GenDERation Gap Culture Hour with Joy, Josh and Tony (#367)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Religion on the Mind – GenDERation Gap Culture Hour (#367)

Host: Dan Koch
Guests: Joy Vetterlein, Josh (producer), Tony Jones
Release Date: December 11, 2025

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Overview

This lively episode of Religion on the Mind marks a special “GenDERation Gap Culture Hour”—typically a three-way generational roundtable blending humor, culture, and serious topics, now joined by Joy Vetterlein to add gender diversity and spice to the mix. The group uses personal stories, generational perspectives, and playful teasing to explore trends in spirituality, religious deconstruction, cultural artifacts like Spotify Wrapped, and the subtle ways our upbringings continue to shape us.

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Main Discussion Topics & Key Insights

1. Crystals, Spirituality, and 'Spiritual but Not Religious'

• Kicking Off with Humor: Dan plays an Instagram comedy clip about LA “crystals people,” poking fun at New Age stereotypes and their supposed lack of financial “abundance.”
• Personal Practices: Joy and Tony admit to crystals in their homes but clarify their uses focus on presence and intention, not magic or material wealth.
  • Joy: “I just have them. I don’t know why...I don’t pray to them.” [06:57]
  • Tony: “There are a lot of crystals in this house, brah. And we own. We don’t rent.” [07:14]
• Broader Trends: Tony shares research revealing most Americans identifying as “spiritual but not religious” aren’t actually engaging in much spiritual practice—they’re “aspirationally spiritual.”
  • Tony: "…They're not actually practicing spirituality of any kind…one of the more fascinating revelations we've had…" [09:07]
• Religious Residue: The group discusses Daryl Van Tongeren’s theory of “religious residue”—how practices and mental frameworks can linger for years after people leave religion.

2. Personal Stories of Religious Residue and Deconstruction

• Experiences from Joy & Josh: Both describe involuntary “residue” from their evangelical upbringings that shapes their attitudes or needs seeking meaning, especially in parenting or the need for purpose.
  • Joy: “I literally said out loud to her, like, see, this is the part where, like, I wish I still believed in God…But even just the words, without the strong figure, had a significant effect…” [14:47]
  • Josh: “If there's anything that's religious residue, it's that I've had to sort of unlearn the deep desire to fill my life with all this purpose…” [16:10]
• Dan’s Perspective: Despite still considering himself religious, Dan notices a lingering compulsion to do “important” work that feels related to his religious background.
  • Dan: “It’s like—a certain itch that has to be scratched for me…” [17:06]

3. Spotify Wrapped and Generational/Cultural Self-Reflection

• Sharing Results: The quartet enthusiastically compares their Spotify Wrapped findings—the platform’s year-end music consumption stats, including their “listening ages,” total minutes, and top songs.
  • Dan: Skeptical about the “listening age” algorithm (“I’m 78…”) and reveals his top songs are mostly his son’s favorites: Foo Fighters’ “My Hero” and Metallica’s “The Memory Remains.” [26:24]
  • Tony: Despite talking classic rock on-air, his “listening age” is 28 due to a playlist of tonal, wordless movie soundtracks he writes fiction to.
    • Tony: “All of my top songs…are all like Hans Zimmer Dune…I’ve listened to it, I don’t know, 45 or 50 times…” [31:07]
  • Joy: “I am 22,” driven by carpooling kids and heavy doses of Taylor Swift’s new album. [24:03]
• Reflections on Identity: The group discusses how their listening habits (sometimes influenced by parenting) shape or reveal generational and cultural identities.
  • Josh: Top songs reflect tastes from EDM to bluegrass, with “real” age close to the “listening age” of 26. [23:51]
• Spotify as Social Ritual: Dan observes that Spotify Wrapped is a rare moment of collective cultural experience, with everyone participating—but in profoundly individualized ways.
  • Dan: “Spotify Wrapped is…the one moment in the year where people can feel like they're all doing the same thing together, which is using Spotify but for different things.” [28:21]

