[Poll] MUSICS

[thefourthvine]

For reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, I am a Giant Ball of Anxiety.[1] I am actually considering renaming myself that (GBA for short, I guess, although I do realize that that is not the ideal acronym). I cannot sleep without having the worst anxiety dreams I've had in years, and that's assuming I get to sleep, which mostly I don't; I just stare at the clock and think anxious thoughts. My skin is breaking out! I am covered in hives! I keep walking into things! If this keeps up, by the time I get to Vividcon, I will be fit for nothing but crying in my hotel room for three days. I, um, really don't want to spend three days crying in a hotel room. For the record. I mean, I could cry at home much more cheaply; there's no point in going to Chicago for that. So I have decided it is time to make some posts designed to distract me and, with luck, reduce the possibility that I will have to ask for an extremely late change to my badge name. ("If 'GBA' doesn't work for you, you could always call me Inappropriate Hysterics!")

The first such post went smashingly. I thank you all. I now know much more about classic beauty. I've also learned that if Gina Torres and Audrey Hepburn were, through the miracle of - time traveling lesbian reproduction magicians? Look, I think this is the kind of thing that doesn't need a reason - to have a child, it would be the most classically gorgeous person of all time. I think someone needs to get right on making that happen.

So. We have done photos! Clearly it is time for MUSIC. And also POLLS, as those are the traditional, time-honored distraction techniques of people too distressed to provide actual content.

This is a poll for people who have music playing devices or programs. I am hoping that's most of you. There are some, you know, questions and things, but there is also a Bonus Content Option that I am really really hoping a lot of you take, because nothing is more distracting than new music.

So, to start things off in the Bonus Content arena: the most played song on my iTunes is Roscoe, by Midlake, which I have played 513 times. (Obviously, this is a hate-free zone. If you think it sucks, don't tell me. Instead, post your most played song. I bet it is far, far better than mine. Cooler. More classic. Whatever.)

And the song I am most obsessed with at the moment is The Chaconne, by Dessa.

Now, tell me yours! (People not taking the poll are still entirely invited to post their most played and current obsession songs in the comments, by the way. Encouraged. Begged. Whatever.) And also about your music. (And join with me in lamenting that there's no numerical entry poll option that would do averages and means and so on but not require scales.)

[1] Okay, I know at least some of you are going to want to know, so: it's mostly to do with Leaving My Baby for the First Time Ever. Also imperfect traveling arrangements. And OMG SOCIAL TIME fear. But mostly Leaving My Baby, who is actually three and will be at home with his mommy and perfectly fine, no matter what my dreams persist in suggesting.

Poll #7701 music

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 201

View Respondents

How many songs do you have on your music player? (Rounding to the nearest thousand. Overachievers should pick the highest category.)

View Answers
Mean: 6358.59 Median: 5000 Std. Dev 5396.19

0		3 (1.5%)
1000		30 (15.2%)
2000		19 (9.6%)
3000		20 (10.1%)
4000		13 (6.6%)
5000		24 (12.1%)
6000		19 (9.6%)
7000		17 (8.6%)
8000		9 (4.5%)
9000		4 (2.0%)
10000		9 (4.5%)
11000		2 (1.0%)
12000		4 (2.0%)
13000		2 (1.0%)
14000		2 (1.0%)
15000		1 (0.5%)
16000		0 (0.0%)
17000		2 (1.0%)
18000		2 (1.0%)
19000		1 (0.5%)
20000		15 (7.6%)

How many songs have you never listened to? (Rounding, again.)

View Answers
Mean: 1692.31 Median: 1000 Std. Dev 3379.62

0		89 (48.9%)
1000		50 (27.5%)
2000		10 (5.5%)
3000		8 (4.4%)
4000		7 (3.8%)
5000		3 (1.6%)
6000		2 (1.1%)
7000		2 (1.1%)
8000		0 (0.0%)
9000		2 (1.1%)
10000		3 (1.6%)
11000		1 (0.5%)
12000		0 (0.0%)
13000		0 (0.0%)
14000		0 (0.0%)
15000		2 (1.1%)
16000		0 (0.0%)
17000		0 (0.0%)
18000		2 (1.1%)
19000		0 (0.0%)
20000		1 (0.5%)

How many playlists do you have?

