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

My iTunes Shuffle Baker's Dozen 9-17-13

Okay, so this is just another sort of placeholder to show that this blog hasn't officially died...although honestly, I'm not quite sure why I keep posting (when I actually do, that is, and don't procrastinate on things like writing about the movies I've seen recently -- five, although none in the last two weeks)...

Someday We'll Be Together - Diana Ross and the Supremes
Bullet Proof Soul - Sade
Dance, Freak & Boogie - Nitelife Unlimited
Please (You Got That) - INXS
Say Say Say - Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson
Cupid Boy - Kylie Minogue
Heartbreak Hotel (Hex Hector Club Mix) - Whitney Houston
I Love To Walk - The Simpsons
If I Never See Your Face Again (Paul Oakenfold Remix) - Maroon 5 feat. Rihanna
Wide Awake - Katy Perry
Old Flame - Kimbra
Rapunzel - Dave Matthews Band
Girl Afraid - The Smiths

Quick Review: This Is The End

And now back to our regularly scheduled movie review programming. (I hope.) I expected a lot from the trailer for This Is The End and, unlike a lot of movies recently, this one mostly lived up to my expectations. A comedy in which the Apocalypse takes place is one thing. When it focuses on how this event affects Hollywood celebrities, that's another story. And when those celebrities -- James Franco, Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel and Danny McBride are the stars, with many other cameos, from Rihanna to Michael Cera to Channing Tatum -- are playing exaggerated versions of themselves, it goes to the next level. Lots of raunch, but also lots of laughs and some meta commentary about the celebs themselves, their importance (or lack thereof), how they're perceived by the public and media, etc., and a little stab at religious beliefs (after all, the Apocalypse is happening). Had me laughing almost from the start to the finish. My grade: A-minus.

Rihanna's Bruises?

Note the title of the song, and the artist being promoted in the ad directly below the video. This has to have been placed there on purpose, right? No way it can just be coincidence.

My 2011 In Music

And now that we've moved into 2012, here's a look back at what I downloaded in 2011 -- some of it purchased, some of it, ummm, not -- and what ended up as the 25 most-played songs of my iTunes library.

There are only 271 new tracks in my iTunes since the beginning of 2011. That's down from 317 in 2010. Only 19 were Christmas songs, though, compared to 73 a year earlier. So if you take the holiday songs out of the mix, my musical acquisitions increased. However, a lot of those were downloads of individual songs. Part of the total also comes from a few artists I discovered through various means (such as Twitter or Facebook) who made albums available for free download:

Childish Gambino (a.k.a. Donald Glover) - EP (he's funny on "Community" but he has definite skills in the hip-hop arena; he now has a full-length album out, but I haven't bought it yet)
Loco - No Shade (Mixtape)
Simon Curtis - 8Bit Heart
DISCO PUSHER - Now You Know How The Story Ends (also a mixtape)

Then there were the records released before 2011...

Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
Brandon Flowers - Flamingo
Mika - The Boy Who Knew Too Much
Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer
RuPaul - Champion
various artists - Christmas Remixed-Holiday Classics Re-Grooved (my only "new" Christmas album)

So that leaves just four albums I got that were actually released in 2011:

MixBlog 3-22-11

Let's discuss a few topics, shall we? We'll start with sports and then move on...

Flyers' goaltending. Is it now back to being a weakness? Tonight's game against Washington, besides being the first of 11 games to finish the regular season, was the start of a five-game stretch which may well determine if they'll finish first in the Eastern Conference. Four of the games are against teams breathing down their necks: Washington, Boston and Pittsburgh (twice). Rookie goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky hasn't had wins in back-to-back games since January. Tonight he let in three weak goals in little over a period, and was yanked in favor of Brian Boucher. After the Flyers stormed back to take a 4-3 lead and were dominating the game, Boucher let in the tying goal late in the third period and was absolutely shredded in the deciding shootout (which shouldn't decide games anyway, but that's another story). The Flyers got a point but are only 1 point ahead of Washington now instead of the 4-point lead they could have had. Can one of these goalies get hot in time for the playoffs, please?

Phillies and Luis Castillo. Even though everyone who's seen him this spring thinks he's washed up, including the Mets, who released him, the Phils decided to bring him in. Since he signed a minor league deal the only way he'll be paid anything by the Phils is if he actually makes the team. So it's essentially a nine-game tryout to see if he can beat out the competition to hold down second base while Chase Utley is out (which, just because of the fact that the Phils brought in Castillo, seems like it will be for quite some time). They basically agreed to terms Sunday night, made it official Monday morning...and somehow Castillo failed to arrive until after game time today. It's been blamed on a "miscommunication," but come on. I'll be stunned if this stiff wins the job. The guys already competing for spots have done fine, from what I've heard.

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,

Poor, pathetic Chris Brown

It seems that singer/woman-puncher Chris Brown isn't happy that some stores apparently aren't giving his new album prominent displays. He posted on Twitter, according to the EW.com article:

“the[y] didnt even have my album in the back… not on shelves, saw for myself,” he wrote in a series of tweets over the weekend. “im tired of this s—. major stores r blackballing my cd. not stockin the shelves and lying to costumers. what the f— do i gotta do.”
He continued: “im not biting my tongue about sh– else… the industry can kiss my ass.
WTF… yeah i said it and i aint retracting s–”
“we talked to the managers and the didnt even know anything. wow!!! but they had alicia keys album ready for release for this tuesday comin … the manager told me that when there are new releases its mandatory to put em on the shelves.. BUT NO SIGN OF #GRAFFITI. BS.”