4. Soundtracks as Creative Fuel

• Writing Rituals: Tony details how looping Hans Zimmer (and similar) soundtracks helps him imbue his fiction writing with drama—applying writing rules like “always be escalating.” [29:50]
• Generational Jokes: The crew riffs about not knowing Hans Zimmer, with Josh quipping, “I'm more of a Randy Newman kind of guy.” [33:11]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Joy, on Parenting After Faith:

  “My daughter was worried about something and I literally said out loud to her, like, see, this is the part where, like, I wish I still believed in God, because if I did, I would pray for you…But even just the words without the strong figure, like, had a significant effect…” [14:47]

• Tony, Data on Spiritual Nones:

  “The biggest group of those nuns…consider themselves spiritual but not religious. But…very small percentage of them do [spiritual practices]. They call themselves spiritual but not religious, but they're not actually practicing spirituality of any kind…” [09:07]

• Dan, On Professional Purpose:

  “There are moments…the work that I'm currently doing…I'm like, is this a waste of my time? This isn't, like, really helping people…It's like a certain itch that has to be scratched for me…” [17:06]

• Tony, Writing with Soundtracks:

  “When you're listening to a Hans Zimmer soundtrack…holy fuck. Every song is so dramatic…It reminds me to make every scene I'm writing more dramatic…” [29:50]

• Spotify Wrapped Generational Surprise:

  Joy: “I am 22.”
  Dan: “What the hell? I thought it must be something with me…”
  Tony: “You were into music from the early 2010s with a hint of nostalgia? That's how it explained it to me.” [23:11–23:29]

• On The Inherently Fragmented Modern Culture:

  Dan: “It's all gotten so atomized, man.” [28:37]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [05:56]–[07:40]: Crystal humor and revelations of home alt-spirituality practices
• [09:07]–[14:05]: Data on “spiritual but not religious” Americans and the rarity of “deconversion”
• [14:47]–[17:06]: Joy and Josh relaying personal stories about religious residue
• [22:25]–[24:09]: Spotify Wrapped introduction and group’s “listening ages”
• [26:24]–[28:21]: Top songs, kids influencing stats, Joy’s Taylor Swift obsession
• [29:50]–[32:03]: Tony explaining his use of dramatic movie soundtracks for writing inspiration

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Tone & Personality

The episode is fast-paced, joking, thoughtful, and refreshingly honest. The group teases and challenges each other, but are self-aware and open about their quirks, both musical and spiritual. Light profanity, Taylor Swift references, generational jabs, and personal anecdotes reinforce the podcast’s relaxed, authentic, and insightful style.

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Next Steps

Patrons are promised an extended discussion on Taylor Swift—particularly Joy’s critiques of prior coverage—transitioning to a “patron-only” segment.

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Contact the show: [e-mail]
Support & extended episodes: patreon.com/DanKoch

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Transcript

[Joy Vetterlein]

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[Tony Jones]

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[Joy Vetterlein]

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[Dan Koch]

My name is Percy Jackson. Getting in trouble is like breathing for me. The hit series returns to Disney and Hulu.

[Tony Jones]

The danger the camp is under is.

[Dan Koch]

Greater than you can possibly imagine.

[Tony Jones]

For the key to our survival, three of you must quest to the Sea of Monsters.

[Dan Koch]

Let's go do the impossible.

[Josh]

I'm not gonna let some stupid monsters.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Stand in my way.

[Dan Koch]

Percy Jackson and the Olympians. New season now on DIS plus and Hulu. Learn more at disneyplus.com whatson.

Welcome back, everybody, to a very special. I mean, it's so special that it's gotta be sort of like a holiday special episode of Religion on the Mind. Because this is, of course, our Generation Gap Culture Hour, which is a thing we do regularly. Myself, editor, producer, Josh and Tony Jones. We got about 25 years between Josh and Tony with me in the middle. And we attempt to lightheartedly consider at least one issue through the lens of age and life experience, through generational lenses each time we do this. But we've also got a fourth here today. We have our very own Joy Vetterlein joining us, making it not merely generation gap, but genderation gap Culture Hour for today and today only. Joy, thank you for being here with us.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Hello. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to represent the.

