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My charts this week -- and future weeks if I can't get some program to work -- are not going to really reflect my listening habits. I use my iPods a lot, but I've been having trouble with the Yamipod program more and more over the recent weeks, and for the past few days, I've had almost no luck with the program at all. My nano hasn't worked at all with it for a month or more, and now I can't get the program to work with my video iPod. I try to force Yamipod to send the tracks, but I can't even get that screen to show up; the program stops responding. In the past, if I shut it down and then tried a bit later, the tracks would send on their own when I started Yamipod up again, but that's no longer working either.

I tried to install iScrobbler once, but I didn't understand what I had to do to get it to work. I was also a bit confused about which program could or could not be running at the time.

Recently, I saw with the recent Last.fm upgrade that there was supposed to be a way to scrobble your Pod through Last.fm, but so far, I haven't had any luck there, either. I'm particularly thrown by the syncing, since how am I supposed to sync my 2GB nano? I'm not thrilled about syncing my 30GB pod, either, since I have stuff on my computer that I don't necessarily want on my iPod.

Anyone have any suggestions or step by step help for getting something -- anything! -- to work? I'm using a Windows PC, not a Mac.

Meanwhile, I've been listening to Age Pryor, Beirut, Brazilian Girls, David Garza, Fly My Pretties, and Ola Podrida (among others) on my Pod, but they haven't been scrobbled.

Take your top 20 artists. For each of these artists, collect the top 5 similar artists. The resulting number of unique artists is your eclectic score. If the score is small (extreme = 5) your musical preferences are very limited, and if it is large (larger than 80, extreme = 100), then you have an eclectic musical preference. You can compute your own score at http://anthony.liekens.net/pub/scripts/last.fm/eclectic.php


My eclectic score is currently





The 88 related artists for my profile are A Perfect Circle (2) Air (2) Al Hirt Alice in Chains (2) Amon Amarth Arch Enemy Charlie Feathers Children of Bodom Concord Dawn Confucius Cradle of Filth Danny Elfman Dave Dobbyn Dean Martin Deftones Duke Ellington Ella Fitzgerald Ennio Morricone Evol Intent + Dieselboy Evol Intent + Ewun Eye TV Fantômas Fly My Pretties Frank Sinatra Fur Patrol Future Technicians Ghostface Groove Armada GZA/Genius Headless Chickens Howard Shore Incubus Infiltrata + Define Iron Maiden Jazzanova Jerry Goldsmith John Coltrane John Williams Jools Holland Klute KoЯn (2) Kruder & Dorfmeister (2) Lamb of God Luis Bacalov Massive Attack (2) Mastodon Megadeth Metallica (2) Method Man Miles Davis Mr. Bungle Nile Nine Inch Nails (2) Nirvana Opeth Portishead Raekwon Rage Against the Machine Rammstein Red Hot Chili Peppers Rhian Sheehan Rhombus Salmonella Dub Santa Esmeralda Satyricon Seba Sepultura Slayer Slipknot Soundgarden (2) Stellar* Stone Temple Pilots Strapping Young Lad System of a Down The Black Seeds The Dave Brubeck Quartet The Smashing Pumpkins Thelonious Monk Thievery Corporation (2) Tom Jones & Jools Holland Tomahawk Tool Tosca (2) Trinity Roots Wu-Tang Clan Xplorer Zero 7 (2) 梶芽衣子

Updated as I remember

8 Foot Sativa
Brick vs Face
Blistering Tongues
Brian Wilson
Christpuncher
Cold By Winter
Comeback Kid
Concord Dawn
Corporate Trash
Dioxin
Deja Voodoo
Evermore
El Schlong
Fat Freddies Drop
Fly My Pretties
Gestalt Switch
Katchafire
Kill the Fake Patient
Kitsch
Kora
Koile
Missing Teeth
Metallica
Mothra
Muse
No Use for a Name
Not Quite Right
Pennywise
Phoenix Foundation
Rhombus
Rise Against
Ritalin
Salmonella Dub
Shihad
Ska Face Claw
So So Modern
Sommerset
Strung Out
The D4
The DDT's
The Bones
The Bouncing Souls
The Black Seeds
The Bleeders
The Datsuns
The Debonaire
The Managers
The Pukes
The Scurvy Dogs
Trinity Roots
Two Fat Ladies

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
Try it out!
So, here's how it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button

Opening Credits:
Love Missile F1-11 : Sigue Sigue Sputnik (kicking things off with a techno/rock bang!)

