Years ago, it was Covey’s Seven Habits. My manager at the time was into it, so I bought the book. There was too much philosophy there. I didn’t want to sharpen the saw or set down my life goals. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t drop the ball on my work projects.

This time around it’s David Allen’s Getting Things Done that has charmed the pants off the bloggeratti. But it still has too many charts.

I also have a little bit of a Moleskine fetish. And there are other people with the same fetish who use the GTD system with it.

All of this is just to say that I’ve had “post old playlists” on my list of things to do, and now it’s done.

I have a couple of months worth of playlists to upload.

Song played 9 times: 1 Rain by Gaelle
Songs played 8 times: 1 Spiral by William Orbit on Hello Waveforms
Songs played 7 times: 2 One Evening by Feist / Four In the Morning by Ivy
Songs played 6 times: 1 Sni Bong by Dengue Fever
Songs played 5 times: 16
Songs played 4 times: 22
Songs played thrice: 103
Songs played twice: 244
Songs played once: 868

Shortest set: 5 April 2007, 10 songs
Longest set: 28 June 2007, 63 songs
Average set: 38 songs

I also made a list of the top 20 artists by number of songs played. Finding The Zombies on the top 20 artists isn’t surprising. But finding Depeche Mode at number 4 was. Show Top 20

Plays	Artist
47	The Zombies
47	Ivy
28	Black Box Recorder
26	Depeche Mode
24	Goldfrapp
24	Air
21	Stereo Total
21	Leonard Cohen
21	Dido
20	Gaelle
19	Dengue Fever
18	Vive la Fête
18	Juliana Hatfield
18	The Blow
17	Yeah Yeah Yeahs
17	Client
16	Sia
16	Feist
16	Dot Allison
15	Garbage

Other music sites have tried to catch my eye. They’re funny and quirky, but not in a good way. And I’ve never made a secret of my infatuation with Pandora and Last.fm. And buying real CDs is OK because it’s another medium altogether. And buying directly from the musician is practically sacred.

So why do I feel like I’m cheating?

Because I just signed up for eMusic.

I resisted. Really, I did. I had all the reasons: it’s a monthly subscription model, the old deal used to be much better, download credits don’t roll over month to month, what if they don’t carry anything I like. Then one day when I was out with the boy, I picked up an eMusic trial: 65 downloads for $15. I’m not good at match, but I’m guessing that’s about $0.23 per track. And I had two months.

eMusic had the Buttersprites. And Masha Qrella. And my favorite band so far this year: Electrelane. Plus I could download the music again if I lost it. And no DRM.

I went through my allotment of 65 tracks in about, uhm, 90 minutes.

I love the iTunes Music Store. I really really do. It has that spiffy interface. It handles all my podcast needs. I suppose I could get TV shows from it. And I’ll never give up the iTunes player. It synchs with my iPod like they were made for each other, and it carries my 30 gigabyte music collection without breaking a sweat.

But eMusic…. he said all the right things. Odd bands I like. No DRM. Really cheap. Yes it’s not as seamless as buying from iTunes (so smooth!). Yes, he wants a commitment, but it’s only month-to-month, but I can get out of it pretty easily when I’m through. I think.

I’m sure that this is just what the poly community calls New Relationship Energy. I felt this way when the iTunes Music Store was brand new. Things won’t always be so steamy with eMusic. I’m sure that I’ll be able to love both iTunes and eMusic.

Pretty sure.

I wish I hadn’t been so curious. Not once but twice.

Antidote.

There is still so much to do (links from the playlists to various web sites comes to mind), but I’m ready to let people have a look.

Right now you can see all the playlists going back to the first one I have from late August 2006.

Remember: be kind.

And as long as there’s a blogging system, well, it’d be a shame not to use it.