Top Tunes
Clive Thompson at Collision Detection has had an interesting series of posts about iPod snobs -- those who buy an MP3 player with massive storage capacity but only put a few hundred songs on it, or who stuff their whole music collections on it and then only listen to the latest Linkin Park album or whatever the hell those youngsters are into today.
A recent survey Clive links to somewhat bolsters his view. A recent survey of nearly 1,100 digital music player owners found an average music library of just 375 songs. Half had less than 100 songs.
My beloved Rio has about 3,600 songs on it, but as I've mentioned before, although I've had the thing for more than a year now, there are hundreds of tunes that I've never played. Yet I completely resist the thought that I should delete them. I mean, what if I need a particular song at a particular time or particular place? I would feel silly if I was really jonesin' for some banjo music one day, only to remember that I wiped off all the Tony Trischka because he wasn't in the regular rotation.
But here's something interesting. You ask me what my favorite bands are, and I'll say: Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Tool, Ben Harper, The White Stripes. But check out this list of my 10 most frequently played songs:
1. Little Bird, The White Stripes, played 50 times
2. You're Pretty Good Looking, The White Stripes, played 42 times
3. Hello Operator, The White Stripes, played 41 times
4. The Watchman's Gone, Gordon Lightfoot, played 37 times
5. 10 A.M. Automatic, The Black Keys, played 35 times
6. My Doorbell, The White Stripes, played 35 times
7. Little Ghost, The White Stripes, played 34 times
8. Why Can't You Be Nicer To Me, The White Stripes, played 32 times
9. Death Letter, The White Stripes, played 32 times
10. Till I Get My Way, The Black Keys, played 32 times
So obviously I'm listening to a lot more Jack and Meg than Robert and Jimmy, or Mick and Keith.
Of course, that list doesn't give the whole picture. As Clive notes, one of the awesome things about pop music is that an album or song can get you completely addicted to the point where you listen to nothing else for weeks on end. But that doesn't mean the other 3,590 songs on my player are useless or somehow just there for show.
Just now I was thumbing through the 800 songs that haven't been played in the past year, and I was surprised at how much good music was in there. Everything from mainstream stuff like Paul Simon, Ben Harper and Led Zeppelin to more obscure artists like Nick Drake and Alvin Youngblood Hart. It's nice to have all that at my fingertips when I do get temporarily bored of "Get Behind Me Satan".
Clive should conduct an informal survey of his own and ask his readers to send him lists of their favorite bands alongside a list of their most-frequently played songs. It'd be interesting to see how the two lists match up or diverge.
A recent survey Clive links to somewhat bolsters his view. A recent survey of nearly 1,100 digital music player owners found an average music library of just 375 songs. Half had less than 100 songs.
My beloved Rio has about 3,600 songs on it, but as I've mentioned before, although I've had the thing for more than a year now, there are hundreds of tunes that I've never played. Yet I completely resist the thought that I should delete them. I mean, what if I need a particular song at a particular time or particular place? I would feel silly if I was really jonesin' for some banjo music one day, only to remember that I wiped off all the Tony Trischka because he wasn't in the regular rotation.
But here's something interesting. You ask me what my favorite bands are, and I'll say: Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Tool, Ben Harper, The White Stripes. But check out this list of my 10 most frequently played songs:
1. Little Bird, The White Stripes, played 50 times
2. You're Pretty Good Looking, The White Stripes, played 42 times
3. Hello Operator, The White Stripes, played 41 times
4. The Watchman's Gone, Gordon Lightfoot, played 37 times
5. 10 A.M. Automatic, The Black Keys, played 35 times
6. My Doorbell, The White Stripes, played 35 times
7. Little Ghost, The White Stripes, played 34 times
8. Why Can't You Be Nicer To Me, The White Stripes, played 32 times
9. Death Letter, The White Stripes, played 32 times
10. Till I Get My Way, The Black Keys, played 32 times
So obviously I'm listening to a lot more Jack and Meg than Robert and Jimmy, or Mick and Keith.
Of course, that list doesn't give the whole picture. As Clive notes, one of the awesome things about pop music is that an album or song can get you completely addicted to the point where you listen to nothing else for weeks on end. But that doesn't mean the other 3,590 songs on my player are useless or somehow just there for show.
Just now I was thumbing through the 800 songs that haven't been played in the past year, and I was surprised at how much good music was in there. Everything from mainstream stuff like Paul Simon, Ben Harper and Led Zeppelin to more obscure artists like Nick Drake and Alvin Youngblood Hart. It's nice to have all that at my fingertips when I do get temporarily bored of "Get Behind Me Satan".
Clive should conduct an informal survey of his own and ask his readers to send him lists of their favorite bands alongside a list of their most-frequently played songs. It'd be interesting to see how the two lists match up or diverge.
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