Waking Up:
Let's Roll : Fly My Pretties (ah, if only I was that motivated first thing when I get up. Maybe I should try listening to this song first thing and see if it helps)

First Day At School:
Ciao Mama : Jovanotti (hee! that's kind of cute)

Sex Song:
Sitting, Waiting, Wishing : Jack Johnson (that doesn't sound good)

Party Song:
Turn It Around : Fly My Pretties (not exactly a rockin' party. The FMP version is pretty mellow. The Black Seeds version would be slightly better, but still not really a party song)

Falling In Love:
Minor Glue - Twinset (I could imagine this playing in the background of a montage of falling in love shots. Sort of a couple in the city in the first stages of love thing.)

Fight Song:
Fever : Peggy Lee (obviously, I'm a lover, not a fighter.)

Getting Stoned:
Molasses : The Radiators (I probably have been stoned listening to this. Ah, the college years in New Orleans!)

Breaking Up:
Laid : James (hee!)

Prom:
Wandering Eye : Fat Freddys Drop (I had a wandering date for my prom.)

Life's OK:
Hawks Do Not Share : The Devils (I guess life wouldn't be too bad if you didn't have to share. Or something. I don't know.)

Mental Breakdown:
North West : De Phazz (no idea)

Driving:
Brand New Cadillac : The Clash (Awesome!)

Flashback:
La Bellezza : Niccolò Fabi (ah, takes me back to my first trip to Italy, when I got called bellezza a few times.)

Getting Back Together:
Luck in My Eyes : k.d. lang (if you think it's lucky to get back together, I guess)

Wedding:
Big Top Halloween : Afghan Whigs (A theme wedding, I guess. I do like halloween, though. And my black cats could be bridesmaids!)

Birth of Child:
Theme from Flash Gordon : Queen (my child would be the saviour of the universe!)

Final Battle:
Down to the Well : Pixies (yeah, that kind of works)

Death Scene:
Robots : Flight of the Conchords (hee! humans are dead!)

Funeral Song:
Special Surprise : Luke Buda (a special surprise in store for the people attending the funeral when it turns out I'm not really dead!)

Closing Credits:
Soul With a Capital S : Tower of Power (Goin' out funky!)

Go through your top 10 artists and add up the total number of listeners. Then compute the average and divide the average by the number of Radiohead fans (Radiohead is the artist with the most listeners). That is your "mainstream percentage".

My mainstream ranking is 3%, which isn't surprising, since half my top ten doesn't even have triple digits when it comes to listeners, and one only has three listeners. That said, they're all freakin' brilliant and deserve to be mainstream!

Flight of the Conchords 1484
Age Pryor 66
Fly My Pretties 245
Tess & Adrian 3
The Phoenix Foundation 594
The Video Kid 54
Flash Harry 71
The Black Seeds 574
Module* 71
Tom Waits 84,982

Total: 88,144
Average: 8,814
Radiohead listeners: 316,082
Percentage: .027886 (3%)

*Module is actually listed as having 155 listeners, but that's for two different Modules. One is Russian, I think. My Module is from NZ. So I gave him 71, to tie with Flash Harry, and roughly half of what was listed for both Modules. It's not like those extra 70+ listeners is going to skew the results much higher. heh.

Take your top 8 neighbours, and list their top three artists, then show whereabouts those artists are on your charts.
(How randomly fun is that?)

#1 indigo_jones
1. Flight of the Conchords (1)
2. Age Pryor (22)
3. Fly My Pretties (3)

#2 Sherry
1. James Blunt (6)
2. Flight of the Conchords (1)
3. Keane (30)

#3 conchordgirl
1. Flight of the Conchords (1)
2. Shakira (91)
3. Yann Tiersen (not of my list)

#4 bucjo
1. Snow Patrol (11)
2. Dishwalla (not on my list)
3. Muse (not on my list)

#5 tvongaza
1. Fly My Pretties (3)
2. Thievery Corporation (not on my list)
3. Feist (not on my list)

#6 CarlosTheTackle
1. Sarah McLachlan (not on my list, but I do listen on my stereo)
2. Howard Shore (not on my list)
3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (not on my list)

#7 LucyFur
1. Bright Eyes (not on my list)
2. Pearl Jam (not on my list)
3. The Phoenix Foundation (4)

#8 scopic
1. Broken Social Scene (135)
2. Death Cab for Cutie (135)
3. Feist (not on my list)

A blatant theft, of course.

