How the Music Mattered: A Year of Memories and Metrics
A qualitative and quantitative assessment of my first full year as a FM radio DJ at KEXP
“bruh, you still talking about 2024?” Well, yeah. My emotional new year cycles are more aligned with the lunar new year anyway. Plus, it took this long to parse through a data set that wasn’t complete until January 1, 2025.
I joined KEXP as a fill-in DJ in September 2023. Fall 2023 was like my training camp and 2024 became my rookie year as a FM radio DJ. At the time, I set no quantitative goals, focusing more on qualitative ones: grow more familiar and confident with show preparation and execution, acquire technical proficiency, deepen my music knowledge, meet new people, etc. I hit the ground running in January filling in for at least one show a week, sometimes two or three. Later in the year, DJ Vitamin D, after seeing me so often filling in the slots before and after his show on Thursday night, anointed me the station’s Sixth Man of the Year. I’ll take it.
There’s pros and cons to being a fill-in DJ. Pros: flexible schedule, leeway to say yes or no to any fill-in slot offered, reaching different audiences in different time slots. Cons: volatility of show frequency (some weeks I had several shows, some I had none), less rapport with a regular recurring audience. I recently chatted with the homie who is a multiple-subject substitute teacher. We realized that our work situations are very similar. Except he never has to teach at 1am, and I get to wear my house clothes to those graveyard shifts.
Whatever the challenges, I loved having the excuse to listen to, research, and play music all day, everyday, and be around music heads. No exaggeration—the community of 49 KEXP DJs might be the most musically knowledgeable collection of 49 people in the world. Walking music encyclopedias who drop gems and engage with audiences on air, and share and discuss deep cuts with each other off air.
The average KEXP listener has a deeply eclectic musical palate, so variety and originality is expected. Especially for the variety mix shows, where I usually landed, and enjoyed the freedom of moving in and out of genre, space and time. I constantly stayed up on new releases while deep diving into old ones, listening to more music in 2024 than in any year of my life previously. I strove to keep my playlists interesting, honoring the DJ I filled in for and their audience, trying to offer something unique alongside what is already unique, world-class radio programming.
Most of all, I approached every show as an act of resistance; a human voice threading stories through songs, interacting with fellow humans doing something together simultaneously. It felt sometimes like I was holding down a human fortress surrounded by robot invaders, where the colonizers are music streaming platform algorithms, For You playlists, and “ghost artists.”
Entering my sophomore radio DJ year, I wanted to celebrate the Ws and learn from the Ls of last year. Spot trends. Explore the choices I made. Set new goals and areas for improvements.
Let’s dig in.
2024 By The Numbers
61 shows across 19 different time slots
75 cups of coffee
213 hours on air
2732 song plays
2503 unique songs played
Ranked 15 (out of 51) among all DJs for total # of unique songs played
1987 unique albums played
Honestly, 61 ended up being more shows than I thought I’d do. That even includes some weeks off, like the Spring and Fall fund drives, when all the regular DJs are on deck.
According to this chart for radio noobs created by a ChatGPT prompt for “How long does it take to become a good radio DJ?”, I earned my Proficient badge this past year. Gotta say, the bullet points for each benchmark have been accurate so far.
I’m also bigging up myself for my playlist variability. 91.6% of all the songs I’ve played, I was playing for my first time. True, it’s easy to hit a 90%+ new songs metric if you haven’t been around long enough to build a big list of songs you’ve played already. But if you have favorite songs and you fulfill requests often, it’s harder than it sounds, and harder as time passes. But the world music catalog is vast, so I’m challenging myself to get my play-songs-I’ve-never-played ratio to 95% this year. Even with song requesters, which includes a contingent of the same people often asking to hear the same songs over and over again. Year five, if I get there, I’m aiming for an outlandish 99%.
