[music]

Melissa Harris-Perry: Welcome back to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry and it's music wrap-up season. Spotify and Apple Music users across the globe are finding out their most played songs, artists, and albums of the year. Team Takeaway was super excited to share with you their most listened-to tracks.

Song Lyrics: Hey, ladies drop it down

Just want to see you touch the ground

Speaker 1: My favorite song of 2022 is Shake It by Kay Flock, Cardi B and Dougie B, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Speaker 2: My top artist was Bad Bunny.

Speaker 3: My top Spotify artist was Latto, who I actually got to see in concert this year.

Speaker 4: My top artist of the year was Harry Styles, and my top song of the year was Satellite from Harry Styles. I'm nothing if not consistent.

Speaker 5: My Spotify Wrapped show The Marías as my top artist and I actually got to see them in concert in Brooklyn earlier this summer.

Speaker 6: My most listened-to song is called Dover Beach by an artist named Baby Queen, and it's from the Heartstopper soundtrack, which is basically my only source of dopamine.

Song Lyrics: In my self-made isolation

Speaker 7: My most listened-to song this year was Almost Doesn’t Count by Brandy. I don't know why I'm in 1999, but I still am, I guess.

Speaker 8: The number one track is the Stars and Stripes Forever. If you had a five-year-old and a three-year-old marching around your living room over and over again to that song, you would understand why.

[music]

Melissa Harris-Perry: Here with me now is Reanna Cruz, their producer for Vulture's Switched On Pop Podcast. Reanna, thanks for being here today.

Reanna Cruz: Thank you for having me.

Melissa Harris-Perry: If you had to encapsulate 2022 for the music industry, what words or themes would you use?

Reanna: I think the theme that I'm finding this year is social media music. I mean that in the realm of TikTok and Instagram reels and short-form content. There have been songs that pop up in the public consciousness for a few months at a time, and much like a TikTok trend, they're gone. I think this year has been dominated by one-off songs that capture the public's attention. Then on the other hand, mega superstars also releasing music, like your Taylor's and your Harry's of the world.

[music]

Song Lyrics: I have this thing where I get older, but just never wiser

Midnights become my afternoons

Melissa Harris-Perry: You gave us the Taylors and the Harry's. Can we also talk about Bad Bunnies and Beyonces?

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Melissa Harris-Perry: For me, there was no doubt about it. I just played Break My Soul over and over and over on a loop. Talk to me about how in this TikTok disposable trend space of music, you end up with the Bad Bunnies and the Bs. How do they manage to keep breaking through with the big releases?

Reanna: In the case of both Bad Bunny and Beyonce, who have both released really great albums this year that I personally love, I think the goal with them is to create an album rather than a specific song or a specific moment. I'm speaking in regards to Bad Bunny. Every song on Un Verano Sin Ti is a different genre, it's a different moment. I was just telling my friend yesterday that every time I listen to the album in public, I'm hearing a different song.

A few months ago, I was hearing Neverita on the radio. Now, I'm hearing Tití Me Preguntó non-stop. Every song has its moment with that record, and the same thing with Renaissance. I think people really latch on to different tracks from these albums and see the album as its own piece of work, where Break My Soul is the hit from Renaissance at this moment in time, but everybody is making the other songs like Alien Superstar and Cuff It into their own personal moments. I think that's really special.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about anyone you were surprised by in 2022. Were there breakout moments for you?

Reanna: I discovered a really great artist that I love this year by the name of Ethel Cain.

[music]

Song Lyrics: These crosses all over my body.

Reanna: I think she's had a really great year with her record Preacher's Daughter, that is something that alternative to the TikTok trends method of music. That's a record that organically was spread to me by word of mouth. I've seen her fan base grow pretty big over 2022 specifically, because of the groundswell of support she's gotten.

Melissa Harris-Perry: As we were listening to what Team Takeaway was telling us about their top tracks, I have to say that the one that really caught my heart is from one of our young producers, who was talking about listening to Brandy as her top song, asking, "Why am I still stuck in the '90s?" How much of the music that we are streaming is like, I don't know, maybe the nostalgic, the older music? I know, I'm still rocking at least a 10-year-old playlist.

Reanna: Absolutely. I was checking my top songs and Freakum Dress by Beyonce.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Listen.

[laughter]

Reanna: That's my highest song on my Wrap that's not from 2022. That's 2007 [laughs]. I think with our playlists this year, and the ease and access of streaming apps, I think it's easy to move old songs and place them next to new ones, and create that synergy. I know personally, my streaming habits are I listen to the radio and I listen to my shuffled songs on Spotify, whether it be playlist or my like songs.

It's easy for me to get caught up in like a Parliament-Funkadelic track next to a Charli XCX track. That's just how my personal listening habits are. I assume it's that way for most listeners. I'm a big Kate Bush fan and that's how with the placement in Stranger Things, she got a number one in 2022. It's things like that where it's easy for older songs to get that groundswell of support and even top the charts.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about what we should be looking out for coming up in 2023.

Reanna: More pure pop to hit the charts. On Switched On Pop, we were talking about how the era of the sad banger is coming to a close. We're seeing a lot of pure bonafide pop songs take the top of the charts again. I think in 2023 we should keep an eye out for more pure bubble gum vibes.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Are you thinking that pure pop because of trends in music, or is this in part how our music connects with our politics? Do we want the bubble gum in part when our social and political world feels so overwhelming?

Reanna: Definitely. That's something that I'm also really interested in. I think our Billboard charts reflect the politics in America, I think, but also, it has an optimistic perspective, where I do think we lean on pop in times of crisis. I also think, in times of crisis, the Billboard charts reflect that and the music is usually downtempo. This is, speaking from anecdotal observation. I've noticed in like 2016 and 2017 the top of the charts became a little bit dismal in terms of tempo. I think that next year, we can either see a pure pop moment tackling top of the charts again, or alternatively, we see people get sad on Billboard again. [laughs]

Melissa Harris-Perry: A little bit of that power ballad of sadness.

Reanna: I need a Total Eclipse of the Heart type song to take number one again.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Reanna Cruz is the producer for Vulture's Switched On Pop podcast. Thanks so much for being here with us.

Reanna: Of course, thank you for having me.

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