5 Artists, 5 Songs
June 4 2008Gareth tagged me to do Five Artists, Five Songs, a blog meme.
List your five favourite artists, your five favourite songs by those artists and tag five other people to do it.
This was pretty tricky for me to answer as I generally seem to go in phases with music, and I’m not really ‘loyal’ to any particular artists. I also have a lot of single tracks from one artist in my collection (so, that artist only occurs once) which I love, but of course are no good for this meme. I used last.fm to determine my ‘top artists’:
- The Offspring
- OK Go
- Pendulum
- Belle and Sebastian
- Jack Johnson
I wasn’t sure how accurate this would be, as I don’t always scrobble reliably (although, moreso recently) and I haven’t been actively using last.fm until fairly recently, despite being a member since 2005. However, I’d say The Offspring and OK Go should almost certainly be in my top 5, and the other 3 are all good too. Mika was just off the bottom of the list, here. Determining my top 5 songs for each artist was a little more tricky, but again last.fm came to the rescue!
The Offspring
- Want You Bad
- Why Don’t You Get a Job?
- No Brakes
- Have You Ever
- All I Want
All great songs, and Want You Bad is almost certainly my favourite. All I Want is fantastic, too (and in Crazy Taxi!). In fact, I’m pretty certain it was Crazy Taxi that introduced me to The Offspring in the first place.
OK Go
- Here It Goes Again
- A Million Ways
- A Good Idea at the Time
- Don’t Ask Me
- It’s a Disaster (+ Hello, My Treacherous Friends was on equal ranking)
OK Go are great, and their music has a pretty good range: some really energetic, some slower and gentler. Here It Goes Again deserves its place at the top - it’s my Power Song on my Nike+ running aid, and can just really perk me up when I’m flagging to complete that last quarter of a mile! Plus, fantastic video! :)
Pendulum
- Blood Sugar
- Slam
- Distress Signal
- Granite
- Prelude (through the loop)
I was introduced to Pendulum… last year, perhaps? I can’t remember who by, but it was almost certainly one of Chris, Dave, or Steve. Some of their stuff is so damn catchy (if not a bit samey).
Belle and Sebastian
- I’m a Cuckoo
- Dear Catastrophe Waitress
- Wrapped Up In Books
- Expectations
- Piazza, New York
Belle and Sebastian are great (especially the Dear Catastrophe Waitress album), and I discovered them through I’m a Cuckoo, which is most likely why it’s at the top. Expectations is perhaps my current favourite (and featured in the Juno soundtrack!).
Jack Johnson
- Sitting, Waiting, Wishing
- Constellations
- Breakdown
- Never Know
- Do You Remember
Jack Johnson makes some good music, although I’m not sure I would’ve particularly considered him when thinking of a top 5 myself. That said, all of these songs are fantastic.
So, those are my 5/5 according to last.fm. I figured that whilst I was looking at some music-related stats, I’d post some other things that might be of interest:
My favourite album is almost certainly the Garden State soundtrack. I love every single track on there. It’s just awesome (although, perhaps best if you’ve seen the film).
As I mentioned earlier, I have a lot of individual tracks for many artists, rather than whole albums. I thought I’d take a look at my top 10 tracks overall, to see what’s in it:
- Regina Spektor - Fidelity
- Yael Naïm - New Soul
- The Offspring - Want You Bad
- Belle and Sebastian - I’m a Cuckoo
- Jonathan Coulton - Code Monkey
- Duke Special - Everybody wants a little something
- Skins Cast & Cat Stevens - Wild World
- José González - Heartbeats
- Amy Adams - That’s How You Know
- Pendulum - Blood Sugar
All of these tracks are fantastic (although, I haven’t listened to Heartbeats for ages), but note that this only includes two tracks from my ‘top five’ artists. Fidelity and New Soul are quite similar sounds to one another, I think, and they’re both recent finds of mine so I find it fairly amazing that they’re already at the top of the list. Duke Special is another current favourite, that I discovered through The Cabel Yay! Awards. Oh, and That’s How You Know? Let’s just call it a guilty pleasure. :)