I recognise that there’s little duller in life than hearing about other people’s Spotify habits, especially at this time of year… but it does make for a very easy blog post when one is trying to post daily.

And so, allow me to present my top five artists of 2024, according to how much time I’ve spent listening to them on Spotify:

1. Stacey Kent
2. Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox
3. Max Richter
4. Blossom Dearie
5. Armin van Buuren
   

This may be the only chart in history where Blossom Dearie, an American jazz singer and pianist born more than a century ago, is nestled between Max Richter, the French-British postminimalist classical composer born in the 1960s, and Armin van Buuren, the pioneering Dutch trance DJ born in the 1970s… though their music could make an incredible mash-up.

Kae Tempest wrote:

If you are moved by a rapper that you listen to on YouTube, it’s really not a big deal. You shouldn’t have to apologise for it in literary environments. The same is true if you love a classical poet. It isn’t the case that you need to approach lauded works on bended knee. The pool of influence you draw from does not have to meet the approval of an academy or an institution, or be bound by the parameters of a genre, sub-genre or ‘movement’. Listen to everything. Read as much as you can. Try to stay present and connected with whatever you’re engaging with when you’re engaging with it.

I think that’s right.