My Top 25 Most-Played Songs (according to iTunes) 2020 edition
Added 2021-07-16 09:34:42 +0000 UTCAnybody who can remember as far back as last December will recall that I put out not one, but TWO blogs on my 25 Most Listened To songs on iTunes. Aside from the established fact that I’ll happily latch onto ANY excuse to talk about Christmas stuff, those blogs happened because I had just swapped computers. Since the iTunes stats from the old computer wouldn’t carry over to the new one, I wrote down the old Top 25 so that I could compare it to whatever the new Top 25 would be once the month was over. But there’s the thing: I didn’t just write down the Christmas Top 25, but also the Top 25 Most Played in general. And after way longer than I ever intended, I’m finally getting around talking about THEM as well! Because I like rambling about music! I can’t stop myself and need help!
Now, if you really do remember those Christmas blogs, you’ll also recall that they leaned VERY heavily towards the New Age/Easy Listening side of the musical spectrum. That’s also going to hold true for most of this list as well, and for many of the same reasons. The most obvious, of course, if that I’m just getting old and becoming a lame, soft, boring turn who listens to Elevator Music unironically. I won’t try to argue against this theory, but it’s not the ONLY factor at play here. As I said back in the Christmas playlists, a LOT of the plays that got those songs onto the list was as literal background music. Be it while I was working on other stuff or when I was on the road, these lists favored the kind of songs I could mostly tune out and not be distracted by. For the most part, this also holds true for the Non-Christmas Top 25, strongly favoring the kinds of songs I’d play to avoid getting stressed out in traffic or so I could write without getting distracted. Heck, I’ve got whole playlists of songs just for tuning out the noise of anime convention road trips and crowded hotel rooms. You’d better believe the tracks on THOSE playlists have gotten a lot of listens over the years.
But there’s also a weird technically at work here. See, it’s not like I don’t still LIKE music that rawks, I really. So much, in fact, that I actually have way MORE of it than I do most of the gentle, soothing stuff. This ends up working against the harder rock stuff in the play count, though. If I’ve got over 400 different recordings by The Beatles in my library, but only 10 by New Age artist Mark Isham, I can listen to the former waaaaaay more than the latter but still have a single song by the latter rack up more plays than anything by the former. The fact that I don’t find Easy Listening anywhere near as interesting as Rock ironically means that I haven’t obsessively hoarded anywhere near as many songs, and when I’m in that mood, the ones I DO have get played way more often. The point is, just because you don’t see any King Crimson or Metallica or The White Stripes or Black Sabbath or whatever doesn’t mean that none of them are a part of my musical experience, the stats just didn’t work in their favor.
Also, if anybody out there actually pays attention to those Far Out There character soundtracks I do, a number of these songs are going to sound familiar. I mean, is it really any surprise that my creations have the same musical tastes that I do? Still, if you actually do read those and notice that I’m re-using any anecdotes here, sorry about that. Recycling is good for the environment, right?
Lastly, I need to restate that this was my Top 25 as of the time I stopped using that old computer last year, NOT my current Top 25. Just to drive home how badly spread out my listening habits truly are: as I write this in the middle of July 2021, four of my current Top 25 are still Christmas songs. I dart back and forth between genres and massive discographies so much that, even after seven whole months, they still haven’t fully overtaken the stats my holiday binge racked up. And spoilers for when I eventually DO write up a 2021 list, most of THOSE songs are pretty Easy Listening too. But that’s something to worry about later. For now, let’s talk about 2020’s Top 25…
25. “Chakra 4 of the Body” – Mannheim Steamroller
EVEN WHEN CHRISTMAS IS OVER, THERE’S NO ESCAPING MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER! Yes, while much of the world only knows them as “That Deck The Halls band,” Chip Davis had already been putting albums out under the Steamroller name for years before he hit on the idea of putting out a holiday album. I can blame my curiosity over just what this band I only knew for Christmas music actually DID for the other eleven months of the year for the massive downward spiral into Easy Listening that’s consumed most of my Boring Grown Up musical habits. And you know what’s extra funny? “Chakra 4 of the Body” proves that the answer to the question of what a non-Christmas Mannheim Steamroller sounds like is… “pretty much exactly like Christmas Mannheim Steamroller.” Seriously, for as New Age-y as the title sounds, the only thing keeping “Chakra 4 of the Body” from passing as a holiday track is the lack of some jingle bells somewhere in the mix. Between the Casios set to sound like bells, the ethereal string backing, and the children’s choir “oooohs,” this could EASILY have been repurposed as one of the token original tunes on a Christmas album.
