In my days as a music journalist, I spent plenty of time “on the road” and was excited to see it reflected in Adams’s pictures. The calendar used to be notoriously nudity-heavy, but the only topless shot I could see this year was Iggy Pop’s. The theme of this year’s instalment is On the Road and it features a number of musicians, from Cher to St Vincent to Rita Ora, posed as if to “capture the life of an artist on tour”. Since 1964, the tyre company has been recruiting star photographers and famous people, usually women, to what has become a prestigious project. Rock star/photographer Bryan Adams has shot this year’s Pirelli calendar. Bryan Adams: snapping pit stops for Pirelliīryan Adams: calendar king. Or maybe the only thing that needs unwrapping is my tinfoil hat. Shared accounts, hacked accounts, the radio, the record player – all mean Spotify Unwrapped is a funhouse mirror, not quite what it says it is.Īnd I am convinced, convinced, that it invents genres in order to encourage people to post “wtf is chamber psych lol random”. This year, I have seen more memes about Spotify Unwrapped than actual lists either everyone’s pandemic streaming was too exposing to be made public or people don’t see themselves reflected in it. I know, in theory, that there is no such thing as a guilty pleasure, but is it dignified to shout about repeat-listening to Monster by Kanye in order to perfect the Nicki Minaj rap? What I listen to is basically mortifying: There Are Worse Things I Could Do from the Grease soundtrack, on repeat, so I can sing along at top volume and daydream about an amateur production that would take a 39-year-old Rizzo (to be fair, Stockard Channing was 33 when she played her in the film). I’ve always found the performative aspect of these lists a bit unsettling, like a teenager listening to music on phone speakers so that everyone knows about their love for rap music with lots of swearing in it. That’s about three weeks after everyone has put up their Christmas trees.
Spotify’s annual Unwrapped, a personalised animation that shows what subscribers have been listening to, arrives with the advent calendars. Now, most of us not only shrug off big tech companies knowing what we’ve been doing and when, but help them to promote it. While other streaming services are available, it is Spotify that has the end-of-year list sewn up as one internet wag wisely noted, it is the only service to show off about how much it is tracking you and make it seem like fun.Ī few years ago, Netflix posted a tweet that read: “To the 53 people who’ve watched A Christmas Prince every day for the past 18 days: who hurt you?” At the time, it was controversial for being creepy and judgmental.
#SPOTIFY JOBS DRIVERS#
O livia Rodrigo claimed the top two positions on Spotify’s most-streamed songs list in the UK this year, with just one surprise, given her ubiquity – that the Paramore-esque Good 4 U edged out Drivers License, which is an affront to advocates for the correct use of apostrophes.