View Answers

None. If I want to listen to music, I listen to all the music.
26 (13.0%)

Oh, somewhere around ten. Some variety, you know.
73 (36.5%)

Looks like maybe 30! Variety is the spice of life.
54 (27.0%)

More like 50. Variety is the habenero pepper of life!
17 (8.5%)

Closer to 75. Variety may in fact be the silent killer.
10 (5.0%)

I am in no way counting, but I'm guessing 100. I have no idea what is even in some of these.
8 (4.0%)

200. I HAVE MANY IDEAS FOR PLAYLISTS, OKAY?
10 (5.0%)

A million. At least. Um.
2 (1.0%)

Of your top 20 most played songs, how many are by women? (I am counting this as "mostly sung by a woman," but you make your own call.)

View Answers
Mean: 8.14 Median: 8 Std. Dev 4.50

1		17 (9.2%)
2		6 (3.2%)
3		11 (5.9%)
4		13 (7.0%)
5		11 (5.9%)
6		10 (5.4%)
7		18 (9.7%)
8		15 (8.1%)
9		6 (3.2%)
10		23 (12.4%)
11		10 (5.4%)
12		13 (7.0%)
13		7 (3.8%)
14		8 (4.3%)
15		6 (3.2%)
16		6 (3.2%)
17		2 (1.1%)
18		1 (0.5%)
19		1 (0.5%)
20		1 (0.5%)

How many times has your most played song been played? (Rounding!)

View Answers
Mean: 277.09 Median: 150 Std. Dev 287.46

0		3 (1.7%)
50		40 (22.3%)
100		39 (21.8%)
150		13 (7.3%)
200		13 (7.3%)
250		13 (7.3%)
300		10 (5.6%)
350		4 (2.2%)
400		6 (3.4%)
450		3 (1.7%)
500		5 (2.8%)
550		4 (2.2%)
600		3 (1.7%)
650		0 (0.0%)
700		3 (1.7%)
750		0 (0.0%)
800		3 (1.7%)
850		1 (0.6%)
900		1 (0.6%)
950		0 (0.0%)
1000		15 (8.4%)

What is that most played song? (For bonus points, put a link to it, streaming or download, in the comments.)

View Answers

And what song are you obsessed with lately? (Bonus points, link in comments, you know how this works.)

View Answers

I like all music! Except:

View Answers

Theremin Core
38 (26.2%)

Gregorian Chant-Hop
16 (11.0%)

Rastabilly Skank
49 (33.8%)

Digital Baroque
16 (11.0%)

Unshaved Glam
26 (17.9%)

Comments

[d_generate_girl]

Most played: No Woman No Cry by Bob Marley.

Currently obsessed with: The Bullpen by Dessa, Sister Midnight by Blondie (covering Iggy Pop), and John the Revelator by Gov't Mule (covering a very old blues song).

[torch]

I don't have the kind of player that will tell me what I listen to most often, which is okay since I haven't really listened to music much in the past couple of years, beyond what I've participated in singing myself. But recently I struggled to get hold of Shriekback's Fiash Below the Ice, and I've listened to that... at least five times?

(Bad person for this poll. yeah.)

[weaverbird]

Obsession: Whiskey in Mind - Christian Kane


Most played: Alive - Sa Dingding (Sansrkit version)

[schneefink]

I listen to music on my radio. I put in CDs. Should I feel old? ^^
And most of the CDs are classical music. This poll is clearly not for me.

Nevertheless, my favorite piece of music at the moment: the Goldberg Variations. ♥

[vass]

You have very good taste in piano music. Perfect for when you're stressed and can't sleep.

[james]

Part of the problem with answering this is, sometimes when iTunes reloads itself or you move your library from one external drive to another, the play counts go away. So my most played says 42 but that's because it started over at least three times in the last few years.

Also, your last question? I have no idea what any of those things are. I listen to rock, country, opera, classical, swing, big band, and folk.

[cesy]

It's possible to preserve those, if you keep the iTunes database on the external drive with the songs, make all the links relative, and then launch iTunes from the external drive. Not easy, even for a tech geek with the help of Google, but possible.