An other.

[Dan Koch]

Gender and Other gender. Oh, good catch there. Oh, boy.

[Tony Jones]

Oh, wow. Here we go. Here we go.

[Dan Koch]

Careful.

[Tony Jones]

There we go.

[Dan Koch]

Okay, good. We're off to a good start. I also will say that Joy, like the sweetness of your voice, perhaps as someone who spent 15 years in Christian ministry.

Belies the fact that you've got some umbrage that you've taken over the months with some of our coverage. And you are going to be. Finally, the safety is gonna be taken off your musket to connect to something I'm gonna bring up in a little bit. So that's gonna be exciting. We're gonna. It's funny. Cause basically, metaphorically, Tony is gonna have no choice but to hit a girl. And that's just gonna be. That's the best way to do this. No, I'm kidding.

[Joy Vetterlein]

I did get to meet Tony.

[Dan Koch]

You guys got to meet at beer camp.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Yeah. That's when this idea was born, is that we got to meet in person. And we were like, well, we should take this on the pod. Cause this is fun. But we were. That was beer camp. And we were all several beers in. And this is like a stone cold Monday morning. So we'll see.

[Dan Koch]

11Am Pacific.

[Joy Vetterlein]

The magic still translates to this recording.

[Josh]

And I think the actual time that you met was when we were in the green room and Tony came in to say, you guys can't be in here. You gotta go hang out with the people outside. That was the meeting we all got.

[Dan Koch]

Kicked out to go mix. Yeah.

[Tony Jones]

Because it's not a fucking green room. It's the headquarters for, like, those of us who are making the conference happen.

[Dan Koch]

But you know what, any listener who enjoyed, I guess it hasn't aired yet, but Tim Burnett on the podcast, that was because of a conversation that started back there in that not green room. So there's, you know.

[Tony Jones]

Yeah, that conversation could not possibly have happened in any other room in that church than that room, for sure. Good point, Dan.

[Dan Koch]

Well, when you're out in public with Tim, he's like 6, 7, and everyone's making jokes about his height or asking if he played high school basketball, it's hard to get a conversation going. But anyway, since Joy is here representing Southern California, I thought I might start us off with, I think a very funny Los Angeles themed Instagram reel by a comedian named Zach Toscani. Just a little 45 seconds or so here that we could perhaps laugh to and then briefly respond to Joy, I don't mean to imply that you are the type of into the type of thing that this clip Is about. But let's not set it up too much. Here we go. Let's just play it.

I was dating someone who was into crystals, and I don't mind crystals. I don't really feel either way about them. I'm just like, ah, cool rocks. You know, they're pretty to look at. I don't know why people get so mad. I'm like, it's a pretty rock. I don't know.

But I don't believe in the power of crystals because everyone I know who is a crystals person rents. And I just.

You know, like, I don't. I'm not trying to be a classist, but it's like.

How much abundance do you really have?

Okay. Reactions.

[Joy Vetterlein]

No, I was looking because I actually have some crystals. I can't find them in my little shelf by me, but I used to have them, like, on my desk. I just have them. I don't know why, but I don't.

[Dan Koch]

You don't pray to them?

[Joy Vetterlein]

I don't pray to them. Yeah. Yeah.

[Josh]

I feel like if you have them but you lost them, there has to be some, like, bad juju there if you don't know where they are or.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Just good juju just floating around. And I'm benefiting from it without knowing it. Yeah.

[Josh]

Tony, how many crystals do you have?

[Tony Jones]

Oh, there are a lot of crystals in this house, brah.

And we own. We don't rent.

And there's a lot of crystals.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Are you wearing one under your sweatshirt right now?

[Tony Jones]

I don't have any on my person at the moment, but I can just tell you there's so many crystals in this house that I'm quite sure that I'm in the aura of them whether I want to be or not.

[Dan Koch]

Okay, Interesting. We've struck a nerve here.

[Tony Jones]

It's no nerve.

[Dan Koch]

No nerve? No nerve. Well, I do have, like, a. I have a personal. I have a personal policy to not make fun of the Enneagram in Courtney's physical or conversational presence.

