...looking at my top 30 songs

One of my fellow teachers, Mr. Tao, came over to my house after a soccer game a few weeks ago. As we talked about numerous things, we ended up on the topic of music, and he mentioned he has a propensity to gather lists of people's Top 30 songs, and then distribute his own list. I thought this was a really cool tradition, and as we kept talking, it started weighing on my mind enough that I had to ask him to leave so I could get started compiling my list. I haven't been working on it constantly, but it's been in the back of my head for a while.

Within 4 days, I'd scanned through all of my ~8800 songs in my iTunes, grabbing any songs that rather stood out from the pack and putting them in a playlist. I ended up with about 120 songs. I let it sit for a week. I went through those 120, looking instead for songs that are just special, and put those into another playlist. I got 38.

I've occasionally been glancing at the list, culling the fold., sometimes deciding that a song isn't quite up to the level of the others, sometimes removing one because of an artist redundancy, deciding that while both are good, I should ensure that I range a variety of artists, rather than having 5 songs each from my top 4 bands and a few thrown in.

Thursday I reached 31. Tao threw me his loophole: 31 is okay.

So now I share my list of 31 songs, presented in alphabetical order according to Artist (In the case of classical/choral music, I've listed the composer, with the particular performer/album I have in iTunes coming after):

• Artist - Song Title (Album Title)

• Anathallo - Dokkoise House: With Face Covered (Floating World)
  
• Aqualung - Cinderella (Memory Man)
• Arcade Fire - Wake Up (Funeral)
• Barenaked Ladies - Break Your Heart (Born on a Pirate Ship)
• Barenaked Ladies - When I Fall (Born on a Pirate Ship)
• The Books - Take Time (The Lemon of Pink)
• Johnny Cash - Hurt (American IV: The Man Comes Around)
• Vic Chesnutt - I'm Through (Silver Lake)
  
• The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3 (The Crane Wife)
• Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal (Fleet Foxes)
• IKAIK - Just Because Things Are the Way They Are Right Now Doesn't Mean They'll Be That Way Forever - (Caldwell Sessions + 2)
• Billy Joel - Scenes From an Italian Restaurant (The Stranger)
  
• Kid Cudi - Pursuit of Happiness (Man on the Moon: The End of the Day)
• The Knife - Silent Shout (Silent Shout)
  
• John August Pamintuan - Ama Namen (performed by the Ateneo Chamber Singers on Pagsamba)
• Liars - The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack (Drum's Not Dead)
• The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Want to Get Over You (69 Love Songs)
• The National - Fake Empire (Boxer)
• The Postal Service - Nothing Better (Give Up)
• Sergei Rachmaninoff - Blagoslovi, Dushe Moya (performed by the Robert Shaw Festival Singers on Rachmaninoff: Vespers)
  
• Regina Spektor - Fidelity (Begin to Hope)
  
• Regina Spektor - On the Radio (Begin to Hope)
  
• Sigur Rós - Inní mér syngur vitleysingur (Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust)
  
• Sigur Rós - Sæglópur (Takk...)
• Sleigh Bells - Tell 'Em (Treats)
• Sufjan Stevens - Holland (Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State)
• They Might Be Giants - Older (Mink Car)
• Vampire Weekend - M79 (Vampire Weekend)
• "Weird Al" Yankovic - White and Nerdy (Straight Outta Lynwood)
  
• Kanye West - Gone (Late Registration)
  
• Eric Whitacre - i thank you God for most this amazing day (performed by the Calvin College Capella on Jubilate)

Now, if that's enough information for you, by all means stop reading, because I am about to nerd out on you. Statistics!

• Song that I've known the longest: "Hurt." It's possible/probable I knew "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" earlier, but that would really only be because of my brother Jeff. I grew to truly appreciate it later. It should be noted that these are the only two songs I was familiar with before college.

• Most recent song: Quite sure it's "Tell 'Em." "Pursuit of Happiness" came earlier in 2010 in the form of the music video. Both are the only songs on my list that are more recent than late 2008.

• Choral songs: 3 - two of which I sang while in Capella at Calvin, the other (Rachmaninoff) heard at a joint concert with Capella, sung by the other choir. Beautiful.

• Songs that come from a COMPLETE ALBUM I own: 28. Two of the others are from greatest hits compilations (of which I do have the complete discs), the other is "Ama Namen." So those hardly count. I'm an album guy.

• Songs I have paid money for: 22. Library, friends, and the myTunes downloading program took care of the others. It's worth noting several of the 22 I possessed in some way before later paying money for it.

• Songs that are the opening track of their respective album: 8. I find this curious. I blame the fact that the opening strains of an album are the ones that stick with me most, and become the poster child for an album I particularly love. (Dokkoise House shares this phenomenon, as it was the first song I ever heard Anathallo perform. Similar with Sigur Ros and Fleet Foxes, just not performed.)

• The IKAIK song is the only on the list done by an artist you'd have trouble researching online, i.e., by someone who's not "famous."

• Longest Song: "Sæglópur," 7:39. Shortest: "Older," 1:52

• Regina Spektor, Barenaked Ladies, and Sigur Ros are the only repeat artists on the list, but the first two have the distinction of getting two songs from the same album on the list. It's funny, because while BNL and Sigur Ros are certainly one of my favorite bands, I'm not CRAZY about Regina (although I like her) apart from those two songs. Meanwhile, I was struggling to get a TMBG song on my list despite how much I like them as a band.

• Songs with significant amounts of lyrics in a foreign language: 5 (Ama Namen, Dokkoise House, Rachmaninoff, and both Sigur Ros songs.)

• Songs I have seen/performed live: 12 (I don't think I've seen "Holland" live, but that would make 13)

I think I'm reaching diminishing returns for these statistics. I'm trying too hard at this point. I'm just going to post this now and call it good!