What My Smart Playlists Showed Me (2)

Name of iTunes Playlist: Forgotten Favorites Rules: Rating is ***** (5 stars). Play count is greater than 5. Skip count is less than 4. Last played is not in the last 24 months. Date added is not in the last 24 months. [See all lists.]

Top 10 From the List

1. "Dreams" by TV on the Radio ("Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes"). Play Count: 22. Last played: Sept. 18, 2006.

2. "The Good Times Are Killing Me" by Modest Mouse ("Good News for People Who Love Bad News"). Play Count: 21. Last played: July 30, 2006.

3. "Keep on Breathing" by The Delgados ("Universal Audio"). Play Count: 20. Last Played: Aug. 27, 2006. 4. "Last Broadcast" by Doves ("The Last Broadcast"). Play Count: 20. Last Played: May 30, 2006.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRy8N1P1EUI&hl=en&fs=1]

5. "Dreaming of You" by The Coral ("The Coral"). Play Count: 19. Last Played: March 26, 2006.

6. "Silverscreen" by Jesca Hoop ("Silverscreen Demos"). Play Count: 18. Last Played: Aug. 27, 2006.

7. "Dear Catastrophe Waitress," by Belle & Sebastian ("Dear Catastrophe Waitress"). Play count: 17. Last Played: Sept. 18, 2006.

8. "There's Too Much Love," by Belle & Sebastian ("Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant"). Play Count: 16. Last Played: Aug. 16, 2005.

9. "The Wrong Girl," by Belle & Sebastian ("Fold Your Hands etc."). Play Count: 15. Last Played: Sept. 18, 2006.

10. "At the Bottom of Everything," by Bright Eyes ("I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning"). Play Count: 13. Last Played: May 28, 2005.

Annotation: Some favorite songs stay in rotation through the years, but others are forgotten for one reason or another. This smart playlist is intended to remind me of songs that I played heavily then forgot. Some were simply played out, overplayed. Or whatever drew me to them is no longer there, for one reason or another.

Some strike me as embarrassing: Modest Mouse?

Others surprise me: Is it really two years since I played the excellent "Dreams" by TV on the Radio? I'll play it right now, and restore it to the list of favorites I still play. I still remember the Delgados and Doves cuts as if they were yesterday, I'll probably play them now. What a pleasant surprise to see them again.

I am still fond of the Glasgow ensemble Belle & Sebastian, love their lyrics and their sound, but after burning through that oeuvre at warp speed I no longer play them obsessively, trying to figure out what they're getting at in those enigmatic lyrics about love and books and tragedy and disappointment. It was more clearly a phase, I guess. They were already pretty well established before they came to my attention, and most of their best stuff seems to have been written in the mid-90s. This title song is not the best of the cuts on "Catastrophe Waitress," so it's no surprise I haven't listened in a while, but "Wrong Girl" still resonates. I feel no need to play it, though. There is more, too much more, Belle and Sebastan further down the list, after #10, with a few brief infatuations like "Stacy's Mom" from Fountains of Wayne.

The Coral was a brief fling. I remember buying the CD at Tower Records on the Upper West Side, knowing nothing about them except what I could glean from the listening post setup in the store with their terrible headsets. It may have been the last time I was in that store, or any big record store, years ago now.

The Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes album "Wide Awake etc." is his best -- the histrionics and goofy digressions are kept to a minimum -- but this is not actually one of the better songs on that record. I still play some of the others, but this one dropped out of rotation. I remember it having a Buddhist flavor. It's starts with a monologue about a plane crash that gets old after a while.

I'm glad to see some strong female vocalists on here -- Jesca Hoop and half of The Delgados. Lower on the list (not shown here), some Rilo Kiley. I first heard Hoop on KCRW, a demo track, and it took some detective work to hunt it down.

The Delgados reached a high mark with "Universal Audio." The song "Keep on Breathing" has a meditative quality, and it can still give me chills. It also must have had some resonance that year, as I recovered from massive blood clots that nearly destroyed my lungs.

Am I still the person who listened to this music so much a couple of years ago? I am not sure, but I have kept breathing, at least.

See other playlists and related posts.

What My Smart Playlists Showed Me (1)

Name of iTunes Playlist: Emerging FavoritesRules: Rating is ***** (5 stars). Last played is in the last 2 months. Play count is in the range 3 to 5. Date added is in the last 12 months. Skip count is less than 4. [See all lists.]