[Tony Jones]

Good.

[Dan Koch]

That's because I. Because she's wonderful, and it's not worth it. And I don't need to always be Enneagram hater guy, so I want to tread carefully around crystals. Although I do feel even more freedom to criticize crystals than the Enneagram, if I'm honest.

I'm assuming that they are not being used to manifest, like, wealth generation, though.

[Tony Jones]

No. I think for anything that Courtney does that we would call, like, an alternate alternative spirituality, like pulling tarot or meditating or oming or smudging our House with Sage. All these things happen regularly, including crystals. She just says they all are. I mean this Sarah Lane Richie would agree with this too, I think, or maybe even how she would say it. But Courtney uses them to focus her attention. They're tools she uses to focus on her attention during her morning meditation.

[Dan Koch]

Yeah, yeah. Obviously that's not the type of use he, the that Zach is laughing at. Right. He's doing the very LA version.

[Tony Jones]

And I just will say, like, I don't mean this to be not funny, but it's not really funny. But like one of the things Ryan Burge and I have found in our, in this massive survey we did of American nuns, N O N E S people. Yeah. Non religious Americans. Is that the biggest group of those nuns? Of the four categories? We came up with the largest group, about 33 million Americans consider themselves spiritual but not religious. But what's fascinating is they're actually not, they're aspirationally spiritual. But when they're, but when we asked follow up survey questions after they're, you know, they're classified and then like, well, how often have they replaced traditional religious practice like prayer, read the Bible, go to church, sing praise songs or whatever with. And then we gave them, I don't know, 15 choices, take walks in nature, like forest bathing crystals, doing yoga or whatever. Very small percentage of them do it. So they call themselves spiritual but not religious, but they're not actually practicing spirituality of any kind of which it was kind of a fascinating. I mean that's been one of the more fascinating revelations we've had in this research. And when we've presented it at places, we've presented it in the last couple months at like the American Academy of Religion and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. And a lot of the religion profs in the room are like, that can't be true, that can't be true. And we're like, well here's the data.

[Joy Vetterlein]

It's true, I believe it.

[Tony Jones]

Yeah.

[Joy Vetterlein]

A lot of people would hear that and think spiritual is like, oh, I believe something could be out there, like internal just in my thought. But I think a lot of people would identify any kind of practice as like religious.

[Dan Koch]

Well, there's an idea that Daryl Van Tongren has that I think goes some way to explaining that if he's right, which is this concept of religious residue that like there are ways you can ask questions to people when they do leave behind religious, you know, sort of self identification. But certain things take like a few years or a decade for them to like over time, eventually answer zero on a survey or whatever where it's like there is this sort of long tail to a lot of aspects about the way that a person thinks and moves through the world and the way that they. Yeah, like, and I bet that it would. That the type of question answering that would land you in the spiritual but not religious category. I would bet a lot of those things might be good candidates for this kind of religious residue because they would be sort of religious. Ish. So we might call it spiritual but not religious, but they're not. But like somebody basically, here's what I'm saying, according to Darrell, as I understand his work, somebody who actually totally stops all their religious practice and does not replace it with anything else, does not replace it with crystals or full moon forest baths or whatever like that, they would still sort of show up in the world and on maybe certain survey questions as having this religious residue that just sort of takes time to go away. So I'm wondering like, you know the rest of the data better, Tony.

[Tony Jones]

The difference is Darryl is specifically studying people who have left religion. And the vast majority of American nuns were never religious. They were raised in non religious homes.

[Dan Koch]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Josh]

Oh yeah.

[Tony Jones]

This is not. These are not.

[Dan Koch]

These are not formerly religious people that the group that you're talking about.

[Tony Jones]

These are not your podcast listeners. These are not. The actual number of Americans who are exvangelical or who are deconstructing is a really small Percentage wise across 340 million people is actually a very small group. They are not statistically significant. Sorry. But that, yeah.

[Dan Koch]

Oh, I think about that every time I meet a new person in Bellingham and I have to tell them a little bit about myself and they go, okay, there's like a 3% chance that they are going to find my work so fascinating.