24. “Paperback Writer” – The Beatles
Oh look! Some actual Rock and Roll! Yeah, there’s a reason why I specifically cited The Beatles up in the intro, they’ve pretty much been my favorite artists since I was around 5. I gotta say, though, it’s a testament to how badly this list favors the mellow songs that “Paperback Writer” doesn’t rank any higher than 24. I actually think this is their best single, one final perfect summation of their Beat Group sound before fully diving into Psychedelia and whatever came after. Not that I don’t enjoy the Psychedelia for what it is, but the older I get, the more I appreciate the finely-crafted Pop of The Beatles’ early days, and it doesn’t come much more finely-crafted than “Paperback Writer.” It’s tight, punchy, energetic, succinct, and makes its point without wasting any time. Honestly, the polar opposite of most of the songs on this list. Speaking of which…
I first heard “Destiny” when I saw the video playing on VH1 one morning, then spend several years afterwards struggling to figure out what it was. That doesn’t say much about my ability to retain names, but it also says a lot about how much of an impact “Destiny” made on me musically. It was probably my first real taste of Downtempo/Chill-Out/whathaveyou, and I’ve certainly listened to a lot of that since, but what really stuck in my ears was the vocals by Sia. I’m always a sucker for good vocal harmonies (despite what the many instrumental songs to come would have you believe), and the chorus on “Destiny” really hits me in all the right places. If I’m being honest, most of Zero 7’s discography kind of blurs together in a pleasant but indistinct blob to me, but “Destiny” still stands out as one of my all time favorites.
22. “Serpentrion” – Richard Vimal
Okay, it’s going to be hard for anything else on this list to top this one for sheer obscurity. Richard Vimal was a dude in France who released a couple of largely instrumental albums, containing a lot of experimenting with then-still-futuristic synthisizers… and that’s pretty much all I know about the guy. His debut album Transparences is a pretty great Pink Floyd pastiche, but somehow the one track of his I listened to the most wound up coming from his otherwise lesser follow up Migrations. The weird blend of spacy synths and lazy guitars honestly sounds a LOT like a lot of what Zero 7 would go on to do, just without the drum machine. I don’t know if any of the Chill-Out pantheon had ever cited Vimal as an influence, but they really should.
21. “Someday Man” – The Monkees
I always get a sense or perverse joy when I loot at my listening stats for an artist with a lot of really well-known songs, but some random obscurio ranks higher than all of them. Enter “Someday Man,” one of the lower charting singles of their career, released over a year after anybody actually cared about The Monkees, and also one of their very best songs. If they band hadn’t been in the midst of a comprehensive campaign to destroy their own careers from within, “Someday Man” absolutely would have been more of a hit and still turn up on Oldies radio even today. As it is, this finely-balanced mix of Showtune and Sunshine Pop is just one of the many gems from The Monkees’ later catalog that only us record collector dorks even know exists… and also you!
