My iTunes Statistics

After getting a new computer, I completely relabeled and reorganised my iTunes songs into convenient categories. Rather than racking my brain over what genre to assign to songs, I leaned towards simpler categorizations like ’70s, ’80s, French music, soundtracks, etc. Each of these categories represents a playlist that I can pull up when I’m in the mood.

I was curious to see what percentage of my total 2,923 songs was made up by each category. The results were enlightening and, well, a little embarrassing:

Click on the picture for a larger image.

Here’s the breakdown:

• French music: 19.9%
• 70s music: 9.2%
• 2000s music: 7.4%
• 90s music: 6.4%
• Showtunes / musical soundtracks: 6.3%
• Film scores & soundtracks: 5.7%
• Video game music: 5.2%
• Christmas music: 5.2%
• 80s music: 4.6%
• 60s music: 4.5%
• Classical music: 4.1%
• Disney music: 2.8%
• Italian music: 1.9%
• Spanish music: 1.0%
• Other (uncategorised, comedy, other languages, jazz, instrumentals, anthems, etc.): 15.8%

1 in 5 of my songs are in French. No big surprise there. What was surprising, however, was the absurdly high proportion of showtunes (it’s all Les Miserables’ fault! I swear!) Not to mention the ridiculous number of Christmas songs I have. OK, I might have gone a little crazy downloading songs the last two Christmases. But when you have a greater than 1 in 20 chance of hearing a Christmas song while listening to your iTunes on shuffle in July, you have a problem.

And how the heck can I have more Christmas music than 80s music, 60s music, or classical music?! That’s just not right. Granted, classical would probably outrank the others if we were going by song length. But still. I know a lot of 80s music is crap, but I need me some more.

And the other great embarrassment… my Disney music. A lot of that comes from the brief phase where I downloaded classic Disney songs in as many different languages as I could. I kept these in the Disney category rather than putting these in the foreign language groups. But 2.8%? C’mon!

I was also curious to see who the artists were with the most songs on my iTunes. Unfortunately, the number of songs each artist has is not exactly proportional to how much I like them. Some of these high numbers are artifacts of crazed mass-downloading phases. Here’s the rather unusual list of the top 15 most “prolific” artists on my iTunes:

1. Koji Kondo (75 songs)
2. The Beatles (71 songs)
3. René Simard (43 songs)
4. Alain Boublil & Claude-Michel Schoenberg (42 songs)
5. John Williams (36 songs)
6. Muse (34 songs)
7. Les Poppys (33 songs)
8. Isabelle Boulay (31 songs)
9. Hirokazu Ando (29 songs)
10. Howard Shore (26 songs)
11. Arcade Fire (24 songs)
12. Nobuo Uematsu (24 songs)
13. Ennio Morricone (23 songs)
14. Andrew Lloyd Webber (21 songs)
15. Pierre Lapointe (19 songs)

While I don’t have data on my most listened to songs for this year since I switched computers in May and lost my old library play counts, back in 2008 and 2009 I did make note of the songs that I listened to the highest number of times. Again, many of these seem like odd choices. Then again, the songs we listen to most are often not the ones we’re most proud of. They’re just like drugs that get you hooked.

Most Listened to in 2008

1. La berceuse
2. Alle porte del sole
3. Qui a le droit?
4. It’s getting better
5. Porque te vas
6. Merci ma chance
7. Concerto pour une voix
8. Forever in Blue Jeans
9. Il viendra
10. L’ours

Most Listened to in 2009

1. Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)
2. Windowsill
3. Intervention
4. Wake Up
5. Hey Jude
6. Crown of Love
7. The Story
8. Keep the Car Running
9. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
10. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Someone was in an Arcade Fire mood last year… but then, when have I not been in an Arcade Fire mood?

And finally, some songs that have been stuck on repeat recently: She’s Got a Way (Billy Joel), No Complaints (Beck), Time in a Bottle (Jim Croce), Fearless (Pink Floyd), Watching the Wheels (John Lennon), Red-eyed and Blue (Wilco), Danny’s Song (Loggins and Messina), Reckoner (Radiohead), Karma Police (Radiohead), Truth Doesn’t Make a Noise (The White Stripes), Sleeping Lessons (The Shins), Love Hurts (Incubus), Alone (Heart), Say You Love Me (Fleetwood Mac), Laundry Room (The Avett Brothers), My Old School (Steely Dan), Wot’s… Uh the Deal? (Pink Floyd), Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’ (Journey), Change Your Mind (The Killers)…

Of course, I’m sure once I tally my most played songs for the year, all these great songs will be trumped by some incredibly girly and embarrassing ditty that just happens to get stuck in my head.

Most Played Song since May 2010: Our Lips are Sealed (The Go-Go’s)

Crap.