[Tony Jones]

Yeah.

[Dan Koch]

And there's a 97 chance that they're going to be like, okay, I hope that, that dad's not in our kids school or you know, something like that.

[Tony Jones]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the majority of nuns were raised with no religion. And of course some people are leaving religion every year, which is increasing the number of nuns, which means more people in every generation are being raised in non religious homes. So that's how it keeps growing. It's not really growing dramatically by deconversion, although that does happen. Or more often probably what Darrell's talking about is like not even a deconversion, like in a dramatic sense, but just people kind of fade away.

[Dan Koch]

Slower fade.

[Tony Jones]

Yeah. Just kind of stop going.

[Dan Koch]

Well, I Did want to ask Joy and Josh briefly about that concept of religious residue, though, because of the four of us, you two would fit the category the most of the type of person who would experience that, who, you know, made a formal break with your religious past and now are onto some new shit.

Isn't that a Taylor Swift lyric? Taylor Swift lyric, yes, there we go. Okay, I'm on some new shit. So have you heard that before? Is this the first time that you've heard that concept? Josh? You may have heard Daryl talk about it before. I don't know. Just curious if you feel like it relates to your experience, Joy?

[Joy Vetterlein]

Yeah, I don't think I've heard the term before, but it makes sense. I feel it a lot, actually, especially parenting. I have a 9 and 11 year old. So we're in the phase of parenting where it's less about keeping them alive and more about, like, engaging with them on deeper issues and like soul issues and identity. And there's a lot of things coming up. Like, even this morning, literally in the car at drop off, my daughter was like, worried about something and I literally said out loud to her, like, see, this is the part where, like, I wish I still believed in God, because if I. If I did, I would pray for you. And this is what I would say if I would pray. So I just sort of like, I was like, so like dear mystical person that we haven't quite figured out yet. And then I like repeated the thing that I would have said like five years ago, but it was actually really cool because I could just like, watch her, like, whole demeanor. She just, like, took a breath, calmed down. Like, even just the words without the strong figure, like, had a significant effect of, like, perspective and like, okay, right? No, I'm safe, I'm loved. It's okay to be like a human who makes mistakes. Like, there's not, like, today's just gonna. Probably. Chances are it's gonna be a normal day. And I was like, I gotta do more of this. So, yeah, I find it very realistic.

[Josh]

Yeah, for me, I kind of started using the metaphor of, like, Christianity, handing me this, like, large purpose vase. And so I like, learn. I have like the faculties in my experience for a lot of purpose. And so once, like, I got rid of the Christian part, it still felt like the, the cavity was there, the vase that holds all that purposes. So if there's anything that's like, religious residue, it's that I've had to sort of unlearn the like, deep desire to fill my life with all this. Purpose in that way or basically to look for purpose in all of these areas where maybe I don't need to be doing that. That's what comes to mind when you say that, Josh.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Are you saying there's a hole in your heart that only Jesus can fill?

[Josh]

Yeah, but it's a bigger hole than had to be there otherwise.

[Dan Koch]

I actually. I mean, I think about this with my music podcasting sometimes.

There are moments where the work that I'm currently doing with Pretty Good Vibrations, where I'm using it as basically a place to practice and try out different ways of podcasting. Sort of like that kind of that more pure creative muscle. There are times when I'm like, is this like a waste of my time? This isn't like, really helping people. It's not like scratching that existential itch that doing religion on the mind scratches, or that doing therapy with clients scratches. Right. So it's like there is a. In that sense. It's like, you know, I'm not. I don't think I have religious residue in the proper sense, because I'm not. I still consider myself religious, but, like, even in the change, like, it. Maybe it's a bit more like what you're describing, Josh. That, like, kind of hole that needs to be filled. It's like I. It's like a certain itch that has to be scratched for me. Unless I can sort of get myself to accept that whatever I'm doing might still ultimately be a part of something that will end up helping people. Like, if I get better at podcast, like, that's kind of how I have to frame it to myself. Which is funny because I don't criticize the people who make the TV and movie and music podcasts that I like. I don't criticize them for, like, not doing something more important with their life or whatever. Like, I listen to them, and I was asking Jeffrey about this, and she actually reflected back to me. She's like, you really like those podcasts. I notice that you listen to them a lot. You listen to them in different times and different tasks that you're doing, and it animates you. And it's like, huh? And I'm not criticizing them, but there is something internally that's, like, harder for me to resolve that feels related to that.

