Content-Free Friday Presents Another Edition of Top Ten

[featherynscale]

In 1998, some clever people got together and decided it would be really cool if there was a way for the music player on your computer to just pop out onto the Internets and get information about the album it was playing, so that you didn't have to type in the titles and artists on everything every time. So they put together a database, and lo, it was indeed really cool. And then, somebody over there thought, wouldn't it be cool if we tracked what album information was being called most, so we could put out a list of most popular music ever? That brings us to today's Top Ten.

This list is the Top Ten Albums Played By Internet-Enabled Music Players, in the history of ever. The count only includes full albums being played from CD, so if you downloaded an mp3 of Stairway To Heaven and played it 50 quadrillion times (you know who you are), it doesn't count. Please answer with title and artist, just in case ("that one by Blur" gets you nothing).

1. American Idiot - Green Day (2004, Alternative & Punk) - chronarchy, 1 point
2. Stadium Arcadium - Red Hot Chili Peppers (2006, Alternative & Punk) - leiandra, 1 point
3. Come Away With Me - Norah Jones (2002, Pop) - kenllama, 2 points
4. 1 - The Beatles (2000, Pop) - celtic_elk, 3 points
5. (2006, Folk)
6. Meteora - Linkin Park (2003, Alternative & Punk) - matchgirl42, 3 points
7. Hybrid Theory - Linkin Park (2000, Alternative & Punk) - matchgirl42, 3 points
8. X & Y - Coldplay (2005, Alternative & Punk) - leiandra, 2 points
9. The Wall - Pink Floyd (1979, Rock) - duriyah, 1 point
10. The Eminem Show - Eminem (2002, Hip-Hop & Rap) - rfunk, 2 points

Surprisingly, none of the albums that I personally play most often are on the list, though I do own three of the ten, and I recognized nine of the ten. (That makes it a better list than the last one, IMHO.)

EDIT: I've added the release years and approximate genres (as reported by the compilers), maybe that will help? The one marked "Folk" is, as one might guess, not really folk. FURTHER EDIT: #5 is really, really, really not folk. Amazingly not folk. Profoundly not folk. I had to look it up and play it, because I had not heard of it. I'd go probably "pop".

Comments

[duriyah.livejournal.com]

Dark Side of the Moon

[duriyah.livejournal.com]

Please answer with title and artist, just in case ("that one by Blur" gets you nothing).

Sorry. I'm an idiot. Dark Side of the Moon, by Pink Floyd. Also The Wall, by Pink Floyd.

[daneya.livejournal.com]

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

Wow, thinking of this makes me realize I have no idea any album names.

I'm going to throw out there Metallica the black album, as a guess, just because they were so bitchy about people downloading it.

Maybe I'll comment more if I think of other albums.

Oooh, what about 'The Forest Gump Sountrack'?

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

And what about 'Elvis's Number 1 hits', too?

[kenllama.livejournal.com]

What a cool list, and game-list-idea =)

How about:
* Thriller
* Abbey Road, or perhaps Sgt Pepper's LHCB

... will have to cogitate further

[kenllama.livejournal.com]

oops --that's michael jackson for thriller and the beatles for abbey road and sgt pepper.

Wow, I'm going to suck at this.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Hotel California, by the Eagles.
IV, by Led Zeppelin.
Thriller, by Michael Jackson.
Supernatural, by Santana.
Born in the USA, by Bruce Springsteen.
Graceland, by Paul Simon.

Re: Wow, I'm going to suck at this.

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

Actually, I bet Hell Freezes Over by the Eagles would show up more...

[celtic-elk.livejournal.com]

Radiohead: *Hail to the Thief* or *OK Computer*
Bob Marley: *Legend*
Miles Davis: *Kind of Blue*

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.... sadly, no.

[celticwhistlin.livejournal.com]

Metallica (any and I can't remember the name of one other than S&M)

Beatles-White album

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

Pet Sounds, Beach Boys
Back in Black, AC/DC
Hot Fuss, The Killers
The Long Run, The Eagles
SexyBack, Justin Timberlake
Graduation, Kanye West

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Somehow, none of those are on the list.

[chronarchy.livejournal.com]

Songs You Know By Heart by Jimmy Buffett.

(one of the few Buffett albums I don't have and don't believe I'll ever buy, but every other person in the world seems to have a 90% chance of owning it. . . counting starving children in Africa)

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope. (I don't own it, either.)

