My Most-Played 2014 Songs (And 2013 Too!)

I got through my recent project of listening to every song I own. I didn't listen to them all. I skipped some, I listened to others for a minute or two, and when I had multiple remixes of particular songs (hi, Madonna!) I chose the ones I liked best. I really need to do a better job of listening to all of my music on a regular basis instead of the same things over and over. I reset the iTunes play counts to zero and we'll see how I do at that. (By the way, I may end up switching over to Google Play because my iPod Classic is acting a bit nutty and, with Apple discontinuing this device, at some point I may need to start listening to my music on my phone. Great if I have wi-fi, but if not...)

Here are the songs I listened to the most in 2014...and after that, 2013 (because I didn't post one of these last year). Note how there are some songs in both lists, which is why I need to listen with more variety. Also, lots of ties. In other years I'd play some songs another time to break the tie. I didn't bother this time.

2014 Most-Played

1. Meteorite - Mariah Carey
2. Happy - Pharrell Williams
3. Counting Stars - OneRepublic
4. Mmm Yeah - Austin Mahone (feat. Pitbull)
5. Are You What You Want To Be? - Foster The People
6. Swine - Lady Gaga
7(t). Coming of Age - Foster The People
7(t). Timber - Pitbull (feat. Ke$ha)
9(t). Best Friend - Foster The People
9(t). Summertime Sadness (Cedric Gervais Remix) - Lana Del Rey
11(t). Sexxx Dreams - Lady Gaga
11(t). La La La - Naughty Boy (feat. Sam Smith)
13(t). Love Me Again - John Newman
13(t). G.U.Y. - Lady Gaga
15. Fashion! - Lady Gaga
16. Hideaway - Kiesza
17. Team - Lorde
18. Lay Me Down -  Avicii  (feat. Adam Lambert and Nile Rodgers)
19(t). I Need a Dollar (from How to Make It In America) - Aloe Blacc
19(t). F for You - Disclosure (feat. Mary J. Blige)
21. Stay The Night - Zedd (Featuring Hayley Williams Of Paramore)
22. Royals - Lorde
23(t). Sing - Ed Sheeran
23(t). Applause - Lady Gaga
25. Get Lucky - Daft Punk (feat. Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers)

2013 Most-Played

1. Get Lucky - Daft Punk (feat. Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers)

2. Your Body (Oxford Hustlers Club mix) - Christina Aguilera

3. Scream & Shout - Will.I.Am (feat. Britney Spears)

4. The Night Out (A-Track Vs. Martin Rework) - Martin Solveig

5. Sweet Nothing - Calvin Harris feat. Florence Welch

6. Summertime Sadness (Cedric Gervais Remix) - Lana Del Rey

7. Applause - Lady Gaga

8. Love You Like A Love Song (Jumpsmokers Club Remix) - Selena Gomez & The Scene

9. Sexxx Dreams - Lady Gaga

10. Pound The Alarm - Nicki Minaj

11. Diane Young - Vampire Weekend

12. Locked Out Of Heaven - Bruno Mars

13. Madonna Has A Kiki - Madonna/Scissor Sisters (mashup)

14. I Need Your Love - Calvin Harris feat. Ellie Goulding

15. All Around The World - Justin Bieber

16. I Love It - Icona Pop (feat. Charli XCX)

17. We Found Love  - Calvin Harris (feat. Rihanna)

18. One (Your Name) - Swedish House Mafia (feat. Pharrell)

19. Let's Go (Radio Edit) - Calvin Harris feat. Ne-Yo

20. Spectrum (Say My Name) (Calvin Harris Extended Mix) - Florence & The Machine

21. Fashion! - Lady Gaga

22. Vocal - Pet Shop Boys

23. Love is a Bourgeois Construct - Pet Shop Boys

24. Don't You Worry Child - Swedish House Mafia (feat. John Martin)

25. Treasure - Bruno Mars

Three Semi-Recent Quick Reviews

Okay, so I haven't written lately. And out of the blue, I got called back to work at the seasonal job with the state, so I'll be working five days a week through approximately May. With that and the travel time to and from work, it leaves me less time to procrastinate. But I really want to try and keep this going on some sort of regular basis.

I haven't seen many movies lately, but now that I'll have some spending money I'm going to make more of an effort there as well. Meanwhile, here are the three movies I've seen but haven't written about. I saw two just before Thanksgiving and the other the day after Christmas.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 1: Another of these franchises splitting the final chapter into two in order to squeeze every penny out of its fans. So there's lots of Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) agonizing over things and people but she's not really doing a whole lot. I was amused by the attempts to use her in propaganda films for the revolution, but this isn't what helped the first movie catch on. My grade: B-minus.

Interstellar: Looks great, well-acted, surprise guest star with an agenda, interesting premise (finding a new planet to colonize as Earth is dying somehow) but lots of WTF. I mean, society just gives up on technology? Can you imagine this happening to our smartphone/videogame/HDTV-obsessed society? And the science of it all just went over my head...although I figured out who the "ghost" from early in the film was so quickly I'm almost embarrassed. My grade: C-plus.

Into the Woods: I would like to have seen -- or see, if it's around somewhere -- the stage version, because I get the feeling the film version didn't do it justice. The fairy tale plots seemed very rushed to start, and once they converged, there was still quite a bit of movie to get through. Songs weren't bad, though. For me, on my personal scale of filmed musicals, it's not nearly as bad as Les Miserables but not nearly as good as Moulin Rouge. My grade: C-plus.