Every December after Christmas, I take a screenshot of my “Top Played Songs” playlist and reset the play counts for my entire music library. This has been my annual iTunes ritual since 2010.
Play counts fascinate me. Ask me my favorite song of the moment, and I bet it won’t be the same as the song I’ve played the most. I enjoy analyzing that kind of data, seeing where my head was that year and watching my musical taste evolve.
After I took a screenshot of my 2017 results, I compared it to my very first “Top Played Songs” playlist to see if any patterns emerged.
December 2010
The first thing you’ll notice about my 2010 list is that 15 of the 36 songs on it are Korean pop (K-Pop) songs. That year clearly reflected the early days of my interest in the genre.
In fact, my top song was the K-Pop song “Copy & Paste” by BoA. That song was awesome! I watched the music video so much I could see the choreography in my head when I listened to it. I probably attempted to do a few moves myself. There are four other songs on the list from BoA’s Hurricane Venus album and eponymous English language debut, both of which I listened to on repeat for months.
Other evidence of my blossoming K-Pop addiction were the many songs from Korean dramas (K-dramas) on the list. Songs appeared from the soundtracks of most of my first K-dramas: Goong, Goong S, My Lovely Sam-Soon, Coffee Prince, and My Girl. I even discovered FT Island’s “Love Love Love” because the band’s lead singer starred in You’re Beautiful. K-dramas hooked me on K-Pop.
Sadly, the rise of K-Pop in my library accompanied the decline of Japanese pop (J-Pop). My enthusiasm for anime, which I had been obsessed with since middle school, had cooled off. No new anime meant no new opening and ending songs from new J-Pop acts. The crazy-high costs of import CDs didn’t help matters.
Nevertheless, the list wasn’t completely devoid of J-Pop. Koda Kumi, one of my favorite J-Pop singers of all time, appeared on the list five times. To this day, only my extensive Glee collection exceeds the amount of songs I have from her (261 to 95). There are also two entries from the Eureka 7 soundtrack, the last anime soundtrack I ever bought.
As for English language music, Mariah Carey dominated the list with six songs. That’s no surprise, as Mariah ranks third for most songs in my music library. Speaking of third place, “Without You” was my third most-played song because I had recently heard the oldie for the first time on the radio. It was also my top track in English. Nearly every track from Mariah’s Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel was on the list too. I, for one, enjoyed the album.
Lastly, Adele and Sara Bareilles appeared on the list twice each. Both were new discoveries at the time, thanks to Pandora. Both artists remain automatic buys for me.
December 2017
Now take a look at my top songs from 2017. “Eternity,” the ending theme for the animated movie The Swan Princess, is number one. It is performed by Dreams Come True. I watched The Swan Princess a million times growing up. When I borrowed the DVD from the library earlier this year, the song hit me just as hard as it did back then. I bought it and played it to death. Obviously, I love soundtracks.
Compared to 2010, K-Pop is lean on the 2017 list. That’s because I streamed more K-Pop than I bought. If I was listening to Spotify or Pandora, I was exclusively listening to K-Pop (which also explains the shortage of recent songs in English on the list).
Whereas my top English song was preceded by two K-Pop songs in 2010, the English songs pushed the top K-Pop song (“Blood Sweat & Tears” from the boy band BTS) to third this time. Having BTS on the list echoes 2010, where SHINee was the sole K-Pop boy band 1 on the list (R.I.P. Jonghyun).
Following in the footsteps of BoA and Koda Kumi in 2010, Ailee, a solo female singer, had five songs on the list. Her song “My Love” has consistently ranked high on my lists since I first heard it on my Pandora K-Pop station. “Insane” was actually my top song in both 2015 and 2016.
Even though I’m even less into J-Pop now than I was in 2010, J-Pop is still represented on the list. Mika Nakashima’s “Seppun” is a surprise discovery from the Freegal library service. It wasn’t included on the greatest hits album of hers that I own. I was so happy to finally get it.
Now that I think about it, “Eternity” also counts as J-Pop. The song is in English, but Dreams Come True is a Japanese band. Therefore, I consider it to be J-Pop. My top song is J-Pop years after I stopped listening to J-Pop. How ironic!
Maroon 5 has the top English song with the track “I Can’t Lie.” Similarly to Mariah’s “Without You” in 2010, the song was a missed gem from their back catalog. I had mostly lost interest in the band after their first album Songs About Jane. I became a fan again after revisiting their albums Hands All Over and V. Note that artists with the top English song in 2010 and 2017 both start with the letter M.
In Kelly Clarkson’s case, her new song “Love So Soft” (which is on the list) prompted me to explore her older work again. Turns out I had missed the wonderful “Heartbeat Song.” As much as I dig “Love So Soft,” I could not stop singing “Heartbeat Song.”
Adele is the only repeat offender from 2010, with two songs on the list this year as well. “All I Ask” is my favorite song from her 25 album. “Make You Feel My Love” came onto my radar after I heard it on Glee in season five (R.I.P. Cory Monteith). “Chasing Pavements,” one of my top songs in 2010, was covered by the show in season four.
Conclusion
I realize that my “analysis” isn’t scientific at all. For one thing, I probably should have only compared 15 of the songs from my 2010 list to the 15 songs on 2017’s list instead of the entire 36. But what fun would that have been?
I wondered how my music habits had changed in the past few years. Apparently, they haven’t changed much. My love of K-Pop is as strong as ever, J-Pop still has a special place in my heart, Adele remains awesome, and I will never stop buying soundtracks.
I can’t wait to see what my 2018 list will look like!
- DBSK aka TVXQ and FT Island are both K-Pop bands in the broad sense, but I’m not counting them as such here. The version of DBSK’s song on the list is in Japanese, which makes it J-Pop. FT Island, on the other hand, is more of a rock band than a boy band. ↩