Top 25 Most Played

All right, I admit it up front: this blog post is filler. But it’s interactive filler, so don’t complain.

There is a built-in feature of iTunes, a playlist called “Top 25 Most Played.” Basically, the programmers arbitrarily included this feature just to annoy me. It’s like the latter-day Final Fantasy games that keep track of every modicum of statistical information that even the most anal-retentive of die-hard baseball superfans wouldn’t care about. How many steps you’ve taken, how many limit breaks you’ve had, how many of each monster you’ve defeated, how many battles you’ve run from, yada yada yada.

"That sounds *exactly* like the thinking of a machine to me."
--Morpheus, The Matrix Reloaded

But it’s interesting to see what I’ve listened to the most. Interesting and surprising. Because the “most played” are obviously not the “favorite” tracks. Most of the time I use iTunes is at the coffee shop when I’m multitasking, unwinding, daydreaming, or otherwise zoning out. As such, I tend to repeatedly listen to some of the same music to set the “coffee shop tone.” And God only knows how many of these listens were simply to fan the flames from a dying ember of hope in Operation GTFO.

Well, I must resist the apologist urge to preface this list with too much analysis.


Here is my Top 25 Most Played on iTunes:

1) Gollum [2:27] Play Count: 177
(The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – The Complete Recordings, Howard Shore)

2) Something Dark Is Coming [8:55] Play Count: 160
(Battlestar Galactica: Season 2, Bear McCreary)

3) The Entmoot Decides [2:06] Play Count: 155
(The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – The Complete Recordings, Howard Shore)

4) Life and Death [3:41] Play Count: 114
(Lost: Season 1, Michael Giacchino)

5) Admiral and Commander [3:19] Play Count: 112
(Battlestar Galactica: Season 3, Bear McCreary)

6) Rose and Bernard [2:41] Play Count: 104
(Lost: Season 2, Michael Giacchino)

7) Where Love Doesn’t Reach [3:47] Play Count: 100
(Final Fantasy IX, Nobuo Uematsu)

8) A Far Green Country [1:28] Play Count: 99
(The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – The Complete Recordings, Howard Shore)

9) Roslin and Adama [2:52] Play Count: 96
(Battlestar Galactica: Season 2, Bear McCreary)

10) Ocean’s Apart [3:02] Play Count: 93
(Lost: Season 3, Michael Giacchino)

11) Anakin Is Free [5:04] Play Count: 88
(Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace – The Ultimate Edition, John Williams)

12) Ji Yeon [3:08] Play Count: 88
(Lost: Season 4, Michael Giacchino)

13) Leave No Man Behind [6:19] Play Count: 86
(Black Hawk Down, Hans Zimmer)

14) Faramir’s Good Council [2:21] Play Count: 86
(The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – The Complete Recordings, Howard Shore)

15) The Constant [3:53] Play Count: 85
(Lost: Season 4, Michael Giacchino)

16) There’s No Place Like Home [2:35] Play Count: 85
(Lost: Season 4, Michael Giacchino)

17) The Breaking of the Fellowship [7:21] Play Count: 83
(The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Howard Shore)

18) Dissipating Magic [2:03] Play Count: 78
(Final Fantasy IX, Nobuo Uematsu)

19) Locke’d Out Again [3:32] Play Count: 76
(Lost: Season 1, Michael Giacchino)

20) The Story Foretold [3:38] Play Count: 73
(The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – The Complete Recordings, Howard Shore)

21) Padme’s Ruminations [3:17] Play Count: 71
(Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, John Williams)

22) Shambala [2:05] Play Count: 71
(Lost: Season 3, Michael Giacchino)

23) Of Mice and Ben [2:19] Play Count: 70
(Lost: Season 4, Michael Giacchino)

24) Distraught Desmond [3:37] Play Count: 70
(Lost: Season 3, Michael Giacchino)

25) Samwise the Brave [3:46] Play Count: 66
(The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Howard Shore)


Well. Apparently I like me some Lost. No wonder I've been so tired of it recently. I fully expected 1, 2, 3, 7, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, and 25 to be on there, but I had no idea there would be so much of the same few sources on this list! To be fair, as you go reduce the play count you have exponentially more contenders, so I wonder how many tracks only have 65 plays? I bet I can go to the Library list and select it to display them by play count…

Again, these are by no means my “top 25” pieces. Most of the BEST stuff I consider “too good to listen to,” at least not very often. And I am constantly making new mix CDs for driving, so this list is only representative of what I tend to listen to when I’m sitting still and surfing the web or chatting online, not in my car.

But it’s interesting. I wonder how the list will change in a few months...