Back in May I wrote a post about listening to my entire iTunes music library in order. It was a followup to a post from last year about doing the same thing.
The first time I listened to all the tracks sorted by track name.
The second time I listened sorted by track length.
In October I listened to all the tracks by play number. I started with tracks I’ve only listened to two or three times, and ended with tracks I’ve listened to over a hundred times. This is since February 2008.
My most listened-to track is actually the shortest track, so was the first one I listened to when I sorted by track length. It’s a 5 second piece of almost silence which I use to separate tracks on my show music playlists and CDs for performing. Number of listens? 902.
The most listened-to piece of music which isn’t something I use in my show, and I play repeatedly when practicing, is By My Side by Kasabian, from the album Empire. This is one of my favorite “writing” albums, and listen to it on repeat when plugging away on a novel. Play count? 87.
Some other notes:
– If two tracks from the same album had the same play number, for some reason the later track number was listed first. This lead to me listening to quite a few albums in reverse.
– The least-listened albums were, of course, those I’ve only bought or otherwise acquired most recently.
– Next up came albums that I don’t actively listen to. As in, when I flick though my iTunes Library, I never thing “Oh man, I’ve got to hear this band again!” I normally listen to these if they come up randomly, or when the album I wanted to listen to ends, and these play next.
– Tracks that aren’t part of albums are listened to less, as I don’t actively select them either.
– Earlier tracks in albums have more listens than later tracks. This is due to me starting an album, but not reaching the end.
– If a track is part of a playlist, it gets more plays, of course.
– The most listened to albums are quite varied, but each reflects a different mood. I guess whenever I feel like putting on music, I subconsciously return over and over to the same few albums.
– It doesn’t matter if an album is quite new, if I like it, and it fits a mood, it moves up the play count rankings pretty quickly.
– Shorter albums and EPs get more plays.
I think that’s it for this time.
Next time I’m going to listen to my entire iTunes library as sorted by “date added”, so chronologically by when I first listened to the track on this or my previous laptop.
A quick glance at that sorting option shows that the very first track is… you guessed it… 5 seconds of almost silence!