Scrobble Report: 1Q 2018

According to my last.fm account, I scrobbled 652 tracks in January 2018, 859 in February and 596 in March. That's 2,137 scrobbles over the first 90 days of 2018, a total of 1,525 unique songs. For the record, I began the year with Billy Paul's "Me and Mrs. Jones" on January 3rd and finished on the ninetieth day with A Flock of Seagulls "Telecommunication". The data tells me I listened to 399 songs from 374 artists more than once during that period.

Most Scrobbled Artists

Probably the biggest surprise on this list of the Top 30 Artists scrobbled between January 1 and March 31, 2018, is the noticeable lack of Prince, who is down at number 106 on my Most Scrobbled Artists. Other notes:

9 - Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats

The band released their second studio album Tearing At The Seams on March 9 and while I am not yet enamored of it as much as I am of their self-titled debut, I like it a whole heck of a lot;

10 - Santa Esmeralda

My friend Kurt and I got into a friendly debate over whether or not the original 45 version of this great track was available on Spotify and after listening to many, many inferior versions, I concluded it was indeed unavailable;

30 - Julian Lage

I am not a jazzhead (jazzhound?) by even the loosest, most generously vague definition but guitarist Lage's album Modern Lore was released on February 2, 2018, and I picked it off of Spotify's New Releases page for a spin and liked it.

Most Scrobbled Albums

The first thing that I noticed looking at this list of Top 30 Albums scrobbled during the first quarter of 2018 is that more than a third of them are of the Deluxe, Expanded, Anniversary and/or Remastered variety. And there are two versions of KICK by INXS and two albums each from Foreigner and The Cars. And the Santa Esmeralda listing at number 30 is a two-song digital single and not an album. 

Thanks to the soft rock kid for suggesting the albums at numbers 11, 12 and 23, respectively. He seems to know what I'll like and I was not disappointed with those three albums. And thanks also to The Old Grey Cat for making me really want to hear the album at number 24 and, when I finally did steal some time away from life to listen, it was better than I could have ever imagined. As of this writing, it is the only album shortlisted for my Top Albums of 2018. Three albums from my Top Ten Favorite Albums of 2017 also made the list at numbers 8, 19 and 25. Yeah, LANCO is up there at number 9 but I couldn't tell you a song title, a melody or even a riff from them. I think maybe I was hoping for something like Blackberry Smoke but there's no fire there. Heck, even Trigger over at Saving Country Music had nothing to say, good or bad, about LANCO's album.

Most Scrobbled Tracks

It comes as something of a surprise after looking at the Top 30 data from the Artists and Albums lists to find no less than half of the Top 10 of the Top 30 Most Scrobbled Tracks in the country genre. And I spent about a week infatuated with the single edit of Bon Jovi's "Keep The Faith", listening to it on repeat in The Blueberry as I welcomed the windows-down weather that arrives just before Spring every year. And yes that is the authentic Casablanca single version of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" I was talking about earlier at number 10.

In the second Top 10 of the Top 30, I see number 19 "The Hellion" is not listed beside with "Electric Eye" at number 11. The two tracks are the 1-2 punch that kicks off Preist's classic Screaming For Vengeance album and they were the opening songs when I saw them at my very first concert in November 1982.

The reason the two songs are not listed next to one another on the last.fm list is that because they have equal amounts of scrobbles/plays, they are listed alphabetically with the other seven songs that had the same amount of spins, so technically they were tied at number 11 though listed separately. Though I included them together, as they should always be, on the Spotify playlist below.

Ignore the songs at 23 and 24. Technically, all of these songs and "Acid Rain" up at number 20 are tied because they were all scrobbled the same amount of times. But, as I pointed out earlier, last.fm lists ties alphabetically by their titles. Love Rita Coolidge but am drawing a total blank on "Fool That I Am".

Chrissie Hynde's 2016 artistic fling with fellow Akron native Dan Auerbach still rocks The Blueberry with a big beat and the Marley-esque lyric:

When the walls come tumbling down
And the love shines(?) all around
And the dogs of war come around no more
No more rape or torture or mutilation
One love one way
One humanity
One way one love
One humanity

But it is the rumble and roar of The Undertones "Teenage Kicks" that stands out on the list, with Fergal Sharkey's vocals hooking me in every single time. It will be among the first songs I will play for my twin grandchildren when they arrive into the world hungry for good music later this Summer. I fully expect this track to be much higher in the rankings by early July, when I'll examine what I've listened to in April, May, and June.