KUR’s Year In Review

Just kidding. You didn’t really think I was going to do a “year in review”, did you? Some interesting data from my last.fm account however that I thought I’d share.

Top Artists in the last 12 months:

  1. Frank Zappa: 619 plays
  2. Neil Young: 468 plays
  3. Bob Dylan: 350 plays
  4. Elliott Smith: 325 plays
  5. Ween: 281 plays
  6. Rufus Wainwright: 277 plays
  7. The Beatles: 257 plays
  8. Nick Drake: 200 plays
  9. David Bowie: 176 plays
  10. Flip Kowlier: 166 plays

Well… no real surprises there.

Nay, the revelation lies in the Top Tracks for the last 12 months:

  1. Bob Dylan – Like a Rolling Stone: 15 plays
  2. Bob Dylan – Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues: 14 plays
  3. Bob Dylan – Ballad of a Thin Man: 14 plays
  4. Bob Dylan – It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry: 13 plays
  5. Rufus Wainwright – I Dont Know What It Is: 13 plays
  6. Bob Dylan – Desolation Row: 12 plays
  7. Nick Drake – Pink Moon: 12 plays
  8. Rufus Wainwright – Oh What a World: 12 plays
  9. David Bowie – Life On Mars: 12 plays
  10. Rufus Wainwright – Vicious World: 11 plays

I have officially become a Bob Dylan junkie!

Of course, this list says more about the limited amount of Bobness I have in my possession than it does about my overall listening patterns — the chances of Peaches En Regalia playing 15 times on shuffle are slim, seeing as how I own pretty much the entire FZ catalogue — but still: this year’s revelation, for me, appears to have been Mr Zimmerman.

Take in account also that Sharleena’s iTunes is playing around here half the time, something which would certainly distort the above results (Eels! Flaming Lips! Ween! Sufjan Stevens! Barenaked Ladies! Spinvis!).

Yourself? Any personal listening trends you wish to share?

(Oh, and hey: have a Happy New Year!)

22 thoughts on “KUR’s Year In Review”

  1. Is music today rubbish or are we getting old or is there just so much to choose from these days? I have been (re)discovering, in no particular order… The Bothy Band, Lewis Taylor, Ipso Facto, Erik Satie, Flora Purim, Quantic, Fela Kuti, and the very wonderful The Velvet Hearts etc. etc.

    Happy New Year to one and all – watch out for that leap second!

  2. My main music PC is connected to my stereo…my wife also uses it so my lastfm list has things like JACK JOHNSON in the top artists. I am a little embarrassed…

    anyway, i’ve been doing a “top five” countdown on my music blog but it is my readers’ top five: the top five posts ranked by order of page views for 2008. it is over at http://www.burningdervish.com. #1 gets unveiled tonight and i am also posting a mix of songs featured in those posts.

    happy new year barry and all

  3. your top three looks a lot like mine (if i even bothered with a last.fm account). i’ve got all the bobs and neils plus more and i am currently rebuilding the zappa collection.

    as far as new music goes, there is a lot of great stuff being made today. go check out the aquarius records website and learn about music that lives and breathes right now instead of digging for dinosaur bones all day long. if you can’t find something new and exciting at aquarius turn on the car and close the garage door because this world no longer requires your services.

  4. I’ve spent more time this past year performing music, than I have listening to it (with the possible exception of listening to the music which I was to perform – to make sure I had it right), but about as much time “messing with it” (compiling, recording, editing) as performing…
    Love His Bobship…
    We regularly do a rather nice “..Tom Thumb’s Blues” – IMO.
    Not much FZ this year, other than catching up on the official releases – nothing compared to 2007, which was nothing compared to 2006.
    I think Mr. Edison’s retirement, and the end of the Zappathon, at WUSB had a negative impact on me…
    When you have more than you can really listen to, where do you start?

  5. Hey Barry, I love your brand new leopard skin pill-box hat! My trend is maybe a little too much Ryan Adams-Easy Tiger and Dressy Bessy. By the way Ike was really good a couple of weeks ago with URR in Ferndale Michigan, good time. Down with Gail! (Although I am dying to hear the ZPZ recording of “Billy the mountain”, it was amazing live.) Happy New Year!

