I just took a quick look through my Last.fm account to see what I've been up to in the music department this week. Over the years I've figured out that I can't live without music. I rarely go a day without listening to at least 200 songs. I've gone through many phases (and continue to do so), including jazz, big band, hip hop, soundtrack/smooth, country, classical, and even techno. Each phase lasts at least a week (sometimes for as long as half a year, as I did with hip hop freshman year), and usually coincides with some event or time either in school or life. Having had Last.fm installed for almost three years now, I have enough data to see that, for example, during midterm and exam periods, I'll almost exclusively listen to country music for three days (which reminds me of home and somewhere I'd rather be), and then switch to soundtrack/smooth (ex. Hans Zimmer, A River Runs Through It soundtrack, etc...) up until exams are over (for relaxation, calming). This exact pattern has repeated itself four times in the last two years. Another example is that during the summer months, I heavily listen to "Southern Rock" (or at least what I consider Southern Rock: CCR, Marshall Tucker, a lot of harmonica songs from The Doors, Blues Traveler, Led Zeppelin, etc...) I've also come to realize and accept that classic rock is by
far and away my foundation, and the one genre that truly is my
"favorite."
Since installing Last.fm in January 06, it has "scrobbled" almost 59,000 of my tracks played. Coming in at first is Led Zeppelin, at a staggering 10% of my total listening. I will attest, however, that my heavy Led Zeppelin listening as shown by Last.fm is almost exclusively because I didn't really get into their stuff until really last year, when I was finally able to fill out my collection. Since that time, I've more than made up the many years I went without such songs as When the Levee Breaks (330 plays) and That's the Way (313 plays). Coming in at second are The Doors, who I've been listening to steadily for longer than any other band (with the only possible exception being Blues Traveler, although they took a big break in high school).
Another big trend I've noticed by looking at Last.fm is that I am hugely addicted to songs that feature the harmonica. Before I was really aware of what I was listening to, I like many others had playlists of my music in Winamp (and still do to some degree in iTunes). Looking back, it was interesting to find that nearly every song that I considered "a favorite" in classic rock or later artists contained the harmonica. I actually realized this when someone else made the connection. It turned out that my favorite songs from artists like CCR (Run through the Jungle), The Doors (Roadhouse Blues), Led Zeppelin (When the Levee Breaks), Tom Petty (Last Dance with Mary Jane), Bob Dylan (Shelter from the Storm), Bob Seger (Philosopher's Stone), all contained the harmonica, even if only for 10 seconds. I even unconsciously played the only harmonica song (in my collection) from almost 15 different artists more than any of their other songs with huge discrepancy in a period of what must have been 10 years. Maybe it's time I take up finally playing it the instrument.
I'm sure there are a lot of other interesting things to find in the data, but this is a start. It definitely is interesting to look at something that, in the grand scheme of things, I probably spend more time dedicated to than anything else. My only regret is that there is no way to look back at those years that my listening habits went untracked. I clearly remember phases of Bob Marley, the discovery of jazz, a phase of the Big Tymers (right around when I got my first car and thus my first sub woofer), and Oldies, all that will go unrecorded (as far as I'm concerned).
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