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[Tony Jones]

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[Dan Koch]

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[Tony Jones]

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[Tony Jones]

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[Dan Koch]

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[Joy Vetterlein]

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[Tony Jones]

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Speaking of music and speaking of identity formation, let's talk about what is now apparently the number one social media trend of the calendar year. Spotify Wrapped. Maybe that's only in my circles, but I feel like. I feel like I got a Thanksgiving size helping of Spotify Wrapped every time I opened a social media app on my phone, including I will eventually share my highlights from Wikipedia Wrapped, which is apparently only available for app users because a bunch of people who saw a story I posted tried to go do their own like, oh, I don't use the app. So the wrapped phenomenon has become. It sort of jumped the shark a little bit. But Joy, I did like your idea to bring it in. So what were you. This was your call, so why don't I let you kind of set up. What are you wanting to hear from us, from our Spotify Wrapped findings or whatever?

[Joy Vetterlein]

Oh, I would love to start by hearing everyone's Spotify wrapped age 78.

[Dan Koch]

I would like to express some skepticism about the listening age algorithm here. I saw somebody's. I saw someone's thing. Said it literally, because it gives the description. Right? So I listen to a ton of Beach Boys, so I'm like, okay, I get it. It's, like, fine. Like, it said something about 60s music. I saw someone say, 88. Music from the 50s was in your listening history. I'm like, okay, music from the 50s is in. Elvis is in a lot of people's history, you know, even if they're young. So it does feel a little sketch. But then I saw people with, like, younger than them ages pop up, and so I. You know, guys, I don't fucking know what to.

[Joy Vetterlein]

You're 78.

[Dan Koch]

I'm 78, Tony.

[Joy Vetterlein]

What are you. You're 28, Tony.

[Dan Koch]

All you do is talk about 70s classic rock bands on this podcast. How did you get 28 since you.

[Tony Jones]

Were into music from the early 2010s with a hint of nostalgia? That's how it explained it to me.

[Dan Koch]

Yeah. I would not describe you as.

[Tony Jones]

I mean, I think it'll make.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Talk about a generation gap. No.

[Dan Koch]

What the.

[Tony Jones]

No, my. I think when we get to our specific, like, top songs and albums, it'll make more sense of. I. I think mine is sk.

[Dan Koch]

Because of.

[Tony Jones]

Honestly, because of how I use Spotify.

[Dan Koch]

Yeah. The specific way you use that platform. All right, Josh, what was yours?

[Josh]

Mine was 26. Maybe the closest to my actual age on this chat.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Joy, I am 22.

[Dan Koch]

What the hell? I thought it must be something with me.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Oh, yeah. Sorry we can't affirm that for you, Dan. But, yeah, so I'm the youngest person here musically. Apparently.

[Dan Koch]

When I was your listening age.

I had to buy blank cassette tapes. Okay.

[Josh]

Back in my day, I'm curious the amount of minutes listened throughout the year. Do you guys have that stat easily?

[Joy Vetterlein]

Yes.

[Dan Koch]

Well, so I'm primarily an Apple music user, so I had to kind of, like, figure that. That. So my real takeaways are going to be from that. And it doesn't give you all the same. All the same stuff. Yeah. 70. Fucking 78.

[Tony Jones]

All right. I've got my minutes.

[Joy Vetterlein]

I got my minutes.

[Dan Koch]

You guys go ahead and start off to pull up mine.

[Josh]

Mine was 18,060, which felt low for me.

[Joy Vetterlein]

I'm 17,132. See you.

Tony.

[Tony Jones]

49, 954.

[Dan Koch]

Wow.

