2020 has been an awful year for me, not necessarily because of the Coronavirus pandemic, but mostly because I lost someone very dear to me, so in these times the moral support and boost I got from listening to my favorite types of music, hard rock and metal, has been essential in helping me cope with the huge sadness and grief I went through. Heavy metal was here for me in my darkest moments of 2020 and will undoubtedly stay with me for as long as I live!
As for my listening stats for 2020, I have to say that the mail sent to me by Spotify in early December, which presents a short review of my listening habits for this cursed year, does not reflect the whole picture, because I also use Youtube Music for my auditions, therefore I can have an accurate picture of my 2020 year in music by consulting my stats on Last.fm, which I'm going to do in a future post, so for this article, I will only take a brief look at my Spotify 2020 wrapped and draw a few conclusions based on it.
1. MY TOP BAND- OVERKILL
Last year they were in second place, but thanks to their fabulous 2019 release 'The Wings of War' which also made me feel like listening to some of their older and great stuff more frequently in 2020, the thrash metal veterans from New Jersey took the top spot. They fully deserve to be in this position because they're one of those few bands which sound better as they advance in age. To me Overkill sounds as fresh as energetic as they were 3 decades ago, and their latest album is absolutely stunning. As you can see, 'Where Few Dare to Walk' is my favourite songs from 'The Wings of War', but really all the songs from this album are at least very good, if not great. I think that, out of all the bands which put thrash metal on the map in the 80s, Overkill is the most enduring and consistent, as they have a remarkable catalog of 19 studio albums, some of them being truly fantastic, such as their latest one!
2. MY TOP 5 BANDS- ONLY CLASSICS HERE
3. MY TOP 5 GENRES- PRETTY AMBIGUOUS HERE
Speaking of less accurate stats, this is where Spotify really is at its worst. I mean, of course, metal and rock are my favorite types of music, but what kind of metal and what kind of rock? I suppose thrash metal and traditional heavy metal, maybe hard rock would replace metal and rock if Spotify did a better job. Anyway, no surprises here as I love power metal and thrash metal is mentioned here in the form of the new wave,thanks to bands like Havok and Warbringer which in my opinion are at least as good as the old boys of thrash, and they will keep on growing in quality!
4. MY TOP 5 SONGS- WARBRINGER TAKES THE GOLD MEDAL
Speaking of Warbringer, they are the winners of my Top Songs category, not with a track from their latest release, which is truly great, but with fabulous songs from their previous album, 'Voe to the Vanquished.' The track 'Remain Violent' is one of the tunes I found repeatedly on the daily mixes made by Spotify based on my preferences, and I found it so damn catchy that I played it on repeat several times, which I don't do with many songs. Anyway, two more thunderous thrashers from Kreator and Overkill, a power metal tune full of hooks and an unbelievably catchy chorus from German band Orden Organ and a more melancholic track, a semi-ballad from the one and only Motorhead made me my top 5, but of course, this was a close call, and these are not necessarily my favorite tunes at the moments, they're just the ones I played most frequently.
5. MY TOP DECADE- THE 90S
I cannot put an end to this article without mentioning that my favorite decade of 2020 was the 90s according to Spotify, and the aforementioned "Love Me Forever" by Motorhead was my top song from that decade. This doesn't mean that I like the music of the 90s more than other decades, but those were the years in which I discovered hard rock and metal and it isn't a surprise that I have some feelings of nostalgia about that decade, and that is probably why I listen to the music of that decade quite often.
6. MY TOP PODCAST- THE HEAVY METAL HANGOVER
2020 was the year in this I started listening to podcasts on Spotify and, even if I tried to listen to shows related to a variety of topics, heavy metal was my first choice, and after trying several podcasts, I found one which I truly love- The Heavy Metal Hangover. I was captivated by the discussions between the two hosts, Chris and Jay, as soon as I started listening to the first episode in that series, and I kept on listening to them for several months as the podcast started in 2018 and I had many episodes to discover. It's highly entertaining and truly interesting to the hosts analyzing metal in its multiple aspects, and I can never get bored listening to them, so this is by far my favorite podcast on Spotify for the time being.
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That was my short analysis of my Spotify year wrapped. 2020 was full of sadness and misfortunes for me, as it was probably for a lot of people, but listening to heavy metal helped me a lot and I know that it is here to stay and make life more exciting and more pleasant for years to come. Long live heavy metal!
