September 23rd, 2007 by Jemaleddin Cole

I was look­ing around my iPod today and decided to check out my “Top 25 Most Played” playlist. I’ve only had this iPod for about 8 months or so, and I’ve only really been lis­ten­ing to it in the car. I was pretty sur­prised by what I found, pre­sented here in the order they were listed on the screen:

• Sniff by The Kleptones
• Change Clothes by DJ Danger Mouse
• What­ser­name (Susanna Hoffs) by Dean Gray
• Amer­i­can Jesus by Dean Gray
• Badd To Me by King of Pants
• Love Me Or Hate Me by Lady Sov­er­eign
• La La Her Madly by Ruff Muff
• Black Bea­t­les by Loo & Placido
• Yeah in the Sun by Jay-​Zeezer
• Since U Been Gahan by Earwork
• Brand New Colony by The Postal Ser­vice
• Boule­vard of Broken Songs by Dean Gray
• Take Your Car­riage Clock And Shove It by Belle & Sebas­t­ian
• Re: Your Brains by Jonathan Coul­ton
• Code Monkey by Jonathan Coul­ton
• I’m Waking Up To Us by Belle & Sebas­t­ian
• Women’s Realm by Belle & Sebas­t­ian
• I’m a Cuckoo by Belle & Sebas­t­ian
• You Can’t Get Stuck by Yosha Bourgea
• Every Day I Write The Book by Elvis Costello
• Absolutely Cuckoo by The Mag­netic Fields
• A Pretty Girl Is Like… by The Mag­netic Fields
• Storytelling by Belle & Sebas­t­ian
• Stay Loose by Belle & Sebas­t­ian
• Watch­ing The Detec­tives by Elvis Costello

Since some of those are kind of a bit obscure, here’s a break­down of the ones you might not have heard:

Belle & Sebastian

Intro­duced to me by my friend the genius Kevin, B&S are a great Glaswe­gian indie band that will remind you of The Smiths with more melody and artistry. The hidden punch behind the beau­ti­ful music is the lyri­cal twists that you weren’t expecting.

Dean Gray

His mashup album, Amer­i­can Edit, brings together music and lyrics from Green Day’s Amer­i­can Idiot rock opera with every­thing from Oasis and The Ban­gles to the themes from Doctor Who and Mis­sion Impos­si­ble. Strange and excellent.

The Postal Service

The Death Cab for Cutie side project that is better than the orig­i­nal band. The most amaz­ing thing ever pro­duced on what sound like broken Casio key­boards.

Jonathan Coulton

The geek trou­ba­dour, he rose to inter­net fame with his Thing A Week project that pro­duced a new song each week. An early hit was his acoustic cover of Baby Got Back, but Code Monkey and Re: Your Brains are inter­net classics.

The Mag­netic Fields

I have no idea what to say about them, but Kevin’s rec­om­men­da­tion comes through again.

Yosha Bourgea

This song, writ­ten espe­cially for Jared cured him of his “I’m stuck” phase and has delighted him ever since. Amazing.

Assorted Mashups

Best of Bootie 2005, The Grey Album and The Black and Blue Album are pretty much the only way I listen to pop music: ripped form its orig­i­nal con­text and mixed seam­lessly with music I can stand to listen to.

What’s in your top 25?

5 Responses to “Top 25 Most Played”

1. OK, so how do I find out what the top 25 played songs on my nano are? I’m search­ing the menus on the little beast but not find­ing any­thing obvi­ous.

   — skank September 24th, 2007 at 8:15 am #

2. Usu­ally you’ll find a playlist called “Top 25 Most Played” pre-​loaded onto iPods.

   — Jemaleddin September 24th, 2007 at 8:46 am #

3. Not this one. It seems to store the info in iTunes.

   Here’s my top 25.

   1) On The Road Again Canned Heat
   2) Amphet­a­mine Annie Canned Heat
   3) Whiskey Headed Woman Canned Heat
   4) Geor­gia Blues JIMI HEN­DRIX
   5) Soon As I Get Paid KEB’ MO’
   6) Come On In My Kitchen KEB’ MO’
   7) Per­pet­ual Blues Machine KEB’ MO’
   8) I’m On Your Side KEB’ MO’
   9) Henry KEB’ MO’
   10) Am I Wrong? KEB’ MO’
   11) A Letter To Tracy KEB’ MO’
   12) Love In Vain KEB’ MO’
   13) Dirty Low Down And Bad KEB’ MO’
   14) Blues So Bad Maria Mul­daur 15) Misery And The Blues Maria Mul­daur
   16) Pride And Joy STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN M
   17) Cross Road Blues ROBERT JOHN­SON
   18) I’d Rather Go Blind ETTA JAMES
   19) Red House JIMI HEN­DRIX EXPE­RI­ENCE 8:58 AM
   20) One Way Out (Live) THE ALLMAN BROTH­ERS BAND
   21) Trou­ble No More THE ALLMAN BROTH­ERS BAND
   22) Somebody’s Got To Go Big Bill Broonzy
   23) Baby I Done Got Wise Big Bill Broonzy
   24) That’s All­right Baby Big Bill Broonzy
   25) Travelin’ Blues Blind Willie McTell

   I’d be happy to give back­ground if you’re inter­ested.

   — skank September 24th, 2007 at 12:26 pm #

4. The only sur­prises are SRV and The Allman Broth­ers. And I haven’t heard of KEB’ MO’.

   — Jemaleddin September 25th, 2007 at 3:11 pm #

5. One of the best con­certs I ever heard was Delaney & Bonnie & Friends at the UW Field­house. The friends included Duane Allman, Leon Rus­sell, Rita Coolidge, and Eric Clap­ton. Won­der­ful blues-​rock.

   I have always loved blues rock­ers like Cream, Ten Years After, Grand Funk Rail­road, Hen­drix, ZZ Top, Johnny Winter, Savoy Brown, Chris Thomas King, Gary Moore, Dave Hole, Jeff Beck, Led Zep­pelin, Janis Joplin, and on and on.

   In addi­tion I love most acoustic pre-WW2 blues, espe­cially Robert John­son, Sleepy John Estes, Son House, Bar­be­cue Bob, Tampa Red, and on and on.

   And a third area is any­thing in the Howlin’ Wolf/Muddy Waters school of Chicago post WW2 elec­tric blues like James Cotton, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Albert Collins, and a ton of others.

   Then there are folks like Keb’ Mo’ who are modern throw­backs to ear­lier eras of the blues. He sings stuff in the style of pre- WW2 acoustic delta blues. I like the orig­i­nals better but the sound qual­ity is so much better on the newer record­ings.

   I guess it would be fair to say I like any blues music or blues tinged music.

   I recently picked up Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ album “I Shake My Stick at You.” The title grabbed me because I remem­bered the guy we saw on our way into D.C. with you that stood under the over­pass and shook a stick at every­one who drove by. It’s a little more explicit than I like but the music is great. Check it out at Amazon:
   http://​www.​ama​zon.​com/​I​-​S​h​a​k​e​-​M​y​-​S​t​i​c​k​-​Y​o​u​/​d​p​/​B​0​0​0​M​T​O​Q​7​W​/​r​e​f​=​p​d​_​b​b​s​_​1​2​/​1​0​3​-​6​3​7​6​2​5​4​-​5​4​6​4​6​2​9​?​i​e​=​U​T​F​8​&​a​m​p​;​s​=​m​u​s​i​c​&​a​m​p​;​q​i​d​=​1​1​9​0​7​6​0​9​6​4​&​a​m​p​;​s​r​=8-12

   — skank September 25th, 2007 at 6:08 pm #