The Top 52 Songs I Played in 2024
1. Khingz - The Yotty Button (5)
2. Four Tet - Daydream Repeat (5)
3. Future Islands - The Tower (5)
4. Hollis - Less Like (5)
5. Gabriel Teodros - Fire Season, Pt. 2 (5)
6. Steely Dan - Hey Nineteen (5)
7. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band - Love$ick (4)
8. Chenayder & MAVI - Colors (4)
9. Chong the Nomad - Shake Step (4)
10. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band - How We Do (4)
11. Denzel Curry, TiaCorine & A$AP Ferg - HOT ONE (4)
12. Black Ends - Bent (4)
13. Invincible - No Compromises (4)
14. The Physics - Seward Park (4)
15. Brittany Davis - Goons (4)
16. Angélica Garcia - Ángel (Eterna) (4)
17. Nate Mercereau - This Simulation Is a Good One (4)
18. salute feat. Sam Gellaitry - maybe it’s u (4)
19. Tomo Nakayama - Contigo (4)
20. Rocky Rivera - Brown Babies (4)
21. Gabriel Teodros - An Open Letter to My Cousins in Israel (3)
22. Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Travis Thompson - KALEIDOSCOPE (3)
23. Whodini - Five Minutes of Funk (3)
24. Sade - Kiss of Life (3)
25. Mk.gee - ROCKMAN (3)
26. Revival Season feat. Shaheed Goodie - Pump (3)
27. Chinese American Bear - Feelin’ Fuzzy (毛绒绒的感觉) (3)
28. Tierra Whack - 27 CLUB (3)
29. Tierra Whack - SHOWER SONG (3)
30. GloRilla - Yeah Glo! (3)
31. Shabazz Palaces feat. Stas THEE Boss & Irene Barber - Angela (3)
32. Charli XCX - 360 (3)
33. Nilüfer Yanya - Like I Say (I runaway) (3)
34. Girl Ultra - rimel (3)
35. Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice (3)
36. Toro y Moi - Walking in the Rain (3)
37. Keanu Nelson - Kapi Tina (3)
38. NxWorries - 86Sentra (3)
39. Hiatus Kaiyote - Everything’s Beautiful (3)
40. Mustafa - Gaza is Calling (3)
41. Nobi & The Force - Master Peace (3)
42. André 3000 - I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a “Rap” Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time (3)
43. Klassy - Go Again (3)
44. Ibibio Sound Machine - Pull the Rope (3)
45. The Marías - Run Your Mouth (3)
46. Kali Uchis - Young Rich & In Love (3)
47. Four Tet - Loved (3)
48. Nipsey Hussle ft. Vernardo - Be Here for a While (3)
49. Saint Levant, MC Abdul - Deira (3)
50. Thee Sacred Souls - Live for You (3)
51. Ruby Ibarra - Bakunawa (3)
52. Sonny Singh - Koi Bol Ram (3)Of the 2503 unique songs I played in 2024, 52 were played three or more times (6 songs five times, 14 songs four times, 31 songs three times). As the year went on, I tended to choose songs that I had played either only once, or never played before. Or, even better, songs that nobody has ever played before. So, songs that topped this list were more likely played in the first half of the year, yielding to more varied playlists in the second half.
The six songs I played the most, I think I played for emotional reasons. All these songs either resonate personally or reflect a mood I’m in, and as much as I’ve played them on air, I played them even more off air. Still do. Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen,” which I keep in my live DJ playlists, also got the replay treatment when I started a tradition during my Overnight (1am-5am) fill-in shows, playing Yacht Rock towards the end of my shift. Because nothing makes more sense at 430am if you’ve been up all night than some Yacht Rock.
Four artists make the list more than once. Tierra Whack appears twice with two songs from the same album, with “27 CLUB” and the 1 minute, 47 seconds-long “SHOWER SONG.” Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band and Four Tet also appear with two songs from the same album, and Gabriel Teodros appears twice with two songs from two different albums, and. So it would make sense that these artists would also appear in the most-played albums and artists lists ahead.
