My Favorite things: Most listened to of 2011

As tradition, I post an annual "Best of" list based on my scrobbles. In case you don't know what scrobbles are, it's synonymous with plays. Of tracks, of artists, of albums. Around this time every year, I visit my charts on last.fm and see, based on play-count, which artists, tracks, and albums I loved. But, instead of the usual boring enumeration, I worked quite hard on putting together a visualization of the entire thing. Brings me back to my college thesis days, something I'm so glad is over. Something about numbers and data can be quite...tedious. But the results are lovely.

Dark horses of the year:

Honestly, I've never paid much attention to 30 Seconds to Mars till I heard that they were having a concert in Manila. Which was sometime around May/June. What convinced me to see their show was their music video for CTTE. Obviously I got hooked, listening to their music over 900 times since! Walk the Moon is another fierce one. Heard their song Anna Sun from Milk Made's highlights video for NYFW and I knew I had to hear more from this band. Got their 2010 album that same week, and had it on repeat for weeks. Their SXSW performance of Anna Sun was awesome. I'd love to see them live, acoustic or not, doesn't matter. They're great either way. Which explains why I've scrobbled them almost 300 times.

Special Mentions:

Not making it to the list this year, but probably will next year are Kimbra, Gotye, and Ben Howard. I've been playing rock music for years now, that having artists like them feels like a breath of fresh air. Ben Howard's album, Every Kingdom, is a fast favorite. He's like a hip Jack Johnson, but a less hippie-chill version of it. It's hard to pick favorites off his album, but I currently have Keep Your Head Up on repeat. Kimbra and Gotye shot to mainstream with their duet Somebody That I Used To Know. Both have that artsy-quirky qualities that I find myself constantly drawn to. Kimbra's music reminds me of Björk so much. And her song Settle Down is so infectious that it just won't stop playing in my head. Other than his popular single, Gotye's Save Me is something I can't stop playing on my phone. Singing along to it is something I'm still working on.

Who are your favorite artists of 2011? Care to share?

Music of 2010 | Music of 2009