My favorite music of 2010
I’ve made my Top 10 albums of 2010 list and posted it here. I don’t think there are any real surprises on there—if you know me or even if you don’t—but what I think is interesting is tracking my iTunes and last.fm metrics to see what I actually listened to. So here is my “scientific” but not exactly accurate listing of what I listened to in 2010.
According to iTunes, of songs that came out in 2010 these are the ones with the highest play counts:
1. The Tallest Man on Earth, “Burden of Tomorrow”
2. Local Natives, “Airplanes”
3. The Rado Dept., “Heaven’s On Fire”
4. Jenny and Johnny, “Scissor Runner”
5. Gorillaz, “On Melancholy Hill”
5. Jenny and Johnny, “Switchblade”
7. She & Him, “In the Sun”
7. Trampled by Turtles, “Wait So Long”
9. Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith, “Not in Love”
9. OK Go, “This Too Shall Pass”
Here are the ten records from 2010 with the most songs with 4★-plus rated songs on them:
1. Wild Nothing, Gemini (7)
1. Laura Veirs, July Flame (7)
3. Local Natives, Gorilla Manor (6)
3. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Before Today (6)
3. Trampled by Turtles, Palomino (6)
3. Dr. Dog, Shame Shame (6)
3. Beach House, Teen Dream (6)
3. New Pornographers, Together (6)
9. The Radio Dept., Clinging to a Scheme (5)
9. Phantogram, Eyelid Moves (5)
Here are my top 10 most played artists according to last.fm:
Here are the 15 songs (that came out in any year) I listened to most in 2010:
And lastly, here are some observations on what these metrics mean:
- I’m a podcast addict and three of my top 10 artists are from them: ESPN (for PTI, and the BS Report), NPR (Fresh Air, mostly), and TBTL (which still shows up as KIRO, which if you know anything about TBTL is funny).
- We listened to the Jenny and Johnny record a lot on our honeymoon drive down Highway One—hence it’s high play count and sentimental-value spot in my Top 10 of the year.
- A bunch of the songs on my Top 15 playlist were on a mix I made that we played in the background at our rehearsal dinner. I guess I listened to that mix a lot. (Song #6 in my most played tracks was our “first dance” song at the wedding.)
- This was an awesome year for music and a lot of great stuff didn’t make my Top 10: Walkmen, Kanye, Big Boi, New Pornographers, Morning Benders, Surfer Blood, Trampled by Turtles, Phantogram.
- Biggest disappointment of the year was probably Spoon’s Transference. If it was any other band I probably wouldn’t be so harsh on it, but I hold Spoon to a higher standard. (The new Band of Horses comes in second.)
- I still haven’t listened to The Suburbs all the way through. I know, I know.
Here are two posts from last year about my favorite music of 2009.
