How Many Songs by a single artist/band on your i-pod?
Posted by Steve Hill on 23 June 2008 - 12:29pm.
I've got 384 songs by Guided By Voices on my ipod. That's not counting the 201 songs by Robert Pollard that he's recorded under his own name. That's 585 out of my 'pods 14278 songs by one singer/songwriter. That's considerably more than anyone else. There's good showing from XTC/Andy Partridge 296, Bowie 255, R.E.M. 235, Billy Bragg 171, Bob Dylan 163 and The Beatles 151 amongst others.
Anyone else want to share their most represented artists on their i-pod/mp3 player?
Bookmark/Search this post with:
- More from Steve Hill.
- Login or register to post comments
One
I've got one song by Duffy on my ipod. That's one too many.
I always get nervous
if I have too many by the same artists, for fear of it narrowing my palate. (Got to keep 'em on their toes too, can't have them thinking I'll buy any old cack just cos of the name....)
Unsurprisingly my team leaders are Fairport, Albion Band (plain, Country and/or Dance variations), Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, OysterBand, Emmylou Harris and Jackie Leven. Oh and a fella called Thompson, with or without his ex-missus. I can live with that. I can't be arsed to count 'em as I am not near my PC which does an automatic tally, but between 50 and 150 of each, I'd guess.
Springsteen....
Tops mine with 322 (including the Tracks box set, for my sins) from 14,331. However, loads of those are "doubles" (anyone wanna swap?) from differing live albums and, ahem, unofficial releases. I've 7 live versions of Thunder Road. All of them far superior to the Born to Run version
Where have I been???
Steve wrote -
"I've got 384 songs by Guided By Voices on my ipod. That's not counting the 201 songs by Robert Pollard that he's recorded under his own name."
Steve....I've never even heard of either of these artists. I wonder if you've heard of all of my favourites?
Tom Waits - 335
Neil Young - 320
Elvis Costello - 280
Steve Earle - 258
George Thorogood - 225
Steve Forbert - 228
Loudon Wainwright III - 207
Springsteen - 190
Lyle Lovett - 137
John Hiatt - 132
Fred Eaglesmith - 132
Lucinda Williams - 115
What makes you think I like singer/songwriters?
No bootleg/live stuff in there...no room!
I who have nothing
by Springsteen, Richard Thompson, Costello, and the only Dylan is recordings from Theme Time Radio. Duffy's album lost points rapidly, but I do play Warwick Avenue.
Can I still join in?
Seriously, how do you lot manage to get 14,000+ songs on your players? I think I must treat mine differently - to me it's a repository for all the odd quirky stuff, old singles, best tracks picked from albums and so on. I've been around longer than most of the people on this forum but I'd have serious trouble finding 14,000 tunes that I liked. So, do you all automatically put complete albums & music collections on your ipods a a general rule? Do you usually listen to them as albums, or on shuffle? When I'm in the car I treat the ipod as a form of audio Russian Roulette -you never know what's coming next.
It's easy, really.
I've got almost my entire music collection mp3ified and stored on a portable hard drive. That's over 3000 albums now adding up to over 45,000 tracks.
It didn't take that long to fill my iPod really. With lots of space I didn't need or want to be selective in what I put on. I just went through my collection and selected artists whose entire collection I wanted.
I mostly listen on shuffle, so by having entire albums I regularly get album tracks I've rarely or possibly not previously heard. Sometimes though it's nice to be able to play an album through from start to finish.
My existential problem with that strategy
is that working on the basis that the average "pretty good" album is classified as pretty good because it has three, maybe four, pretty good tracks on it, if you pack an iPod with whole albums, two thirds of what you play on shuffle will be mediocre music, won't it?
Play some old, yes, but not all of it.
I previously had a smaller
I previously had a smaller mp3 player, for which I had to more selective in what I put on. With my large iPod space isn't really an issue.
Maybe I'm easily pleased musically - having 3000 albums probably speaks to that - but I find I do enjoy most of what comes up on shuffle.
My 160GB iPod is almost full
My 160GB iPod is almost full with 31660 tracks. Most represented are:
Dylan - 539
Elvis Costello (and his various backing groups) - 437
Beach Boys - 390
Bowie - 389
Springsteen - 336
Tom Waits - 315
Neil Young - 314
The Who - 306
Rolling Stones - 278
Dylan's unlikely to ever be overtaken in my collection but there are some interesting battles going on in there - Bowie and Neil Young will presumably soon overtake the Beach Boys and Tom Waits respectively. Elvis Costello is up there because of all those 2CD reissues.