[rensreality101]

I went to check this and just..sighed. My number one is The Lion Sleeps Tonight, followed by Nina's Song from the Imagination Movers. I also have a three year old and her 'get the kid to sleep' playlist cycles through several times during her nap.

Of the songs that are actually mine (grin) Break Me by Steve Carlson is first, followed by Hallelujah by Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses.

[dancing_moon]

Disclaimers:
1) I have an ancient mp3-player, which doesn't keep most-played stats
2) It is also very bad at sorting things, so I only listen to my playlists because all other ways (album etc) are pretty much useless

That said, favorite song 4evah
Die Ärzte - Schrei nach Liebe

Latest obsession:
Vocaloids - Alice Human Sacrifice [lyrics and animated video are trippy and might be triggering, spec. for suicide]

[dancing_moon]

Also, I tend to listen to a lot of nineties anime openings on repeat, which gives me several female vocalists in the most played (going by my hunches) category. Alas, I do think I have much fewer solo artists or female groups that are not tied to a soundtrack :/

[thatyourefuse]

I lost my entire music library in a computer crash a couple weeks ago, and then lost the beginnings of my replacement when the ISP sent my parents an email concerning some, er, dubiously legal Amy Winehouse, but I just have to tell you, all the genres you mention in that last question sound AWESOME.

And that this is the one I've been unable to stop listening to in the last six weeks or so.

Commentary on my music habits

[helenorvana]

Your most-played options aren't ambitious enough for me - I currently have 3 songs that have been played more than 1000 times, two of which are over 2000 times, and those numbers used to be much higher. I got a new computer ~a year ago and reset my iTunes - there were probably over 50 I'd listened to 1000+ times before then, and I know my most-played song was over 4000 times.

But that's because I find a song I love and I obsess over it and play it on repeat for days on end - right now, I've got 50+ songs I've listened to more than 200 times, and most of them I've only had for a couple of months. I also used to have 3 times as many songs in my library, but for whatever reason they didn't transfer over, and I haven't gotten around to reuploading them yet. :(

I used to have a butt-load of playlists, but now they're mostly mood-music-organized - soft and slow, melancholy, fun, piano, guitar, therapy, and the ever-useful Temp playlist. Also Christmas vs Non-Christmas, because every time I put my library on shuffle it plays predominately Christmas music in the summer, so I try to isolate it.

Only about half of my Top 25 most-listened-to even have lyrics, and of those, most of them are in foreign languages or nearly unintelligible. I'm also not terribly fond of the tone of most female vocalists? There are a handful of female singers whom I adore (Adele, Haley Reinhart, Origa, Alison Kraus, Barlow Girls...), but it's much easier on my ear to listen to male voices. Not quite sure why.

Re: Commentary on my music habits

[erika]

If you use iTunes, you can uncheck Christmas music and it'll never play it.

Then once a year, you select all in the Christmas playlist and hit "check selection."

Whee!

[stewardess]

The player I use, squeezecenter - softsqueeze, disdains anything remotely connected to marketing. It tracks NOTHING. I did not realize this until your poll.

I hope the "I like all music except" categories are real. Unshaved Glam sounds too good to be true! I am now desperate to hear all of those genres. ^^

[stewardess]

Forgot to discuss the song I'm currently obsessed with, You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) by Sylvester. I downloaded the mp3 through Amazon after watching this WONDERFUL VIDEO from about 1979.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG2ixYJ79iE

Unfortunately, the version available through amazon does not sound as good as the youtube version. The amazon mp3 had all the bass sucked out of it. I AM UPSET.

[rivkat]

My answers are weird because I'm a little compulsive: I have two playlists, less played and somewhat less played, and whenever I finish one I raise its minimum count by two and go to the other. So right now about 2/3 of my songs have been played 75 times on this computer and the remaining 2/3 are at 74, except for the newest (which I play extra several times a day to get them up to snuff). On my old computer, Commercial for Levi is probably the most played. I love Dessa! giandujakiss just made a vid for me for Nikita using Seamstress, which you should watch.

