People get up, Stomp your feet, Let’s get down

8 min readOct 9, 2014

Fresh off the first weekend of the Austin City Limits music festival, music has taken over our city. I thoroughly wore myself out dancing to Major Lazer, Skrillex, Phantogram and other faves over one of the best weekends of the year.

The Monday after was brutal as I had to finish cleaning a vacated apartment and generally recover from three days of partying. To unwind, I listened to a lot of 80's R&B and dance. Songs that took me to a different place than the ‘jump and wiggle’ stuff I had just been inundated with.

This got me thinking - What are my favorite songs? What songs would be on my ‘I’m dead now’ playlist? If we’re friends, you likely know that I make mixes as a hobby. And how much I enjoy sharing my discoveries or iPhone DJing an after party. Music is a big part of my life. If I were to try to create a list of favorites, memory would fail me on older songs and recency would squeeze out some other must-hear jams. Plus, I listen to a copious amount of music. I use a number of different digital-music services in addition to all the physical media that dominated the first half of my life.

So I’m going to delve into my music methods and put together a list of favorites. I’ll hit on the software and services I use. I’ll dig into some memories. I’ll also embed some jams along the way so you don’t get bored. This might get long…

iTunes

This software is comically bloated and utilized for far too many things for Mac users. At its core though, iTunes is where my music library is. My zen used to be meticulously editing my iTunes library. Typing in accurate metadata, finding missing album art via Google image searches or Discogs. For a Mac user (or inclined Windows user) iTunes is a dumping ground for all your media though. So I have podcasts, music videos, movies, lectures, etc in there. Filtering out spoken content would take too long but generally I have about 14,000 songs.

Play Count and Rating are two tools I’ve used to manage songs in iTunes. If a song is a jam I give it 4 or 5 stars. What’s the difference? One star. This makes creating Smart Playlists a lot easier. Smart Playlists (for the folks who just install iTunes to activate their iPhone) are criteria based playlists. So for this project I could just make one that’s 4–5 Star Jams and sort by most played. It’s not that simple though. Because I’m a meticulous bastard on making the mixes I share with y’all, I’ve pieced those things together in iTunes- to make sure the metadata was straight. I try to give you high-quality downloads.

Smart Playlist: 125 Most Played with some media kind exclusions

That means I have some dupes and since the launch of iTunes Match, the management of dupes has gotten trickier. Plus, while the songs I put in mixes are 4–5 star jams, I don’t star the mix versions of songs in my library but mix songs are most likely going to have the highest playcount. Once again because iTunes is a dumping ground. I bump mixes on the go. When you sync your iPod or iPhone with iTunes it captures the play count and adds it to the tally. Now of course anyone who’s ever had a backup go awry, bought a new computer, or has multiple devices synced to their library knows this data is not totally accurate but it helps for the purposes of this task.

In your dreams is the best mixtape of all time.

I tried the 4–5 star Smart Playlist route to get more results filled with some songs I clearly like. Some of these songs are jogging memories, which is good.

This is also reminding me of my last feeble-ass attempt to move my iTunes library from an external drive to my iMac and how my library and play counts got jacked up. If only there was an internet service that kept track of play counts for you…

Last.fm

Last.fm keeps tracking of what you listen to with a process they called scrobbling. They have apps for the desktop, mobile and you use your account to login on the Spotify preference pane. There is an active developer community as well so you can scrobble via your browser based services too. This is handy on several levels because it gives me a lot more data to look.

Something jumps out when I look at this. I tend to listen to mellow music at low volume to fall asleep. A lot of these songs are on my sleepytime playlist.

You tryna Spotify or nah?

Spotify

I’m a heavy Spotify user. I’ve built out several playlists based on theme, genre and timeframe. I’ve been on it for nearly four years and the fact that works well with iTunes means it has been my primary music tool. The social aspects make it super easy to share music in a snap as well. The software relies on its internet connectivity for tracking your plays though.

As previously mentioned, Spotify has an entry in Preferences for your Last.fm login. Spotify doesn’t track plays in app. They have put out some cool end of year summaries like the one pictured below. I think it would be cool to track your own plays and the reach of things you share with friends or publicly. There are aggregators and tastemakers on Spotify but I’m not clear how a user gets to that level.

Music Break…

I told you this would get long.

