Top 50 Bands

Earlier this year, I started to collate information from my iPod and from my last.fm accounts to find out exactly what I'd been listening to. The result was a list of bands and the grand total of songs I'd listened to, and so here is a list of my top 50 bands from approximately the last 5 years...

Steely Dan	1494
Elton John	949
Frank Zappa	886
Yes	853
Paul Simon/Simon & Garfunkel	816
The Beatles	797
Pink Floyd	782
Supertramp	712
Rush	668
Genesis	641
Stevie Wonder	543
King Crimson	527
Air	513
The Who	503
Robyn Hitchcock/Soft Boys	499
Jethro Tull	477
Led Zeppelin	422
Neil Young	388
Brian Eno	384
Fleetwood Mac	375
Sparks	375
David Bowie	362
Gong	342
Richard Thompson	339
Kraftwerk	327
Super Furry Animals	322
George Harrison	322
Peter Gabriel	318
Lou Reed & The Velvet Underground	312
Jon Anderson	291
The Clash	287
Dire Straits	271
Elvis Costello	270
The Rolling Stones	262
Nobou Uematsu	253
10cc	251
Fleet Foxes	249
Talking Heads	248
Vangelis	248
Smashing Pumpkins	246
Bob Dylan	246
Van Morrison	239
Adam And The Ants	221
The Flaming Lips	206
The Doors	201
Divine Comedy	195
The Pixies	192
Donald Fagen	185
Magnetic Fields	175
Jimi Hendrix	167

Surprisingly, for a group I had never listened to before prior to 2005, Steely Dan (aka Walter Becker and Donald Fagen) top my chart by some distance. This is partly due to the fact that I listened to one album after another, and ended up buying their entire back catalogue of classic albums from between 1972 and 1980, from "Can't Buy A Thrill" to "Gaucho". Their 1976 album, "The Royal Scam" is a particular favourite, although 1977's "Aja" is also very impressive. Donald Fagen also features at #48 in the chart, thanks solely to his 1982 solo album "The Nightfly".

Elton John has always been a favourite, and in particular I listen to his earlier material from 1969-1976. Thanks largely to the fact that I've listened to Elton John for many years, he features very strongly in this chart, although I didn't expect him to be quite so high in the chart as #2! In recent years, "Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy" (1975) has featured strongly, but "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (1973) and "Tumbleweed Connection" (1971) remain firm favourites.

Another relative newcomer to my iPod has taken the #3 spot, Frank Zappa. Thanks again to my friend Stefan Gabriel, I had the chance to listen to alot of Zappa's back catalogue and ended up buying several albums. While Zappa albums are typically a mixed bag of the sublime and the ridiculous, the sheer volume of his work means that there are many, many individually great songs, and hence my Zappa playlist on my iPod features many songs from multiple different albums. As a result, the playlist count for Zappa has been very high in the last few years. My favourite Zappa albums are "We're Only In It For The Money" (1968) and "Sheik Yerbouti" (1979).

Up and coming interests in the last year or so have been Rush, Led Zeppelin, Robyn Hitchcock, The Flaming Lips and Jethro Tull - all of these bands are on their way up the chart, while some of the old favourites/big names such as Pink Floyd, Supertramp and Yes are still holding their own and are unlikely to be shifted from the top ten any time soon! It's also quite funny that my first favourite band ever - Adam And The Ants - are still in my Top 50! Must be getting nostaligic in my middle age! Anyway, I'll hopefully update this as time goes by, so stay tuned!