Kris and I have been using Audioscrobbler for six months now, during which time we've listened to 8524 songs. (That's nearly 600 songs a month, or twenty songs a day.)

Audioscrobbler is a service that "scrapes" info about the songs we listen to in iTunes, creating charts of most-heard songs and lists of recommended artists. It's free to use, requiring the installation of a simple plugin. Since we listen to 95% of our music via iTunes (specifically via AirTunes, the wireless broadcast app for iTunes), this is a great way for us to track our listening habits.

The first thing you notice when you look at our data is that we seem to listen to a hell of a lot of Tori Amos. This isn't really the case. What really happened here is that Kris borrowed a Tori Amos CD from Celeste (a friend at work) at the end of December, and then listened to Tori obsessively for two weeks straight. She still goes on little Tori benders now and then, as is evidenced by her 35-song Tori Amos fixation last week. Now, I like Tori Amos, but there's no way I need to hear her 332 times in three months. With luck, the next six months will see Tori drop from our most-listened to artist to something like #12. (Tori has a killer web site, by the way. It's outstanding.)

Kris clocks the second spot in our most-listened to category as well with the Indigo Girls. Again, I like the Indigo Girls just fine. (Actually, I like one of them. I generally find Emily's lyrics and vocals cloying, but think that Amy fucking rocks. I once made a CD mix just called Indigo Girl featuring only Amy songs. It was fantastic.) But I don't need to hear them over-and-over again. (What do you know? Today is Amy's 41st birthday!)

Who do I need to listen to over-and-over again? Who is my most listened to artist of the past six months? That's right: ABBA. Long time readers had no trouble with that one. I've listened to ABBA 162 times, and if you count all of the ABBA covers (from A-Teens and the Mamma Mia! soundtrack and various other artists), then my ABBA listenification is probably pushing Tori levels.

Kris and I both like Simon & Garfunkel, but that doesn't account for the fact that they're are fourth most-listened-to artists. No, they earned that position from two weekends — one in November, and one in February — during which we listened to nothing but Simon & Garfunkel. They're always good for grey and rainy days.

Neutral Milk Hotel and Fiona Apple snag spots five and six. And most of that Fiona listening has been her new stuff, the stuff that hasn't been released yet. At number seven sits U2, another J.D.-only entry. The Decemberists, Green Day, and Jet round out the top ten. (Number eleven is the Gingerich Family Singers, and number twelve is Pink Martini, both of which are Portland-area groups.)

I'm surprised that Sinead O'Connor isn't in the top ten. I love Sinead, but I guess I haven't really listened to her much lately.

As for our top tracks: the songs that made it high in the chart are those that Kris and I both like, the songs that we both felt inclined to include in our custom playlists.

Our most-listened to song of the past six months is Frou Frou's "Breathe In", which we've played 47 times. I know nothing of the band, and don't know where we found the song (though I think it was from Nate), but I love it. It's nice and mellow. Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland 1945" snags the third spot with 36 listens; it's a song that Kris and I both like to beller to. The rest of the top fifty comprises a lot of Fiona Apple, Indigo Girls, and Tori Amos.

It's fun to watch our charts on Audioscrobbler. I like that the site has added weekly most-listened lists (as well as the standard "since day one" lists). However, I'd really like to see a customizable list. I'd like to be able to look up which songs I've listened to most in the past month, or the past quarter, or during last December. That would make the site ever-so-much more useful to me.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2004 — Book Meme   I thought today we could play a literary game.