Good news...

[annwfyn]

In good news, I've got an interview this afternoon at 3 pm at Oxford Circus. Go me!

Randomly, I sorted my itunes playlist into order of most played - least played today. I've no idea why, but I did. It was kinda interesting seeing which songs I apparently listen to the most.

itunes 10 most played tunes

Holding Out for a Hero (Shrek 2 Soundtrack) - Jennifer Saunders
One Week - Barenaked Ladies
The Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Daniels Band
Accidentally in Love (Shrek 2 Soundtrack) - Counting Crows
Queer - Garbage
River Man - Rachel Unthank & Winterset (random folk group)
Run to You - Bryan Adams
Ever Fallen in Love (Shrek 2 Soundtrack) - Pete Yorn
On a Monday Morning - Rachel Unthank & Winterset
Raven Girl - Rachel Unthank & Winterset

So. Does this playlist say something about me? Do you guys think that one's favourite songs are a reflection on the person listening to them, or that all nonsensical psychobabble?

What are your ten most listened to tunes?

Comments

[wildrogue.livejournal.com]

Good luck.

Your tunes say that your current fads are the Shrek 2 soundtrack and the Winterset. I suspect these may be long running fads since it's almost a year since Warwick.

My explanation

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I'll add in what I think this list says about me.

By and large the tunes below are my cheering myself up tunes - especially the Jennifer Saunders and the Charlie Daniels Band - I find them bouncy and happy. Devil Went Down To Georgia in particular is the song I feel when I want to imbue myself with self confidence by shouting 'well, Devil, you can come on back if you ever wanna try again/but I'll tell you once, you son of a bitch, I'm the best there's ever been' at high volume.

The Winterset stuff is from an album which I bought at the Warwick Folk Festival, having heard the band play live, and has become one of my favourite things, although I think only wildrogue knows or likes them. Annoyingly I can't find the actual album atm, so my itunes holds my only copy. They are my mellow music, used for days when I just want to relax.

The one thing I did notice was the lack of miserable music on this list. I've got a few mopey tunes on itunes, but by and large I seem to listen to them relatively rarely, which I think means I rarely have problems making myself miserable and need no artificial stimulation.

So, music for me is used a lot as a pick me up or to reflect an already good mood.

I think I like knowing that.

Holding Out for a Hero (Shrek 2 Soundtrack) - Jennifer Saunders
One Week - Barenaked Ladies
The Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Daniels Band
Accidentally in Love (Shrek 2 Soundtrack) - Counting Crows
Queer - Garbage
River Man - Rachel Unthank & Winterset (random folk group)
Run to You - Bryan Adams
Ever Fallen in Love (Shrek 2 Soundtrack) - Pete Yorn
On a Monday Morning - Rachel Unthank & Winterset
Raven Girl - Rachel Unthank & Winterset

[becky-spence.livejournal.com]

Ooh, best of luck for the interview!

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Huzzah for last.fm (http://www.last.fm/user/crocodilewings).

I think looking for personal insights in the individual songs you listen to most is micro-managing it a little. The songs you listen to repeatedly tend to be the ones you short-term fixate on. I'm a strong believer in the idea that musical taste is indicative of character, but for proper results you need bigger numbers.

If you were to see which artists you listened to most, odds are it would be a hit-and-miss version of the artists you profess to be your favourites. The difference is that when you make a list yourself, that's a list of artists you like the idea of, whereas a cut and dry rundown of what you've actually listened to is a list of artists you actually like the sound of. The difference in these lists is probably quite telling in unto itself, but it's probably safe to say that our conscious choices probably bias the results more than our unconscious ones, so I'd opt for the like-the-sound list.

Your sound-favourite artists probably each have some sort of vibe or idiom or theme or underlying concept which quite likely resonates with you on some level, otherwise you wouldn't like them so much. They're more telling than an individual track because we can all think up examples of songs that we really like whilst being indifferent towards the performing artists' other works. A larger pool of information means less bias and more self-referrential redundancy, so lends itself to a better portrait.

