Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
One of my favorite times of the year is when the musical streaming services unveil their individualized year-end recaps that allow listeners to see their most-listened-to songs and artists. It’s always revealing — and at times vindicating. For instance, I have let everybody know that I’m a Jagged Edge superfan and have been for years. Without fail, every single year, including this one, Jagged Edge ends up on my top-five list of most listened-to artists. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, non-believers!
Before we get to the reason for this season, allow me to share with you some important facts and figures about my year in listening. I’m primarily a Spotify user so all of the stats come from there; I use Tidal sparingly and only for DJing purposes and surprisingly, I have almost stopped using Apple Music altogether but have no idea why. Since you asked, the song I listened to the most in 2024 (at least through November) was Muni Long’s “Made For Me.” According to Spotify, I listened to that song 81 times, but according to my heart and soul, that total feels low; I wonder how many seconds you have to listen to in order for it to count as a full listen. But I also watched the video tons of times and listened to it via TikTok a lot, too. Either way, that tracks. I still think “Made For Me” was one of the best songs ever.
I listened to (only) 23,986 minutes in 2024, which is only approximately 388 hours of listening (averaging out to just over an hour a day). I am surprised by how many hours that is because I spend WAY more time listening to podcasts than I do albums nowadays, but when I’m listening to music — driving out of town with the kids in the car or at house parties — I’m listening for extended periods. Interesting. And that 23,986 was composed of 1,961 artists.
Here is where it gets interesting and where we’re finna get into the getting-into my top five songs, which, in order, were: Muni Long’s “Made For Me,” Maleek Berry’s “Kontrol,” Beyoncé “Bodyguard,” Darkoo’s “Favourite Girl” featuring Rema, and “Special” by Mat.Joe and Thando. My top five artists were Beyoncé (!!!!), Muni Long, Mary J. Blige (that tracks), Jagged Edge (forever JE) and Common (I am as surprised by this one as I am Beyoncé).
Speaking of Beyoncé, the biggest surprise of this entire season’s Wrapped revelations was that Beyoncé was not only my number one artist but that my listening to her amounted to 1,326 minutes, which somehow puts me in the top 1 percent of Beyoncé listeners. There are a few things to unwrap here, pun intended: For starters, Beyoncé dropped “Cowboy Carter” on March 29, 2024; “Cowboy Carter” was Bey’s foray into country and Americana music in an attempt to upend the narrative around the genre as a whites-only establishment. To say that I love the album would be the understatement of the year; I enjoyed it so much that I used it to teach a segment of my opinion writing course at Howard University during the Spring 2024 semester.
Doing a quick scientific and mathematical breakdown, 1,326 minutes of Bey is approximately 17 spins of “Cowboy Carter” which clocked in at just over 78 minutes in runtime. For mathematical due diligence, that amounts to 22 hours of Bey. For one, I feel like I listened to “Cowboy Carter” way more than that (see my Muni Long commentary above) but that listening to it only roughly 17 times in full somehow puts me in the top 1 percent of Beyoncé listeners on Spotify is bewildering.
People really didn’t mess with that album, huh? How is 17 spins of a Beyoncé album enough to put me in the top 1 percent of listeners? Seriously. Beyoncé has an entire group of fans who have a whole name (BeyHive), and somehow, my 17 spins of “Cowboy Carter” basically made me a BeHive Elite Lounge Club member. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Perhaps Beyoncé’s most ardent listeners use another streaming service (or YouTube, perhaps), but 1,326 minutes doesn’t feel like a lot of listening for an artist who is literally one of the most bankable artists on the planet.
With that said, I’d like to know if my newfound status as a Beyoncé One-Percenter entitles me to some sort of fan club package. Do I get silver boots? A hat? A bedazzled African-American flag? Are there protocols that I must now follow in order to ensure that other people know that I’m in the Hive? Like, do I get any bees? I’m new to this life so I have a lot of questions. While I’ve always been a fan of Beyoncé, being in the top 1% of listeners is a new place for me; it is also the first time in however many years I’ve been looking at my year-end Wrapped stats from Spotify that Bey has been on any of my lists. Had the Wrapped lists existed during the self-titled album era, my ENTIRE lists would have been Bey and her songs. Especially, “XO,” I still love that record like XO.
Anywho, I’m excited to enter this new phase of life and as a show of acceptance, I will spell spaghetti with two i’s from here on out, as “Spaghettii.”
Cowboy Jackson out.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).
