Every month, I make a playlist that collects a song, or maybe two, by an artist from every album I've listened to during that period. It may even include songs that I occasionally hear in my head - my earworms, or they may be songs I've heard in passing, for example at someone's house, in a movie or over a shop PA, whatever and wherever, but only for the month of the playlist.
And once a song is added to the playlist for the month, it's my own little rule that they cannot be added again until the next year. This way we build a library of songs across a year with no repeats at all.
These are the playlists I share with you, dear reader, every month in these pages. They can include up to 300+ songs on them, and all of them unique.
In light of the fact that a song can only be added to a playlist once in any calendar year, I thought it would be interesting to look at the songs that have been added across the 2 and a half years of Spotify's existence to see which songs keep reappearing every year. This list would give anyone with a passing interest an idea what songs I consider to be classics. Well-worn standards that stand the test of time. As a discerning listener and one who takes music choices seriously, I would have thought you could take a list like this as a indication of quality, a list of songs that warrant repeated listening. Almost a list of songs to take to a desert island...
...well sort of. It's not quite the list I was expecting. And while there are many songs here that I would consider "Desert Island Discs", it's not an exhaustive list of said songs. It is NOT a list of how much I have played these songs, but rather how often I have returned to them and have had them important enough to be added to the playlist to take with me wherever I go.
The list does actually contain quite a few surprises. The criteria I looked at was if, in a list of over 7000 titles, how many appeared on the list three times (one for each year from 2012 to 2014 inclusive). I have no idea why "Dare Me" by the Pointer Sisters appears on this list three times. Or how anything by Motley Crue has ended up on here once in every year, let alone the same track three times. And why, out of all the Aerosmith tracks I adore, did the title track of a fairly mediocre album become the most selected song from them on here?
Take a look at the list below and have a listen to the Spotify playlist below. Let me know if you think these are the most worthy songs you've ever heard. What songs would you include by a band if not the ones listed here?
Enjoy!
| Aerosmith | Get a Grip |
| Audioslave | Cochise |
| America | Sister Golden Hair |
| Anthrax | Time |
| Bad Books | You Wouldn't Have To Ask |
| Bernard Fanning | Songbird |
| Billy Bragg | Between The Wars |
| Blind Melon | No Rain |
| Blondie | Atomic |
| Bruce Springsteen | Lucky Town |
| Cast | Alright |
| Cats and Jammers | Spitball |
| Cheap Trick | Mighty Wings |
| Cosmic Rough Riders | Justify The Rain |
| Cowboy Junkies | Sweet Jane |
| D.R.I. | Marriage |
| Dan Reed | Brave New World |
| Donovan | Sunshine Superman |
| Eddie Floyd | Knock On Wood |
| Extreme | Stop The World |
| Faces | Ooh La la |
| Icehouse | Walls |
| Focus | Anonymous |
| Fountains of Wayne | Stacy's Mom |
| Gary Clitter (aka HeeBeeGeeBees) | Gary Clitter is Back |
| Genesis | Turn It On Again |
| Guns 'n Roses | Estranged |
| Holly and the Italians | Tell That Girl To Shut Up |
| Icehouse | Street Café |
| Iggy Pop | I'm Bored |
| Joni Mitchell | Come In From The Cold |
| Judas Priest | The Green Manalishi |
| Liam Lynch | United States of Whatever |
| Little River Band | Help Is On Its Way |
| Models | I Hear Motion |
| Models | Local and/or General |
| Motley Crue | Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away) |
| Muse | Supermassive Black Hole |
| Paul McCartney | Coming Up |
| Paul Simon | 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover |
| Pete Townshend | Face The Face |
| Pharrell Williams | Happy |
| Powderfinger | Turtle's Head |
| Powderfinger | Up and Down and Back Again |
| Queen | Scandal |
| Ramones | Sheena Is A Punk Rocker |
| Redgum | The Drover's Dog |
| Relient K | Chapstick, Chapped Lips and Things Like Chemistry |
| Santana | Well All Right |
| Screaming Trees | Nearly Lost You |
| Small Faces | Tin Soldier |
| Spiderbait | Sam Gribbles |
| SpizzEnergi | Soldier Soldier |
| Split Enz | Nobody Takes Me Seriously |
| Squeeze | Pulling Mussels From The Shell |
| Starship | Sara |
| Steve Vai | I Would Love To |
| Temple Of The Dog | Hunger Strike |
| Ten Years After | Positive Vibration |
| The Angels | Mr Damage |
| The Byrds | Welcome Back Home |
| The Damned | Neat Neat Neat |
| The Gaslight Anthem | Here Comes My Man |
| The Go-Gos | Our Lips Are Sealed |
| The Hummingbirds | Two Weeks With A Good Man In Niagara Falls |
| The Killers | Mr Brightside |
| The Lemonheads | Into Your Arms |
| The Lovin' Spoonful | Summer In The City |
| The Master's Apprentices | Rio De Camero |
| The Pointer Sisters | Dare Me |
| The Promises | Baby It's You |
| The Records | Starry Eyes |
| The Rolling Stones | Little T&A |
| The Roots | The Seed 2.0 |
| The Rubinoos | I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend |
| The Runaways | Cherry Bomb |
| The Saboteurs (aka The Raconteurs) | Steady As She Goes |
| The Saints | Just Like Fire Would |
| The Saints | This Perfect Day |
| The Sports | Don't Throw Stones |
| The The | Infected |
| The Who | Love Reign O'er Me |
| Todd Rundgren | I Saw The Light |
| Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers | American Girl |
| Toto | Africa |
| Warhorse | St Louis |
| Warren Zevon | Tenderness On The Block |
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