Okay, here’s one EVERYBODY knows. Fun story, there was a period in my teens where the only Pink Floyd music I owned was their early, Syd Barrett-era stuff. As time rolled on, however, I gradually picked up the stuff everybody else remembers, and around the time I moved up to DC, Dark Side of the Moon-era Floyd had nearly surpassed The Beatles as my favorite group. This kind of big, stately, moody yet weird Jazz/Prog/Arena rock make for a great soundtrack when you’re walking home from work through a city you hate living in. Great self-pitying music. Even though I’m in a better place mentally now, my big giant Pink Floyd playlist is still one of the most-played things in my iTunes library, though that doesn’t stop there from being WAY fewer Floyd songs on this list than I was expecting. You’ll be seeing more of The Floyd, though, if not exactly the songs you’d expect.
19.“You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” – The Beatles
Remember what I said about less-remembered songs by well-known artists? “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” isn’t exactly an OBSCURE Beatles track, it was prominently featured in one of their movies, after all. Still, you’re probably never going to hear it on an Oldies station any time soon. It’s a natural fit for a mellow-leaning list like this, though, even if the pieces of this song seem like they should come together as more of a driving Beat Group Rock song. While “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” shares all the compositional hallmarks of the many “Phil Spector Girl Groups, only it’s a bunch of dude with electric guitars” rockers The Beatles did in their early days, a number of subtle arrangement and production tweaks give the song a much more muted mood. The Help! soundtrack was right around the time The Beatles really started getting into acoustic Folk Rock, and while “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” is more electric than their other experiments at the time, it still fits the trend away from kickin’ live numbers and towards subtler studio creations.
18. “Lay Me Down” – Crosby & Nash
Well here’s an oddity, one of the more obscure tracks on this list, but technically by two of the biggest stars. David Crosby and Graham Nash were of course members of The Byrds and The Hollies respectively, but most people these days know them best as the “C” and the “N” from CSN&Y. While Crosby & Nash on their own never made anywhere near the same impact as Crosby, Still, Nash & Young, somehow this opening track from the duo’s 2004 reunion album managed to rank higher than any of the better known hits from their better-organized configurations. Then again, Crosby & Nash were the two main harmony guys in CSN&Y, and I cannot stress enough what a sucker I am for some good layered vocals. Of course, the song itself (written by Crosby’s own son James Raymond) is pretty great too, capturing the spirit of post-Hippy Folk finger pickin’ but with a surprisingly ominous melody to give it some much needed edge. This one absolutely deserves to be better known than it is.
17. “The Sky” – Mannheim Steamroller
That’s right, they made it on here twice. And you know what? “The Sky” kind of sounds like it could be a Christmas song too. Strip out a bit of the World Music percussion and replace it with more sleigh bells, and you could probably pass this off as an ode to Christmas Eve night or something like that. As it is, “The Sky” DOES provide an important service in that it proves Mannheim Steamroller really could recruit an actual orchestra to record the string section swells in their songs, and didn’t ALWAYS resort to layers upon layers of Casios. It’s also a surprisingly moody piece, one that some might even accuse of almost being spooky. I mean, there’s only so much spookiness anyone could ever accuse Chip Davis & Co. off, but “The Sky” does manage to generate an eerier feel in its quest to evoke the vast, empty expanse of the titular aerial regions than one might expect. Honestly, it kind of reminds me of the more ethereal parts of the Spirited Away soundtrack, as blasphemous as that may sound.
16. “Pleasure In Progress” – Group 87
Oh man, how do I even explain Group 87 to anybody who doesn’t already know? A collaboration between session musicians Patrick O’Hearn, Peter Maunu, and Mark Isham (plus guys like Terry Bozzio and Biran MacLeod on drums), Group 87 are sort of like what a lot of these post-Vaporwave artists who try to evoke 80s instrumental music through a thick haze of irony would be like if they learned to play an actual instrument. “Pleasure In Progress” in particular, with its synth keyboards and up-front drum machines, sounds like the background music to a VHS tour of a newly-opened mall… on The Moon. And then Maunu kicks in with a guitar solo at the end right out of an 80s cop movie and I’m not even sure where we are anymore. While Group 87’s music is to complicated to fit in with the Vaporwave/FutureFunk/MallSoft/whatever’s lo-fi loops, the sleek, technically precise sheen of their “Pleasure In Progress” is everything they claim to emulate
15. “The Apple Bites Back” – Group 87
Whoa, a twofer! Somehow, this is the only instance of two songs by the same artist charting back to back, and just my luck it’s the band who are probably the hardest to talk about! Both these songs are off of their second album, A Career In Dada Processing (hahaha art school kid joke), and thus have much more of that 80s sheen to them. “The Apple Bites Back” is a more guitar-heavy track, but there continues to be a thick foundation of chirping synths underneath everything. I’d almost be tempted to say this sounds like something out of Miami Vice, but then Mark Isham start playing trumpet over everything and it truly spirals off into some other genre that doesn’t actually exist. That’s the think about Group 87, everything it does clearly draws from familiar musical hallmarks, but the combined result doesn’t really sound like it belongs anywhere. And I really dig that.
