VNV Nation – Eclecticism

Okay, so lots of people are posting their end-of-year Spotify wrap-ups showing off their listening habits. I don’t subscribe to Spotify (they don’t pay their artists nearly enough, and they have a history of supporting podcasters I have issues with, so they don’t get my money), but I do have Apple Music (who, really, should also pay their artists more, but they’re at least better than Spotify), and Apple does an end-of-year “replay” thing.

Of course, even this is a very small peek at my listening habits, because I really don’t use Apple Music all that much. I get it as part of a subscription bundle, and only really use it briefly in the mornings before work, or occasionally in the evenings before bed. Most of the time I listen to songs from my local collection.

That said, though, here’s what Apple says about the, oh, 10% (if that) of my music listening that it knows about….

Top Artists

549 total artists

The Orb 137 minutes
Nine Inch Nails 136 minutes
Dolly Parton 128 minutes
Orbital 124 minutes
Underworld 89 minutes
Bonobo 71 minutes
Hooverphonic 69 minutes
Imperative Reaction 64 minutes
Velvet Acid Christ 61 minutes
Apoptygma Berzerk 51 minutes
VNV Nation 50 minutes
Seabound 50 minutes
Front Line Assembly 46 minutes
Rotersand 44 minutes
Icon of Coil 44 minutes

I’m quite amused that Dolly landed so high on this list, particularly how out of place she looks. But her recent Rock Star album is great, and it has been getting a lot of plays since it came out. Worth it!

Top Songs

Again, I’ve listened to many of these tracks far more times this year than is represented here, and have listed to a lot of other stuff as well, probably far more than the 4-8 times shown in these screenshots. That said, it’s not really that bad of a sampler of what I listen to.

So…it’s a weird list, and only somewhat representative of my tastes. But hey, since I have a limited sample size to work from because I don’t stream much of what I listen to, it’s what we get.

The weekly music meme: ten songs at random from my music collection, plus assorted rambling.

The Shamen, ‘Phorever People (Shamen Dub)’, off of Phorever People: The Shamen were one of the early-90’s techno groups that I liked a lot. Not quite as good as Utah Saints, but definitely further towards the top of the heap than many other acts, able to produce entire albums that were listenable, rather than just the odd single here or there. This is a fairly trancy ‘dub’ mix (no vocals) of one of their singles that didn’t quite break as big on the scene. Sounds like something that’d make a good background piece for the soundtrack of a tech-heavy film.
The Prodigy, ‘Diesel Power (Snake Break)’, off of The Fat Mixes: I’m pretty sure that The Fat Mixes isn’t an official album — at least, I’ve never found any official word about it. I downloaded it a long time ago, when I was first exploring the world of Napster (back when the world of Napster was worth exploring). It’s a collection of various remixes of tracks off of The Fat of the Land, some mediocre and some that are very impressive. The one downside is that as I’ve never found a real copy of it, all I have are mid-bitrate .mp3s that don’t sound nearly as good as I wish they did.
Sunscreem, ‘Love U More (A Version)’, off of Love U More: One of my favorite songs of all time. Bright, bouncy, and happy (tempered with some occasionally somewhat disturbing lyrics), saying that no matter what happens, “you know you could never make me love you more.” This one never fails to put a smile on my face when I hear it. While this version’s off of the single, it’s nearly (if not entirely) identical to the version on their album O3 — the various remixes on the single were rather boring.
Tag Team, ‘Whoomp! (There It Is)‘, off of DJ Bass Mix: Aaah, the joys of having been a DJ…and a DJ who every so often had to cater to popular tastes, even when they weren’t exactly up my alley. Still, as far as 90’s one-hit-wonder hip-hop songs go, this one really isn’t that bad. Best, though, was ending up with an acapella version, which allowed me to run the vocals on top of My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult‘s’A Girl Doesn’t Get Killed By A Make-Believe Lover (‘Cuz It’s Hot)‘ — and that worked a lot better than it really should have.
The Art of Noise, ‘Dragnet ’88’, off of Best of the Art of Noise: Experimental art-techno group The Art of Noise’s take on the Dragnet theme, done for the 1988 movie starring Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd. I have no memory of whether or not the movie is any good, but I really like Art of Noise, and the samples they’ve sprinkled throughout the song are fun (“You’ve got a lot of repressed feelings, don’t you Friday? Must be what keeps your hair up.”)
Mickey Hart and Planet Drum, ‘Indoscrub’, off of Supralingua: Planet Drum is ex-Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart‘s world music project, focusing primarily on various forms of ~~sitar~~ drumming and percussion. Good percussion has a tendency to catch my ear, so I picked this one up on a whim one day when I ran across it browsing at random. Good stuff, though it all sounds similar enough that I’d be hard pressed to tell one track from another by ear.
Bedhead, ‘Crushing‘, off of WhatFunLifeWas: A long time ago, I came across a review of this album on the ‘net that was so well-written and so complimentary of the album that I went out and picked it up based solely on the strength of that review. Lucklily, I wasn’t disappointed in the least — while it’s not my normal style of music (strictly guitar, bass, and drums, rather than the electronic-heavy music I tend to gravitate towards), it actually often reminds me of a lot of ambient music: lots of flowing themes, vocals that don’t overpower and often blend right in with the instruments, and very relaxing. A little hard to describe, but highly recommended.
VNV Nation, ‘Arclight’, off of Empires: Due to my DJing in Anchorage taking me away from the goth/industrial music that got me started and into more standard dance/techno/pop stuff, I ended up losing track of what was going on in the goth/industrial world for a good few years. Because of this, I’ve only recently been coming across artists that I’m finding I like a lot: Beborn Beton, Covenant, Wumpscut, Velvet Acid Christ…and VNV Nation. Time after time, I’d hear a song at The Vogue, ask the DJ what it was, and it would be VNV Nation. Eventually, I picked up two of their albums (Empires and Futureperfect), and they’re both excellent. This is very much where my tastes lie these days (and as I’m still working on discovering much of this stuff, recommendations are always appreciated!).
Pigface, ‘Lost Track’, off of Preaching to the Perverted: The Best of Pigface: I’ve mentioned before that Pigface is one of my favorite groups. This is a short, but very fun little track, one of the many “B-sides” on their recent “Best of” compilation two-disc album. Not much more than percussion here, just a couple minutes of heavy drumming with some odd little electronic bleeps and bloops to spice it up a bit. Sounds like the beginning of a work in progress that never made it much further than what it is.
Liam Howlett, ‘Section 7‘, off of Prodigy Presents the Dirtchamber Sessions, Vol. 1: Technically, the stores list this as a Prodigy album — which, since The Prodigy basically is Liam Howlett, isn’t strictly wrong — but as this album is all mixwork and no strictly original compositions, I keep it filed under Liam’s name. It’s an incredible disc, too, letting Liam show off both his DJ skills and his insanely comprehensive record collection, both of which he does handily. This track alone samples LL Cool J, Digital Underground, Uptown, and Cold Cut, and most of the other tracks on the album sample two to three times as many individual cuts over the course of each mix. Good stuff.