also started going through and fixing some other messy stats, including removing duplicate scrobbles and fixing tracks that are missing info or have wrong info (a serious problem with compilation and cast recording albums but also a problem on some older albums). This has led to some startling changes on my overall stats. I also realized that at least once before I made the decision to stop tracking my listening of bootlegs and then changed my mind and started tracking it again, so we'll see how long it lasts this time.
Anyway, as with last year, my listening this year included a lot of podcasts and Big Finish audios, which last.fm does not track. And also theatre boots, which it no longer tracks because I remove them to keep my stats looking nice. For the things which it does track:
My top artist was The Pogues, with 928 scrobbles, followed by Dropkick Murphys (920), Taylor Swift (792), Flogging Molly (629), and Declan Bennett (524). This is the exact same top five as last year, except last year's top five had RENT in the place of Declan and I didn't track musicals this year; last year once musicals were cut out Declan took fifth. I'm very predictable, okay. Top albums: Anthem by Flogging Molly (189), This Machine Still Kills Fascists by Dropkick Murphys (188), Midnights (3am Edition) by Taylor Swift (187), Rum Sodomy & the Lash by the Pogues (164), and Red Roses For Me by the Pogues (144). Red Roses For Me was also in fifth place last year, so that's mildly fun; the top three were all released this year (and all in October or November, which is also mildly fun). Top tracks: Sally MacLennane by the Pogues (31), Ten Times More by Dropkick Murphys (27), You and Me by Declan Bennett (25), Straight In Your Face by Declan Bennett (23) / Wake Up by Declan Bennett (23), These Times Have Got Me Drinking / Tripping Up The Stairs by Flogging Molly (23), Streams Of Whiskey by The Pogues (23). (I know that's not five but there was a tie.)
Lots of new albums this year! Flogging Molly released their first studio album in five years, Anthem. It is 100% a Flogging Molly album and I mean that in the best way possible; I fall to pieces every time I listen to The Parting Wave. Dropkick Murphys released This Machine Still Kills Fascists, an acoustic album they recorded on tour of unreleased Woody Guthrie songs, and it's absolutely fascinating of how it is both completely a DKM record and also completely unlike anything else they've done before. Ten Times More is probably my favorite song on the album but I really recommend listening to the whole thing straight through. I was expecting a new Taylor Swift rerecording but instead she took a hard left turn and released Midnights, her tenth original album, a return to synth pop and diaristic writing, and it's spectacular; I'm hard-pressed to pick a favorite, but right at this moment it's probably either Midnight Rain or The Great War. syndrome 81's prisons imaginaires is a really fascinating album -- I can't pick a favorite track, it has to be experienced as a whole -- and I keep going back to Arms Aloft's What A Time To Be Barely Alive more than is probably good for me.
Not actually new this year, but new to me; I picked up Peter Capaldi's album, St. Christopher, which was released last year. Absolutely gorgeous and stunning. The title track is possibly my favorite, but Beautiful And Weird is one that I keep going back to, too.
In 2022, I read 107 books according to Goodreads or 106 according to Storygraph, either way exceeding my goal of 100. I'm not 100% sure where the discrepancy is, but I suspect it's down to having reread something this year; both sites count rereads but I suspect Storygraph doesn't count it twice in the same year.
Anyway, as usual this includes a lot of trash reading, including continuing my readthrough of the BSC, a ton of comics, and a massive number of Doctor Who books. You can find my Goodreads year in review here. Goodreads informs me I read 13,658 pages; the shortest book was Nightmare Country issue 2 issue 2 at 26 pages; the longest book was The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow at 624 pages; the average length was 127 pages. The most popular book I read was Furyborn by Claire Legrand, shelved by 227,968 other people; the last popular was Shane Macgowan by Andrew Catlin, which was shelved by one other person (as to-read! I'm the only person on Goodreads to have read it! I don't know why I find that so funny). My average rating for the year was 3.7 stars.
I would share my Storygraph wrap-up but you apparently can't see it without an account. The key differences: Storygraph says that I read 14,679 pages, and the shortest book was Doctor Who: The Harvest at 2 hours and 4 minutes. The average length was 212 pages and it took me an average of 4 days to finish a book. The shortest time it took me to finish a book was 1 day (Doctor Who: Blood of the Daleks, Part 1), and the longest was 30 days (Furyborn). Average rating for the year was 3.75.
I like stats.
Some of the best books I read this year: You Feel It Just Below The Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor & Janina Matthewson, a tie-in to the podcast Within The Wires but also just utterly gorgeous and devastating post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction that unfolds slowly and disturbingly; The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig, a collection of words to describe the feelings and experiences that have no words to describe them; What If? 2 by Randall Munore, serious scientific answers to absurd questions and just a good time okay let me enjoy things; The Dollmaker, a slowly unfolding history of a woman's struggle to keep her family together in WWII-era Detroit; and the Endling series by Katherine Applegate, YA fantasy that melds an anti-war message, environmentalism, and a straightforward adventure story into something gorgeous.
I also just listened to so much Big Finish this year! So much. Big Finish took SO much of money. More than I can really justify. Anyway, some of my favorites that I listened to for the first time this year: all the new Ninth Doctor Adventures; The Lone Centurian, volumes one and two; Missy And The Monk; Class: Volume 3; Classic Doctors New Monsters 3; The Diary Of River Song 9; The Sixth Doctor And Peri Volume 1. (At least I think I listened to all of those for the first time this year? Time is blurry.)
I don't track what I watch re: TV or movies anymore and I'm not going to stress myself trying to remember! Jodie regenerated and it was lovely and emotional. That was the big thing re: TV this year. Some other things happened on my other shows and it may or may not have happened in 2022. Who can say. I watched some movies and I have no idea when.
No live theatre for me this year, again.
It's been a bad year for reasons I would prefer not to go into. I have held down a job for a full year, which has been nice, particularly since it doesn't suck and people don't yell at me all day. Hopefully I will continue to hold it down for another full year. I have a couple trips scheduled in the spring which I am nervous and also hopeful about. I still have fears about plague but, you know. Can't be a shut-in forever.
I owe you a Doctor Who post; I just finished another two PDAs. Coming soon.
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