14. “Submerciful” – Disasterpiece
There was a brief few years, right after my anime convention attendance really got excessive, where I was SUPER into Chiptunes. Like, even before I went to MAGFest for the first time, I was already catching multiple artists playing at cons. Of course, when I finally DID start heading to MAGfest, that was when it all hit critical mass and I became especially obsessed. These days, my tolerance for such high-energy beeps and boops has decreased greatly, and now I just get tired listening to most Chiptunes. Like, not that I get tired OF it, but I physically get worn out trying to keep up with it all. Despite this, or more accurately BECAUSE of this, “Submerciful” by Disasterpiece remains an all-time favorite of mine. A slow, spacey, 6/8 shuffle that fleshes out the MIDI beeps with vibes and drums and other tricks from beyond the realms of an 8-bit cartridge, “Submerciful” used the whole Chiptunes milieu as more of a starting point than an end goal. And it’s all the better for it. if the underwater levels in Donkey Kong Country somehow led out into space, this is the music it would play.
13. “Speak To Me/Breathe” – Pink Floyd
Back to Dark Side of the Moon again, though I’m surprised to say that this is the only other track off that album to make it into the Top 25. Well, at least this one is legally counted as two tracks, so I guess it’s technically two entries. “Breathe” of course is sort of joined at the hip with the previously mentioned “Time,” though it gets a few more plays just by virtue of being the first track on the album. As an aside, it really is fascinating just how few other artists in the world actually sound like Dark Side-era Pink Floyd. I mean, there’s plenty of Psychedelic bands who wound like their earlier stuff, and lots of Arena Rock bands who try to sound like “Comfortably Numb,” but this? There’s a kind of stripped down, intimate, coffee house Jazz band feel to songs like “Breathe” that you just don’t find in Rock elsewhere. At least, I can’t find it, and Lord knows I’ve looked.
12. “Cherry Blossom Girl” – Air
Earlier on this list I intimated that Zero 7 might owe a lot of their sound to Richard Vimal, but I can say for an absolute FACT that Zero 7 would not exist without Air. One of the reigning kings of the Chill-out acts, Air are another band that I really binged on hard around my DC days, to the point that I’m really truly shocked there aren’t more tracks on this list. But if you’re only going to have one Air song, “Cherry Blossom Girl” is absolutely it. An airy, gentle, GORGEOUS tunes that sounds a lot more simple than it actually is, this one is another all-time favorite. I’m actually having a weirdly hard time coming up with things to say about “Cherry Blossom Girl,” it hits me on such a primal level that it’s hard to articulate. It’s a bit like explaining why I like breathing, so obvious that it’s kind of challenging.
