2023: By The Numbers

I'd like to revive this "series"[1] but have been unsure how for some time. In the spirit of digital gardening, I think I'm going to just release what I have, and try to revisit things later. In the long term, I'd like to turn this into some kind of annual stats page, rather than a blog post; a proper summary of the whole year. But for now, this will have to do.

Music

2023 was a good year for listening habits, but not so great for live experiences. Spotify's stats this year were awful, providing very little useful information, instead focusing on "vibes"[2]. Thankfully, Last.fm really stepped up their game to fill the void, with a completely refactored "year report" that gets top marks for both substance and presentation πŸ‘

Top 10 Albums (2023)

Numbers in brackets show the total number of times I listened to any track from that album.

  1. Hope, NF (354)
  2. Cracker Island, Gorillaz (309)
  3. Escape That, Sam Sweeney (230)
  4. Viimane suusataja, Puuluup (219)
  5. Clouds (The Mixtape), NF (216)
  6. If Summer Was A Sound, Goldfish (205)
  7. Hymns, MC Xander (192)
  8. Canaries in a Coal Mine, Bukahara (170)
  9. Tales of the Tides, Bukahara (157)
  10. Hybrid, Swingrowers (150)

A prediction for next year: Never Going Under by Circa Waves to be in the top ten. It's a late entry in 2023 and yet already sitting inside my top 15 for the whole damn year, so I think it might do numbers in the spring.

I also ranked #3 globally for listening to Sam Sweeney's Escape That on Last.fm, an accolade I'm more than happy to hold 😁

A grid of 25 album covers, from Hope by NF in the top left, to Tetra by C2C in the bottom right.
My top 25 albums for the year. I think the middle row is most interesting; there's some strong latecomers in there, as well as a few I haven't listend to in months that surprised me.

Top 10 Artists (2023)

Numbers in brackets show the total number of times I listened to any track by that artist.

  1. NF (577)
  2. Goldfish (468)
  3. Gorillaz (396)
  4. Bukahara (335)
  5. Sam Sweeney (247)
  6. Tom Cardy (237)
  7. Puuluup (223)
  8. MC Xander (198)
  9. Swingrowers (195)
  10. Connor Price (181)

Tom Cardy and Connor Price hitting top ten artists was not too surprising, but very unusual for bands to get this high up without also charting in either the album or (for Cardy) track lists; just shows how much both output singles and EPs over albums. (Though, to be fair, Tom Cardy's Big Dumb Idiot was sitting at #12 in my album chart, and Connor Price's Spin the Globe was #23, so it's not like they're completely absent.)

Tom Cardy was also my highest ranked "new" artist (I guess I must have heard a track or two from NF in the past, though I couldn't tell you where/when).

Top 10 Tracks (2023)

Numbers in brackets show the total number of times I listened to a song.

  1. Hope, NF (57)
  2. Cracker Island, Gorillaz (56)
  3. Motto, NF (54)
  4. New Gold, Gorillaz (42)
  5. Chasing Tomorrow, Goldfish (40)
  6. Clouds, NF (39)
  7. Baby Queen, Gorillaz (36)
  8. Spinnin, Connor Price (33)
  9. Happy, NF (33)
  10. Silent Running, Gorillaz (33)

With two albums in the top five and a clean sweep of #1 spots across all three categories, I think it's fair to say that NF was my artist of the year. Spotify has me ranked in the top 1% of fans for him as well, which is saying something for an artist of that size 😲

Top Artists (All Time)

This year, I also wanted to take a look at how 2023 has affected my all time stats. The arrows indicate the change in rank within my top 25 artists, with the superscript numbers highlighting the previous placement. A sparkles emojiy (✨) indicates a brand new entry to the top 25, whilst bands that have dropped out of the list are shown beneath.

  1. Lazy Habits (1,882)
  2. Goldfish (1,160) β¬†3
  3. MC Xander (1,010) 
  4. Watsky (967) β¬‡2
  5. The Offspring (731) ⬆1
  6. Bonobo (726) ⬇2
  7. Jeremy Loops (682) ⬆2
  8. The Cat Empire (655) ⬇1
  9. Gorillaz (644) β¬†31
  10. Howard Shore (631) β¬‡2
  11. Jamie T (611) ⬇1
  12. NF (578) β¬†βœ¨
  13. Emancipator (558) ⬆1
  14. Smokey Joe & The Kid (554) ⬇2
  15. alt-J (549)
  16. Childish Gambino (549) ⬇5
  17. Cee-Roo (530) β¬‡4
  18. Pretty Lights (520)
  19. Big Gigantic (497) β¬†4
  20. The Glitch Mob (493) ⬇4
  21. Billie Eilish (490) β¬‡1
  22. twenty one pilots (481) ⬇3
  23. Rare Americans (462) ⬇2
  24. Sam Sweeney (454) ⬆23
  25. Miike Snow (437) ⬇8

Dropping out of the top 25: Alex Clare (⬇4); Hilltop Hoods (⬇8); Blazin' Fiddles (⬇4); Fall Out Boy (⬇5). I find it completely bizarre that Miike Snow has outlasted all four of those bands, to be honest πŸ˜‚ Also, if I was in any doubt about the meteoric rise of NF, almost breaking the all time top ten in a single year is ridiculous!

