Top 25 Most Played: 07.06.06

I love, love, love the iPod Play Count feature. It plays directly into the clutches of all the unhealthy quantifying tendencies I've been cultivating over the past three decades. I'm certainly glad that all of my transgressions are blotted out-- really, I am-- but there's still some component of me that is both terrified and tantalized by the prospect of a ledger totalling and categorizing the minutes and hours misspent, the actions taken and omissions omitted. I'd like to see a comparison of the time spent reading Dostoevsky versus the time spent watching Sportscenter. (Aside: this is the summer I read Dostoevsky, and not so much because I am thirsting for the insight into truth and beauty as I simply need to choose a new exemplar for what I should be engaging instead of what I am engaging. I'm sick of having the same reference point. The early leader at present for the successor is Proust.)

And apart from these pejorative associations, I'd like to have an accounting of the positive things, too. The quantity of encouraging words, given and received. The number of times/minutes spent at the zoo, watching movies, swimming, playing with my kids. Time spent inside compared to time spent outside.

To date, only this iPod feature has given me the kind of precision in measuring an experience-- in both tallies of listenings and last-played data. I suppose this veers close to absolute triteness, but it really has value to me. First, it gives me maybe the most accurate picture of where my music-listening desires really lie. Sure, it's tempting to put my thumb on the scale-- I've had to practically shun that Ciara song for the past two months to keep it from ranking higher-- but more often than not, the list reflects exactly what I anticipate it would reflect. Second, having a reference to when I listened to something last is fairly evocative in recalling the events of the last few months. I can't say how many times I've matched a specific event or something to a calendar day by seeing the iTunes info and remembering what I was listening to on a particular occasion. I'd love to have something similar to tell me how many times and when I've watched movies from my collection, or read books from our library (though the latter are easier to place in general seasons or years, for me at least, because the experience is more protracted).

Without further blather, as of five minutes ago:

1. "Digital," Joy Division
2. "The W.A.N.D. (The Will Always Neglects Defeat)," The Flaming Lips
3. "The National Anthem," Radiohead
4. "Airbag," Radiohead
5. "Oh," Ciara
6. "A Few Hours After This," The Cure
7. "Cinnamon Girl," Neil Young
8. "Little Babies," Sleater-Kinney
9. "Niki Hoeky," Aretha Franklin
10. "Clones (We're All)," Alice Cooper
11. "Neighborhood 3- Power Out," Arcade Fire
12. "La'hov," Mates of State
13. "Maps," Yeah Yeah Yeahs
14. "Rebellion (Lies)," Arcade Fire
15. "New World," Bjork
16. "Shake Dog Shake," The Cure
17. "Crazy," Gnarles Barkley
18. "Everyone Needs an Editor," Mates of State
19. "Suedehead," Morrissey
20. "How to Disappear Completely," Radiohead
21. "Paranoid Android," Radiohead
22. "The Hunter #2," The Robot Ate Me
23. "Concerning the U.F.O Sighting Near Highland, Illinois," Sufjan Stevens
24. "It's Only Love," ZZ Top
25. "Mr. Roboto," Styx

SONG MOST LIKELY TO CRACK THE TOP 25 IN THE NEXT 30 DAYS: "Pull Shapes" by The Pipettes.