Okay, NOW we’re getting into some Floyd obscurities. “Mudmen” is a track off of Obscured by Clouds, a soundtrack to an obscure French art film (La Vallee) that’s more historically important for being a kind of dry run for a lot of Dark Side of the Moon’s ideas In particular, the instrumental “Mudmen” feels like all the best bits of Dark Side lumped together in embryonic form, melding the noodling guitars of “Breathe” and “Time” with the chord progressions of “Great Gig In The Sky” and the synths from “Brain Damage.” Heck, there’s even the fact that “Mudmen” borrows its melodic structure from an earlier Obscured By Clouds track, “Burning Bridges,” which presages the recurring melodies across Dark Side. The funny thing is, I’d rank any of the songs on Dark Side of the Moon as being better than “Mudmen,” despite listening to the latter a lot more. I can only point to everything I said about this Top 25 being all about background noise, and “Mudmen” not having anything as distractingly attention-getting as the vocals on “Great Gig” or the clocks on “Time.” All the better to focus on something else, which is a really weird compliment to give to a song.
10. “Cherish” – The Association
Oh boy, HERE are two artists you would otherwise never see mentioned one after the other: Pink Floyd and The Association. The words “Easy Listening” have had a number of connotations over the years, and while my use of it earlier had more to do with the Mannheim Steamroller sense of the words, “Cherish” is probably closer to what most people think of when they hear it. The Association flirted with a number of sounds over the later half of the 60s, from Folk Rock to Psychedelic to Sunshine Pop, but their best known song finds them blatantly aping Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys. And doing so very well, it must be said. This is one of those songs I’ve literally been listening to since I was a baby, since it’s been a mainstay on Oldies radio for as long as that’s been a thing. I can’t say it enough, but I really really like good harmonies, and “Cherish” is absolutely overflowing with lovely vocals (thanks in no small part to producer Curt Boettcher’s fingerprints being all over it). I find I also have a bit of a weakness for clever, rapid-fire lyrics and there’s a wealth of those wedged into “Cherish” as well. The Association has other songs that I like fine, but this is one case where I’m really NOT surprised this song is the only one to make it up into the Top 25.
9. “No City Lights” – Gordon James
Okay, back in the Mannheim Steamroller posts, I said that my plunge into Contemporary Instrumental Elevator Music was due to Adult Me looking into the extracurricular activities of the artists I knew from Christmas albums. That’s not one hundred percent accurate, however. Very early on, when I was still but a wee tot, my Dad had several New Age compilations from albums like Narada and Windham Hill, and they planted an early seed of appreciation for this kind of music years before I started to actively seek it out. In particular, there was a Windham Hill Guitar Sampler that I really enjoyed, and “No City Lights” was one of the standouts. This is honestly the artists I know the least about on this list, to the point that I’m honestly not sure if the “Gordon James” I googled just now is even the same guy who recorded this. If so, then “No City Lights” would seem to be a very atypical song. A simple finger picking guitar melody, with a second track of guitar soloing on top, and that late 80s kind of digital sheen that honestly makes it difficult to tell if it’s being played on an electric or acoustic guitar, and that’s it. I’m actually a bit at a loss over what genre “No City Lights” even falls under. It’s too Jazzy to be Folksy, but too Folksy to be Jazzy. The one thing I can say for certain is that it absolutely nails the atmosphere of its title, evoking a quiet night out in the middle of nowhere. I’m all about that.
8. “Here, There, and Everywhere” – The Beatles
Would anybody anywhere have guessed that THIS was my most listened to Beatles song as of 2020? Actually, considering that we just had “Cherish” two spots back, it shouldn’t be surprising. “Here, There and Everywhere” is every bit as much of a Pet Sounds/Beach Boys wannabe as “Cherish,” which in retrospect makes me surprised that there’s not a single Beach Boys track on this list (honorary shout out to “Feel Flows,” “God Only Knows,” “Warmth Of The Sun,” and “’Til I Die”) But yeah, here’s another ballad with layers and layers of harmony vocals, so of course it’s going to rank highly. I do like the fact that The Beatles resisted the temptation to gussy the production up with extra instruments like “Cherish” has. No church bells or pianos or string sections or anything here, just a nice, sparse, tasteful rock quartet playing underneath all those layered vocals. It’s like the house band at the world’s classiest restaurant. It’s a testament to how good of a song “Here, There, and Everywhere” is that it was one of the few Beatles songs the Atlanta Oldies station played that hadn’t been released as a single. In fact, how on Earth has this song apparently never been released as a single ANYPLACE? Like, not even some random label in South Asia or whatever, it’s only ever been an album track. That’s a real shame.