[paxpinnae]

I answered based on my Windows Media Player, which has been my only music player since my Zen M was tragically lost in Boston (It was not the only thing that was lost that day. Bostonians, your city is confusing!), so my data were, uh, possibly misleading. For instance, I have about 30 playlists, but they're almost all fanmixes made by other people that I converted to playlists to get them to play in the correct order, and WMP doesn't track play records, so I have no idea what my actual most-played song is. I know what my current obsessions are, though!

Seven Obsessions Mini-Mix featuring:

You're So Square (Baby I Don't Care) - Cee-lo Green
Screw You, We're From Texas - Ray Wylie Hubbard
Star-Spangled Man - The Star Spangled Singers
Space Girl - The Imagined Village
Boy With a Barbie - Ben Lee
Modern Man - The Arcade Fire
Buzzer - Dar Williams

[minervacat]

Ugh, that Cee-lo cover of Buddy Holly is SO AMAZING, the first time I listened to that album I got hung up on that track and played it 14 times in a row. SO AMAZING.

[narikalen]

And, with the youtube links, because. Yeah:

Comptine D'un Autre Ete by Yann Tierson;

Life Less Ordinary by Carbon Leaf.

[ybbravo]

"Comptine" is beautiful! Thanks for sharing. Am hunting it down!

[ahouseforrain]

I'm very interested in the fact that there are three people who have listened to their most-listened-to song 550 times, then only one for 600, 700, and 800 apiece, then 5 in the 1,000+ category. That's a kind of big and sparsely populated gap, that.

I can't speak for the other four in the 1000+ group, but I know that I tend to get fixated on a song and will listen to it happily for days at a time. I actually discovered that for my model of iPod, if you leave a single song on repeat for as long as I like to, the iPod will actually freak out and freeze.

As for my songs. A previous obsession left Psycho as preformed by Puddle of Mudd as my top song, with 1,888 plays. My current fixation is Brighter Than The Sun by Colbie Caillat, with 164 plays on the computer alone in the last 9 days. (In both cases, this is the first time I've ever seen the music videos for them, and the videos left me facepalming. So.)

Marginally unrelated, the previous fixation was a song I still don't actually possess, but will soon. Raise Your Glass, by P!nk. Also beloved is this cosplayer lip dub. Same song, just different visuals.

[paxpinnae]

I'm watching the cosplay lipdub, and grinning so hard - there's so much people, doing what they obviously love so much without apology. Thank you for sharing that!

[eln]

This is why my heart aches (aches) that for some godforsaken reason I decided to use RealPlayer for a decade - I only switched to lovely iTunes in March this year, so my stats are abysmal. I have this niggling feeling my real most-played would be Young Bride by Midlake, though, thanks to a year or two there where it was my everything~. My since-March is Dixon's Girl by Dessa (although, oh my god The Chaconne ♥), which outstrips everything else by a country mile, apart from Cold War by Janelle Monáe which weirdly has the precise same count.

Obsessed with, atm, Bizness by tUnE-yArDs. I want to be this woman, god.

I hope your anxiety is swiftly over.

[sanj]

So here are mine:

Kris Delmhorst, "Weatherman" (#1 on iPod)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12566629/02%20Weatherman.m4a

Gillian Welch, "Revelator" (#1 on iTunes)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12566629/03%20Revelator.m4a

Adam Lambert, "Sleepwalker" (getting a lot of repeat play lately)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12566629/10%20Sleepwalker.mp3

and I'm gonna add in "Sober" by Pink, just because:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12566629/02%20Sober.m4a

[sanj]

... I should probably also note that my stats are only good since the Regrettable Hard Drive Crash of 2009. So they skew pretty low.

[indywind]

Stuff I have been interested in lately:
(links to YouTube)

Wild Goose Chase as performed by Nona from DarkDarkDark; originally by Elephant Micah

Heartbreak Warfare, John Meyer. Heard in yoga class, where the only intelligible line was "if you want more love, why don't you say so?"

Wrecking Ball, Chris Pureka. The video (official pro-produced) is excellent.

Guy Named Joe and Summertime, Coyote Grace.

[dancinguniverse.livejournal.com]

I will say that a lot of those numbers are hugely skewed, because I went through a few computer changes and reboots in the past two years, which means that every time I switched, the counter in my itunes got reset. So this is only accounting for the last 9 months or so of music playing.

