Wolfgang'slistening hours:a retrospective
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Every day of the decade
2025 was Wolfgang's biggest listening year.
Hours per day
One row per year, one cell per day. Brighter = more listening. Hover a day.
Hours per year
2015 is one week (from Dec 25); 2026 runs to Sep 22.
Top artists, all time
The War on Drugs, by a mile.
Top 20 artists by hours
Names are links. Label: hours · plays · songs.
Top albums, all time
The album wall.
Top songs, all time
Wolfgang played “Youth” times.
Most played vs. most loved
What Wolfgang plays isn't always what he loves.
Top 15 by plays, and the top 15 of Wolfgang's Long Play
Lines join songs that make both lists. Long Play ranks songs by deliberate picks, replays and loves, with autoplay and repeat loops discounted.
Year by year
Every year had a headliner.
Each year's most-played album (by hours, at least three tracks), its number-one artist, and its three most-played songs.
Who stayed, who arrived
One band never left the podium.
Yearly rank of six key artists
Rank by hours within each year; a gap means the artist fell outside the top 25.
Artist timelines
Wolfgang's top 20 artists, month by month. Brighter = more hours that month.
Flash obsessions and slow burners
Some songs burned bright. Others never left.
Wolfgang's 120 most-played songs
Across: share of each song's plays that came in its busiest 30 days. Up: total plays. Click a dot to open the song.
How Wolfgang's taste moved
Indie at the core, with a hip-hop year, a metal year, and a world turn.
Share of listening hours by genre
Each year sums to 100%. Genre is Apple's primary genre for the song, grouped into families.
Old records, new records
A 2010s listener with deep roots.
Hours by release year
When the music he played came out. Earliest known release of each song.
Average age of what he played
Years between release and play, weighted by hours.
Wolfgang's most-played oldies
Released before 1980.
Discovery
Wolfgang keeps finding new artists, then goes back to old ones.
Artists heard for the first time
Count per year.
Hours on that year's new finds
Share of each year's hours.
Comebacks
Artists he dropped for more than three years, then returned to.
How Wolfgang presses play
From albums to “Hey Siri”.
Where each hour started
Share of hours by what was playing: an album, a playlist, a station, autoplay after a queue ran out, or a single song.
Hours started by Siri
Share of each year's hours. Siri flag is logged from 2019.
Skip rate by source
Skips (left within 30 s) ÷ (plays + skips).
Habits
A Saturday afternoon listener.
When he listens
Hours by weekday and local hour (time zone from each play's own UTC offset).
Wolfgang's day, year by year
Share of each year's hours in each hour of the day.
How long he listens
Sessions (plays with less than 30 min between them), by length.
What he listened on
Share of hours by device (from Apple's daily log, July 2016 on).
On the road, and the move
Soundtracks from 13 countries.
Hours by country
From April 2023, when Apple began logging location. Top artist and song in each.
Sound quality
Format Apple delivered, share of hours (logged from 2021).