Top 10 From the List

1. "Boy With a Coin" by Iron & Wine ("The Shepherd's Dog," 2007.) Play count: 6. Sample lyric: "A boy with a coin he found in the weeds, with bullets and pages of trade magazines."

2. "Fake Empire," by The National ("Boxer," 2007.) Play count: 6. Lyric: "It's hard to keep track of you falling through the sky, we're half-awake in a fake empire."

3. "Candy Jail," by The Silver Jews ("Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea," 2008). Play count: 5. Lyric: "Pain works on a sliding scale." [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjtTGdhgjZY&hl=en&fs=1]4. "Oxygen" by Willy Mason ("Where the Humans Eat," 2006). Play Count: 5. Lyric: "I want to speak louder than Ritalin, for all the children who think that they've got a disease. I want to be cooler than TV, for all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be."

5. "The News About William," by Calexico ("Carried to Dust," 2008). Play Count: 5. Lyric: "As her words fail and the sky grew dim, recalled how close to that exit l've been."

6. "Bend to the Road," by Calexico ("Carried to Dust," 2008). Play Count: 4. Lyric: "Holding back your tears, letting go of your heart... Until it all spills out on the side of the road."

7. "Wait Till You See Him (De-Phazz Remix)," by Ella Fitzgerald ("Verve Remixed," 2002). Play Count: 4. Lyric: "Painters of paintings, writers of books, never could tell the half."

8. "Sly," by The Cat Empire, ("Two Shoes," 2007). Play count: 4. Lyric: "It's a pleasure to meetcha, you look like one incredible creature."

9. "Pieces of You," by Islands ("Arm's Way," 2008). Play count: 4. Lyric: "It's madness."

10. "Papillon," by the Airborne Toxic Event ("Does This Mean You're Moving On?" EP, 2007) Play count: 4. Lyric: "And I wish I had the guts to scream. You know, things aren't always what they seem..."

Annotation: There are the songs you think are your favorites, and there are the songs that iTunes says you play the most. The iTunes smart playlists are valuable tools that can pull out a lot of trends about your listening habits.

This Emerging Favorites list is aimed at figuring out the fresh songs that could be come future favorites -- songs I have bought recently, listened to more than a few times and given a high rating.

I seem to be deep into a melancholy singer phase. Paradoxically, that means I'm in a pretty good mood. It's a more heavily male selection than usual, although the list could have just as easily included Rilo Kiley, Feist, Aimee Mann, Nina Simone or others among my recent purchases.

This list is also heavily "alternative" or "indie," what a friend of mine calls NPR music, songs by artists who were probably interviewed on public radio or are played in heavy rotation on KCRW in Los Angeles. And that's fine.

All of these songs are relatively recent releases. I don't listen to much music at all from the 60s, 70s and 80s, the oldies favored by many people in their 40s. I've always tried to stay current with music, and I think this decade has produced some of the best independent/alternative music I've heard in my life.

See other smart playlist posts..

From iPhones to the Stars, Ocarina Melodies

{Update! New List! New Post! See the new list of iPhone applications I actually still use in this post, from September 2009.]

For 99 cents I downloaded Ocarina, an app from Smule that turns an iPhone into a version of that ancient flute-like instrument. You press glowing "finger holes" on the touchscreen and blow into the microphone to play [Video].

That's fun, but Ocarina does more than that. The app also uses the location software and a Google-Earth style globe to let you rotate the earth and listen to others play on their phones around the world. As they play one by one, visual images of the notes stream upward, as you watch from space. Around the globe, patches of glowing white show what are apparently concentrations of signals, particularly on the coasts of the United States and in Europe. One soloist sent a lonely tune up from an island of Hawaii. It seems the perfect instrument for the job. Halting, ghostly renditions of "Amazing Grace," "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen," "Happy Birthday," and "Ode to Joy," reach for the stars one by one. You can click a heart to show your appreciation for the particularly talented ones. It's just cool. You feel connected with other musical beings on the planet. GPS broadcasting! Imagine what else could be broadcast through those mikes.

The Smule site advises, "For best results, blow softly, as if you're blowing kisses." It insists on calling the iPhone "your ocarina."

My daughter and I each gave it a shot. Our efforts sounded more like free-form jazz. Somehow I missed this app when it first came out earlier this month, and my older-generation iPhone apparently required the 2.2 firmware update first. But it's one of those apps that is sure to wow a friend, divert a fidgety kid or pass the time. I am sure some talented musicians will find ways to amaze us. I recently added it to my list of favorite third-party iPhone apps.