[ladysorka]

My computer has 21,130 songs on it, not counting all the Christmas songs which are in a different folder and not standardly loaded into exaile. But 99% of the time I just have it going on shuffle in the background, so my most played songs are all either things that have randomly came up 1 or 2 times on shuffle, or things like Dead Can Dance, Delerium, or Mediaeval Baebes, which is the type of stuff I put on when I need background music that I will pretty much never actually notice. Well, my last.fm says they're all Fall out Boy and Panic at the Disco, but, you know, I'm going to go "old fandom obsessions" not actually counting.

The only two playlists I have are the two on my ipod helpfully called "driving" and "sleeping", so that I don't get the new age and ambient in my car or the rock and techno when I'm on a plane trying to sleep.

[stewardess]

Now I want a poll just for playlist names. ^^

[keerawa]

My stats are thrown off by the fact that when I write I find the right piece of music for the narrator and mod of the piece and play it on repeat for as long as I'm writing that story.

Aqualung's 'Strange & Beautiful': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdFncsrXr1E

Rastabilly Skank, from Red Dwarf? *squees*

[hydrangea]

This is a totally awesome post. :D I can't really fill in the poll, because I've had about 1.5 years of constant (at least it feels like it) crashes of harddrives both external and not, so my stats are so misleading it's not funny. Not to mention all the music I've lost.

I'm currently mostly listening to the Korean music I've bought legally over the last half-year or so, which is about 200 songs or so. Current faves are a bit mixed, but I'll link you a bunch of different stuff if you feel like trying something. Warning for mixing genres like crazy though.

(can't say anything about content of vids, 'cos I don't watch them. Korean MVs might contain death and doom though)

Girls: Lollipop by f(x) feat. SHINee, Suddenly by Kim Bo Kyung, Bing Bing Bing by Monday Kiz with Gary N.J., Million Roses by IS, Cruel Fairy Tale by IU, No.1 by Lee Sora and Fate by Lee Sun Hee.

Some general faves: Hello Hello by FT Island, Close Ur Mouth by M&D, The Concert by Kim Dong Ryul, 귀거래사歸去來辭 by 김신우 (my hangul is a bit rusty, so I won't attempt to transliterate), Halo by Block B, Rainy Days by Beast, Love Song by Big Bang, Mr. Simple by Super Junior, Run by Epik High and Man Should Laugh by Homme.

[ybbravo]

I particularly liked Lollipop, Million Roses (accordion totally works! who would have thunk it?), and Cruel Fairy Tale (I have such a weakness for 6/8 time it's ridiculous). Thanks for sharing! I will have to check out more by these artists, too.

[macey]

Quick links to youtube - ping me if you like 'em and I'll upload.

The Queen and The Soldier, Suzanne Vega

Handlebars, Flobots

Also, I'm blaming my top-20 gender imbalance on Bandom. Almost half of them are MyChem...

[cesy]

Also, I'm blaming my top-20 gender imbalance on Bandom. Almost half of them are MyChem...

Yes. They and Adam Lambert cover 8 out of my top 20, and another 6 are fandom-related.

most played - Home And The Heartland

[northern]

Home And The Heartland

[snacky]

Most played: Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin. I think this is because I love to sing along with this at the top of my lungs while driving. :D

Current obsession: Adventures in Solitude by The New Pornographers. Which I am listening to a lot because it's on a fic-I-am-writing playlist.

[luciazephyr]

Muuuuuuuusic. My eternal love.

Biggest loves: Janelle Monae, Arcade Fire, Andrew Bird, Franz Ferdinand, Ani DiFranco.

Currently and eternal loves:

ALL OF ARCADE FIRE'S MUSIC. I have three of their albums and out of them there is literally only one song I don't love ("Ocean of Noise" is underwhelming to me). "We Used To Wait (Radio Rip)" off their latest album.

Also: the first rap artist I've ever liked, Lupe Fiasco. Just found some of his music, was stunned by how insightful and positive his stuff is. I love "The Instrumental". Going to pick up an album of his as soon as I decide which one to buy.

But my current obsession is Mumford & Sons' "Little Lion Man", which someone used to get me into the band's music.

[annaalamode]

If you like Lupe, have you tried Tribe Called Quest?