Who's in your music library?

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 66 88
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….