Musical Three-Minute Eggs

Lately I've been listening to, as much as I can, all the songs in my iTunes library that I haven't played all year. (Oh, good lord, another year is almost down the tubes...) In order to get as many as I can out of the way, I put them all in a playlist and then put it in order of time (length of the track). That meant a lot of very quick tracks, such as those little interludes (musical, spoken word, whatever) that artists like Janet Jackson put in between songs, or old WAV files such as lines from cartoons, went first, in very rapid order.

The other day I got to the 3:00 mark -- all the songs that, according to the mp3 info, are exactly three minutes long. (We interrupt this story for a DISCLAIMER! With mp3s sometimes being obtained from various sources, there can be a bit of blank space before or after a song, so you may not hear exactly three minutes of music. We now return you to our previously scheduled programming.) This reminded me of something my former boyfriend used to do. He told me that, in order to make soft-boiled eggs, they had to boil for three minutes. So he would play the song "When Will I See You Again" by the Three Degrees, because it was exactly three minutes long. That gave me the idea for this post: the list of 3:00 songs in my iTunes library. And while I don't have that Three Degrees song, I do have a cover, as you can see...

When Will I See You Again - Erasure
You've Really Got A Hold On Me - The Miracles
Children Of The Revolution - Bono, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer
Hello - Kelly Clarkson
Sing - Kristin Chenoweth
The Way You Look Tonight - Olivia Newton-John
Dance To The Music - Sly & The Family Stone
Every Little Bit Hurts - Brenda Holloway
She Tracks My Tears (mashup) Smokey Robinson & The Miracles/The La's
Darts Of Pleasure - Franz Ferdinand
Christmas in Hollis - Run-D.M.C.
Paid To Smile - The Lemonheads
Burning Man - Third Eye Blind
The Fool On The Hill - The Beatles
Shoplifters Of The World Unite - The Smiths
Do You Know The Way To San Jose - Dionne Warwick
Shiver - Maroon 5
Your Wonderful, Sweet, Sweet Love - The Supremes
The Right Thing To Do - Carly Simon
Vacation - The Go-Go's
The Ballad Of John & Yoko - The Beatles
Now That You Got It - Gwen Stefani
Promises, Promises - Dionne Warwick
The Christmas Waltz - Kristin Chenoweth
Favorite T - The Lemonheads
Candyman - Jason Nevins feat. Greg Nice
The Christmas Song - Ella Fitzgerald
It Takes Two - Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston
Kill The Pain - INXS
Liar Liar - Debbie Harry
For One Night Only - Bodyrockers
Everything Is Everything - Phoenix
Rushing - Moby
Gimme Some Lovin' - The Spencer Davis Group
Give A Little More - Maroon 5
Never Can Say Goodbye - Gloria Gaynor
Airplanes - B.o.B (feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore)
Santa Stole My Lady - Fitz & The Tantrums
Somewhere Along The Way - Nat King Cole
Give Love On Christmas Day - The Jackson 5
Little Of Your Time (Of Montreal Remix) - Maroon 5
Sleigh Ride - Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra
Somebody To Love - Jefferson Airplane
Baby Come Home - Scissor Sisters

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

My iTunes Shuffle Baker's Dozen 7-10-13

It's been a while for one of these, soooo...

It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - R.E.M.
Simple - k.d. lang
The War Is Over - Kelly Clarkson
She's Comin' Out Swingin' - The Simpsons
Changes - David Bowie
Say Goodbye - Dave Matthews Band
You Take Some Lentils and You Take Some Rice - Eurythmics
Here You Come Again - Dolly Parton
Two Hearts - Stephanie Mills with Teddy Pendergrass
You'll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart) - Dionne Warwick
This Love (Tricky Stewart Remix) - Maroon 5
Kill The Pain - INXS
Life Can Be So Nice - Prince and the Revolution

My iTunes Shuffle Baker's Dozen 2-22-13

Haven't made one of these posts in a while, so here it is. I have a complaint, though: the new iTunes is not great. Specific to this post, I can't find an icon to begin a shuffle right away when I open iTunes. If I click the Play button it begins with the first song in my library. In order to begin with a random song, I have to go to the Menu bar and click Control - Shuffle - Turn On Shuffle. Three steps instead of one. Really stupid.

Payphone - Maroon 5
Vibes - Inner City
Exhale (Shoop Shoop) - Whitney Houston
Season of the Witch - Lou Rawls
System - Seal
Don't Release Me (Wyclef Jean Remix) - Gloria Estefan
Somebody Told Me - The Killers
Why Can't We Live Together - Sade
Another Night - Aretha Franklin
Nothing Fails (Nevins Mix) - Madonna
50 Candles - Boyz II Men
Jupiter (Edit) (From The Planets) - Andre Previn; London Symphony Orchestra
The Captain - Kasey Chambers

My 2012 In Music

Last year at this time I was lamenting the lack of new music (as in, new in 2011 or new to me) added to my iTunes library. I figured that 2012 would be better since I had gone back to work. Since May I've been out of work but at least I got some unemployment out of it. So, indeed, my 2012 acquisitions are up. (A note, which is mainly for my own reference: the figures below include a couple of CDs I got during 2012 but only got around to adding to my iTunes tonight, so I need to remember for next year's wrapup not to include them again.)