  6. Happy New Year to all at KUR. Thanks for informing, entertaining and stimulating in 2008 and keep up the good work in 09. Best wishes to all your readers too!

  7. A Dylan lyric which summarizes the 2008 economic situation: ‘Steal a little and they throw you in jail/Steal a lot, and they make you King!’

    The odds are that 2009 will be better, since ’08 sucked pretty badly (with notable exceptions)!

    Happy new year Barry, Sharleena, and all.

  8. if you can’t find something new and exciting at aquarius turn on the car and close the garage door because this world no longer requires your services.

    Thanks a lot terje!

  9. In 2008 I discovered Beefheart, The Residents, Neil Young, and assorted punk/funk/metal bands as well as country blues and early R&B. Being in the rock & roll history courses also pointed me toward some ultra-obscure material like The Johnny Burnette Rock & Roll Trio.

    All in all, I’d say a musically good year.

  10. Last year I was listenning to a lot of KoRn (hehe), I like them, as they can bring new and exciting things in rock music even in the 21st century.
    I’ve re-discovered the album Miles-Gurtu, made by Robert Miles and Trilok Gurtu. I like it a lot. Not jazz, not pop, not I-dont-know-what, but a real interesting, colorful music.
    I love a hungarian singer (a girl) named Ági Szalóki who balances between folk music and jazz – very sensitive.
    Who else? FZ, of course, mostly the unofficial part. And some ZPZ: I’ve made an mp3 compilation from the DVD, its really fine.

  11. 2008 was a great year for my music collection. Many long out-of-print albums by some really fantastic musicians were finally re-issued: George Duke’s “Faces In Reflection”, “Feel”, The Aura Will Prevail; the Shuggie Otis compilation, “Here Comes Shuggie Otis / Freedom Flight”; the Jeff Simmons re-issue of “Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up” together with the soundtrack of “Naked Angels”; not to mention Don “Sugarcane” Harris’ “Sugar Cane’s Got The Blues”. I also picked up quite a few CDs of Zappa alumni from CD Baby: I completed my Grandmothers collection, ordered a slew of Jimmy Carl Black recordings, “Hamburger Midnight” by B.E.P. (Jimmy Carl Black, Roy Estrada, Mick Pini), as well as CDs by Don Preston, Napoleon Murphy Brock and the solo CD “It’s All Bunk!” by Bunk Gardner.

    This isn’t to say I wasn’t always looking back into the past during 2008. In 2008, I discovered the low rock sound of Mark Sandman and Morphine, and through that band discovered the bands Bourbon Princess and A.K.A.C.O.D., both fronted by the incredible bassist and vocalist, Monique Ortiz, of Boston. It’s really great music, imo, and everyone should check them out who has even a passing interest in blues, jazz, and low rock.

    As a side note, I really envy you Alex, discovering Beefheart for the first time…How wonderful it would be to hear that great avant garde and psychedelic blues again for the first time…

    HNY everybody!

  12. Good call Urban, I will never forget the when I finally got my copy of “Trout Mask” in 1995, what a great day. But now look at me, I like Indie pop!

  13. During 2008, I’ve discovered Van Morrison, Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, John Coltrane, Sam Cooke, and plan on listening to Leadbelly, Sonny Boy Williamson II and the frightening Magma in 2009.

    My top 3 listening for this year has probably been
    1. Van Morrison
    2. Frank Zappa
    3. David Grisman (I’ve been trying to learn mandolin but I can’t find easy tunes !)

  14. magma! now your talking! as a matter of fact i’m listening to the archiw disc off their new boxset right now. saw them in 07 at nearfest too. fan-fn-tastic

    now a bit of shameless promotion:

    i do a radio show on independent radio. inspired by this blog and another one i visit i decided to make my own music blog. feel free to visit at http://soothingsoulsuckers.blogspot.com/ or if you hate shameless self promotion then don’t. the reason i mention it is because my second post was about magma. so if anyone is interested please check it out and tell me to piss off or whatever.

