Of Rather Little Consequence

This entry was posted by on Monday, 16 March, 2009 at

Yesterday out of curiosity, I flipped my iTunes library to list in order of “play count” just to see what is at the top. I have to admit, it was a bit of an eyebrow-raiser.

The top five are: “My Country b3” by The Purple Robe with a play count of 46. Ah, the joke that started it all. Then comes “Vertigo” by U2 with 29. Now, you have to understand that for a fair amount of time after purchasing this computer, these were actually the only two songs in the library, so it is no surprise that they would be at the top. Even so, tied with 28 each are an instrumental version of “When She Walks in the Room” by The Purple Robe and “youreagirl” by Strong Bad. How quaint. In fifth place with 25 is… yet another Purple Robe song. What a freakin’ narcisist.

Alright so, the highest ten songs in the list that I didn’t do myself (which accounted for 9 of the top 20) were:

Vertigo (Single Version) – U2
youreagirl – Strong Bad
cinematic – Cool Hand Luke
Story of Our Lives – The Echoing Green
Gone – tobymac
Everybody To The Limit – Strong Bad
Everything Is Bad For You – Map
Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
Last Nite – The Strokes
Vindicated (acoustic) – Dashboard Confessional

About this point I realized that the whole exercise was rather meaningless, because a very large percent of the staggering 391 songs in my library (yes, that is the correct number of digits) is just stuff I downloaded for free (legally) from various places, and is not a particularlly accurate reflection of my actual music tastes. For example, there are 82 songs in my “Purchased from iTunes” list, two of which I literally purchased, the other 80 being free downloads. Of those, 11 actually have a play count of 0, and 14 more have a play count of only 1. Nice.

The fact is, iTunes is simply not my prefered way to listen to music. I do not really need to download music, because I discovered a long time ago that I can almost always find what I want online, whether it be on a bands official website or myspace page, or a YouTube video (even if YouTube happens to be blocked… there are other sites). Now there is Pandora, which of course only allows you to select certain qualities, not to pick specfic songs, but I just recently discovered imeem, which does. Really the only reason to fire up iTunes at all anymore is just to listen to… my own songs. That explains that, I reckon.

I suppose if there was a point to all this (aside from the obvious amusment of “Seriously? ‘Last Nite’ by The Strokes…?”), it would be that, having recently [ahem] quit my job (in part) in order to focus on music, I have to wonder if anyone actually even buys music anymore. Oh, I don’t know… Maybe people who don’t surf the internet all day, and actually need something to put on the iPod for when they LEAVE THE HOUSE?

That, and also to point out that “youreagirl” is a fine song. If you actually know the song I’m talking about, you are going to go looking for it right now aren’t you? You know who you are. (The rest of you, it’s a bit of an inside joke. You are probably better off.)

One Response to “Of Rather Little Consequence”

  1. simpli mama

    So it was beautiful here today which is crazy weather for March in Chicago…but…we thought of you as I was outside hanging laundry on the line and the kids were playing with the trucks you got for Jacob for his first birthday…a lifetime ago it seems.

    You are missed 🙂


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