The best thing about the iPod playlist “Top 25 Most Played” is that you can’t hide who you are when you look at it. All is revealed. You may wish you were the kind of person who listened to Igor Stravinsky enough that he would show up on your Top 25 Most Played – but unless you are, organically, the kind of person who listens to Stravinsky on a daily basis – he will not be in your Top 25 Most Played. If you want your music to give off some kind of specific impression meant to impress others – if you want someone to think you’re cool, or eclectic, or deep, or if you scoff at music made by ‘the man’ – if any of these things are an issue for you, then don’t let anyone look at your Top 25 Most Played. Just keep it under wraps. If you’re not comfortable with people knowing that you listen to “Day Dream Believah” so often that it makes it into your Top 25, then I suggest just not mentioning it. The Top 25 Most Played playlist never lies. It shows you to yourself. It can surprise you.
In the interest of full disclosure – here is my utterly bizarre (and quite revealing) Top 25 Most Played.
I’m kind of amazed that there isn’t more Foo Fighters or Eminem on there … but I guess not. The Top 25 Most Played DOES NOT LIE.
So here it is, here I am, in my unvarnished glory:
(Also, in your iTunes Library you can see how many times each song has been played in your library … and I will go even further with my revelations today and say that: my #1 song – in terms of times-played – is so far beyond every other song numerically that I don’t know if other music could ever catch up. Maybe someday I’ll try to figure out why I listened to that song on an endless loop for a good month and a half, but not right now. I will say that it was NOT because it was Christmastime, and it had to something to do with Michael – but I am honestly not sure what, exactly.)
Anyway, here is my list:
SHEILA’S TOP 25 MOST PLAYED SONGS ON IPOD IN DESCENDING NUMERICAL ORDER:
25. “Dead!” – My Chemical Romance
24. “Son of Sam” – Elliot Smith
23. “A Woman Wouldn’t Be A Woman” – Eartha Kitt
22. “Rock Me” – Liz Phair
21. “Keep The Customer Satisfied” – Simon & Garfunkel
20. “I Don’t Know What It Is” – Rufus Wainright
19. “Big Wheel” – Tori Amos
18. “Too Much Love Will Kill You” – Queen
17. “Heaven on Earth” – Britney Spears
16. “SexyBack” – Justin Timberlake
15. “It is Love” – Hellogoodbye
14. “21 Things I Want In a Lover” – Alanis Morissette
13. “Christmas Is the Time to Say I love You” – SR-71
12. “My Prerogative” – Britney Spears’ cover of the Bobby Brown classic
11. “Cream” – Prince
10. “Aint That a Kick In the Head” – Dean Martin (speaking of which …)
9. “Stars and Planets” – Liz Phair
8. “Gimme More” – Britney Spears
7. “Mr. Blue Sky” – ELO
6. “Les Champs-Elysees” – Joe Dassin
5. “Beale St. Blues” – Eartha Kitt
4. “A Little More Love” – Olivia Newton-John
3. “Kashmir” – Led Zeppelin
2. “Enter Sandman” – Metallica
1. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” – Mariah Carey
UPDATE: It occurs to me that songs can be grouped into constants and time-and-place songs.
For example, “Enter Sandman” and “Cream” are constants and have been ever since I first heard them in the dark dawn age of time.
But other songs on the list signify to me a specific time and place and for whatever reason – my mood dictated me to that song and that song alone.
A couple of observations:
“It is Love” and “Beale St. Blues” will always remind me of going to Taos to stalk and meet Dean Stockwell. Those songs were in constant rotation. Happy sexy songs, I think.
“Les Champs-Elysees” is the song that plays over the final credits in Darjeeling Limited and it pulled my heart up out of my chest the first time I heard it – so powerfully – that I couldn’t even wait to get home and go to iTunes to find it. I had to stop off at a music store and buy the entire soundtrack IMMEDIATELY upon exiting the theatre. The song still transports me … but there was a time there when i was so into it that I made an entire playlist of just that song so that I wouldn’t have to keep pressing “Rewind”.
“Mr. Blue Sky” is what I turn on when I need to escape the world a little bit and enter my favorite fantasy which no, I will not share. But “Mr. Blue Sky” is a big part of it. I don’t even need to work to get into the mood, when I hear the song, I “go there”. My entire fantasy pops up around me, three-dimensional. Which is a little bit scary because a commercial is using “Mr. Blue Sky” right now, so if I hear it out in public I have a Pavlovian response.
And like I mentioned: Mariah Carey’s modern Christmas classic was the song I turned to a couple of autumns ago, after Michael left and I was all worked up. Sometimes I listened to the song and wept. Sometimes I listened to it and laughed. In the month after his visit – it was all Mariah all the time. To such a degree that she has been #1 in the Top 25 Most Played ever since. No one will ever be able to catch up. I think Michael would guffaw, knowing that I turned to THAT song after his departure. He’d be like, Sheila … WHAT???
Love the juxtaposition of 17 and 16! Awesome!
Together again, at LEAST in my iPod!
I’m not going to embarrass myself by admitting how few of those titles I recognized.
Oops?
One should never be embarrassed about one’s own personal taste in things.
I love your top 25 list, and I only know about half of the songs, so you’ve totally given me an itunes shopping list. I just looked at MY top 25 list, and the embarrassing thing about mine is that there are only EIGHT different artists on the list…there are two albums that i listen to in such heavy rotation that the ENTIRE ALBUMS have shown up on my top 25. (Jenny Lewis’ solo album and my Regina Spektor playlist, which is a complilation of my favorite songs from all of her albums.) I really thought sexyBack would appear on my list, but apparently Justin doesn’t hold a candle to Jenny Lewis and Regina Spektor in my book.
