Week 2: Denim Storm

All told, this week I listened to less music than most. Which is what led me to this new idea;

Total Plays:

Which will allow me to more easily compare listening habits from week to week. I didn't think of it last week, so we can start now. So with that in mind, let's take a peak at this weeks leader-board:



So the big story this week is Melvins. I've been listening to a lot of Melvins, and I'd wager that's not too likely to stop any time soon. I have a few selections from Houdini and Nude with Boots that I downloaded, as well the full copies of Gluey Porch Treatments, Ozma and Stoner Witch. So if any of you know Melvins, you know I have pretty much the lions share of their output from the last 20 years yet to listen to. Plus, this shit is just so damned thick that regardless of the songs themselves, you wanna listen to 'em just to hear that guitar crunch.

Other than that, Silkworm and Xiu Xiu both gained some plays this week, and we can see Shellac overtake Bob Marley & the Wailers, who are likely to fall further down the list as the winter sets in, and it's less conducive to sitting outside, gettin' right, and listening to reggae. There's just something that seems so inappropriate about sitting indoors, curling up in front of a fire with a nice mug of cocoa and listening to Natty Dread, or Babylon by Bus (the two albums I've been most into this past year).

If we look at the top artists from the last seven days, we can see just how far and ahead Melvins truly are, as well as getting a glimpse of another up-and-comer whose new album I bought this week, Flight of the Conchords.


Now for the full top-artists list:



Regarding the top-songs list, as you can see here, Odd Nosdam shoots even further into the lead. As I mentioned last week, this is the result of all the tracks on his album being untitled, and since I listened to the album this week, it shoots it up even further. I think I will likely re-title the songs, if only so I can start to learn the album a lil better, and to cut down on Odd Nosdams cheeky #1 title.

Week 1: Taking Stock

So we look here at our little "league" (of artists and songs that I've voluntarily listened to) to take stock of where everyone stands after 1) A year or so of scrobbling on last.fm, and 2)eight or nine months since I bought my iPod, effectively allowing me to scrobble on the go.
I'm going to try to update this blog once a week or so, count each week as a "game" (so to speak) and adding up all the points. There's no prize, besides bragging rights.
So let's take a look and see where everyone stands. Let's start off with the leader-board:

As we can see, Sublime Frequencies tops out the list, and by a wide margin. This stems from the fact that there are many Sublime Frequencies releases, and I own most of them. Sublime Frequencies are audio-collages, usually, from varied places across the globe, and more often than not, do not contain listings for specific artists. This phenomenon has been exacerbated by the fact that I re-labeled most of the individual artists from those few compilations that had them, because I wanted to know how much Sublime Frequencies I had been listening to. Sublime Frequencies will likely retain the top-spot for the foreseeable future, as their catalog is something I always fall back on, and look to for inspirado.

If we look at the expanded leader board, we can see who the up-and-coming contenders are, as well as some of those more flash-in-the-pan type artists who have been great for some listens, but are likely unable to maintain their relative position, especially in light of the ever increasing points being gathered by our big-hitters, and current-artists (who generally have a leg-up on the competition, as their ouevre is not complete.

This graphic also helps to illustrate just how far some artists need to come in order to have a crack at the infamous "top 8".

Whats left, then, is where some artists will get their comeuppance, namely, the Top Songs list. Some artists who maybe don't have enough clout to put themselves into the top-artists list might still have strength in their individual songs, and this is where they will appear.

As we can see here, Odd Nosdam comes up in first place with "Untitled". This is largely a scrobbling error, as all of the tracks on "No Wig For Ohio" are untitled, and so regardless of which song plays, they all scrobble as the same track. One goal is to try and push Odd Nosdam down the list through repeated listenings to other songs, but to do so would be unnatural, and wouldn't play. Otherwise, we can see that the top-songs list is dominated by a small handful of artists that are also fairly high in the artist-listings. Jefferson Airplane and Silkworm are both artists who have some really killer individual tracks, and this has compensated for the fact that I don't own many of their albums (none, in the case of Silkworm, their standing is dependent upon only a few songs that I just can't help but listen to about as much as you can tell from the list)

Post No. 1: The Pre-Season

So here I am again. Ha ha! This time it's a fun around. Since hooking up with last.fm I thought it would be fun to treat my listening history as if it were a sports league, with the different artists representing different teams, all competing for the glory of being the most listened to artist or song. So we'll see how well this works as I develop it.