Massive best of 2012 playlist

It has become my habit that at the end of each year I usually put together a “best of” playlist of the music that I have been listening to, or has meant something, that year. This has sometimes generated a post here. This is what I wrote for 2011 and again for 2010.

So I have been working on my playlist for the best of 2012. Unlike the list for 2011 I’ve not left it to the September of the following year to put it together!

2012 was the year my music listening habits changed because of the music streaming service Spotify. I wrote about my first impressions not long after I had signed up to it. Several months later its impact has been that I have spent a lot less money on iTunes and have been listening to a wider and more varied range of music than before. My tastes have always been broad but Spotify has allowed me to explore and indulge them to a greater extent.

The result of this is that my “Best of 2012” playlist has ended up being massive. The full listing contains 134 tracks. There is a bias towards electronic music of one kind or another and a strong jazz influence this year. Plus a bit of rock, a bit of hip-hop, and some good old fashioned funk and soul, as well as the return of an old favourite.

I’ve decided I haven’t got time to try and turn some of this into my usual MP3 mixes at the moment — and I don’t have time to try and whittle it down to a top 20 or so — so here is the full playlist:

I think only a couple of the tracks in my list aren’t available on Spotify. This should cover all of them:

• Flowers by Andrew Ashong
• Rotten Decay by BADBADNOTGOOD (This group also have albums for free download)
• No Diggity by Chet Faker (Free download)

This content was originally posted on my old Strange Thoughts blog.