Most Played Albums in 2024
1. Brittany Davis - Image Issues (11)
2. Angélica Garcia - Gemelo (9)
3. Future Islands - People Who Aren’t There Anymore (8)
4. Chinese American Bear - Wah!!! (8)
5. Tierra Whack - WORLD WIDE WHACK (8)
6. Klassy - Good Seeds (8)
7. Steely Dan - Gaucho (7)
8. Kendrick Lamar - GNX (7)
9. Rocky Rivera - Nom de Guerre (7)
10. Khruangbin - A LA SALA (7)Technically, Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band’s BRSB is the album I played the most in 2024 (13 times). As an instrumental album, those plays were mostly made for the purpose of playing something in the background during talk breaks. So, not counting that album, the album I played most was Britanny Davis’ Image Issues. Angélica Garcia’s Gemelo (9) and Future Islands’ People Who Aren’t There Anymore rounded out the top three. All three of those albums, in addition to being albums that I actually liked, benefited from dropping early in 2024 and having many listeners request songs from those albums during my shows as the year progressed.
Interestingly, Kendrick Lamar’s GNX and Khruangbin’s A LA SALA both made my top 10 most played albums list without having a single entry in my top 52 most-played songs list. It speaks to the overall quality of those albums—no single song or two standing above the rest. Both also had frequent listener requests. Notably, GNX was released on November 22nd, making this list even though it was around for just five of the year’s 52 weeks.
Most Played Artists in 2024
1. Gabriel Teodros (15)
2. Tierra Whack (14)
3. The Physics (14)
4. Brittany Davis (13)
5. Kendrick Lamar (13)
6. Chong the Nomad (12)
7. Toro y Moi (12)
8. Khingz (10)
9. Chinese American Bear (10)
10. Four Tet (10)Of my top ten most played artists, five (nos. 1, 3, 4, 8, 9) are Seattle artists. It’s not a hard rule but, keeping in tradition that goes back to the KCMU days, every DJ is encouraged throw at least one local song in the mix per hour (local also includes the greater Pacific Northwest). I tend to play two or three an hour, sometimes four or five.
Four of these ten artists I know personally, and, sure, there’s some homie bias there. But real shit, these are all artists I’d be a fan of if I didn’t know them, and they all deserve more shine than they’ve gotten so far. Seeing them pop up frequently on some of my fellow DJ’s playlists, I know I’m not alone.
Reflecting on Gabriel Teodros being in my top most-played artist spot, there’s a perfect storm of reasons. As a former KEXP DJ, he’s legit left many listeners who do actually request his music. Also, in his time as a DJ (when I wasn’t) he played my music often, so I’m lowkey returning him the favor. But the biggest factor was that his album From the Ashes of Our Homes, released late 2023, stayed in rotation through early 2024. One song in particular, “Open Letter to My Cousins in Israel,” resonated, unfortunately, as Israel continued to commit genocide in Gaza throughout the year. I was particularly moved to play it more than once after a fellow DJ received a physically threatening message from a listener for playing it.
O.K. Now What?
I went through most of 2024 collecting memories, not metrics. It wasn’t until the end of the year, when I did my annual review with the DJ manager, that I zoomed out and audited my own data, and I’m glad I did.
We hear so much about “data-driven decisions,” often pushed by big tech companies and a culture of capitalism-fueled production and efficiency maximization. Big Data Energy. On a very basic level, all decisions are data-driven, whether its done via instinct or algorithm. It’s what the data is, how it’s collected, what it’s used for—y’know, context and purpose—that determine whether or not I’m down with it. I believe in Small Data, and what you’ve read is an example of it, and more of it will follow in this here publication.
Thanks for reading. Download the KEXP Mobile App or bookmark KEXP.org to stream the live on-air feed or an archived show (goes back two weeks).
Addendum (2025-01-28):
I’ve been asked how I keep track of my data. I have a master spreadsheet that I add to manually on a show-by-show basis (we can download .csv files of any show or time frame), and there are also dashboards for internal use that allow searching and sorting data from the playlist database, that has kept track of every song played by every KEXP DJ since 2001, when the station transformed from KCMU and began streaming online. All playlist info is public, and posted in the real-time playlist.
Some playlist data dashboards that access the public historic playlist information are independently maintained, such as the long-running kexplorer.org, which seems to be currently offline. An alternative, kexp.fmspins.com has since been set up.
Love catching you on-air, I know I'm always in for something good.
Really cool to read about the growth of your journey