[Joy Vetterlein]

So when you have it on all the time, I'll.

[Tony Jones]

I'll explain how I use it when we get there. Yeah, I mean, I think that's an. It's skewed.

[Josh]

But like, when you're hunting, are you listening to music?

[Tony Jones]

No, but I. I'll. I'll explain it. I think it'll make a lot of sense.

[Dan Koch]

It's not giving me my total minutes on Apple Music, but mid August, I hit 25,000 minutes and I am working on 50,000. It says so somewhere in between there. And I do use Spotify a little bit, but that's mostly for pretty good vibrations and other stuff like that. So Apple's my main.

[Josh]

Some people are really skewed based on their kids. So Joy, perhaps you listen to, like, kid music with your Spotify account. And maybe Dan, you listen to Jaffries. If Soren wants to put on something young.

[Dan Koch]

Soren. Well, when we get to songs. So let's dive into that stuff a little bit. So my. So Soren does have a playlist and Stellan has a playlist that we don't listen to quite as much. So my two top songs of the year were Soren's two favorite songs from the year. Foo Fighters, My Hero, and Metallica. The Memory Remains.

For whatever reason.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Also skewing your age.

[Dan Koch]

Yeah. Yeah, a little bit. But then I had a few songs after that that were not that many. Fewer that I listened to a lot. So it wasn't, you know. And it. In Undertow, Cobra by Geese, and Everything Is Peaceful Love by Bonavera. Those are my top three that were actually mine, song wise.

[Joy Vetterlein]

I had. We're doing top songs.

[Dan Koch]

Yeah, sure.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Yeah. I had three of my top five were from Taylor Swift's new album, which is crazy because that just came out in October.

[Tony Jones]

So how many listens for one of those?

[Joy Vetterlein]

Ooh.

[Tony Jones]

Cause it says it in there.

[Joy Vetterlein]

I think 25.

[Tony Jones]

Okay.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Which isn't crazy. It doesn't feel crazy. And especially. So, yeah, I will put music on while I'm driving my kids to school in the morning. And my daughter pretty much exclusively listens to Taylor Swift, so I think that does skew my results more towards Taylor Swift than. What if it was just recording what I listened to on my own? But yeah, there's also a little Benson Boone in there.

[Dan Koch]

Of course. Why wouldn't there be?

[Joy Vetterlein]

My son likes Teddy Swims.

Like the raspy voice. Lose control. That was in my top five.

[Dan Koch]

I don't even. I don't know who that is.

[Joy Vetterlein]

You would know the song, like, Control.

[Dan Koch]

That one maybe. Last time Jeffrey said, oh, you definitely know this song. I didn't know it. Josh, any. Anything on songs I want to hear how Tony uses Spotify. And we'll do. We'll hit a couple highlights on our way out of this topic.

[Josh]

Yeah. Top songs Cheerleader by Porter Robinson, which is like an electronic EDM band. Rituals by Watch House, which is like a bluegrass band.

Me around, you'd by the band Camino. I had some help. Post Malone. Those are my.

[Dan Koch]

I literally don't know any. I know Post Malone. I don't know any of those songs. It does feel like Spotify Wrapped is like the one moment in the year where people can feel like they're all doing the same thing together, which is using Spotify but for different things. Like, it's all gotten so atomized, man.

[Joy Vetterlein]

Yeah.

[Dan Koch]

Okay, Tony, tell us how you use it.

[Tony Jones]

Well, mine. Mine is skewed and it's unlike any other year. Like, I remember last year I was like, Spoon. I was like one of the top fans of the band spoon in 24. I listened to a ton of Spoon Cake. You know, I listen when I work out. I listened to classic rock and like, kind of whatever Spoon and Cake are. I mean, they're not quite classic, right? But alt rock or something older. Alt rock?

[Dan Koch]

Yeah. Gen X. Alt rock, yeah.

[Tony Jones]

But this year I completely changed my. The way I write. I changed it dramatically. And one of the big changes was I built a playlist. I may have mentioned this previously on a previous episode, I built a playlist of movie soundtracks with no words, all super dramatic, and it's like 30 hours long. And I can share with any of you you want. It's mainly, like, Hans Zimmer. There's Dune and Dune 2, Interstellar, Inception. I don't know, maybe like a Superman, a Batman.

