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Dec 09Top albums of 2009: the Obsessive Edition.
It’s late December, so it’s time for the deluge of “best albums of 2009″ posts. But since a lot of the albums I keep on repeat find their way to my end-of-year “best of” lists, I’m wanted to try a different approach–one that combines music wankery, listing and graphs into one big nerdgasm. Onward!
My initial plan was to just take the high counts from my Last.fm charts for the last year. However, I realized that this would unfairly punish short and/or recently-released albums. Furthermore, that doesn’t really describe “obsession” as I’m used to it–the kind of constant repetition that drives my girlfriend insane (see also: Hercules and Love Affair, In Ghost Colours). So I decided to use the yearly chart as a jumping-off point, but only count the first two months after an LP initially appeared on my weekly charts. I then divided the total play count by number of tracks, and finally came up with an average for the eight-week span. The list, eight-week average and graph are after the jump. And, please–no complaints about the methodology. This isn’t 538.
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! (2.36 plays per week)
Far and away the winner. Only a single week went by where I didn’t play the entire album at least once. - Neko Case - Middle Cyclone (1.63 PPW)
This was, incidentally, the only album on Ed’s list that I’d heard. - St. Vincent – Actor (1.55 PPW)
- Fever Ray – Fever Ray (1.49 PPW)
I thought this would be higher. - The Dead Weather – Horehound (1.43 PPW)
- Matt and Kim – Grand (1.42 PPW)
I believe this is a textbook example of “burning out,” though I’ve come back to it recently. - Dan Deacon – Bromst (1.28 PPW)
- Bat for Lashes – Two Suns (1.26 PPW)
- Handsome Furs – Face Control (1.24 PPW)
I didn’t think this would rank so highly–I didn’t like it as much as, say, Dragonslayer–which, incidentally, didn’t make the list. It’s got some catchy tracks, though. - Jay Reatard – Watch Me Fall (1.13 PPW)
Another album I burned out on. - Metric – Fantasies (0.98 PPW)
- School of Seven Bells – Alpinisms (0.88 PPW)
- Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs (0.63 PPW)
This should probably be higher, as I have no data for a week in September. I believe I may have failed to scrobble some tracks. - The xx – xx (0.52 PPW)
The biggest surprise, as this is my sixth-most-listened-to LP of the last year, despite being a fall release. However, on reflection it makes sense–although I always thought it was pleasant, it took a while for this album to grow on me. It’s now far and away my most-listened-to album of the last three months. - Pink Mountaintops – Outside Love (0.13 PPW)
This was confusing, given its 4th-place standing on my Last.fm chart. However, while I was looking up other albums, I came upon a week where I apparently played 150 songs from this album. I suspect I left my iPod running on repeat (The same thing happened with the new Vivian Girls album).
Long story short, this certainly didn’t produce a list of the best albums of the year by any means, and it really just told me what I already knew–I play a new album incessantly for a short time, then switch to a different one. Moreover, Caroline’s right–it’s hideously ironic to spend the majority of an afternoon analyzing my obsession with music. Looks like I’ll have to do a traditional “best albums of 2009″ post after all.
Tagged: best albums of 2009, music, nerdiness, personal, pop
December 17th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
MARTY
AWESOME
Your graph makes me want to throw confetti.