I have a muso-geek friend (hg253), who claims that instead of artists being the denominative unit, you should use albums, since whilst artists can vary in mood and theme, an album is usually a self-contained set of pieces that thematically go together. Although I can see the merit of this, it assumes that people think in terms of albums, and also assumes you can build up enough of a selection of information in each of them, which is tricky, because they'll only contain about twelve tracks, whereas an artist can have loads, so you need to listen to more songs to build up a good idea, but you can be less precise and more sloppy and whimsical in your listening.

This is the sort of thing I think about.

[suave-steve.livejournal.com]

Good luck.

1) I predict a riot - The Cheshire Chord Company
2) Alfie - David Macalmont
3) Private Investigations - Dire Straits
4) Black Hole Sun - Paul Anka
5) Coles Corner - Richard Hawley
6) I am the Ressurection - The Stone Roses
7) The Wrong Girl - Belle and Sebastian
8) Out of Time - Blur
9) Forever Lost - The Magic Numbers
10) Buscuit - Portishead

Although these have been played between 3 and 7 times, but make of it what you will.

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

good luck

[vireton.livejournal.com]

i'll lend you my "luck of the irish" for your interview

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Begin - Ben Lee
Fall for you - the whitlams
Wish you well - bernard fanning
Run - snow patrol
the lights are back on - the whitlams
Give it all away - world party
She cries your name - beth orton
Gospel SOng - Bob geldof
I've got a theory - Buffy Once more with feeling
Asshole - Denis Leary

I'm messed up

[melsner.livejournal.com]

Given that three of the songs are from the same movie, I think it says that your ideal man is large, green and kind of smelly.

I'm still fond of the Darkwing Duck themesong.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I have a muso-geek friend ([info]hg253), who claims that instead of artists being the denominative unit, you should use albums, since whilst artists can vary in mood and theme, an album is usually a self-contained set of pieces that thematically go together.

*ponders*

I don't think that would work remotely for me. Mostly because I really don't listen to albums terribly much - I'm one of those people that itunes/ipods/mp3 music may have been created for, in that I tend to get collections of songs which I like. Nearly all the albums I own are compilations of various kinds, and those albums I own tend to be used to listen to three or four songs off the album, and the rest skipped over.

However, going through the artists on my itunes play list, my ten most played are:

Rachel Unthank & Winterset (random folk)
Garbage
Green Day
The Waterboys
Tori Amos
Dire Straits
Queen
Aha
Sister Hazel (for which I thank adze for introducing me to them)
Shakira

Which is a really different list. The thing I found kinda interesting looking at that list is that a lot of the artists - mostly Garbage and Green Day - didn't get played massively on an individual level, but I had a LOT of their songs - I've got whole albums of Garbage which is really unusual for me in that I'm not a normal album buyer, and the same goes for Green Day.

I also realised, looking at that list, that for some reason I'm mildly ashamed of liking Green Day. I think it's because in my head they are rather overhyped and are viewed as being far far more clever than I think they are. Yet I still listen to them a lot in the privacy of my own room.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

So I just need to dye jez green?

[melsner.livejournal.com]

I thought he turned that color when he was sick...

Does that mean that Ginnie is Donkey?

[castorlion.livejournal.com]

You're not planning on visiting any time soon, are you?

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

If you could go through your list of most played artists and note down a few words for each, a few choice adjectives for how their music sounds and, more importantly, how it makes you feel, what do you end up with?

[melsner.livejournal.com]

I should have gone with Puss n' Boots...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Rachel Unthank & Winterset (random folk)

Words - mellow, dreamy

Garbage

Words - poweful, bouncy, weird sense of cynical superiority re: reality (that last one makes no sense and I'm not sure if that's the way the music is or the way it makes me feel)

Green Day

Words - bouncy, comfortable, familiar

The Waterboys

Words - got a lot of imagery in their songs, dreamy, optimtimistic

Tori Amos

Words - lyrical, haunting,

Dire Straits

Words - there's a story in all their songs which I rather like. Not words, but that's why I like them.

Queen

Words - bouncy, anthemnic

Aha

Words - familiar (they were the first band I owned an album by), upbeat, lyrical

Sister Hazel (for which I thank [info]adze for introducing me to them)

Words - upbeat, bouncy

Shakira

Words - sensual, rhythmic, dancable

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

So given that you choose to listen to these artists much more than others, and these are the qualities you identify with those artists, what does that say about you and why you listen to them?