[Dan Koch]

There's like, what does it do for you? I would think it reminds me when I'm writing.

[Tony Jones]

It reminds me to make the every scene I'm writing more dramatic because I realize that the novels that I've written aren't dramatic enough. They're interesting in a historical sense or whatever. But I realized in order to sell a novel, I needed to really amp up the drama and every scene. Like, I've read all this, all this, so many books about writing fiction. And I have all these post it notes around my computer. And one says, like, always be escalating. And another one says, something has to be different at the end of a scene than at the beginning of a scene.

[Dan Koch]

Yeah. You shared those.

[Tony Jones]

I've shared that before. Another one's like, every scene is either a negotiation, a seduction, or an argument. You know, And I just wasn't writing like that, so. But man, when you're listening to a Hans Zimmer soundtrack, holy fuck. It's like every, every song is so dramatic. It's like building, building, building and the dun dun dun dun dun. You know the drums in Dune or whatever and the thumper and those high voices singing or whatever. So.

All of my top songs, like my top 10 songs are all like Hans Zimmer Dune. I've listened to it I don't know, 45 or 50 times. And that was all like in a three month period.

[Dan Koch]

So is Last of the Mohicans on there? Because I would really love to request.

[Tony Jones]

You know what I tried. I had Last of the Mohicans on there and I removed it.

[Dan Koch]

Too weepy.

[Tony Jones]

Too many like it. It turns out I don't, I really like.

I don't really like the older scores that are like a lot of strings and like symphony kind of stuff. Like I don't have in there like Indiana Jones or Star wars or like I like those soundtracks, but they weren't doing for me what like oh my gosh, Interstellar. Like you want to listen to a soundtrack that is mind bogglingly intense. Interstellar with that organ. It's amazing.

[Dan Koch]

Anytime someone mentions Hans Zimmer now all I can do is think of this wonderful. It's not the Onion, it's the Hard Times. I've mentioned it before. It's like a music focused onion. And the headline, it's this, it's this, it's this obviously fake generated photo of him at current age on stage. And it says shirtless, coked out. Hans Zimmer wants to know if Sydney Opera House ready to fucking party tonight.

Because he plays shows and stuff.

[Tony Jones]

He does live shows.

[Dan Koch]

He does live shows. I love the idea that he's like this aging drug addled rock star doing the Interstellar score live. I just think that's so funny. I can't help but think of it every time.

[Josh]

Wait, who are you guys talking about? Jan Zimmerman. Oh my God.

[Dan Koch]

Do you not know who Hans Zimmer is? Josh?

[Josh]

It's one of those names like. Oh yeah, he did that one thing. No, I don't really know.

[Joy Vetterlein]

He did Kung Fu Panda.

[Dan Koch]

Okay, after that one thing, the number the two most famous, the John Williams of John Williams century and Hans Zimmer are the two most famous movie composers of all time. Probably all time.

[Josh]

I'm more of a Randy Newman kind of guy.

[Dan Koch]

I mean he's great. Any of Morricone, you know, in certain, you know, as maybe I would say Morricone might be the best. But anyway, okay, so let's use this to talk let's use this to, to get into Taylor Swift here because, Joy, you have had some, some reason to be critical of our coverage over the years. I'll just say this is going to be we're going to transition now to the patron only section of this conversation. So if you'd like to hear the rest and you're not already a patron, head to patreon.com Dan Koch that link is in the notes. You get these episodes and a bunch of other stuff, including a Christmas party, a holiday party next week. We should have probably put that at the beginning. We will have had, yeah, December 16th. So when this comes out, it'll be this, this coming Tuesday and 6pm or 5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern. We're going to play some games, probably maybe do some version of bar, bank, church, dispensary. I was trying to think of I want to find a holiday version of that game to play.

Some stuff like that. It'll be fun. So join us for that. That'll also be for patrons only and. Okay, Sam.