last.fm 2012 Music Trends

In 2012 I accelerated my trend of listening to new music.  More than ever, I experienced new music via various outlets that provided free music like Jamendo, Rolling Stone, and others.  I discovered some great music that I really, really enjoyed.  Since it mostly consisted of singles, a lot of the new artists I discovered aren’t really represented in the lists here, but it does contribute to lower numbers for the usual artists.

Artists Past Year 1. Relient K (235 listens) - they made it to the top without me buying any new albums

2. Five Iron Frenzy (220 listens) - As I wrote yesterday, part of this was due to buying “The End is Here”.

3. The Beatles (177 listens) - For once they didn’t make the top of the list because I spent less time listening to my random playlist.

4. MC Frontalot (159 listens) - Most of these listens came in during the last quarter.

5. Anberlin (96 listens) - Again, as mentioned, a lot of this came from their new album “Vital”

6. Danny Elfman (93 listens) - from both of his albums.

7. Darren Korb (90 listens) - I started off the year listening to a lot of the Bastion Soundtrack.  And I’m always happy when it appears on my random list.

8. Anamanaguchi (86 listens) - my current favorite is “My Skateboard will Go On”

9. Switchfoot (73 listens) - As I mentioned last year, I still enjoy a few of their songs.

10. “Weird Al” Yankovic (69 listens) - Not too much Weird Al when you consider it’s for the entire year, but, again, it was a year in which I mostly listened to new music so his songs didn’t show up too much.

11. Nobuo Uematsu (68 listens) - It’s pretty interesting how these last few songs were all separated by just one listen.  Nobuo Uematsu worked on the soundtracks of my most treasured Square games.

12. DJ CUTMAN (67 listens) - see yesterday’s post

13. I Fight Dragons (66 listens) - see yesterday’s post

14. Fall Out Boy (64 listens) - I need to listen to more Fall Out Boy.  I really love the lyrics, especially on the third album.

15. Tom Lehrer (62 listens) - awesome, if a bit old satire.

Songs of Year I didn’t really include songs in the past, but given how I listen to my music - usually on a dynamic random playlist via Amarok - it’s pretty rare for the same song to come up too many times.  So it really means something when I listen to a song a bunch of times - it means I actually put that song into the playlist because I wanted to hear it.  I also decided to tag all these songs in Amarok with “Top 15 2012” so I can easily find them again.

1 Five Iron Frenzy – All That Is Good (13 listens) - A great Five Iron Frenzy song.

2 MC Frontalot – Stoop Sale (10 listens) - This has become one of my top three favorite MC Frontalot songs.  It’s a fun little ditty about finding a magical item at a Stoop Sale “which is like a yard sale/except that it’s in Brooklyn where I live”.  The lyrics are a lot of fun and the music video has muppets.  Bonus!

3 Five Iron Frenzy – A New Hope (9 listens) - Written about the Columbine killings - it’s a pretty deep song

3 Five Iron Frenzy – Sweet Talkin’ Woman(9 listens) - a fun ELO cover

3 Out of Eden – Lovely Day(9 listens) - I really love this cover. It’s my favorite Out of Eden song.

3 MC Frontalot – Secrets From The Future(9 listens) - a fun song about how cryptography is constantly made irrelevant by increasingly awesome computers.

3 Anamanaguchi – Airbrushed(9 listens) - awesome song

3 Anamanaguchi – Mess(9 listens) - another awesome chiptunes song

9 Relient K – Pressing On (8 listens) - a fun Relient K song from their early work

9 Relient K – Kick-Off(8 listens) - short opening song

9 Optimus Rhyme – Calm Down(8 listens) - I think this is my favorite Optimus Rhyme song. I love their skills.

9 Ricardo Arjona – Si El Norte Fuera El Sur(8 listens) - This is a great song about how things would be different if the prosperity of the Americas were flipped.  The lyrics are a lot of great fun and it’s almost a #firstworldproblem song with some of the lyrics.

9 Jonathan Coulton – Skullcrusher Mountain(8 listens) - one of my favorite Jonathan Coulton songs - you almost never get to sympathize with the mad scientists.  While it was most fun the first time around when the twists were new, I still enjoy hearing it.

9 Relient K – Be My Escape(8 listens) - another great Relient K song

9 The Gadjits – Traffic Ticket(8 listens) -This is my favorite song from my Van’s Sampler CD.  Yeah, it’s a little bit disrespectful, but fun, youthful lyrics.

Milestone Scrobbles this Year More proof that 2012 was a banner year for music listening.  In 2011 I only reached on 5k milestone. In 2012 I reached two of them:

55000th track: (01 Jul 2012) Lady Gaga - Bad Romance 60000th track: (20 Dec 2012) Five Iron Frenzy - You Probably Shouldn’t Move Here

Top Artists Overall This year I wanted to also include a record of my Top Artists overall to see how this changes as my habits change year in and year out.  This list would have been quite different if last.fm had been around in high school so it’ll be interesting to see how this list has changed in another few years.

1. Fantastic Plastic Machine (3,407 listens) 2. Anberlin (1,815 listens) 3. The Beatles (1,755 listens) 4. Five Iron Frenzy (1,525 listens) 5. “Weird Al” Yankovic (1,475 listens) 6. Relient K (1,389 listens) 7. Gnarls Barkley (1,077 listens) 8. Andrea Echeverri (880 listens) 9. Gwen Stefani (807 listens) 9. Tom Lehrer (807 listens) 11. DC Talk (792 listens) 12. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (788 listens) 13. Lostprophets (710 listens) 14. Fall Out Boy (705 listens) 15. Pizzicato Five (590 listens)

Top Songs Overall 1 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood (114 listens) 2 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Over and Over Again (Lost and Found) (113 listens) 3 Fantastic Plastic Machine – Take Me To The Disco [Malibu Mix] (104 listens) 4 Gnarls Barkley – Who Cares (98 listens) 5 Fantastic Plastic Machine – Steppin’ Out (95 listens) 6 Gnarls Barkley – The Last Time (85 listens) 7 Andrea Echeverri – Quédate (84 listens) 8 Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere (83 listens) 9 Fantastic Plastic Machine – Love Is Psychedelic (81 listens) 9 Gnarls Barkley – Just A Thought (81 listens) 9 Gnarls Barkley – Smiley Faces (81 listens) 12 Gnarls Barkley – Crazy (80 listens) 13 Andrea Echeverri – Amortiguador (79 listens) 14 Andrea Echeverri – Menos Mal (78 listens) 15 Andrea Echeverri – Ya Yo No (76 listens)

Total Scrobbles at the end of 2012: 60,249

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