I had songs from 1838 different artists that were released in the 2010s. Using my favorite band formula, here were the twenty-five bands the defined the 2010s for me.
1. MIXTAPES
2. TINY MOVING PARTS
3. WAXAHATCHEE
4. YOU BLEW IT!
5. REAL FRIENDS
6. PRAWN
7. SMITH STREET BAND
8. OSO OSO
9. THE WILD
10. TIGERS JAW
11. JOYCE MANOR
12. SIGNALS MIDWEST / MERIDIAN
13. CHEAP GIRLS
14. SUNDOWNER
15. NANA GRIZOL
16. DAMIEN JURADO
17. CLOUD NOTHINGS
18. THE FRONT BOTTOMS
19. JOIE DE VIVRE
20. INTO IT. OVER IT.
21. THE NATIONAL
22. THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE & I AM NO LONGER AFRAID TO DIE
I was very surprised to read about the most played Pavement song. I was actually not familiar with the song. I found this particularly interesting as I do consider myself a Pavement fan.
As a bit of context, I have purchased 135 Pavement songs. I have bought all of their studio albums and the majority of their EPs. I have purchased every Malkmus solo studio album. I have every Silver Jews album. I have The Real Feel from the Spiral Stairs. I have seen Pavement (or members in Pavement) perform countless times starting in the early the 90s.
So, like I said, more than a casual fan. Yet, I don’t own or ever recall hearing Harness Your Hopes, the most played Pavement song on Spotify. This was truly puzzling.
The article references similar analysis performed by Damon Kurkowski about the song “Strange”, a surprise most played song from his band Galaxie 500. Damon described his song “Strange” as a touch faster, louder, with a more regular backbeat and a more predictable song structure than most Galaxie 500 songs. There is no extended instrumental section, no unusually slow tempo or quiet dynamics present in other Galaxie 500 songs.
These data points peaked my interest enough to look up other artists that I knew well, artists that were big enough to have high play counts on Spotify and yet also favorites of mine. And Pavement and Galaxie 500 are not alone in this abnormality.
Damien Jurado’s most played song on Spotify – Ohio (Filous remix). A song I not only do not own, but with no disrespect to the legendary Jurado and the sound engineer Filious I didn’t even like. I will spare you the long version of the critique, but the remix robs the song of the sadness, the tempo and composition leave me confused instead of lingering in the emotion and feelings that Damien can summon like few others. That said, this version probably plays better at parties.
Anyway, I digress. The point is the number one played Jurado song on Spotify by a factor of 6 is a remix that doesn’t even sound like Jurado.
As you now might expect, every single artist’s top song that I looked at didn’t align with what I would consider a fanatics favorite song (at least this fanatic’s).
Damon and Nate site the introduction of defaulting Spotfiy’s “Auto Play” feature in 2017 as a driving factor to this anomaly. The “Auto Play” feature uses Spotify’s algorithms to select similar sounding songs.
This feature seems to have the (probably) unintended consequence of neutering the range of art, bringing everything to the middle. Ultimately, this leaves listeners with less interesting music. I really liked Damon’s comment that ” ‘Play Galaxie 500’ may really come to mean, ‘Play the song by Galaxie 500 that most resembles songs by others.'”
I also share the opinion that the music streaming services are slowly killing the album by focusing on singular tracks at the expense of the album. The combination of lessening the significance of the album and raising the importance of single tracks that sound similar to the broader population of music should be concerning to any music fan.
I for one want to celebrate the range, diversity, and originality from music. I don’t want the arts to gravitate to the mean. I applaud the courageous artists willing to push the boundaries with their art. I applaud even if at first listen or viewing I don’t get it. It is in these moments that I am given the opportunity to grow and expand my thinking.
I want to hold on to hope that our artists will be able to continue to be bold and create the new. As the title of the article suggests that streamers are certainly making it more difficult. We could soon be stuck in the middle, a middle where Hold On Hope is the most played Guided By Voices song.
Out of curiosity, I compared my top 25 albums of 2016 with some of the other popular lists to see how much overlap existed. More overlap this year than any other with Pinegrove leading the way appearing on 7 other lists. My greatest overlap was four with the 45 from Brooklyn Vegan. This is still relatively small as most of these lists have significant overlap. As an example, Pitchfork and Spin share 36 of the same 50 with many in the same order.
One overlap with the 50 from Pitchfork (Pinegrove #46)
Three overlaps with the 50 from Spin (Pinegrove #48 , The Hotelier #31, and Joyce Manor #23)
Three overlaps with the 50 from Consequence of Sound (The Hotelier #43, Into It. Over It. #35, and Pinegrove #30)
Two overlaps with the 50 from Paste (Andrew Bird #24 and Pinegrove #14)
Four overlaps with the 45 from Brooklyn Vegan (American Football #40, The Hotelier #22, Pinegrove #10, and Joyce Manor #6)
And 6 overlaps with the 20 best emo/punk albums from Brooklyn Vegan (John K Samson #20, Jeff Rosenstock #12, Into it. Over It #8, American Football #5, The Hotelier #3, and Joyce Manor #1)
Three overlaps with the 20 from Punknews (Joyce Manor #13, John K Samson #13, and Jeff Rosenstock #8)
The end of the year is upon us again. I do love this time of year. You get a moment to step away from the routine and think. I like to remember the great times of the year, while setting strategy and objectives for the new year.