List your last.fm Top 15 Artists.
Open up iTunes and sort each artist by play count.
List your top 3 songs per artist.

Flight of the Conchords
Angels
K.I.S.S.I.N.G Parts A&B
Bus Driver's Song

Age Pryor
Eyes Rarely Meet
Curious Boy
All Is Good

Fly My Pretties
Oh Fair Moonlight
All That Can Be
King of You All

Tess and Adrian
Dixon St.
Positive Tension
Pretty Things
(tie) Singing in My Soul

The Phoenix Foundation
Let Me Die a Woman
Going Fishing
Nest Egg

The Video Kid
Crime Scene
CCTV
Let Her Go

The Black Seeds
Fire
Bring You Up
Dance Dance

Flash Harry
Come On Man
Morning Rush
Alright

Module
Better Than Something
What It Seems (Interlude)
I Neva Dared

Bic Runga
Beautiful Collision
No Crying No More
It's Over

Tom Waits
In the Colosseum
Romeo Is Bleeding
Blue Valentines

Niccolo' Fabi
E' non E'
Il Negozio di Antiquariato
Vento D'Estate

Stars
Set Yourself on Fire
Ageless Beauty
Calendar Girl

Pixies
Alison
All Over the World
Blown Away

Morcheeba
Blindfold
Big Calm
Diggin' A Watery Grave

Not necessarily representative of my favorite tracks by these artist. More a matter of starting a CD and not always getting to finish it.

Anticipation for the release of Tool's new album, 10,000 Days* is quickly becoming unbearable. More so, the prospect of an Australian tour in August, as toolshed has been reporting. As soon as dates for Down Under are confirmed, I'm booking my flights. Assuming toolshed is speaking close to the truth, Toma and I will be travelling from Queenstown, NZ to Sydney, and follow them down through Melbourne and Adelaide. If toolshed are wrong, we will adjust accordingly.
*("If that is your real name", there's so much speculation about it that trusting it is the real one is unnecessarily difficult)

I recently acquired Placebo's new album Meds. I've listened to it through only once, and as far as first impressions go I'm not all that impressed. They rinsed and recycled their formula one too many times. Sure, it's okay, but it's not great. Didn't live up to Sleeping With Ghosts. BUT, this is not my final view; a few more listens might drastically change my opinion. It's happened before; I hated The Dears's album No Cities Left (apart from the catchy-as-fuck single Lost In The Plot), and now it's one of my most respected and loved albums.

I've been listening to much more New Zealand music this year. Last year, my NZ music spectrum was confined to The Mint Chicks, The Datsuns and The Shocking Pinks. Expansion in my musical taste has led me to adore bands like Kora, Shapeshifter and Fly My Pretties. And god damn, Pluto surpass any of them; i'm surprised they haven't broken the UK scene - if The Checks could do it, Pluto sure as hell can.

KMFDM - Symbols has finally become a part of my music collection. I've been meaning to get back into them for years; I used to have a few random songs on the puter, but due to my idiocy I deleted all of them during the introduction of iTunes to my PC. I'm glad I finally got around to it, Jesus fuck, it's a good album. I would love to get a bit intoxicated and jump around to that music. The only bad thing about the album is repitition; not enough variation in the tracks', halfway through the album i'm not going to be on edge to find out what comes next.

Saul Willams is still one of my favourite artists, 5 months on from my discovery of him. Like many of Saul's fans, I heard of him through my love of Nine Inch Nails - I checked out all the bands NIN chose to support them; Saul, The Dresden Dolls, Autolux and Death From Above 1979... I eased myself into his music, started with three songs that I loved so much, to my amazement - I had never loved any hip-hop/rap before (Black Stacey, Act III Scene 2 (Shakesphere) and List Of Demands (Reparations)), but I didn't explore any further for another two months; my iPod was almost solely playing the three Saul tracks for much of this time; I was now ravenous. I've never gotten sick of any of his songs, even the 'original' three. At present I have Amethyst Rock Star and Saul Williams, and they are frequently in rotate. Discover Saul, you'll never turn back.