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

Another Summer Playlist Update

I don't know if I should just re-post my entire summer playlist in one new post, but until I get to that point, you'll just have to click on this link, which leads to the most recent update, and then keep following links until you get back to the original posts. At any rate, thanks to this recent article, which provided a list of hits from June through August each year going back to the 1960s, I decided on a number of additions to my list that are already in my iTunes library. Also, Amazon has had two mp3 sales recently -- one was for a summer playlist of their own, 25 songs for a quarter each -- yes, $0.25 -- and just in the last 24 hours, recent hit albums for $0.99, and these sales provided some more tracks for the list.

The entire list is now up to 153 songs, although I'm kind of wavering on a few that originally were on the list. I'm leaving them, at least for now. Anyway, briefly, my criteria are: hits during the summer, song titles/lyrics  about summer, sunshine, heat, etc., and a few songs that either made an impression on me personally during summer or just have a summery feel to them, so the list is (as many lists are) a bit subjective. Here are the additions:


Wild Ones (Feat. Sia) - Flo Rida
Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen
Nothin' On You [Feat. Bruno Mars] - B.o.B
Hot In Herre - Nelly
In The Summertime -Mungo Jerry
Sunshine - Matisyahu
Everybody Loves The Sunshine - Roy Ayers Ubiquity
Blister In The Sun - Violent Femmes
Dynamite - Taio Cruz
Viva La Vida - Coldplay
It's Gonna Be Me - 'N Sync
We Like To Party - Vengaboys
MmmBop - Hanson (if I recall, I kept this off the list originally)
Kiss From A Rose - Seal
Whoomp! (There It Is) - Tag Team
Can't Help Falling In Love - UB40
End Of The Road - Boyz II Men
Alone - Heart
With Or Without You - U2
Funkytown - Lipps Inc.
Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
Dreams - Fleetwood Mac
Love Will Keep Us Together - Captain & Tennille
Touch Me In The Morning - Diana Ross
Lean On Me - Bill Withers
Lovely Day - Bill Withers
It's Too Late - Carole King
The Love You Save - The Jackson 5
War - Edwin Starr
Get Back - The Beatles
Honky Tonk Women - The Rolling Stones
Respect - Aretha Franklin
Help! - The Beatles
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
California Gurls (Feat. Snoop Dogg) - Katy Perry
Firework - Katy Perry
Chasing The Sun - The Wanted

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:

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,

Randomly Random Randomness

A number of random thoughts, observations and events...

This is how my weekend has gone: Both Friday and today I've stayed in bed past noon. Friday was worse, as I was in bed until 2:30 pm and my cold was at its worst. Today was not so bad, because my sore throat is gone and I was only in bed until about 1:40 or so. Oddly enough, in between -- that would be Saturday -- I got myself out of bed at 10 am, and was able to see a $5.00 matinee showing of "Burlesque" (review forthcoming).

On both of those days I slept in, I didn't bother to shower since I wasn't going anywhere (except a quick trip to the supermarket Friday). Today I put on a long-sleeved Eagles t-shirt and sweatpants, and wore my robe over it. And boy, is this robe old, worn out and dingy. I should really get a nice new one, but I generally don't wear a robe that often. (See? I told you this was random.)

Another Simpsons sports moment of sorts: Tonight, a homing pigeon flew into a bedroom window and injured itself, and Bart was nursing it back to health because Lisa ("They're like rats with wings!") hates pigeons. Homer and Bart are with the bird in the backyard when Moe appears and asks Homer if he ever considered racing the bird: "If it moves, you can bet on it."