Well, boo-fucking-hoo, Chris Brown. You're too busy trying to rush back into your old life anyway. You shouldn't even be thinking about resuming your career until you've finished off your 180 days of community labor and your year of court-ordered therapy for the felony assault to which you pleaded guilty. The fact that some stores don't want to promote you is your own damn fault. Next time you have a new album coming out, don't beat up a woman beforehand and you won't have a problem.

Random Stuff About My iTunes Library

I stole this idea from my friend Walt, who stole it from someone else, who undoubtedly stole it from yet another someone else, and so on, and so on, and so on. So, here's what I've got in iTunes...

How many total songs?

9,352. They're not all songs. I have a few sound bites and bits of dialogue from cartoons and TV shows; some artists (I'm looking at you, Janet Jackson) like to put these spoken "interludes" between songs on an album; and I have a podcast or two. At any rate, the total is 9,352 tracks. That's a total of 27.7 days' listening, amounting to 37.09 GB. (Walt puts me to shame with his 57,043 items.)

Sort by song title – first and last…

"A.B.C." - The Jackson Five
"99.9 F°" - Suzanne Vega (all the numbered items follow items beginning with a Z)

Sort by time – shortest and longest…

0:03 - This Means War - Bugs Bunny (one of those cartoon bits)
1:11:50 - Christmas 2004 - Nice (another friend, Gregg, compiled "Naughty" and "Nice" mixes of holiday music in 2004 that are very creative)

Sort by Album – first and last…

Abraxas - Santana
99.9 F° - Suzanne Vega

(See above re: song titles; in addition, I should note that the track from "Abraxas" is the only song I have from that album. That's because I have many downloads of individual songs or, for CDs I own, I may have only copied certain songs into iTunes. Also, I have songs that don't have an album title in the notes -- these are strictly downloads, and I haven't bothered to update the info in the library. I was doing that for a while, and even copying the album cover, but I've gotten off track there and now I can't be bothered.)

Sort by Artist – first and last…

a-Ha
95 North

Top five played songs

"When Love Takes Over" - David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland - 222 plays
"Let It Rock" - Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil' Wayne - 176 plays
"Poker Face" - Lady Gaga - 144 plays
"Shining Light" - Annie Lennox - 133 plays
"If I Never See Your Face Again (Paul Oakenfold Remix)" - Maroon 5 feat. Rihanna - 126 plays

I reset the total at the beginning of every year, so this is only 2009's most played.

Find the following words. How many songs show up?

Sex: 38 (the search function in iTunes, however, brought up every variation on the word, including titles like "Sexual Healing"
Death: 5
Love: 829 (again, variations, including "lover" and "lovely"
You: 1170
Home: 57
Boy: 79
Girl: 124

First five songs that come up on Party Shuffle...

I don't seem to have "Party Shuffle" any more, not that I ever used it. I just used the regular shuffle mode. Anyhoo, it seems to be called "iTunes DJ" now. And because I hit a button by mistake, I refreshed the list it brought up. So this isn't exactly the first five, but let's pretend:

"Cemeteries Of London" - Coldplay
"Orange Crush" - R.E.M.
"River Deep, Mountain High (Live Unplugged)" - Annie Lennox
"Believe Somebody" (mashup) - Madonna/Cher/Whitney Houston
"If I Could Only Win Your Love" - Emmylou Harris

Chris Brown: a dead woman waiting to happen?

Assuming she isn't foolish enough to ever get back with him, Rihanna may have gotten away from Chris Brown just in time. The L.A. Times reports that, according to a probation officer's report filed with the court, Brown was involved in two incidents "related to domestic violence" with Rihanna before his February attack on her the day of the Grammy awards. Neither incident was reported to the authorities.

From the Times:

The first of those incidents occurred in Europe about three months earlier, when Brown and Rihanna were in a “verbal dispute,” the report said. She slapped him, and Brown responded by shoving her into a wall, the report stated.

Just three weeks before the February incident, Brown and Rihanna were in Barbados, driving a Range Rover lent them by a local dealership, when they had an argument in the car. Brown got out and broke both the driver's and front passenger side windows, according to the report. No one was injured.

Brown was sentenced today to five years' probation and 180 days of community labor. TMZ posted the officer's report from the night of the attack, and also reports that, according to probation records, Brown wanted to plead guilty immediately and begin counseling before he started his probation, but his lawyer wouldn't let him...

Brown said when he was growing up he saw violence in his own household and didn't want to "carry on that cycle."

Brown told the probation people he wanted to attend domestic violence counseling and wanted to "do it right."

Let's hope so, for the sake of all the women who give him a chance in the future.

Is this any way to act at a wedding?

Seriously? Is this a wedding or performance art? I don't know how I feel about this. And how...nice...that it's apparently helping Rihanna-beater Chris Brown sell records...