How? I suspect like many I am not a completist.....
...but have been accumulating records, CDs and mp3s aggressively for years. I am fairly brutal and will only select the stand-outs on any particular CD or LP to commit to mp3 and i-pod, and will ruthlessly cherry pick if I am downloading alone. In this way I keep the numbers down, believe it or not. Even so I am worried that I am getting to the top of my 80 i-pod, at 18,500 tracks. Yes it is way too many, they say, how cqn you listen to 50+ solid days at a time. easy, I can't, but even at only 2 hrs listening, roughly, a day, I enjoy the variety of songs I know I like. Because of this closeness to full, I am now going thru', scanning almost, to remove any that haven't stood the test. (Of course all the original CDs, LPs and backed up mp3s on CDR remain, should I wish a more traditional listen, warts and all.) I suspect I will one day have to get a 160, to allow for the new and expanding fields of jazz and world.
That's how, Paul.
It is, I have reliably been informed, probably an obsession.....
I can see
I have some serious work to do. Order me five score cases of a decent red, draw the curtains, disconnect the phone and let me know when Christmas approaches.
Stringing together this strand...
...and the "how do you listen to music" strand, it is increasingly less likely that individuals will have their shelves of vinyl and/or CDs in quite the pride of place they used to occupy. When entering a house for the first time, I always feel I can guage something about the occupier from the choice of music, as well as guaranteeing some point of discussion. "I see you like Supertramp; so not a big fan of music" or the like.....
16,195 tracks
Total time to play all tracks: 6.1 weeks of music
Most popular track: Hini da Bahia by Caetano Veloso
Total play count: 25,162 tracks
Artists: 1140
Top artist: Sufjan Stevens (309 tracks)
Albums: 1216
Most played album: Africa 100, various artists (tracks played 207 times)
Most albums by one artist: Fela Kuti (49)
Genres: 85
Top genre: Alternative/punk: (4485 songs)
Most popular listening time: 6pm
Average track length: 3.8 minutes
Average play count: 1.6 times per song
Average album completeness: 22%
Complete albums: 44%
Most common song title word: love
Stats gathered using Super Analyzer, iTunes statistician, and iTunes.
I likes this game
have not yet finished ripping my collection to disk but the current total is 10986 tracks, of which the "most tracks" top ten list.
1. The Beatles - 256
2. Aimee Mann - 240
3. Nerina Pallot - 220
4. Paul Simon - 187
5. Thea Gilmore - 143
6. Crowded House - 105
7. Tori Amos - 97
8. Paul McCartney - 95
9. Sheryl Crow - 91
10. Counting Crows - 85
crowincidence?
Is it a coincidence that three of that top 10 list have the word 'crow' in their name?
Not as much as the death link......
Ded (the New Zealanders), Paul McC and Mos (as in growing over Tori)...
Spooky.
Nerina Pallot 220
Blimey! I thought she had only done 2 CDs.......
She has
and a few singles...but I make up the numbers with the odd live track.
Baby of the bunch
The Above 100s:
Blur - 217
Dame David Of Boowie - 212
Belle & Sebastian - 198
Blood Everywhere - 163
Sonic Youth - 158
Chemical Brothers - 154
Primal Scream - 133
Kraftwerk - 111
Scott Walker/ Walker Brothers - 104
New Order - 101
Then there's strong showings from: Daft Punk, Pulp, Super Furry Animals, Bjork, Massive Attack, Radiohead, Human League, Pavement, Rufus Wainwright and PJ Harvey
Gosh, how very schmindie
Blood everywhere?
Who they?
*Cough*
myspace.com/bloodeverywheregroup or http://www.facebook.com/pages/Blood-Everywhere/15145549747 for further information
My 100+ list
Neil Young - 290
R.E.M. - 244
Teenage Fanclub - 236
Morrissey - 175 (or 240 if you add The Smiths)
Belle & Sebastian - 173
The Cure - 164
The Flaming Lips - 164
Manic Street Preachers - 164
Oasis - 141
The Magic Numbers - 129
Pulp - 110
Travis - 108
Paul Weller - 104
Ryan Adams - 103
The Divine Comedy - 101
The Beautiful South - 100
This makes me look more mainstream than I probably am for the most part (he cries....) but there you have it. There are also 100+ recordings with me on them in various guises, which are more for analysis than general listening.
If you're wondering how it is posible to have so many Magic Numbers songs, I have a number of live recordings on there. Far superior to the studio stuff.