Last.fm 2013 Q3 Listening Habits

By EricMesa

November 5, 2013 - 8 minutes read - 1575 words

This quarter was a mix of listening to the music I had at work and listening on pure random. Once again Amarok lost the first played and last played stats. Of all the stats to lose, these are the least detrimental, but it makes the “don’t play songs I’ve heard in the last x days” playlists not work. So I just went on pure random and rediscovered some music I’d forgotten about. Once again no Beatles on the top 15. We’ll see if they can rectify that next quarter. (Note: I have added Amazon affiliate links this time around. If you use them to buy the music, it helps support this site)

The Beach Boys (357 listens) - As I’ve mentioned before, I really, really love the songs on Pet Sounds and I think it’s a shame they didn’t get to create any more masterpieces like this one. I love all the singles like Sloop John B and God Only Knows, but I’ve really grown to love I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times.
Five Iron Frenzy (337 listens) - Nearly all of these listens came from their final album (before their 2013 Kickstarter Reunion) The End Is Here. It was the perfect cap to their career. It has me somewhat afraid that, like Futurama, it won’t match my memories and nostalgia. I especially loved That’s How the Story Ends and how it tied together all of their inside jokes. That really made it the perfect final album for me. It was also the first FIF album that Danielle enjoyed. Many different songs here have touched me at different points in my life, but the one song on here that always touches me and which I would probably put on a short list of 5 FIF songs that non-fans must listen to, it would be New Year’s Eve. I think everyone can understand the feeling on New Year’s Eve that maybe I didn’t accomplish everything I want. And what’s so special about the new year that has everyone making new plans they’ll soon break?
Chance the Rapper (300 listens) - As I mentioned last time around, Dan recommended Chance the Rapper a couple weeks before everyone in the music scene was talking about him. Acid Rap is almost certainly going to end up as my favorite album of 2013. It’s gotten me to care about a rap album for the first time in just about a decade. You can get the mixtape here. But you’re not convinced it’s worth a few clicks, here are my favorite tracks:
Relient K (198 listens) - Nearly all these listens are from Relient K’s latest album, Collapsible Lung. It’s an interesting release. I find that the album as a whole does not sound like Relient K. I was wondering if I’d accidentally bought an album from another group called Relient K. It even sounds on some of the songs as though they switched up who was singing. The content also seems unlike the old band. Most of the songs seem concerned with relationship, while before they usually would only have a couple songs about that. Additionally, with songs like PTL, it seems almost like a 180 from their previous focus. That’s not to say that it’s a bad album. The songs are catchy and there isn’t anything wrong with them. They just sound like a huge leap from the past. Compare PTL to Chapped Lips:
Garfunkel and Oates (182 listens) - All these listens are from Slippery When Moist [Explicit]. I don’t have much to add this time around. I think they’re great for a laugh although, like Weird Al, you probably can’t just listen to it out loud because it’s unlikely there’ll be someone within earshot with the same sense of humor.
I Fight Dragons (163 listens) - A lot of these listens were from Kaboom!, but I also listened to a bunch of Kickstarter promotional songs, including the Flexi Disk which I ripped when it arrived. I can’t wait for the new album, but I don’t think it’s going to arrive before January 2014 as they didn’t like the direction the producer was taking them and had to start all over again on the album.
Lana del Rey (150 listens) - Not much to say here except that I loathe the new remix of Summertime Sadness.
Jim Guthrie (147 listens) - I got a bunch of Jim Guthrie songs from a Humble Indie Bundle that contained his music and Indie Game: The Movie, which featured a lot of his music. He actually has a pretty eclectic style and I found that I really enjoyed a lot of the music, even if there is a melancholy to a lot of the music. The bundle came with 11 albums, so I think I only listened to each song once. I tried to quickly look for some of the songs I really enjoyed and here are a few. Get Jim Guthrie songs on Amazon via this link and help support the site
Frank Ocean (136 listens) - Frank Ocean has been featured on here many times. That’s because Channel Orange is awesome.
kitty (formerly Kitty Pryde) (98 listens) - For both of Kitty’s albums, I’ve found that her songs have to grow on me. I have hated nearly every song on the album until I’ve heard it three or four times. Then I can tolerate some and actually enjoy others. My favorite song on DAISY RAGE is the fun Unfollowed. It’s a tale of unrequited love in our social media world. (warning: this song and pretty much each on the album is full of profanity)
Anamanaguchi (89 listens) - Nearly all of the listens here are from Endless Fantasy. I already spoke about this album last time an everything I said still applies.
Anberlin (78 listens) - Once again, this mostly revolved around the new album, Vital. I think it’s definitely a great album that has me pumped for next year’s next release.
Jonathan Coulton (74 listens) - I mostly just listened some more because of the Code Monkey Save World kickstarter.
The OneUps (68 listens) - I have no idea how I listened to this much The Oneups. Not that they suck, I just don’t remember listening to it this much.
ItsTheReal (64 listens) - A great mixtape that is comedic in a different way than The Lonely Island. ItsTheReal makes fun of rap tropes a little more. I love this tribute to summer songs.

Stats

A repeat of what I said last time:

I wanted to include this new section going forward mostly for my own use because I’m a stats geek. I wanted to see how my collection was changing quarter on quarter and year on year. Was I getting more music or less than before? Was I more singles focused or album focused? Additionally, the final section, Total Scrobbles, will allow me to see how many songs I listened to in one quarter. It will be interesting to see what percentage of the songs I listen to in a quarter the Top 15 are. It’s an indirect measure of how many different artists I listened to. After all, when I listen to the songs I get from Rolling Stone it counts as a scrobble, but it doesn’t have a chance of appearing on the Top 15 compared to artists for which I have 5 or more full albums of music to listen to.

Total Songs: 12 927 (Up from 11 977) - Almost exactly 1 thousand new songs added to my collection in 3 months!?! That’s insane! Especially since they all came from legitimate sources!

Total Artists: 3 891 (Up from 3 706) - Went up by nearly 200, so to get to the stats above, we’re talking an average of 5 songs per artist.

Total Albums: 2 955 (Dropped from 3 352 - weird!) I would have thought it would have increased as I’ve fixed some incredibly badly tagged MP3s. But I have been fixing tags and because of how Amarok works case-sensitivity made there appear to be more albums than there were. (ie Cash and CASH count as two different albums)

Average Songs Per Album: 4.37

Average Songs Per Artist: 3.32

Total Scrobbles at End of Quarter: 68,849

Scrobbles this Quarter: 4409. The top 15 accounted for 2441 of those scrobbles, or only 32%! Which is what I was expecting as per my Stats intro. It goes to show just how many one-offs I listen to - either singles or just songs I hear on random that I may love, but just don’t have enough representation by artist. If we consider that ~1000 of those scrobbles, or 25% came from me listening to those songs I got this quarter (I listen to each song I get at least once), we still nearly need to account for half of the songs I listened to this quarter!

Well, I’ll see you next quarter with the new quarter’s numbers as well as the 2013 numbers.