Musical Journey Through Numbers

visualization
R
analysis
Author

Asitav Sen

Published

April 7, 2025

Modified

April 7, 2025

A Data-Driven Analysis of My Music Listening Habits

My listening data from Apple Music reveals extensive engagement: over 450 songs from approximately 240 albums were played more than 6,700 times, totaling over 240 hours of music. This averages to roughly 1.6 hours of daily listening, with each song played about 44 times.

This analysis, inspired by Spotify Wrapped’s popular year-end reviews, uses data directly exported from Apple Music to create detailed visualizations of my listening patterns.

My musical preferences reveal a clear pattern dominated by rock music, particularly the psychedelic and progressive rock sounds of Pink Floyd. Here’s a snapshot of my listening habits:

Pink Floyd. Sourced from Wikimedia (Fair Use License)

[The label of the 7” single for “Time” by Pink Floyd. Sourced from Wikimedia (Fair Use License)

The hierarchy emerges distinctly across three levels:

  • Genre Level: Rock stands as the cornerstone of my music consumption

  • Artist Level: Pink Floyd dominates my playlist with remarkable consistency

  • Album Level: “The Dark Side of the Moon” reigns supreme among all albums

This three-tiered preference isn’t merely coincidental - it tells a coherent story of my musical taste anchored in rock’s philosophical depth and Pink Floyd’s masterful artistry, particularly exemplified by their magnum opus “The Dark Side of the Moon.” This pattern holds strong across different time periods, suggesting a deep-rooted appreciation rather than a temporary infatuation.

These preferences exhibit notable longevity and consistency:

  • Rock maintains its dominance even when expanding to subgenres.

  • Pink Floyd’s leadership position remains unchallenged across years.

  • The Dark Side of the Moon” continues to resonate, maintaining top position in both 2023 and 2024.

This introductory overview sets the stage for a deeper analysis of each component, revealing interesting patterns and shifts in listening habits while maintaining these core preferences.

  • Rock dominates my listening habits, accounting for over 43% of total plays

  • When combined with related subgenres (Hard Rock and Alternative Rock), the rock family represents more than 45% of all plays

  • The genre hierarchy remained consistent across both 2023 and 2024, with Rock maintaining its top position

  • Bollywood music consistently held the second spot in both years, showing stable listening preferences

Rock music is a dynamic and influential genre that emerged in the 1950s, characterized by electric guitars, strong rhythms, and often powerful vocals. It represents rebellion, raw emotion, and social commentary, evolving through various subgenres from classic rock to alternative, while maintaining its core elements of energy, authenticity, and the ability to connect with audiences through both musical innovation and meaningful lyrics.

Read More.

  • Pink Floyd emerges as the dominant artist with an impressive 2,400+ plays, showcasing my strong preference for their music

  • Farida Khanum, with over 700 plays, stands as the second most-played artist, though significantly behind Pink Floyd

  • Year-over-year analysis shows interesting shifts in artist preferences:

    • Pink Floyd maintained top position in both 2023 and 2024

    • Only three artists (Pink Floyd, Kishore Kumar, and Anjan Dutta& Somlata Acharyya Chowdhury) remained in the top 10 across both years

    • This indicates significant variation in listening patterns between years

Pink Floyd is an iconic British rock band that revolutionized progressive rock through their philosophical lyrics, intricate compositions, and groundbreaking psychedelic soundscapes. Their masterpieces like “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall” are known for their conceptual depth, innovative studio techniques, and haunting explorations of themes like alienation, mental health, and societal pressure, making them one of the most influential and commercially successful bands in music history. Read More

  • The Dark Side of the Moon” stands as the most played album with 1,240 plays

  • The Wall” follows as the second most popular album

  • Temporal analysis reveals:

    • The Dark Side of the Moon” maintained its #1 position in both 2023 and 2024

    • Only three albums (all by Pink Floyd) remained in the top 10 across both years

    • This demonstrates both consistency in Pink Floyd preference and variation in other listening choices

“The Dark Side of the Moon” (1973) is Pink Floyd’s masterpiece album that explores themes of mental health, time, greed, and human nature through seamlessly connected tracks and innovative sound production. With over 45 million copies sold, it remains one of music’s most influential works, known for its immersive sonic experience and profound social commentary. Read More

  • Breathe (In the Air)” tops the overall play count among Pink Floyd songs

  • Interesting year-wise variations:

    • 2023: “Comfortably Numb” led the charts

    • 2024: “Time” became the most played track

    • This shows evolving preferences even within the same artist’s catalog

“Time” is a powerful track from Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” that opens with a dramatic sequence of chiming clocks before launching into a meditation on life’s swift passage and wasted opportunities. The song warns about the dangers of complacency and letting life slip away, highlighted by David Gilmour’s iconic guitar solos and Roger Waters’ introspective lyrics about how people suddenly realize they’re “shorter of breath and one day closer to death.”

[Read More](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_(Pink_Floyd_song)

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