Honestly? I love Wrapped. For me, it’s a cool way to sum up the year from a musical perspective. Besides, Wrapped shows what really dominated my musical life that year, based on objective numbers, not on misleading impressions.

For example, I was aware that I listened to a lot of music by Kasia Worek (aka Katika) – I listen to her “just because,” but I also use her tracks as a soundtrack for text-based games created in Twine and for visual novels that either don’t have their own soundtrack or have one worse than Kasia’s music. But the fact that I didn’t listen to any other artist more than her—that surprised me. Over the year, I listened to her music for 6,422 (!) minutes, which is just insane.

She herself labeled her music on Spotify as “digital fantasy,” and I think that’s a very accurate description!

Katika wins not only when it comes to total time spent with a specific artist, but she also dominated my top 5 most-listened-to tracks (taking 4 out of 5 spots).

In first place, though, is “Weightless” by the English ambient band Marconi Union. I listened to this track 731 (!) times, which, at eight minutes long, amounts to 5,848 minutes spent with it. That single piece alone places Marconi Union in second (!) place among my most-listened-to artists.

Ola played me this track after she heard or read somewhere that it’s supposedly the most relaxing song in the world. And indeed, I have to confirm—it sometimes manages to calm me down, which is very hard to achieve in my case.

In third place is the Canadian band The New Pornographers, whose music has accompanied me for years. I learned about their existence from some paper music magazine I bought out of boredom and read while walking around Oliwa (a district in Gdańsk). Something tells me it might have been Teraz Rock (Now Rock), but I’m not sure. In the article, they were introduced along the lines of being an underrated band in Poland, masters of composition.

Interestingly, although The New Pornographers take third place among artists, one of their individual songs doesn’t even appear until 56 (!) on the list of 100 most-listened-to tracks. That illustrates how I listen to them. For me, The New Pornographers aren’t a band of a few hits. I love every one of their albums. Each is perfectly composed, from the first second to the last. I don’t just play this or that song I’m in the mood for; I simply play The New Pornographers—entire albums in sequence or tracks randomly.

Fourth place is funny because Dua Lipa currently has 87.5 million Instagram followers, and one of her tracks, “New Rules,” has been played 3 billion (!) times, yet somehow I made it to 2024 without knowing her music. I’d vaguely heard “Dua Lipa” here and there, but honestly, I thought it was some Polish pop star with a silly name (in Polish “Lipa” is a tree, Tilia, but in youth slang it also means something of poor quality, failure, an unwanted situation).

She hooked me at the end of this year, but I overplayed her so much that she managed to jump into my top 5 in just two months.

In fifth place is the Scottish electronic duo Boards of Canada. They’ve been with me for years and occupy a special place in my mind. I play them when I need that dreamy state ambient gives but still want more happening in the music.

Here’s the playlist containing the 100 tracks I listened to most in 2024.

I was surprised by the high (tenth) position of Tymek’s song “Mogę wszystko” (“I can do anything”). The lyrics are super shallow, but the combination of the beat and the way Tymek spits the words really got stuck in my head.

The presence of the tracks “Teenage Recoil,” “Hollywood,” “Famous Last Words,” “Erotic Saints,” and “Lamp Halo” shows how important the album Zzyzx (2003) by the Norwegian band Zeromancer is to me. The album contains 10 tracks, and 5 of them ended up in the top 100. I listen to it when I miss Gdańsk and/or friends. In my mind, there’s a very vivid image of me wandering with a discman across the sand mounds in Przymorze (a district in Gdańsk), where later the Horyzont (Horizon) and Cztery Oceany (Four Oceans) housing estates were built, listening to that album on repeat.

“Bad Kingdom” by Moderat and “Secret Scream (Haex Remix)” by the band The Black Queen (a supergroup made up of members of Nine Inch Nails, Telefon Tel Aviv, and The Dillinger Escape Plan) are what I play when I’m buzzing with good emotions. I listen to “#3” by Aphex Twin when I’m dreamy (or I become dreamy when I listen to it). “it boy” by bbno$ always makes me grin, especially when I remember the video. I often listen to “RATATATA” by Babymetal and the German band Electric Callboy when driving to work at five in the morning. “The Hammer” by the American band Kublai Khan TX is what I play when I feel weak—it instantly makes me feel powerful. “Jedz sól” (“Eat salt”) is my favorite track by Cool Kids Of Death. I love that kind of energy in music!