Weekly Wave: Apple Music stats confirm my music addiction – Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH — I listen to a lot of music — while driving, working, chilling, eating and (sometimes) sleeping — but the raw stats can be a little startling.

Apple Music kindly tracks, compiles and shares a year’s worth of tunes with its subscribers near year’s end (similar to other music streaming services such as Spotify). Many music lovers proudly display these lists on Facebook or Instagram.

I guess that’s one of the reasons we have smartphones — to tell us just how addicted we are to popular music.

I probably need an intervention. I share an account with my wife and daughter, so the numbers include their interests as well, and that explains how we listened to more than 3,000 minutes (or more than two whole days) of Taylor Swift’s music in 2023 with three weeks to go! Top that, Travis Kelce!

While most of those minutes can be directly attributed to other members of my family, I’ll admit that I contribute a bit to that tally, too. Swift has amassed an impressive number of catchy songs.

But as Apple Music’s data points out, my first loves are the triple threat of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (2,500 minutes), Rush (1,300 minutes) and the Eagles (1,000 minutes), with a little guilty pleasure thrown in (Dua Lipa — 1,200 minutes). Hey, don’t judge me. Lipa can sing and create dance hits with the best of them!

Those constant tunes add up to big numbers in a year — nearly 5,700 different songs, 880 different albums and 990 separate artists. And over 50,000 minutes of total listening pleasure.

Now I have a goal for 2024 — pushing Taylor Swift from the top spot and replacing her with the late great Tom Petty … or maybe Dua Lipa.

I hope you have a great weekend, no matter what tunes you’re listening to.

Here are some of this week’s headlines:

There are 15 shopping days until Christmas, so if you haven’t wrapped up your shopping, time is running out on you.

And 15 days are all that remain for Old Man Winter to deliver some snow for a white Christmas.

Right now our landscape is dull green and brown.

Outdoors reporter John Myers isn’t a meteorologist, but he plays one for the DNT,

and he explored the weather trends and the El Nino that threatens to give Duluth its first brown Christmas in ages.

What a difference a year makes, huh?

(Subscriber-only story)

Clint Austin / File / Duluth News Tribune

Drivers who spend a bit of time each week on the Blatnik Bridge have followed the bridge replacement plans closely.

Fundraising remains the biggest box to check. It just needs about a billion dollars or so to give it the official green light. That’s a lot of bake sales and spaghetti dinners!

Reporter Shelley Nelson provided an update on where the project stands, including a potential timeline once (if?) the federal government coughs up that cool billion.

Get caught up here

(subscriber-only).

Bob King / File / Duluth Media Group

We receive questions about our website paywall quite a bit. I imagine most newspapers hear the same refrain from folks who wish that website content was free of charge — though it has never been free in print.

Arts & Entertainment reporter Jay Gabler tackled that topic in his Front Row Seat column this week and presented a case worthy of a Ph.D. scholar from Harvard.

You can check that out here.

Here are a few more stories from the past week to check out:

Editor’s note: Weekly Wave is a newsletter that I publish every Friday morning. Please consider subscribing — it’s free — and hits your inbox just once a week.

You can sign up here.

Rick Lubbers has been in his role since 2014 and at the News Tribune since 2005. Previous stops include the Superior Telegram (1999-2005) and Budgeteer News (1997-1999). Prior to that, he worked at the St. Cloud Times and Annandale Advocate in Minnesota, and the Greenville Daily News and Grand Rapids Press in Michigan. He received his journalism degree at Central Michigan University.