The original reflection
Why these songs made me want to build something—and create more reasons to come back.
Read the Medium Build chapter ↗A SPOTIFY DATA PROJECT
Modern Art:
Medium Build.
Finding myself in the music.
THREE CONNECTIONS TO START WITH
My room. My armor. My fun.
Zoom in on a song. Zoom out to see what it connects to.
Not a straight line.
I kept returning to these songs. The map gives them places to live; the listening patterns show when I came back. Open a stop for the song on one side and my connection on the other.
EXPLORE THE CONNECTIONS
A world to come back to.
Choose an album, then follow its numbered stops. Your traveler arrives first; read the story when you are ready.
Illustrated places and album track-list paths, not actual travel or a chronology of listening. Drag to explore; keyboard arrows pan. Two-finger gestures are supported, with buttons as an alternative.
THE COMPLETE COLLECTION
Songs worth getting lost in.
THE NUMBERS SET THE TIMELINE
Returns, not a straight climb.
My memories give the songs meaning. My account history gives us a different view: the repeats, quiet stretches and returns.
A year of coming back
The deep dive
December and January account for 46.4% of the recorded Medium Build listening time. September is a big return—not the biggest month.
Old places stayed open
Country and takeaways appear in every observed month. A new chapter did not close the old ones.
Armor took time
Brief early encounters came before sustained August listening. That pattern fits later engagement; my reflection tells you why it mattered to me.
Account-only audio history, November 2025–October 16, 2026. Shared listening is outside this view. Explore the scope in Behind the map.
BEHIND THE MAP
A little context, when you want it.
One part of the pie
This Spotify account is mainly my solo driving and work listening. A lot of shared listening at home and with family happens on another account. These totals are not my entire musical life. A low count cannot tell you that a song mattered less.
Music, meaning and numbers
Song scenes offer a short way into each track. My connections are my own feelings and memories. Supporting music sources appear in each song’s details; recording context is kept separate from a claim about a song’s meaning. Listening totals do not prove emotions or causation.
What was counted
The core view contains 3,491 Medium Build audio events across 107 recording identities: 131.0 hours. Six separately credited collaboration recordings add 263 events and 8.3 hours, shown separately. Short events are included; 30 seconds is a threshold, not proof of a full listen.
Versions, editions and gaps
37 album tracks and six song-level pit stops are shown. Never Learned To Dance combines three recordings; Friend For Life combines two. takeaways totals span three documented digital editions. The later one-year export overlaps the main archive, so its rows are not added here. October ends on the 16th. First recorded does not mean first ever heard.
What the numbers do—and don’t—say
- fat broke loser leads takeaways in recorded minutes, not event count.
- Stick A Round has more replay in the extended archive than Country’s version. A separate later title-only tail points the other way; neither proves an all-life preference.
- King of Having Fun’s first release-week total exceeds its second. A later overlapping seven-day window is higher; that is not a simple week-two rise.
- In My Room was fifth in the first observed sequence, while I describe it as my first deep emotional connection. Those are different questions.
Independent personal project by Skilltree. Official Spotify links open externally; this site does not stream or copy the music.
YOUR OWN SIDE OF THE MAP
Leave yourself a field note.
What does a song bring up for you? These notes stay in this browser on this device. Nothing is sent to Skilltree.