Playlist

I have a playlist that includes all my favourite songs, except for:
- Congregational worship
- Soundtracks
- Classical
- Sigur Ros

Recently this playlist broke through the 500 songs mark (as of 20th January 2009 there are 513), and I decided to find out how many there are by each artist. Here are the interesting results:

34 - Delirious
24 - Idlewild
21 - Lifehouse
18 - British Sea Power
17 - Coldplay
16 - Anberlin, U2
13 - Mew
12 - Enya, Live, Oasis, Strangeday
11 - Muse, World Wide Message Tribe
10 - Bloc Party, Killers, Feeder
9 - Easyworld, Editors
8 - DC Talk, RHCP
7 - Counting Crows, Linkin Park, Maire Brennan
6 - Bluetree, Casting Crowns, Dido, Kato, Sixpence NTR, Steve, Travis
5 - Manic Street Preachers, Rock’n’roll Worship Circus, Sabio, Santiago, Stellastarr*
4 - Athlete, Bottlerockit, Dire Straits, Greenday, Jars of Clay, Kaiser Chiefs, Quench, REM, Stereophonics, Tait
3 - 3 Doors Down, Ash, Barlow Girl, Billy Joel, Doves, Evanescence, Falling Up, Franz Ferdinand, Libertines, Queen
2 - Caedmon’s Call, The Calling, Embrace, The Flaming Lips, Foo Fighters, The Gentlemen, Goo Goo Dolls, Keane, The Kissaway Trail, Maroon 5, Matchbox 20, Nickleback, Snow Patrol, Third Day, The Verve
1 - Alien Ant Farm, Aphron, Blink 182, Blur, The Bravery, Cathy Burton, David Crowder Band, Eiffel 65, Eminem, The Feeling, Five for Fighting, The Fray, Focus, Good Charlotte, Haven, Hoobastank, Jennifer Knapp, Justin Thomas, Lostprophets, Nirvana, No Doubt, Radiohead, Rebecca St James, Roddy Woomble, Rufus Wainwright, Skillet, Starsailor, Supergrass, Tobymac, Toploader, Vertical Horizon, The Yearning, Yfriday

Delirious were always going to be top – they are one of my favourite bands and have produced a huge amount of music. Idlewild, Lifehouse and BSP are also in my ‘elite’ group of bands. Interestingly, the 5th band in my elite, Mew, are slightly lower down with 13 songs – but they are superceded by Coldplay, Anberlin and U2, all of whom have produced at least 4 albums to Mew’s 3. In addition, the brilliance of Mew’s ‘And The Glass Handed Kites’ album is partly due to it being 14 tracks blended into 1, which makes it hard to pick out specific tracks to go in such a ‘favourites’ playlist.

The other usual suspects are up there – I really love all the bands with between 8 and 12 songs.

Reading lower down shows several categories of bands, including:
Great bands who only ever produced one album (grrr to Quench, Steve and Sabio!)
Bands who I quite like, but only to the extent of getting their greatest hits album (e.g. Manics, Counting Crows, REM)
Up-and-coming bands who haven’t produced much music yet (e.g. Bluetree)

Right near the bottom come the one-hit and two-hit wonders – classics like Snow Patrol and Five For Fighting.

Overall, I think this list gives a pretty good impression of my music taste, providing you remember that I also like Sigur Ros and a lot of worship music.

Prizes (of love) to anyone who can select an artist and correctly name the songs that I have on the playlist. More love available if you pick an artist with lots of songs, but if you get just one wrong, you get no love.