  15. [quote comment=”3457″]Good call Urban, I will never forget the when I finally got my copy of “Trout Mask” in 1995, what a great day. But now look at me, I like Indie pop![/quote]

    Unlike some folk’s criticism of this site (and all of us old dinosaurs), just because you enjoy the music of Zappa and Beefheart doesn’t mean your musical tastes are forever lost in the past. To me, Zappa and Beefheart were always starting points from which to explore more music, not which to confine my musical tastes. There’s a lot of excellent music, including Indie pop! Why, just last week I started digging this great Norwegian band called Madrugada (who would have thought, huh?)

    Believe me, there’s a very good reason Barry named this site Kill Ugly Radio – all it didn’t have everything to do with Zappa, methinks.

  16. [quote comment=”3458″](I’ve been trying to learn mandolin but I can’t find easy tunes !)[/quote]

    I had the very same problem with the alto and tenor saxophone, chadkops. There was little to play that I was actually transcribed for my instrument (no doubt the same for the mandolin – got to love the sound of that instrument, btw), so I spent many long hours transcribing my favourite tunes by ear (not perfect, but it sufficed). Frank Zappa’s “Sofa #1” took me an entire weekend – imagine transcribing “Sinister Footwear” or “Purple Lagoon”.

  17. “To me, Zappa and Beefheart were always starting points from which to explore more music, not which to confine my musical tastes. There’s a lot of excellent music, including Indie pop!”

    i’ll second that!

  18. Honestly : my 2008 review.
    -Get up early every sunday morning. That’s an old tradition from the time the 5 kids ( & friends) were still living in our house. In 2008: one musical instrument is enough. Thus, listening with the scores in the hand: J.S. Bach : both the cello suites and the organ trio sonates ( written by the master for .. his own children).
    – I Pod. That’s a nomad instrument that I’m using at home only. Two absolute hits ( according to the figures) : Fred Frith’s performance for Other Minds, http://www.otherminds.org/# ( San Francisco) with Sudhu (dedicated to Wolfgang Striech). And, Dr. Sharleena will be glad to hear: Son Of A Preacher Man/ Dusty Springfield.
    – Orlando Di Lasso : Prophetiae Sybillarum. An all times hit. Why? Because I don’t find Carlo Gesualdo’s 6th Madrigal Book ( a world famous vinyl record ) anymore in my musical library. Who the hell did take that away?
    – FZ, believe or not, it’s true: Approximate.
    – Listening to my friend, the cartoonist Kim’s program Dwalmacat on Radio Brussel. Weird pop& other recordis. Encyclopedic within that genre.
    – Jazz: Alber Ayler ( I also attended a great tribute to his music ) and John Coltrane’s ” My Favorite Things” ( Village Vanguard record).
    – Yes, smartlap: Munchener Freiheit ” Verlieben, Verlieren”.
    – ” Inner Cities” Alvin Curran, performed by Daan Vandewalle. Endless composition for piano. In 2009 I’ll buy Gordon Mumma’s piano music.
    – Conlon Nancarrow’s Studies for player piano. Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm.
    – Robert Wyatt : Comicopera.
    – An now ( 2008) again: Massive Attack’s brown collectors item, the 11 CDs box.
    – On 11th November ( remembering World War I) I went -an official duty for me – to a concert in a village , called Erps Kwerps, nearby. Both the local Brass Band and the female choir ( much better than the ” world famous” VRT choir) were truly excellent.
    – The best concert I attended this year was Hyperion Ensemble playing spectral music. Ana Maria Avram / Tim Hodgkinson/ Iancu Dumitrescu. Sad to see that there were 17 musicians on stage & 12 people in the audience.
    – etc, etc.

    So where do you get value? My beloved friend, inactuelles, http://inactuelles.over-blog.com/ from Reims ( FR) , happens to be right. We should now publish the best records from 2004.

    Spring every day now.

  19. [quote comment=”3433″]Is music today rubbish or are we getting old or is there just so much to choose from these days? I have been (re)discovering, in no particular order… The Bothy Band, Lewis Taylor, Ipso Facto, Erik Satie, Flora Purim, Quantic, Fela Kuti, and the very wonderful The Velvet Hearts etc. etc.

    Happy New Year to one and all – watch out for that leap second![/quote]

    I have been listening to a lot of Fela Kuti, aswell as early Funkadelic this year. Also rediscovering the excellent Ronnie James Dio via my late ’70s Rainbow and early ’80s Sabbath CDs.

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