Top Albums (All Time)

  1. Lazy Habits, Lazy Habits (835)
  2. Eyeopeness, MC Xander (590)
  3. Vermillion Sands, Lazy Habits (585) β¬†1
  4. Into The Spider-Verse, Various Artists (583) β¬‡1
  5. River, Cee-Roo (525)
  6. An Awesome Wave, alt-J (488) β¬†1
  7. x Infinity, Watsky (471) β¬‡1
  8. Escape That, Sam Sweeney (434) β¬†29
  9. WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO, Billie Eilish (406) β¬†6
  10. Drink the Sea, The Glitch Mob (396) ⬇2

Both The Atrocity Exhibition (Lazy Habits, ⬇3) and The Lateness of the Hour (Alex Clare, ⬇5) drop out of the top 10, which is the first year since 2012 that The Lateness of the Hour has not been on this chart, peaking at #4 that year.

A line chart showing music listening habits throughout the year. There are peaks in March and November; troughs in June, July, and September. Individual lines show specific music genres. Hip-hop is dominant, though declines in winter and is overtaken by electronic in October. Indie, fold, and rap are all consistently strong. There are periods of german in April, indie rock in November, and lounge in September and October.
I love that "german" is considered a genre πŸ˜‚ I also learned from Spotify that one of my top 15 genres for 2023 was "deep tropical house", whatever that means πŸ˜„

Media

A generally decent year; I'm very happy to see that (despite what I would have guessed) we watched more films than TV shows once again, though obviously by sheer hours TV will always win by a landslide.

Television

Top 10 TV Seasons Watched

  1. Ted Lasso (season three): 5*
  2. Andor: 5*
  3. One Piece: 5*
  4. Silo: 5*
  5. Loki (season two): 5*
  6. The Next Generation (season five): 5*
  7. The Next Generation (season six): 5*
  8. Prehistoric Planet (season two): 4.5*
  9. Ahsoka: 4.5*
  10. Big Mouth (season six): 4.5*

Dishonourable mentions go to Jack Ryan (season two) for scoring the lowest rating of the year at 2*, as well as Disenchantment (season five) and Call Me Kat (season one) for being bang-average at 2.5* each, the three lowest rated series I watched in 2023.

Movies

Top 10 Films Watched (All)

  1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: 6*
  2. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: 5.5*
  3. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: 5*
  4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: 5*
  5. Nimona: 5*
  6. The Big Short: 5*
  7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl: 5*
  8. Strange World: 4.5*
  9. The Courier: 4.5*
  10. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: 4.5*

Dishonourable mentions go to three films, which all scored an equally poor rating of 2.5*: Operation Fortune, Murder Mystery 2, and The Other Woman. Still, no complete clunkers in 2023 it seems.

And yes, I did take part in a Middle-Earth marathon in 2023, why do you ask πŸ˜‚ Actually the first proper one since university – and hopefully not the last for another decade!

Top 10 Films Watched (New)

  1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: 5*
  2. Nimona: 5*
  3. Strange World: 4.5*
  4. The Courier: 4.5*
  5. RRR: 4.5*
  6. Barbie: 4*
  7. Avatar: The Way of Water: 4*
  8. The Marvels: 4*
  9. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3: 4*
  10. Antman & The Wasp: Quantumania: 4*

So a year with multiple decent (but not that memorable) MCU films, yet ultimately the crown goes to a different superhero multiverse.

Games

I feel like I need to give an honourable mention to Among Us, which I've never played, but spent well over 100 hours watching other people play on YouTube, making it easily one of my biggest gaming trends of the year.

Next year, I hope to expand this section with board and card games, as well 🀞

Books

I read a grand total of 2 books last year: Saga and Birds, Beasts, and Bedlam. Both scored a respectable 4*, and would have ideally been placed in different categories anyway, so I guess that makes them joint top for 2023 πŸ˜‰ I think I may be able to retroactively add a couple more reviews in, but that'll have to do for now.

Podcasts

Another category with slim pickings. I listened to 2 tracked podcasts in total: Cortex and Dear Hank & John. I only listened to three episodes of the latter all year, so Cortex was definitely top ranked. I'm not sure how many episodes I listened to (Spotify doesn't track that information, it seems) but I'd guess it was in double-digits. I do know that I spent 1,865 minutes (about 31 hours) lisening to Cortex, and with episodes ranging between 1-2 hours in length, that probably means about 20 episodes total. Either way, Spotify reckons I'm in the top 6% of Cortex listeners on their platform πŸ€·β€β™€οΈ I know I also listend to a few episodes of Ologies and What Now? with Trevor Noah, mainly in the car with Alison.

