The other day, somebody asked me what kind of music I liked. At first, I thought that this was a silly question, but then I realized that I had some relevant data: the most frequently occurring artists in my iTunes library. And so I decided to generate a list of every artist for whom I had (arbitrarily) 50 tracks or more in my library. There were 40 of them, listed below. I collapsed a few side-projects into the main artist heading: for example, the total for the Legendary Pink Dots includes Edward Ka-Spel’s solo work.
A few things stand out. First, there are two big categories in my library – “Trance/Electronica” and “New Age” – which are under-represented here, because they are dominated by anthologies, compilations, and DJ mixes. Second, I am (obviously) something of a “completist” for certain artists, such as Al Stewart and the Dots. And third, these numbers don’t really represent my day-to-day listening preferences: right now I’m mostly listening to (checks iPhone playlists) Robbie Williams, Pet Shop Boys, Faithless, and Mark Knopfler. On second thoughts, maybe they do after all…..
| Artist | Items |
| Legendary Pink Dots | 452 |
| Al Stewart | 305 |
| Pet Shop Boys | 270 |
| Porcupine Tree | 254 |
| Grateful Dead | 223 |
| Beatles | 192 |
| Marillion | 189 |
| Saint Etienne | 165 |
| Faithless | 143 |
| Mark Knopfler | 134 |
| Orb | 131 |
| Divine Comedy | 128 |
| No-Man | 128 |
| Heart | 105 |
| Love | 102 |
| Bob Dylan | 100 |
| Steve Miller Band | 93 |
| Enya | 92 |
| Sunscreem | 89 |
| Dire Straits | 87 |
| Men Without Hats | 84 |
| Robbie Williams | 83 |
| Moby | 79 |
| The Who | 79 |
| Frank Zappa | 69 |
| Jane Siberry | |
| Radiohead | 64 |
| Rolling Stones | 64 |
| Scritti Politti | 64 |
| Captain Beefheart | 62 |
| Simon & Garfunkel | 59 |
| Country Joe & Fish | 57 |
| Mamas & Papas | 55 |
| Procul Harum | 55 |
| Crass | 54 |
| Led Zeppelin | 54 |
| October Project | 53 |
| Cream | 51 |
| Leonard Cohen | 51 |
| David Van Tieghem | 50 |
P.S. I forgot to include the ISSA tracks in Jane Siberry’s total. It’s so complicated when artists keep changing their names….