Proposal: An index of ...I'm not sure what this measures.
Possibly a cool idea, possibly very boring. Your mileage may vary.
It all started when I observed that i) the frequency of those "iPod shuffle fic anthologies" seems tightly correlated with the cheerfulness of the fandom as a whole (e.g. despite having roughly comparably-sized samples on ff.net, the Zelda fandom has far fewer than the pokemon fandom) ii) a fic which is an iPod shuffle fic anthology... thing seems slightly more likely to be focused on interpersonal relations -- particularly shipping -- than a fic that is not.
Which led me to note that, any playlist I might assemble for such a hypothetical anthology would be hilariously unsuited to expectations i) and ii). I am pleased to say iTunes did not disappoint.
But of more interest is how completely this avoids (ii). What are the odds, I wondered, of managing to avoid love songs for twelve consecutive tracks? I was under the impression that, oh, maybe half of all songs are love songs? It's certainly a wildly popular topic. So, here's something to try. Run shuffle and skip through tracks, keeping count of how many consecutive non-love songs you come across. Once you come to a love song write down your count and start again from zero. Take the average of twenty or so such runs (or a larger sample if you have more time). What number did you get, do you think it accurately represents your musical tastes? I got an average of 4.8, so a chain of twelve songs like this is probably very unusual for my library.
It all started when I observed that i) the frequency of those "iPod shuffle fic anthologies" seems tightly correlated with the cheerfulness of the fandom as a whole (e.g. despite having roughly comparably-sized samples on ff.net, the Zelda fandom has far fewer than the pokemon fandom) ii) a fic which is an iPod shuffle fic anthology... thing seems slightly more likely to be focused on interpersonal relations -- particularly shipping -- than a fic that is not.
Which led me to note that, any playlist I might assemble for such a hypothetical anthology would be hilariously unsuited to expectations i) and ii). I am pleased to say iTunes did not disappoint.
- John Cale, Fear is a Man's Best Friend
- Dire Straits, Industrial Disease
- Janet Baker (Gustav Mahler), Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredgit
- 梶浦由記, Rain and Storm
- Slim Dusty, One Truckie's Epitaph
- Joan Baez (John Prine), Hello in There
- Tom Waits, Murder in the Red Barn
- Warren Zevon, Play it All Night Long
- Kate Bush, Under Ice
- 梶浦由記, M03
- Jacques Brel, Les Singes
- Gordon Lightfoot, The Watchman's Gone
But of more interest is how completely this avoids (ii). What are the odds, I wondered, of managing to avoid love songs for twelve consecutive tracks? I was under the impression that, oh, maybe half of all songs are love songs? It's certainly a wildly popular topic. So, here's something to try. Run shuffle and skip through tracks, keeping count of how many consecutive non-love songs you come across. Once you come to a love song write down your count and start again from zero. Take the average of twenty or so such runs (or a larger sample if you have more time). What number did you get, do you think it accurately represents your musical tastes? I got an average of 4.8, so a chain of twelve songs like this is probably very unusual for my library.