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….