With the end of the year comes many things: celebration, joy, and even relief. But the one thing that tops the list is the release of Spotify Wrapped (or Apple Music Replay). People either show their Wrapped to their friends with pride and the realization that 1,000,000 minutes of music is very unhealthy, or they sit in the corner crying about how their most listened to artist somehow became their least favorite. Edgemont is a very diverse community in many ways, music being one of them. Let’s see what we listened to last year.
There were two figureheads in Edgemont music last year, and both are among the world’s biggest. They are Taylor Swift, the #2 artist in the world, and Drake at #5 in the world. Swift released two albums in 2023, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version), both of which were re-recorded versions of her popular albums Speak Now and 1989. Her song “Cruel Summer” was one of the most popular songs of the year, peaking at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and playing on everyone’s For You page.
However, in Edgemont, Taylor played second fiddle to Drake in polls, the most popular musical artist with an amazing 17% of Edgemont poll respondents picking him as their most listened to artist, myself included. Drake has always been very popular here, but his surge in popularity this year might be due to his new 23-track album For All the Dogs that came out in early October. With #1 songs in “Slime You Out” and “First Person Shooter,” featuring SZA and J. Cole respectively, as well as other hits such as “Virginia Beach” and “8AM in Charlotte,” Drake once again made his case for the title of leading mainstream rap artist. Some of the other most popular artists in Edgemont in 2023 were SZA, Travis Scott, Mitski, Kanye West, Harry Styles, Lana Del Rey, and Yeat.
Rap and pop, the two biggest genres of music, tied with over half of Edgemont having listened to one of the two more than any other genre. Pop music had a great year with albums like GUTS by Olivia Rodrigo, Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd by Lana Del Rey, and Taylor Swift’s two albums. Songs like “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus and “Kill Bill” by SZA topped the charts and became sensations in pop culture. And of course we can’t forget Barbie, the biggest film of the year grossing $1.4 billion. Barbie came with its own soundtrack, Barbie: The Album, which featured top artists Lizzo, Dua Lipa, Ice Spice, Nicki Minaj, Sam Smith, and Billie Eilish.
Meanwhile, rap albums from 2023 included For All the Dogs by Drake, UTOPIA, by Travis Scott, SCARING THE H*ES, by JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown, Pink Tape, by Lil Uzi Vert, Nostalgia, by Rod Wave, A Gift & a Curse by Gunna, and A Great Chaos, by Ken Carson. Additionally, the manager of late rapper Pop Smoke announced that no more posthumous music would be released by him, which upset many fans, including Joe Siegal (‘24), who stated that he unironically listened to Pop Smoke more than any other artist this year.
The third most popular genre was pov: indie, with many popular albums released this year such as The Record by Boygenius, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski, and Javelin by Sufjan Stevens. Indie music seems to have some of the most dedicated fans, including JoJo Anchin (‘28) who listened to over 100,000 minutes of music in 2023 and was a top 0.1% listener overall.
This year, Edgemont listened to a variety of music genres, from pop to rap to rock to modern Bollywood. There was a very wide range of top artists, ranging from the Drakes and Taylor Swifts of the world to Radiohead and David Bowie. And to complete Edgemont Wrapped, Campus has created a playlist of Edgemont’s favorite songs. Scan the Spotify code below and enjoy Edgemont’s favorite music all in one place!