The real deal: What’s in your “Top 25 Most Played”?

How often do you play a song that is purely guilty pleasure listening? Would you share such guilty pleasures with the world? These days we are able to engage with music on so many different platforms it seems that your library’s top played songs are an intimate look into your true musical self. And with iTunes creating exactly this playlist on everyone’s computers, we can all have our guilty pleasures revealed.

Go on, take a look for yourself: you might be surprised that your listening habits aren’t quite what you thought they were!

Below is part one: Azzz’s top 25.

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Before getting started, I should admit that as I listen to a lot of albums – often from end to end – as opposed to playlists of singles, so the top 25 is full of tracks from a few albums. Rather than bore you by producing a list that looks like the back of a CD, I’ve pulled out the best from each. So… not quite 25 tracks here. Let’s begin anyway!

A friend of mine lent me this Metric album (Old World Underground) and it went straight to number one. Guitar music is not normally my go-to genre, but in terms of replayability, this album is simply awesome – especially the opening track, IOU. Of course, there are a bunch of tracks from here in the top 25 but so as not to bore you I’ve only included this one.

BE at Space, Ibiza. A good friend of mine sent me this double-disc compilation album with a discount voucher for visiting the actual club, but, I never made it over last summer. A shame. The tunes are laid back and lovely, a smooth deep house. Stand out tracks include Ronald Christoph‘s Say You Want Me Now and Nacho Casco‘s Instructions for Kissing.

Booka Shade‘s “Cinematic Shades: The Slow Songs” didn’t grab great reviews, but that was in part perhaps to expectations set by the excellent Movements. As a standalone album, however, it’s relaxing downtempo electronic life-soundtrack stuff, perfect for blocking out the thrum of the city as you ride the tube into work. Which is exactly how it’s ended up on the list.

Last year, Soul Clap released an extraordinary remix of Jamie Foxx’s Extravaganza, and for some, this was the soundtrack to their summer. For me, it was a rediscovery of a smoother, groovier kind of house music, that caught a vibe that totally resonated with where I was at the time. Best line: “We were simply celebrating life.” Amen.

Back at the start of 2010, I began a project where I’d get a new album every week – unimaginatively named “Album of the Week” – and give it a thorough listen, in the name of finding exciting new music. The plan failed as I hit Fuck Buttons‘ Tarot Sport in week seven and it stayed on heavy rotation for about a month. Incredible electronic soundscaping. By the time you reach Flight of the Feathered Serpent, if you can’t actually see this mythical beast flying high above the Mayan pyramids then there’s something wrong with your brain.

Coldplay are neat. The kind of neat that you play for your girlfriend, or if you’ve just broken up and want back together, but not really the kind of neat that I’d imagine making it into my top 25 most played. This remix of Talk, though, by the legendary Thin White Duke (no, not that one) is a melodic, housey anthem. Particularly good if there is someone in your life that you really enjoy talking to but don’t get to do that nearly as much as you’d like for whatever reason – hence, I think, the reason it made the cut.

Major Lazer – otherwise known as DJ/Producers Diplo and Switch – is just a big bag of sonic fun. What else would you expect from “a renegade commando with a lazer arm and a rocket-powered skateboard who fights vampires, zombies, pimps, mummies, and other unsavoury forces of evil.” Diplo’s remix of Keep It Going Louder is an essential call to the DJ: it’s time to party!

Booka Shade make another appearance, as one of the few singles on the list. This time it’s Scaramanga, remixed by our friend Gainsford. This just sounds so clean and driving with layers all over the place guaranteeing every relisten reveals something new. Gainsford takes Booka Shade to the place where they should have gone.

Live it Out is the second Metric album to make the top 25. The truth is, I liked Old World Underground so much I went out and bought the entire back-catalogue. Especially check out their album Fantasies – I’m very surprised it didn’t make this list, it’s just incredible… but that’s the end of this instalment of the top 25!