7. “A Pillow of Winds” – Pink Floyd
Oh man, if you thought the top BEATLES track was an odd pick, how about my most-played Pink Floyd song? You’ve got to be a pretty hardcore Floyd fan to even know what this album track from Meddle is. I don’t think they ever played it live, at least it’s never been on a live album, and it’s not on any Best Of compilations. That’s not too surprising, as it’s pretty atypical for a Pink Floyd song: a folksy finger-picking guitar number with no Arena Rock solos or Space Rock synths anywhere to be heard. At best, Dave Gilmour adds some slide guitar that gives it a bit of commonality with songs like “Breathe,” but otherwise “A Pillow of Winds” sounds more like something David Crosby would have recorded than anything Floydian. And yet, here we are. Again, this Top 25 strongly favors background music, and a gentle Psychedelic Folk ditty like this makes for a good relaxation soundtrack just about any time… even if it doesn’t sound anything like what a Pink Floyd
6. “Island Sunrise” – Software
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the beginning of Vaporwave. Like, not really, but this is absolutely the song all Vaporwave songs want to be when they grow up. This German duo were part of that whole transition from Krautrock to New Wave in the 80s, but the whole Digital Dance album sounds just like some kid on Soundcloud trying to replicate the retro sound of City Pop but really slowed down… except it’s ACTUALLY retro. This is exactly the kind of song you hear playing over the speakers at a hotel spa, the sound of prepackaged luxury. I don’t pay enough attention to meme-dom to know if “Island Sunrise” has ever been the kind of meme as the likes of that one Machintosh Plus song, but it totally deserves to be. Indeed, it says a lot that I’ve got this actual 80s track up here in my Top 25 and not any of the reams of modern recreations of that style. Of course, there’s ALSO the fact that it’s just a super relaxing and smooth instrumental, so it’s made it up to the top of the list just on the strength of being good background noise. Sometimes I’ve just kept this track on a constant loop if I need extra help cooling down after an especially stressful day. Because, you know, we can’t all afford to pamper ourselves over at that hotel spa.
Another one I can’t imagine ANYBODY else knowing about, and another track off of that Windham Hill Guitar Sampler I was listening to as a kid. This song is also the whole reason I know what Group 87 was , as I was trying to look up stuff anything else Peter Maunu did. There’s surprisingly little, actually, at least as a solo artist. I mean, dude’s done tons of work over the years, including being Arsenio Hall’s bandleader, but I can only find a single solo album and this one random track off of a multi-artist compilation. It a really cool one, though. There’s no percussion or backing band, just a few layers of electric guitar and an ambiguously-credited “guitar synthesizer.” The end result is somehow both very natural/New Age-y and also really SciFi spacey, simultaneously sounding like some kind of wildlife documentary and also a stargazing show. It look a long time to sprout, but you can really see the seeds of my modern day musical tastes in this early staple of my collection. And speaking of an early favorite…
4. “Aquatic Ambiance” – David Wise
Only one video game soundtrack represented on this Top 25, and of COURSE it would be that one Donkey Kong Country track. What, you thought I teased this back in the “Submerciful” entry just for no reason? “Aquatic Ambiance” is right up there on a whole generation of gamers’ Top Song lists, and for good reason. I remember on that Making Of VHS that Nintento Power put out to hype of DK Country, somebody said that the music for the underwater levels was conceived as being a sort of “reward” for making it past the tougher levels, and I can totally see what they mean. This is some of the calmest, most relaxing music this side of the CD-i Tetris soundtrack. I actually got to hear David Wise perform “Aquatic Ambiance” with The OneUps one year. Their whole gimmick was converting video game songs into swanky lounge jams, and this was probably the one track that was made LESS chill as a result. Yet again, another great piece of background noise for calming down and cooling off, and also probably the LAST song on this list that anybody other than me has even heard of. Case in point…