I also love using my downtime to listen to a lot of music. It truly is a labor of love going through all the music of a particular year – remembering and enjoying the standouts, listening and rating the ones that were forgotten, and discovering some new ones along the way. For me there is pleasure and comfort in creating a sense of order to the massive quantity of music and memories into a single artifact that i can use as a catalyst to recall the best moments of a particular span of time.
For those not initiated, my lists are always for the period two years ago. I believe that favorite album compilations should lag by two years for two primary time constraining reasons: to address the staying power of the album and to acquire a suitable number of fine albums.
2016 was a great year. I bought 77 albums and 957 songs from 2016. 2016 was my favorite year of music in 2010s. It was my 8th favorite year in the 66 years of music that i have rated. I will spend the next few days finishing the rating and selecting my tops from 2016.
I followed my process from previous years for picking favorite songs.
Song must have 5 stars (172 songs)
Could not duplicate artist
Pick the ones that stand out to me the most.
I really did my best to pair the list down (I cut 140 5-star songs), but still have 32 phenomenal songs. The list of my favorite songs of 2014 is below in alphabetical order by artist. All great songs, I hope you enjoy. Let me know your thoughts on any standouts or omissions.
Antarctigo Vespucci’s I’m Giving Up On U2 from Soulmate Stuff (Quote Unquote)
Brave Bird’s T-Minus Grand Gesture from T-Minus Grand Gesture (County Your Lucky Stars)
The Bruce Lee Band’s The Constant from Everything Will be Alright, My Fiend (Asian Man)
Cayetana’s Black Hills from Nervous Like Me (Tiny Engines)
Collections of Colonies of Bee’s E (G) from Set (pVine)
Conor Oberst’s Double Life from Upside Down Mountain (Nonesuch)
Daniel Romano’s Strange Birds from When No One Was Looking (Bloodshot)
David Bazan’s Lost My Shape from Volume 1 (Self Released)
Frank Tuner’s The Corner from While No One Was Looking (Bloodshot)
Free Throw’s An Hour Pissed from Those Days Are Gone (Count Your Lucky Stars)
The Front Bottoms’ Lipstick Covered Magnet from Rose (Bar/None)
The Hotelier’s Housebroken from Home, Like Noplace is There (Tiny Engines)
J. Mascis’ Wide Awake from Tied To A Star (Sub Pop)
Joe Henry’s Lead Me On from Invisible Hour (Work Song)
Joie De Vivre’s Martin Park from Prawn/Joie De Vivre Split (Topshelf)
Kind of Like Spitting’s Tell Me That Isnt True from Professional Results (Artistic Integrity)
The Lawrence Arms’ The YMCA Down The Street From the Clinic from Metropole (Epitaph)
The Menzingers’ When You Died from Rented World (Epitaph)
Meridian’s Saints Paul and Ann from The Cathedral (Bandcamp)
Modern Baseball’s Rock Bottom from You’re Gonna Miss It All (Run For Cover)
Prawn’s Fracture from Prawn/Joie De Vivre Split (Topshelf)
Real Friends’ Short Song From Maybe This Place Is the Same And We’re Just Changing (Fearless)
Restorations’ Misprint from LP3 (Side One Dummy)
The Smith Street Band’s The Arrogance of the Drunk Pedestrian from Throw Me In The River (Side One Dummy)
Somos’ Letters From An Absent Father From Somos/Sorority Noise Split (Bad Timing)
Spoonboy’s Great Mistake Maker from Spoonboy/Goodbye Party Split (Silver Sprocket Bicycles)
Sun Kil Moon’s Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes from Benji (Caldo Verde)
Tiny Moving Parts’ Boxcar from Pleasant Living (Triple Crown)
Two Knights’ Benji’s Cool Times Summer Jamz from Sundae Bloody Sunday (Topshelf)
Bonnie Prince Billy’s We are Unhappy from Singer’s Grave A Sea of Tongues (Drag City)
The World Is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die’s If and When I Die from Between Bodies (Broken World)
You Blew It’s Match and Tinder from Keep Doing What You’re Doing (Topshelf)
Out of curiosity, I compared my top 25 albums of 2014 with some of the other popular lists to see how much overlap there was. The answer is not much. There are a bit more overlaps than in years past, but still largely a distinct list. So, if nothing else my list could be some new music for you.
Four overlaps with the 20 from Punknews (The Hotelier #16 at Punk, #7 on GT; Cayetana #14 at Punk, #12 on GT; Joyce Manor #13 at Punk, #25 on GT; Prawn #10 at Punk, #9 on GT)
I decided to list every album that had average song rating greater than 4, since they would all be worthy of mentioning and buying. I have 25 albums that earned that distinction.
