As some of my friends from Facebook will know, over the last couple of months I've been undertaking a small iPod challenge. I was finding that random/shuffle on my iPod just wasn't random enough and I was worried there were tracks I was never hearing. So, as a solution, I decided to listen to my entire iPod alphabetically by song title. Doing it by artist would have been a bit dull, but by song title gave a whole new meaning to the word 'random'. Where else could you listen to U2 and Thievery Corporation side by side? The only time I can remember having a run of songs by the same artist was courtesy of The Hoosiers of all people, although I do remember a bit of a Madonna segment, and perhaps an REM one.
Now don't panic, I only actually had 1444 songs on my iPod when I started this challenge (and I've only got 1473 now!!) so it wasn't too much of a mammoth undertaking. But it was incredible fun - and it did remind me of stuff I'd put on there and hardly listened to yet. In the space of the last 6 weeks I've been all the way from A-Punk from Vampire Weekend (of Oxford Comma fame!) to Zephyrus by Bloc Party and finished up this weekend with a handful of numerically inspired tracks.
As well as finding a way to make sure I'd listened to all of the tracks on my iPod, this little adventure did have a few other by-products.
For example, I've listened more carefully to the lyrics of quite a few of the tracks (most of the listening was through headphones, although some of it was through my ever surprising bargain £5 speakers - yay, PoundStretchers!). Discoveries from this were:
- Guillemots with Blue would still be Blue, a lyrically perfect song about living life
- Death Cab for Cutie with I will Possess your Heart, a truly beautiful love song (or one about a stalker if you read some of the comments!)
- Postal Service, We Will Become Silloheuttes, the jauntiest pop song about nuclear holocaust I've heard in a long while!
...to name but a few.
I also got a whole heap of new music suggestions courtesy of the Facebook 'guess the first track for each letter of the alphabet' game I played with my more long suffering friends. Quite often it lead me to want to rush off and buy the track. Occasionally it made me want to hit people over the head for thinking I would listen to such rubbish!
In my more boring moments, I even played musical mathematics - for example, did you know that the first 3 letters of the alphabet are statistically over-represented in my current collection? And by the time I'd got half way through the alphabet I was already 60% of my way through the music.
All in all, it was a great experiment that I'd recommend to anyone. But there's only one problem. Now that I've finished what do I listen to next? Luckily one of my fellow bloggers has already answered that one for me - buy a heap more music and start all over again. I've already started in fact, with purchases from the Coral, Teenage Fanclub (apparently also known as The Fannies, and that's only really funny to people in - or from, or who lived in - the UK!) and I am Kloot (although I don't actually remember buying that one!!). I also have a number of other great suggestions to rush off and try - top of the list is Pomplamousse who appeal to my (at times) quirky musical taste! And even as we speak Arcade Fire is down loading from the iTunes store.
So more adventures to come. If I promise not to inflict it on you all, can I start at A again sometime soon?
and for those who are interested, these are the first songs for each letter on my iPod at the time of the great A-Z challenge
A-Punk, Vampire Weekend
Baba, Alannis Morissette
C'est La Vie, Shania Twain
D is for Dangerous, Arctic Monkeys
The Earth Gave Me You, The Delays
Fake Tales of San Francisco, Arctic Monkeys (again)
Generator, Foofighters
Halloween, Kirsty MacColl
I'll Take the Rain, REM
James Bond, Scouting for Girls
Ka-Ching, good old Shania again
La Femme Parallel, Thievery Corporation
MIA, once again the mighty Foofighters
Nah!, Shania - what is it with you and having to be first?
O Green World, Gorillaz
The Panic, Dykeenies
Queen's Tattoos, Aztec Camera
Rabbit Heart, Florence and the Machine
SOCA, Asian Dub Foundation
Tahiti, Bat for Lashes
U Can't Touch This, MC Hammer (cringe!)
Vampires, Thievery Corporation (again)
Waiter, Bring Me Water, Shania (what again?)
X-Ray, The Macabees
YahWeh, U2
Zephyrus, Bloc Party
10:15 Saturday Night, The Cure
all finishing up with 9/15ths, Biffy Clyro
PS Sorry for the pic, big sis. Couldn't resist it when I found it on my phone!!
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