Another song I first encountered on one of those sampler CDs back when I was a kid, though I didn’t fully latch onto it until years later. That’s hardly surprising, because Little Kid Me absolutely would have found a song like this too boring to even form an opinion on. There’s been a lot of New Age tracks on this list, but this is the first one to really push it all the way over into the hazy realms of Ambient. Like, really proper Brian Eno-style Ambient, the kind that only barely even qualifies as a “song” and not just a soundscape. Like, one of those noise machines for lulling babies to sleep. I mean, it’s not QUITE waves of sound dragged out ad nauseum; “Glass Green” still has a recognizable melody, but next to nothing in the way of percussion. This is absolutely Middle Aged Suburban Mom Doing Yoga music, and I’m not at all embarrassed to admit that I’ve listened to it enough for it to make number three on this list. And speaking of songs I first heard years ago…
2. “The Long Riders” – Richard Souther
Yet another New Age song I encountered on those sampler CDs as a kid, but in this case I actively did NOT like it back in the day. While this song isn’t quite as formless as “Glass Green” is, it’s also a lot MORE oddly structured, musically. Between some time signature shenanigans and a lot of Jazz-esque chord changes, Little Kid Me thought “The Long Riders” was just a chaotic mess back in the day. Obviously, seeing as the song is now up at my number two slot, I’ve changed my opinion on somewhat. While the contrast between the gentile New Age riff that forms the songs backbone and those big loud Jazz chords is still a bit jarring if I’m in the wrong mood, the overall tone of “The Long Riders” has really grown on me. For one thing, I’ve gotten a lot more used to how Jazz songwriting works, though any serious Jazz hound is going to really cringe at me repeatedly bringing it up for a song like this. Whatever the melodic structure of this song might look like on paper, “The Long Riders” takes on a whole other feel thanks to the slick, digital, electronic production. If those Group 87 tracks earlier interested you, “The Long Riders” is another representative of that 80s Contemporary Instrumental style. And yet, while “The Long Riders” ALMOST took the top spot, there’s one more track that just BARELY edged it out…
1. “Bismillahi Rrahman Rahim” – Harold Budd
Okay, now THIS is pure, foundational Ambient Music. Seriously, while it’s credited to Harold Budd, it was just as much Brian Eno’s baby, right around the time that he was recording Discreet Music and Music for Airports on his own. If ever a song was going to top a list of songs dominated by relaxing background noise, this was going to be it. “Bismillahi Rrahman Rahim” sounds like the theme to a Film Noir detective story set in a fairytale land. Marion Brown’s saxophone gives the song a clear Jazz influence, but everything about the gentle, formless waves of sound behind that melody feels like something else entirely. Imagine if Vangelis’s Blade Runner soundtrack had been recorded with layers and layers of vibraphones instead of synthesizers, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what “Bismillahi Rrahman Rahim” sounds like. If you like mellower Cowboy Bebop songs like the first half of “Space Lion,” then this is right up your street. A bit part of the reason this song tops the list is because I used to have it playing on a loop all night during anime convention trips. If you’re trying to tune out a whole room full of rowdy drunks, you couldn’t ask for a better song to transport you to some other dimension.
…and there you have it! My Top 25 Most Played Songs as of 2020. Did you discover any new music? Did you even read it all the way through? Honestly, I kind of don’t care. I just know I enjoyed writing it, and it made for a GREAT brain vacation for a few minutes at a time when I needed to take a break from whatever project I was actually SUPPOSED to be working on. Seriously, there may be times when I get in a groove and hate to quit whatever I'm working, but there's just as many times where it does me a WORLD of good to step away and go work on something totally not work related for a little bit. And, sadly, now that it’s done, I need a new distraction. Well, there IS that other MST3k blog I never finished…
