What’s Your Most Played Song?

“Jesus Fever,” Kurt Vile. 132 plays. One weekend during July counts for about 30 of these, I think. If I were to quantify my love for this song, it “peaked” then.

Pay it forward!

It’s gotta be ‘Bros.’ And… Last.fm confirms, with 149 plays.

iTunes has a different story to tell, likely because of scrobbling inconsistencies: The Books’ ‘None but Shining Hours’, with 193 plays, followed by ‘Bros’ with 152. (The rest of both lists is mostly dominated by more Panda Bear, Animal Collective, and Caribou.)

The two third-most-played songs in iTunes (tied at 106 plays) are special, so I’ll take this opportunity to talk briefly about them:

Cocteau Twins — Cherry-coloured Funk (Seefeel Remix)
An amazing reimagining of an excellent song. On many occasions a few years ago, this was my go-to track to put on repeat while lying in bed trying to ruminate my way out of an episode of depression. The synth pads are the sort you can curl yourself into, and the lyrics of the repetitive, glossolalic vocal sample are ambiguous enough for a very comforting sort of projecting – words like ‘still’ and ‘cried’ and ‘being’ and ‘should’ are audible and easy to grab on to as emotionally resonant; the rest are mostly unclear, offering themselves up for myriad interpretations.

Lotus Plaza — These Years
Lotus Plaza is the solo project of Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt. ‘These Years’, a song from his underrated debut album, holds a secret in its construction. To hear it, open iTunes and queue up the song.¹ Under Preferences → Playback, turn on ‘Crossfade Songs’ and set the time to 12 seconds (the maximum). With the song on repeat (so that the end fades into the beginning), you’ll notice that the last note of the song, D, is resolved by the first note of the song, C. (C is the tonic of C major, the key of this song!)² It sounds wonderful because we like resolution, and the song seems to loop forever with no discernable breaking point.

If you don’t have this song in your iTunes, you can achieve the same effect ‘by hand’ with Two YouTube Videos and a Motherfucking Crossfader. ↩

If my music theory is way off, let me know – I only sort of know what I’m talking about. ↩