This is how it went down in the 95

SoundCloud

SoundCloud is great for finding DJ music. Whether it be remixes, early leaks from electronic artists or just bootleg shit- it’s solid. If you are playing through the browser, you’ll need to install a Last.fm extension to scrobble. If you’re a heavy user of their mobile apps, no play count solution exists at the moment. There are plenty of tools to help organize stuff you like but not much in the way of personal play data. The metrics are reserved for stuff you upload.

I've found a few gems that have made their way into the my permanent library and into a few of my seasonal mixes.

This joint was in my 2014 summer mix Summer Rally

YouTube

YouTube is kinda slept on for music discovery but not among younger people. A 2012 survey said it was the most popular means of music discovery for teens. I keep a playlist of jams I find via music channels. The same browser extensions that scrobble SoundCloud work on YouTube as well so your listening habits can be captured to Last.fm. I’ve dug for videos for songs on mixes too because it adds a cool element.

Growing up with MTV, music videos overtook the radio for music discovery until reality TV over music as MTV’s prime purpose. I tend to post old jams on my Facebook page on Thursday (Throwback Thursday). Searching for old videos reminds me of kicking it with my high school friends. Watching Rap City before basketball practice.

This should be high on everyone’s list.

Physical Media

In my recent move, I discovered my pantry had become a media graveyard. I found one vinyl album. A box of minidiscs and a Sharp minidisc player that needs a battery. A box of audiotapes. A milkcrate with CDs and burnt CDs and DVDs. A 5th Generation iPod Video (it wasn’t called the Classic yet).

I remember flipping over the Thriller album and trying to find my favorite songs with the needle. ‘Sex Packets’ by Digital Underground was the first tape I ever bought. I was at my family reunion in Tulare, CA. The clerk did not care about the parental advisory sticker.

Naughty by Nature’s ‘19 Naughty III’ was one of my first CD purchases. Pearl Jam’s ‘10’ was the first rock music I ever bought. There was a point in time when ‘Enter the 36 Chambers’ by the Wu Tang Clan was always with me. Just in case anyone hadn’t heard it. A collection of Nirvana B-sides from my mom for Christmas. Seeing Orbital live after listening to ‘In Sides’ everyday for 2 years. Sean Ross letting me borrow a book of CDs and having my mind blown by Big Bud’s ‘Infinity + Infinity’ and Mr. Scruff’s ‘Keep It Unreal’. ‘The Bends’ followed by ‘OK Computer’ followed by ‘Kid A’ on repeat on a CD-alarm clock next to my pillow when I hadn't heard music in 3 months after basic training.

Even without play counts, I know the music that I wore out. The songs I just put on repeat. The songs that were so different that you had to chase down anything that sounded close. My music collection has always been pretty eclectic so this list will hit on many genres and eras.

My Favorite 50 songs

How To Disappear Completely by Radiohead
Come On Let’s Go by Broadcast
So Fresh, So Clean by Outkast
5 years by Björk
The Girl with the Sun in Her Head by Orbital
Come As You Are by Nirvana
Protect Ya Neck by Wu Tang Clan
Indian Summer by Big Bud
Beat It by Michael Jackson
As Far As I Can See by Phantogram
Neon Valley Street by Janelle Monáe
Quick Canal by Atlas Sound
Sexy Boy by Air
Digital Love by Daft Punk
Recurring by Bonobo
They Reminisce Over You by Pete Rock and CL Smooth
It’s Not Meant To Be by Tame Impala
Giant Steps by John Coltrane
Miss Modular by Stereolab
Bodysnatchers by Radiohead
TNT by Tortoise
In My Arms by Mylo
Roll Right by Rage Against The Machine
Boiling by Disclosure
Freaks of the Industry by Digital Underground
Tour de France by Kraftwerk
Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ by Steve Reich
Intergalactic by Beastie Boys
Electric Relaxation by A Tribe Called Quest
Take 5 by The Dave Brubeck Quartet
Into The Sun by Diplo
Corporeal by Broadcast
Say Please by Teams vs Star Slinger
Undo by Björk
Arq by Kiln
Everyone Nose by N*E*R*D
Into the Groove by Madonna
Make It Last Forever by Keith Sweat
Do The Evolution by Pearl Jam
Star Guitar by The Chemical Brothers
Love by Mos Def
Beauty by Edan
Lost Cause by Beck
Pug by Smashing Pumpkins
Nap On The Bow by New Look
Cogwheel by Nobukazu Takemura
Falling In Love by Darius
Rollercoaster by Everything But The Girl
Gold In The Fire by Monarchy
High Scenes by Tennishero