Adventure

2023 was a big year for travel in many ways, with lots of trips, events, and eating out.

Travel & Events

Food & Drink

Top 10 Beers

  1. Honey Ale, Chatsworth: 5*
  2. Black Rock, Islay Ales: 5*
  3. Bombay Bicycle, United Breweries: 5*
  4. Purple Monkey Dishwasher, Evil Genius: 5*
  5. Heart of Darkness, Five Kingdoms: 5*
  6. Parumpaplumplum, Lock Lomond Brewery: 4*
  7. Murphy's Irish Stout, Murphy's: 4*
  8. Cinder Chimp, London Beer Lab: 4*
  9. Hamster of Doom, Ridgeway Brewing Co.: 4*
  10. Che Guava, William Bros. Brewing: 4*

Dishonourable mentions go to Stona IPA (Stone Brewing), New Laund Dark (Reedley Harrows), and PB&J Sour (London Beer Lab) for all getting a solitary 1* – meaning London Beer Lab manage to rank at both ends of the scale!

Top 10 Non-Beers

  1. GuaranΓ‘, soft drink: 5*
  2. Casado, whisky: 4*
  3. Pangalactic Starship Gargle Blaster, cocktail: 4*
  4. Port Charlotte 10, whisky: 4*
  5. Green Lady, gin: 4*
  6. Irn Bru 1901, soft drink: 4*
  7. Octomore, whisky: 4*
  8. Aerolite, whisky: 4*
  9. Pinya, soft drink: 4*
  10. Dan Kelly's Whisky Cask, cider: 3*

A special mention for the Aperol Spritz, widely marketed and seemingly popular, yet extremely disappointing: 2* (and won't bother with it again).

Wildlife

A radial chart showing the taxonomies of species logged to iNaturalist. At the center is a complete circle for
I'm not too sure why Orthetrum (skimmers) is shown in red here, but it's certainly an interesting way of displaying the taxonomies of the species I've identified.

Health

I've never really tracked health data before, so not much to compare this to. I also managed to lose all data for the first three months of the year somehow when I switched from a FitBit to Garmin, and don't seem to be able to get it back πŸ€·β€β™€οΈ

Photography

Prediction: Now that I have two full-time camera bodies, I reckon the 70-200 will see a marked increase in usage. I also wouldn't be surprised to see the R8 take more photos than the M6ii next year πŸ‘€

Writing

And finally, what about this site itself? How did theAdhoracy do in 2023?

I also want to highlight some of my favourite posts from the year:

Top Categories

I wanted to review which areas I ended up writing articles and notes for, so went through and tallied them up.

Articles

Category name, followed by number of published articles with category as primary and (secondary) tag.

  1. HTML & CSS: 4 (1)
  2. Technology: 3
  3. JavaScript: 1 (1)
  4. Nuts & Bolts: 1
  5. Inclusion: 1
  6. Animation: 1
  7. L-Space: (1)

Though, I'll note that I'm not sure any of the Technology posts should sit in that category – I may need to rethink a few of these!

Notes

Same as above.

  1. HTML & CSS: 15 (3)
  2. Inclusion: 14 (3)
  3. World Wide Web: 9 (1)
  4. Frontend: 8 (3)
  5. Nuts & Bolts: 8 (1)
  6. Technology: 7 (4)
  7. JavaScript: 6 (4)
  8. Web Design: 6 (2)
  9. Graphic Design: 5 (7)
  10. Content Design: 5 (1)
  11. Natural World: 2 (3)
  12. Anthropocenic View: 3 (2)
  13. Animation: 1 (1)
  14. Photography: 1 (1)
  15. World Building, L-Space, To Boldly Go, Typography, Arts & Crafts, and User Experience: 1 each
  16. Moving Pictures: (1)

It seems that Arts & CraftsWorld Building, and Animation have all been forgotten at various points, because I found notes that should have been placed in each of these categories whilst collating this data, and had to retroactively sort them. That leaves Musical NotesNotes from the EditorPeople & Places, and Projects that weren't used at all in 2023. Two of these were mainly intended for the kind of content that now sits inside the Journal post type, so perhaps these also need a bit of a rethink.

Also worth noting that just over a third of posts had multiple categories, which is much lower than I would have expected, but does validate that multi-categorisation is useful to me.


And so there it is: 2023 through the eyes of the data I collected. I may yet return here and tweak some numbers or add some extra sections, but for now, this seems like a useful post and a fun way to sum up this particulary twelve months of existence. We'll see if the format changes again in 2024!

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