Oh, and I’m dying to hear that Mariah christmas song now.
Erik – I know, it’s strange to think what music you assume will be on there that doesn’t show up at all … Like: I had no idea that I listened to Britney Spears as much as I do (again: no shame) – it FEELS like I listen to Foo Fighters way more often, but … er … CLEARLY that is not the case!!
Well, I do know and enjoy the Joe Dassin number.
Not to say that’s the only selection.
I find these kinds of eclectic lists fascinating because I listen to music in such a different manner. I latch on to one band, maybe two, for weeks, sometimes months at a time and listen to pretty much only them and then put them away for a while. They’ll be revisted, but rotations can take years.
I’m actually in a lull at the moment, but after seeing Kashmir on the list I feel like a Zeppelin kick may be coming on.
Cullen – I do that “latch on to one band” or artist thing, too – but it’s sometimes still not enough to get the songs themselves put on the Top 25 Most Played. It’s weird that way. I listen to more Foo Fighters, consistently, than any other band – but adding all those times of playing the albums up does not equal the same numbers as when one song gets stuck on eternal repeat.
It’s an interesting thing to see – sometimes I look at the playlist and think, “How on EARTH could such-and-such NOT be on there??”
For example, over the past 3 or 4 months – I have been obsessed with Bleu and OK Go. I listen to their albums in consecutive order repeatedly. Where are they on my Top 25 Most Played??
And speaking of Led Zeppelin – Robert Plant’s album that he did with Allison Krause is one of my favorites in recent memory!
Didn’t know it was possible for me to love you more – but there you are…
Awesome, Sheila!
I’m totally stealing this from you. kthanx!
So I hid the #1 from my sight and was thinking that I could make a good educated guess. You are one of my oldest and longest friends, and I thought that would give me a bit of a jump on figuring out what it would be…I was so wrong.
That’s why I signed up for Last.fm last year. I was curious about my listening habits over time. They turned out to be exactly what I expected them to be. Oh well.
I don’t exactly need a Ipod to tell me that I don’t always listen to the type of music that would impress most music critics.
That aside, I thought I was the only one who listened to both Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on such a regular basis. I have yet to put them back on the same mix CD but now thanks to you, I’m tempted…
Betsy – HAHAHAHA!!!
Tonio – The point of my original comment is that the Top 25 Most Played feature – showing, as it does, the frequency of play of one particular song – can reveal your own proclivities to you in unexpected ways. I feel as though I listen to other things more than I do Kashmir, but that is obviously not the case. I like the randomness of it, and I like the truth of it.
De – Let me know when yours is up! I want to see your choices! Any Foo Fighters, you think??
I LOVED reading this post, and, like Erik, it totally gave me an iTunes shopping list :) I really had slacked off on my Britney shopping, but no worries that’s been rectified.
Just to show how inspired I am by this “no judgment let your music taste all hang out” sentiment, I’m going to post my list. Not that anyone’s been dying to see it, but it’s fun. Clearly I loved the 90s. Starting with #1 on down:
A Little Less Conversation (JXL Remix)- Elvis Presley
Clint Eastwood – Gorillaz
Good – Better Than Ezra
Bitch – Meredith Brooks
Santa Monica – Everclear
Promise – Eve 6
American Idiot – Green Day
Friday I’m In Love – The Cure
Inside Out – Eve 6
Pieces of Me – Ashlee Simpson
Black Balloon – Goo Goo Dolls
La La – Ashlee Simpson
I’m So Gone – Jackie Gomez
Pepper – Butthole Surfers
Holiday / Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day
Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
Praise You – Fatboy Slim
1985 – Bowling for Soup
Gasoline – Catherine Wheel
Lifeline – Catherine Wheel
Last Resort – Papa Roach
Tom’s Diner – Suzanne Vega & D.N.A.
Not Dark Yet – Bob Dylan
How We Operate – Gomez
Honey Don’t Think – Grant Lee Buffalo
Hopefully more people will post their lists so I have more shopping ideas :)
Hooray for “La La!!!
OK, I also want to put my list. Because I’m sure everybody has been dying to read random-internet-person’s list. In descending order:
25)I Miss You – Blink-182
24)Resentment – Beyonce
23)Beautiful Boy – Ben Harper
22)Traumerei, Op 15, No.7 – Robert Schumann
21)Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
20)Afrikaners is Pleserig – Karen Zoid
19)What About Love? – Heart
18)Cruisin’ – Gwyneth Paltrow & Huey Lewis
17)Deja Vu – Beyonce ft. Jay Z
16)Dream a Little Dream – The Beautiful South
15)Eleanor Rigby – The Beatles
14)Real Love – Regina Spektor
13)We Are the Champions – Queen
12)Blackbird – The Beatles
11)Freakum Dress – Beyonce
10)My Dearest Darling – Etta James
9)Run To You – Whitney Houston
8)At Last – Etta James
7)Rise Above This – Seether
6)In the Evening, Op. 12, No.1 – Robert Schumann
5)Fool That I Am – Etta James
4)Overture – The King and I OST (WHAT!!?)
3)La Revencha del Tango – Gotan Project
2)If I Can’t Have You – Etta James & Harry Fuqua
1)Claire De Lune – Claude Debussy
wow – I am a nerd.
Nice! Love the Queen-Beyonce-Etta James mix!
Nicola – hahahahaha I love that the OVERTURE to King and I is so high on the list!! Brilliant!!
All I want for Christmas by Mariah Carey. Awesome, Sheila.
it’s not really plagiarism if i give you credit.
hope u don’t mind, friend of a friend!
http://tobethatguy.blogspot.com/2008/10/heres-me.html