After decades of wanting my own personal Top 40-style chart and frustrated by my efforts to reshuffle Billboard's Hot 100, I finally hit upon the idea of using my last.fm scrobbles as the basis for my own chart, a true plays only chart. I began The Hideaway Top 20 in February 2025 using the previous month's scrobbles and intended to use the same artwork for each monthly post, including the last month's Top 20 most-listened to songs, as well as a throwback chart of tracks, albums, or artists from a previous day, week, month, or year. As you can see below, the whole project continues to evolve from what we originally intended...
Our Most Listened-To Songs from January 2025
published
February 10, 2025
Our Most Listened-To Songs from February 2025
published
March 3, 2025
February's scrobbles revealed a Top 29 due to a few ties in the number of scrobbles. We maintained Hideaway 20 branding in the title and artwork. If you know me, you know the odd number bothered me on several levels, and a few editorial decisions were made:
- Twenty songs will always be the minimum, but the maximum number will expand as needed due to ties.
- If the maximum number of scrobbled tracks ends up as an odd number, we will suck it up and publish it as is.
- last.fm handles ties by listing tracks alphabetically by artist, while The Hideaway will handle ties by randomly shuffling the tied tracks a minimum of six times, then applying sequential ranking numbers.
Our Most Listened-To Songs from March 2025
published
April 11, 2025
Like the title says, we had enough ties with the number of scrobbles to extend the countdown to The Hideaway 40. In particular, there were thirty-four tracks tied for the seventh most scrobbles in March 2025. Rather than go with a severely abbreviated Top 6, the countdown expanded to include forty songs.
Our Most Listened-To Songs from April 2025
published
May 19, 2025
The Hideaway 20 returned in April 2025, but it wasn't bereft of ties amongst the most-scrobbled tracks. There were fifteen songs tied for the sixth most scrobbles, and those, coupled with the Top 5, conveniently returned us to The Hideaway 20.
Our Most Listened-To Songs from May 2025
published
published
June 19, 2025
Amazingly, there are only two ties in May's Hideaway Top 20, but they forced the expansion of the countdown to The Hideaway 56. Eight tracks tied for the most scrobbles, and a staggering forty-eight tracks ended up in a tie for second most scrobbles.
Our Most Listened-To Songs from June 2025
published
July 14, 2025
We achieved maximum scrobblage in June 2025, logging nearly 4,500 unique scrobbles. The only way we could realistically achieve more scrobbles is to alter our sleep habits, creating more listening time, and that's just not going to happen. There was a clear most listened-to song and a twenty-seven-way tie for the second most listened-to song, which yielded The Hideaway 28.
Our most listened-to songs from July 2025
published
August 14, 2025
Fewer scrobbles in July than in the previous two months. Most scrobbled songs still resulted in a forty-three-way tie for second place and The Hideaway 45. Also started to feature New Release albums we had listened to in July, so we'll see how long that lasts.
Our most listened to songs from August 2025
published
September 11, 2025
We make the case that had the month ended just one week earlier, it would have resulted in an unprecedented 258 tracks for our countdown, aka The Hideaway 258. Scrobbles up over July. New Release albums feature continues. 
Our most listened to songs from September 2025
published
October 8, 2025
The New Release albums feature included a few reissues and compilations. The songs in The Hideaway 37 range from 1961 to 2018. Very low number of scrobbles this month: 2722 total songs. There were eleven days in September without a scrobble, the most yet.
Our most listened to songs from October 2025
published
November 17, 2025
Scrobbled 3319 unique songs in the thirty-one days of October. Actually, the scrobbles were across twenty-four days as we registered seven days in the month without a scrobbling. We ditched the New Release albums feature. The songs in The Hideaway 46 range from 1964 to 2021.
Our most listened to songs from November 2025
published
December 17, 2025
There were nine scrobble-free days in November 2025. A total of 2843 songs were scrobbled this month. The songs in The Hideaway 27 range from 1956 to 2012. No Christmas songs made the cut in November 2025, but the flashback Top 30 chart from 2016 featured nine songs celebrating Christmas.
To be continued...
AI DISCLOSURE
The Hideaway 20 artwork is generated by Google's Gemini