It doesn’t seem that long ago I’d prepare for an upcoming concert by recording songs by the artist onto a cassette. It was a kind of specialised, purposeful car tape.
Now in the streaming age we can look up set-lists and make play-lists so accurate that we know what’s coming next at the show. And then we can delight and even tear up when Bruce throws in Racing In The Street (Montreal 2024) or This Hard Land (Melbourne 2017) ; or feel slightly short-changed when Michael Kiwanuka doesn’t do Black Man In A White World (Vancouver 2024).
Last month was a time for some to share their Spotify Wrapped: 2025 Wrapped is here, and it’s more dynamic, personal, and unmistakably you than ever before. This year brings fresh ways to revisit the sounds, voices, and moments that defined your year, and to share them with the world around you. That’s what Spotify said on its website, with the bold.
In The Guardian Weekly in December Liz Pelly wrote: Spotify Wrapped now feels like just another example of something personal and precious that is being automated away from us; another example of a supposedly unbearable task of thinking and writing being “offloaded” in order to make life more frictionless.
My streaming service is Deezer. It’s based in France and pays artists up to three times more than Spotify’s $0.003 per stream ……… if this was a Ted Talk or something I would’ve paused there for the audience to giggle. Deezer had its own version of Wrapped.
#MYDEEZERYEAR revealed something about my streaming behaviour. My top artists in 2025 were…
1. Emily Barker
2. Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
3. Bruce Springsteen
4. Jessica Pratt
5. Cowboy Junkies
6. Lucinda Williams
And my top artist of all time (well since 2015 when I started streaming) is Bob Dylan.
I can take some comfort in knowing Deezer isn’t aware of what I listen to on vinyl, CD or cassette. In the past we could probably guess what we listened to most and just know what moved us most. In about 1968 I knew what single I played the most on the family radiogram because Peter Gunn by Duane Eddy almost wore out. Mum could probably have told me it was my most played track too.
I saw five of my top six live in 2025. That suggests I’m using streaming for concert-preparation. Before 2025 I’d never listened to Emily Barker or Jessica Pratt now they’re among my besties. Pratt’s Life Is was my most streamed song in 2025 – the multiple listens were because I loved the sound of it and couldn’t understand a word. Barker’s rise to the top is evidence I kept listening long after her shows in Merredin and White Gum Valley as part of Festival of Small Halls with Canadian Charlie A’Court.
Margo Timmins of Cowboy Junkies apologised in advance for the new songs they were playing in the early part of their set at the Astor Theatre. Turned out that due to my homework we knew them all very well – I even clapped at the intro to Hard To Build. Easy To Break. The show closer Springsteen’s State Trooper was as good as anything I heard this year.
I saw AC/DC in December at Perth Stadium. Bon Scott was the singer when I saw them in 1975 at the Claremont Showgrounds. Never much of a fan and did no preparation for the concert. Turns out I knew every song and am now, belatedly, a fan. With a cap I got for Christmas.
It was a almost strictly vinyl preparation for Pavlov’s Dog at The Rosemount Hotel (sneaked in a couple of new songs on Deezer) and CD for David Bridie’s second sell-out concert at Ellington’s. Preparation wasn’t required for The Knackered Ramblers (Laura Boosinger and Mike Compton) at Lyric’s Underground – virtuoso playing and good humour was on offer – but I do wish I yelled out for Shady Grove when they were considering an encore. Paul Kelly and Kasey Chambers also got the CD prep so weren’t noticed as much by Deezer.
Streaming is a worry. So clever, so convenient but, as Pelly writes, things like Spotify Wrapped are: … essentially meme-like advertising campaigns for companies that notoriously pay musicians penny fractions. We can’t go back to the good old days – I remember going on an overseas trip in the 1980s with a Sony Walkman and one cassette. It was Jim Reeves’ Golden Records so no complaints.
Not long ago I published best-of lists on australianrules.com.au at the end of every year. The music lists were a good way of finding out about new stuff from people who keep up. Maybe I should bring it back.Best concerts you saw, songs you discovered/rediscovered in 2025. Send ‘em in.
Another song Deezer noticed I streamed a lot this year was Sing Me Back Home by The Flying Burrito Brothers. It’s a Merle Haggard composition but I heard Gram Parsons’ sing it first. This was concert homework of a different kind. It was one of the songs The Everett Brothers performed at Hybrid Warehouse in Fremantle. Now that was wholesome fun.
australianrules.com.au 