This blog is a monument to self-obsession by its nature, so why bludgeon my way through the parodical excess of narrating two music services’ EOY stats with individual, laborious posts when I can write less with just one post about both last year’s and this project’s influence on them? Besides, it feels like allowing a little more current music into the walled garden of an established numerical boundary is probably a good choice, especially with at least two other wrap-ups coming on the heels of Story No. 188.

My best friend moved half a continent away in May and I still default to thinking of it as a thing that I hate that happened to me, which feels exactly like the kind of prevailing bitterness and refusal to either learn or grow this bruiser of a year deserves.

But, hey, even the biggest festering turd of a year had its redeeming moments, and music almost always has something to take the edge off. Like, February gave me an album I didn’t know I could hope for and I still can’t stop playing it. New Modest Mouse was just as weirdly wonderful and packed with off-the-wall delights as its six predecessors. And I kind of resent that I never used this space to crow about Bowerbirds’ 2021 release becalmyounglovers, which I actually think might my favorite album of the year but didn’t even think of writing about it when I could just listen to it again instead. But other people should fall in love with both the album and the criminally under-rated Bowerbirds in general: If you’ve ever wondered what mixing Andrew Bird with Horse Feathers would sound like, it’s amazing and it’s Bowerbirds and you need this music in your earballs yesterday.

Since Cricket Rumor Mill isn’t on Spotify, this year’s Wrapped was dominated by both Modest Mouse and Bowerbirds (and also the album and particular song I glommed onto while helping bestie move into her new home and then never really let go of for probably staggeringly sentimental reasons). And I am once again one of the only people I know who is absolutely unashamed about and wildly in love with the gifts and stats my 2021 Wrapped offered up, though I think part of it is the utter delight of witnessing the impact 12,700 Songs has on my listening habits (most notably, how a neat 25 percent of the songs on this year’s playlist are a direct result of falling in love with them upon an alphabetical revisit).

It’s also partly because there were, like in 2020, almost no surprises about what my year-end stats reflected. Like how I called back in June that Modest Mouse was gonna be all over my Wrapped.

As for Last.Year 2021, the wider net Last.fm casts always paints a more accurate picture of my musical obsessions, including the full extent of how greedily I devoured Cricket Rumor Mill’s newest album and how Jukebox the Ghost, the lone band I saw in concert last year because traditions with my best twin won’t be thwarted by the heartache of different time zones, always gets a lot of love when HalloQueen rolls around.

In general, I like Last.Year‘s straightforward report better than Unwrapped’s flashy presentation (and cringey marketing-garbled attempt at Gen Z-speak this year, ungh), even if I have to go to a third-party site for my favorite feature, the top-album collage. (If the three singles from The Golden Casket were categorized under that album rather than individual releases, new Modest Mouse would’ve ranked way higher.)

Another year of Fanfarlo, The Sea and Cake, Nicole Atkins, Horse Feathers and Okkervil River getting prominent plays and making me confront how predictable my tastes have become. But, in my defense, in a year that took so much and sucked so unapologetically, having comfort music to fall back on and get lost in is arguably more important than ever. Every infinite repeat, behind-the-wheel singalong and 5 a.m. playlist was a much-needed spark of joy brightening 365 days that took way more determination to get through than most.