I started 2014 with a bunch of music I’d acquired in 2013, but which I still hadn’t listened to. So I created a playlist with a high weight on unplayed music from Q4 2013 to Q1 2014. I changed my Amarok settings so that instead of populating the next 11 items, it would populate the next 3. That way if I was getting bored with the new music (a lot of which is music I got for free so sometimes it’s awesome (to my tastes) and sometimes it’s just OK) I could switch to another dynamic playlist for a while and I’d just be three songs away from hearing some music I know I like. I also bought an album with 100 of the best Beethoven compositions. However, since I’m scrobbling the orchestra that played it (not the composer), I’m not sure if any of them will end up dominating the list. (They didn’t)

Eventually I switched to this playlist for a few weeks:

After I got tired of the Top 15 Songs, I went back to a playlist that only played new music as I’d been acquiring a lot of new music. I also started listening to all my music alphabetically here and there mixed between the new songs. The last time I did this it was before Amarok allowed for writing scores to the metadata. So I have lots of songs with a score of 0 and one or more plays. (Due to database corruptions that seem to coincide with new versions of Amarok. Although, I think it was a plugin I was running) It’s a good chance for me to once again rediscover some songs that I like and for them to get a score that allows them to come up when I’m listening to my auto-generated playlists. I rediscovered Aivi & Surashu who have some quite magical music. In fact, they are doing the soundtrack to the fun Cartoon Network show Steven Universe. Even so, a lot of scrobbles ended up dominated by my 2 year old’s demand for Disney music.

1. Alan Menken (276 listens) – Disney soundtrack master. Great songs.
2. Mandy Moore (153 listens) – These are ALL from the Tangled soundtrack. Yeah, Scarlett asked for it that much.
3. “Weird Al” Yankovic (90 listens) – Went on a Weird Al bender while grilling on a strangely warm February day. Something about Weird Al Google Music song metadata breaks scrobbling on my Android phone so this should be a bit higher.
4. The Beatles (77 listens) – I was looking for something different to play while playing in the basement with Scarlett and this showed up on Google Play’s main screen. Hadn’t heard The Beatles in a while so I played it.
5. Anberlin (74 listens) – Came up as I went through the artists alphabetically. Can’t believe they’re releasing their final album this year, but I’m excited to see them on the Warped Tour. Still remains the BEST personal example I have of piracy illicit acquisition being a good thing for bands. Heard “Ready Fuels” when one of my brothers got it without paying. Ended up buying every single Anberlin album. So stick it in your ___ RIAA!
6. Brad Kane (71 listens) – More Disney.
7. Donna Murphy (67 listens) – Mostly “Mother Knows Best” on the Tangled Soundtrack
8. Anamanaguchi (65 listens) – From my alphabetical listening.
9. Jodi Benson (63 listens) – More Disney.
10. Five Iron Frenzy (55 listens) – Just wanted to listen to some Five Iron Frenzy
11. Frank Ocean (54 listens) – Almost all of these listens came from my Top 15 playlist
12. Samuel E. Wright (49 listens) – Sebastian from The Little Mermaid
13. Robin Williams (45 listens) – Almost entirely the song “Friend Like Me” from Aladdin
14. Cheryl Freeman (44 listens) – One of the Muses from Disney’s Hercules
15. Taylor Swift (43 listens) – From Scarlett’s birthday playlist

Stats

Total Songs: 14 472 (up from 13 417) – Double the increase from last quarter. And I haven’t even added in all the new music I have.

Total Artists: 4309 (up from 3996) – I gained a LOT more artists than last time; 3 times as many. It’s been a great time for new music – especially with NPR’s South by Southwest sampler.

Total Albums: 3333 (up from 3052) – This matches the total artists increase pretty well since I get lots of singles.

Average Songs Per Album:  4.34 ( a slight decrease from 4.39) – I added a ton of singles, so no surprise there.

Average Songs Per Artist: 3.36(same as last time 3.36) – This is really weird.

Scrobbles at End of Quarter: 74,852 – so close to 75k! I wonder what will be my 75kth song. Will it once again be that Five Iron Frenzy song? A favorite song or a relatively unknown new song?

Total Scrobbles for this Quarter: 3772 – The Top 15 accounted for 1226 or 33% of the Scrobbles. Lower than last quarter, but similar to 2013 Q3. So a plurality of what I listened to isn’t accounted for here – but that makes sense given the reason why. (Recap: It’s because I listened to about 300 new artists and they mostly had singles)