My 2010 In Music

Well, I've done all the accounting -- or, to be accurate, iTunes kept track of the totals -- and will reveal shortly my Top 25 Most Played Songs of 2010 (since I've reset the count to zero for the new year). First, I'd like to tell you about my top 10 albums of 2010. The problem with that is...I don't have one. I only bought 16 new albums all year, and if you take out greatest hits collections and albums released before 2010, that number drops to 11 -- and two of those were Christmas albums, so they don't really count.

(By the way, it seems weird to refer to "albums" when vinyl albums as we know it hardly exist anymore. There are music purists who prefer vinyl, thus allowing a certain number of releases in vinyl, but the vast majority of new releases -- and certainly everything I've gotten in at least the last 15-20 years -- are strictly CDs or digital downloads. But it's easier to refer to them as albums.)

Perhaps more will come into my hands in the future, but for now, here are the nine non-Christmas 2010 albums I bought:

Vampire Weekend – Contra
Glee cast - Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna
Kele – The Boxer
Scissor Sisters – Night Work
soundtrack – Despicable Me
Kylie Minogue – Aphrodite
Linkin Park – A Thousand Suns
Bruno Mars – Doo-Wops & Hooligans
Mark Ronson and the Business Intl. - Record Collection

I will say that, except perhaps for the Linkin Park album,
I wasn't disappointed by any of these, and was pleasantly surprised at the excellence of the Bruno Mars album. And the "Despicable Me" soundtrack was just fluffy fun.

In all, I added just 317 new tracks to my iTunes in 2010, between albums and other downloads -- 73 of them were Christmas songs (3 albums and most of the free songs from Amazon.com's promotion). That's pretty poor, especially when you consider some of the songs I downloaded were older songs that I used to have only on vinyl or cassette. I feel musically deficient in that way. I've now got 9796 tracks in iTunes, 9253 of which are non-Christmas tracks.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for (yeah, right): the songs I played the most on my iPod/iTunes in 2010...

1. Commander (Extended Dance Mix) - Kelly Rowland feat. David Guetta
2. Teenage Dream - Glee Cast
3. Dance In The Dark - Lady Gaga
4. Telephone - Lady Gaga feat. Beyoncé
5. Bad Romance - Lady Gaga
6. Whole New Way - Scissor Sisters
7. Any Which Way - Scissor Sisters
8. Valium In The Sunshine - Maps
9. All The Lovers - Kylie Minogue
10. Sure Fire Winners - Adam Lambert
11. Meet Me Halfway - Black Eyed Peas
12. So Happy I Could Die - Lady Gaga
13. Fun, Fun, Fun - Pharrell Williams (Despicable Me)
14. Monster - Lady Gaga
15. The Unicorn Song - Agnes (Despicable Me)
16. Giving Up The Gun - Vampire Weekend
17. If I Had You - Adam Lambert
18. Only Girl (In The World) - Rihanna
19. Marry You - Bruno Mars
20. Minion Mambo - The Minions (Despicable Me)
21. Poker Face - Lady Gaga
22. Paparazzi - Lady Gaga
23. Get Outta My Way - Kylie Minogue
24. Cousins - Vampire Weekend
(tie) 25. Missing You - David Guetta feat. Novel
(tie) 25. Despicable Me - Pharrell Williams (Despicable Me)

So, lots of Gaga, including two songs (Poker Face/Paparazzi) that are holdovers from my 2009 most-played list; four songs from "Despicable Me;" and "Teenage Dream," seeing as how I only bought it on November 30, really came close to the top. But a song sung by Kelly Rowland and produced by David Guetta (last year it was "When Love Takes Over") ended up on top for the second year in a row. She's got a new album coming out, I believe, but I think there will be various producers on it. I could go for a full album produced by David Guetta, obviously.