Just over a year ago, a new laptop arrived and one of the things that meant was .... listening to all of the music again ! I could copy over the library again but transferring over the stats would have been Interesting. Especially as I was switching over from Apple to Windows and the two systems have different ways of organising their files.
Music ! How long did it take ? Later. I use iTunes exclusively and the iTunes DJ feature (now long gone) to semi randomly line up what I'm listening to. The feature they replaced that with is utterly worthless and it does mean I have to stay on iTunes 10.7 and iOS 6 on my otherwise retired iPhone 5. It's actually why I retired that iPhone in favour of switching over to Android. What iTunes DJ does is say "I want at least 25 tracks in a playlist and when that goes below 25, add some more in." So I'll queue up albums, queue up stuff I haven't listened to much, queue up the best tracks again to space out the albums and then iTunes will fill in with more random stuff out of the library.
It's led to a nice way of getting through the library for me.
I'm listening via a Logitech Bluetooth adaptor that takes the audio from over the airwaves from the laptop and sends it to my hifi. There's no need to get expensive dedicated stuff from the likes of Sonos, you can easily and effectively use much cheaper adaptors to take advantage of the sound systems that you already have. The Logitech device has been very solid over the last 14 months, having taken over from an Apple device that expired the same week as I changed the laptops (or it could have been issues with Windows iTunes vs MacOS iTunes). I do have to power cycle it occasionally but that's maybe 5 times in a year and it's getting used A LOT. It's also excellent for sound quality and doesn't need a router reboot every week or so like the Apple device did.
(Declaration note - I bought it, devices not provided)
But ... you're here for the music right ? iTunes keeps a lot of stats for me which I use to help space out what I listen to and decide what's coming up next. I have just over 16,000 tracks in the library now and it's taken 14 months to get through all that lot and get it listened to. Sometimes multiple times too, as there are still 1500 tracks that I've only listened to once. I'll listen to individual tracks first and then listen to the albums a little while later.
Music ? In usual tradition, least listened to stuff first. In the tracks with 7 plays over the last 14 months, we start with :
Bear & Cat - Teslagrad theme. I didn't copy over that many of the gaming soundtracks to the new laptop but some were special. Distinctive. This is one where it comes on and you go "Wot dis ?"
From there you have the amazing voice of Tori Amos, who is in here a few times with tracks from The Beekeeper album. The track, The Beekeeper is one of those that tends to come out in those late evening sing along to youtube sessions but here's it's going to be Toast. Haven't had any buttered toast for too long.
We have film soundtracks in there too with Ron Goodwin music from Where Eagles Dare and Elmer Bernstein's The Great Escape (The Chase) plus Sheena Easton's For Your Eyes Only from James Bond. Curiously, the instance of Crockett's Theme from Miami Vice is not the one from the soundtrack ... Going back to Where Eagle's Dare, I'm reading Athabasca by the same author (Alastair MacLean) and it's sooooo good.
Back to voices and we have the wonderful :
Katie Melua with Blame It On The Moon from Call Off The Search;
Lily Allen with the brilliant Who'd Have Known from It's Not Me, It's You;
Kate Bush with Wuthering Heights from The Kick Inside;
Frank Sinatra kicking out I Get A Kick Out Of You;
And Siobhan Maher of River City People with Walking On Ice.
Moving back to songs like Road To Somewhere by Goldfrapp on the Seventh Tree album. This has been picked for the car a few times because it's a really chilled out album, which definitely helps on GB's roads at the moment ...
Talking of travelling, the one Cardigans song that has snuck into this Top 40 (and a bit) is Daddy's Car from the Life album. Great track.
There's a few not so perfect voices that still come out with amazing songs :
KT Tunstall with Saving My Face from the more rocky Drastic Fantastic album.
Duffy with Warwick Avenue. Another incredible track. She has a very unusual voice but when she gets a song that fits it, it's a piece of wonder.
George Harrison with My Sweet Lord.
Castle In The Clouds from Beverly Craven.
The last of the 7 plays are :
Eleanor Rigby from The Beatles. There may be more of these coming because this one is from the 1 album, which I haven't listened to all the way through yet. This one will always be a special song.
A collection from All About Eve but I'm saving them for the 8's.
For a little while, I went by the name Alisha's Addict due to adoring tracks like Barbarella from the Illumina album.
And then there's the pretty new Bat For Lashes aka Natasha Khan, with tracks like Prescilla and the very special Laura. I still need to pick up her latest album.
And the very last of the 7's is Agnes Obel with a track from Aventine, The Curse. I heard the track Close Watch from a sampler album and I'm now on 2 albums later. Well worth a listen if you haven't heard of this group before.
Into the 8's we have :
All About Eve ! With Apple Tree Man, which will always be a favourite for me. Here it is with a bonus Martha's Harbour too. Julianne Regan has one of the best voices I've heard.
Mindy Gledhill is in here with the lovely Cravy Love from the adorable Anchor album.
Roxanne from The Police.
An unusual one for me, Sex On Fire by Kings Of Leon.
A little bit of classical, with Holst's Mars from the Planets Suite.
Beware ... Christmas music with Elaine Paige's excellent version of the Coventry Carol and Chris Rea's Joys of Christmas.
And the last one of the 8's (there are more ... but only so much room in one post !) is one from one of the best albums there is, Go Your Own Way from Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.
And then there were the 9's :
I seem to collect music that has very dark lyrics inside, music that otherwise sounds wonderful but when you listen closely ... very dark. Caution warning on Dubstar's Not So Manic Now. This is incidentally why I'm very careful about linking tracks from The Cardigans !
Christmas is in here again with O Come, O Come Emmanuel sung by Joan Baez;
And then there's David Bowie in here with Golden Years. This was on one of the most charming sequences in A Knight's Tale, which I would thoroughly recommend watching if you've missed out so far.
Queen get in here with no other track than We Will Rock You and the last of the 9s is from the Arctic Monkeys with 505 from their brilliant Favourite Worse Nightmare track.
A great 14 months listening to music !
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