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To end the year I thought I'd dive into a fun topic—my Spotify Wrapped. ICYMI, at the end of the year, the music streaming service Spotify releases some personalized statistics on your listening over the past year.
As someone who (1) writes about Disney parks for a living and (2) has a young child, you can expect my Spotify wrapped to have some Disney influence. But just how Disneyfied are my musical tastes? Let's dive in...
Top Artists:
Lana Del Rey
Taylor Swift
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Disney
Idina Menzel
Disney Influence: HEAVY
This is pretty Disney-rific. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is the beneficiary of a binge of “Disney Goes Classical” at some point early in the year, featuring prominently as background music in our home for a while.
Lana Del Rey covered “Once Upon a Dream” for Maleficent (2014), but, unrelated to Disney, the soundtrack to me typing at my laptop is also all things Lana Del Rey.
Idina Menzel is the voice of Elsa and gets credits on two of my Liked Songs, “Show Yourself” and the holiday banger “When We're Together.” And, of course, “Disney” and Idina Menzel get plenty of credit on things Zoe listens to.
Top Songs:
A Hero's 2nd Chance
Wellerman
This Is Halloween
Wait for Me (Reprise)
Ghostbusters
Disney Influence: Mild
Disney has its hands in only 2 of my top 5 songs this year. “A Hero's 2nd Chance” is from the soundtrack to Epic Mickey 2. I've never played this game, but we came across the song one day. Zoe loves it, and it's on my running playlist. “This Is Halloween” (Nightmare Before Christmas) is on Zoe's Halloween playlist and my running playlist.
“Wellerman” (192bpm, a zippy cadence), and “Wait for Me” (Hadestown, not Hall & Oates) are also on my running playlist, and “Ghostbusters” is a Zoe favorite.
Top Albums:
Hamilton - Lin-Manuel Miranda
Westworld: Season 3 - Ramin Djawadi
The Tortured Poets Department - Taylor Swift
Ultraviolence - Lana Del Rey
Interstellar - Hans Zimmer
Disney Influence: Minimal
In a show of just how far Disney's reach is, every one of these artists has worked with Disney, but there's really no Disney influence here. I take album to mean “whole album” since Spotify says I only listened to 8 albums total this year. If I had to guess, the actually counts on these range from like 5 listens down to 1 listen.
Audiobooks
Disney Influence: Medium
As for audiobooks, I actually only listened to one on Spotify, but I can't even escape being stereotypical here—it was Darth Plagueis. Over on Audible, I listened to the Darth Bane trilogy and Ron Chernow's Hamilton biography, but the remaining five listens have no Disney connection.