I added 567 tracks to my collection by my count (it's a complicated story but I may be off by one or two because of duplicates), compared to 271 last year. Christmas music comprised 26 of those 567 songs. There were a lot of downloads of individual songs, as well as the first song in my next project - converting my vinyl collection to mp3 format. I have maybe a few dozen 45s and many more 12-inch dance remixes, probably in the hundreds. I'm so excited about this.

Beyond that, I got some free downloaded samplers and mixtapes (which is such an odd term to use for mp3 downloads, but...):

Will Sheridan – G.I.A.N.T. Sampler
DJ ShyBoy presents the RuPaul Mixtape (RuPaul songs mashed up with other songs)
DJ Jazzy Jeff and Mick Boogie – Summertime 2: The Mixtape
DJ Jazzy Jeff and Mick Boogie – Summertime 3: The Mixtape
Dangerous Muse – Red
Slaves to the Rhythm – Pride 2011 Sampler

And then there were the albums that were released prior to 2012:

Kelly Clarkson – Stronger
Discovery – LP
Ricky Martin – Ricky Martin
David Guetta – Nothing But The Beat
Jody Watley – Midnight Lounge
Paul McCartney – All The Best
Donna Summer – She Works Hard For The Money
Elton John – Rocket Man - Number Ones
Steely Dan – The Definitive Collection
The Gap Band – The 12” Collection and More
Nona Hendryx – Nona (as I mentioned here, the first full-length album I transferred from vinyl to mp3)
Katy Perry – Teenage Dream-The Complete Confection (this is the re-released version with bonus tracks -- the original was out in 2010 so I don't feel right counting it as a 2012 album)

In 2011 I got only four albums that were actually

My iTunes Shuffle Baker's Dozen 3-4-12*

*Actually, these 13 songs were the first on my iPod one morning at work about 3 weeks ago. I wrote them down while I worked, but never posted them until now. If this bothers you, feel free to contact my attorneys.

I Might Have Been Queen - Tina Turner
Looking Through My Window - The Mamas & the Papas
Coloured Bedspread - Annie Lennox (I think this turned out to be my favorite from "Songs of Mass Destruction")
Don't Make Me Dream About You - Chris Isaak (I bought the album for this song, really, and because he was hot in the video, which came out before "Wicked Game")
Hey Boy - Mark Ronson & The Business Intl (feat. Rose Elinor Dougall/Theophilus London)
I Miss You - Incubus
The Other Side of the World - Chaka Khan
Sunday Morning (Questlove Remix) - Maroon 5
Sold on Love - Frankie Knuckles (feat. Lisa Michaelis)
Right in the Middle (Of Falling In Love) - Bettye Lavette
Candy Everybody Wants (live) - Michael Stipe and 10,000 Maniacs
Bridge Over Troubled Water - Annie Lennox
Transmit Your Love - Live

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:

Summer's Over, Summer Playlist Forever

This is another of those delayed-by-travel posts. Since my last update I've added more songs to My Big Fat Summer Playlist. A few are from this actual summer, the rest are from summers past or otherwise fit the concept...

Beautiful People - Chris Brown (feat. Benny Benassi) (I feel a little bit guilty about liking a song sung by the woman-beater. It helps that I didn't actually pay for this one.)
I Wanna Go - Britney Spears
California Gurls - Katy Perry feat. Snoop Dogg
Who Do You Love - Bernard Wright
High On Sunshine - The Commodores
Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO (ft. Lauren Bennett & Goon Rock) (Yes, I succumbed to the madness.)
Summer Breeze - Seals & Crofts
Stare Into The Sun - Graffiti 6 (I saw this on one of the Logo music video shows, NewNowNext or its PopLab spinoff)
Summer Madness - Kool & the Gang
School's Out - Alice Cooper
Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run) - Billy Ocean
Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera

This brings me to 117 songs. As always, I'm looking for more. But probably not until next summer, unless I hear some old song that begs to be added.

My iTunes Shuffle Baker's Dozen 12-04-10

I haven't done one of these in a while. I've been on a listening project lately: to listen (or at least try to listen) at least once to every song in my iTunes library that I hadn't heard since I reset the play counts at the beginning of this year. I created a "zero plays" playlist and listened to it almost exclusively. I must be honest and say that there were a number of songs I listened to for maybe a minute or so and then skipped to the next. Today I finally got through to the very last song on that list, which meant that I could switch over to the "Glee" cast's version of "Teenage Dream" and set my iPod to repeat. I only downloaded it three nights ago. It might get into the top 25 most played before the end of the year (depending on how soon I start playing just the Christmas music). Anyway, since I played every song I was hoping there'd be a good mixture without repeats when I put it in shuffle mode tonight. Do you think it worked?

More Than A Woman - Tavares
She Will Be Loved - Maroon 5
My Mic Sounds Nice (DJ Mark The 45 King Remix) Salt-N-Pepa
Someday We'll Be Together (fuTuRo birthday mix) - Diana Ross & The Supremes
Round And Round (Soul Mix Edit) - Tevin Campbell
Out (With Steven Grossman) - Mark Weigle
Butterfly Caught - Massive Attack
Could I Have This Kiss Forever (with Enrique Iglesias) - Whitney Houston
I Call Your Name - The Mamas & The Papas
Just My Vain Imagination (mashup) - Bob Marley/The Temptations
Catholic School Girls Rule - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Brand New Lover (Dust Monkey's Love Bubble Club Mix) - Dead Or Alive
Black Magic Woman - Santana