Saw Jason Kottke’s list of most-played songs, started flipping through the couple hundred comments on that post, and thought, damn, I have several songs played WAY more than nearly anyone on that list. Each one of my five most-played songs has more than 1,500 plays.
My top 10 songs, in fact, are all over 1,200 plays apiece.
Anyway, on Kottke’s post, most of the commenters’ top five songs had play counts in the double digits, a few in the (mostly low) triple digits. One commenter, rebecca by name, has me beaten—her top five songs’ play counts are all more than twice my highest individual count.
Here are my top five most-played.
Song — Artist, Album
- Hard Times — Eastmountainsouth, Eastmountainsouth
- On Your Way — Eastmountainsouth, Eastmountainsouth
- You Dance — Eastmountainsouth, Eastmountainsouth
- Drunkard Logic — The Fat Lady Sings, Johnson
- Between — Vienna Teng, Waking Hour
All of these songs became part of my iTunes library in its current form on Jun 21, 2004. The play counts started accruing that same day, when I first started paying any attention to play counts and making sure my iTunes library’s data were consistent (correct album names and genres, for example) and I started to update regularly and keep things backed up.
When I like songs, I tend to do three things that cause their play counts to jump rapidly. First, and most obviously, I actually do play them a lot, either singly or as part of their full albums. Second, I rate them higher, either four or five stars in iTunes’ five-star ratings system; and third, I put them into shuffle-based playlists I play a lot. Most of my regularly listened playlists are based on a combination of ratings and play counts, as well, which means the higher-rated and more-often-played songs get played that much more anyway.