[daneya.livejournal.com]

In Utero by Nirvana?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[daneya.livejournal.com]

Jesus Christ Superstar by Rice/Lloyd Webber?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

Hmm, would this be from CDDB or FreeDB? CDDB started this thing, then lots of people switched from there to FreeDB sometime in the 2000s when CDDB tried to claim ownership of the data. This list is probably from CDDB though. :-)

And because of the way CDDB works, it's unlikely to reflect any one person playing the same thing a lot, but rather lots of different people playing it.

It would have to be stuff popular to be played on CD in the last decade, but probably weighted more toward the earlier part of that time since CDs are less popular now, plus (or especially) classics from earlier that everybody continued listening to into the turn of the century. Also probably weighted toward people in college in 1998-2003.

The Doors - Best of the Doors
Nirvana - Nevermind
Moby - Play
Green Day - Dookie
Radiohead - Kid A

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

None of those are on the list, but your process is excellent.

[loraca.livejournal.com]

Bat Out of Hell, Meatloaf?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope.

This could be difficult...

[leiandra.livejournal.com]

Hrm....

U2 - Achtung Baby, Rattle and Hum, or The Joshua Tree
Sarah McLachlan - Surfacing or Mirrorball
Nirvana - Nevermind or Unplugged
KT Tunstall - Eye to the Telescope
Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/Love Sounds
Pearl Jam - Ten
Aerosmith - Pump or Get a Grip
No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom

Re: This could be difficult...

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[bountifulpots.livejournal.com]

Madonna - Like a Virgin
Nickleback - All the Right Reasons
Guns N Roses - Appetite for Destruction
Little Earthquakes - Tori Amos
Seven & the Ragged Tiger - Duran Duran
Rio - Duran Duran
Cracked Rear View - Hootie and the Blowfish
Devil without a Cause - Kid Rock
Downward Spiral - NIN

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope. Though 'Downward Spiral' would probably appear on a list of albums most played by me... I listened to the hell out of that thing when I was in college.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

DMB, Some Devil
Beck, Guero

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope. Good picks, though.

Yeek. The other 9 were MUCH more recent than I expected.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Limp Bizkit's "Dookie";
Nickelback's "Sunny Side Up";
Creed's "Human Clay";
Franz Ferdinand's eponymous debut album;
Sisqó's "Unleash the Dragon" (probably too early);
The White Stripes, "Elephant".

Re: Yeek. The other 9 were MUCH more recent than I expected.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope, none of those hit the list. I did think I wanted to buy the Franz Ferdinand album, though, so thanks for reminding me. :)

[duriyah.livejournal.com]

The Very Best of Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Alas, no.

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

Years help a lot, though I'm still suprised about the wrongness of some of my previous guesses....

2000:
Sleater-Kinney - All Hands On The Bad One
No Doubt - Return of Saturn

2002:
Eminem - The Eminem Show
t.A.T.u. - 200 km/h In The Wrong Lane
Avril Lavigne - Let Go

2003:
Evanescence - Fallen

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

The Eminem Show makes #10, but the rest don't hit.

Only 'cuz we had Xmas at Dad's

[kittenpants.livejournal.com]

"not-folk"... 2006...

Oh gods.

*Modern Times* by Bob Dylan?

Re: Only 'cuz we had Xmas at Dad's

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

Not folk from 2006: Taking the Long Way, Dixie Chicks?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope. It's really, really, really not folk.

how's about...

[kenllama.livejournal.com]

lauryn hill - the miseducation of lauryn hill (do i have her name spelled right?)
norah jones - come away with me

Re: how's about...

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Norah Jones makes the list. Well done!

Repeat Value

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

Green Day - International Superhits
U2 - The Best of 1980-1990
No Doubt - The Singles 1992-2003
The Best Of REM: In Time 1988-2003

Re: Repeat Value

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[kittenpants.livejournal.com]

Looking at this list, "The Wall" really jumps out as a possible false statistic. Don't get me wrong, I love it, and was guilty of overplaying the tapes in highschool. But it makes me wonder why so many people would keep it in their CD drive and play it over and over enough to make a statistical impact? And then I think, what if a distributed group were using the CD as an encryption key - or a set of keys - and then I think, oh that's BRILLIANT. That is exactly the right balance of irony, cleverness, nostalgia, and bitterness for the over-30 hacker set.

And then I think, "Carey, knock it off. You're just itching to re-read Cryptonomicon."

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

It's a two-disc set. Maybe that skews the results?

Anyway, it's more that everyone has it than that people play it over and over. But then, a CD that everyone has would make a good basis for some sort of blind encryption.

[leiandra.livejournal.com]

The Better Life - 3 Doors Down

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope.