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First, make a list of your top 8 artists overall. Then, for each of these artists, add the 7 most similar artists to your list. Delete any duplicates, count up the number of entries on your list and this will give you some idea of how eclectic your listening habits are. The higher your score, the more varied your music is.

Great Big Sea
1. Spirit of the West [ ]
2. The Irish Descendants [ ]
3. Carbon Leaf
4. Gaelic Storm
5. The Arrogant Worms
6. Enter The Haggis
7. Stan Rogers

Section: 5/7
Total: 5/7

The Kennedys
1. The Nields [ ]
2. Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer
3. Tracy Grammer [ ]
4. The Strangelings
5. Vance Gilbert [ ]
6. Richard Shindell
7. Eddie From Ohio

Section: 3/7
Total: 8/14

U2
1. Passengers [ ]
2. Bono [ ]
3. R.E.M.
4. INXS [ ]
5. Simple Minds [ ]
6. The Police
7. Coldplay

Section: 2/7
Total: 10/21

Girlyman
1. Chris Pureka [ ]
2. Dar Williams
3. Indigo Girls
4. Amy Ray [ ]
5. Catie Curtis [ ]
…

Remember when I asked you all for ideas and stuff? Yeah, that worked out just splendid.

I listened to nearly 200 albums over the course of 2009 and tried really hard, but could not make a top 10. Top 20...huge fail. Top 30...nope.
So here is my top 20 of 2009 - and if you want to see their album covers AND the other 40 albums I just HAD to mention - go here!

Comments are always welcome. Bashing me for my musical preferences is not.
Only Amy is allowed to kick me, because I'm expecting it ;)

My top 20 from 1 -20 :

1. Storybox - You can be Replaced

The 2009 effort of Dutch band Storybox is by far my favourite of the year. Just like with their 2006 debut 'A fool's attempt', I can find no fault on it. As far as albums go, this is what perfection sounds like :)
Yay for Helge and the guys!

My favourite tracks are 'The Andersons' and 'Happy man'.

2. El Pino and the Volunteers - The Long -Lost art of becoming Invisible

…

Cry, Cry, Cry, Cry, Cry, Cry, Rating=$$$$$
[ Support the Artist ]

How I Got This CD: Even though I've got a moratorium on buying CDs, a few songs from this golden little number started showing up on some of the MP3 blogs on my FList. The few selections I heard from it told me that I just had to have this puppy, so I booked it over to Half.com and got it cheap.

Cry, Cry, Cry is what passes for a "supergroup" for the folkie/indie singer-songwriter set and represents a one-time-only collaboration between Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky, and Richard Shindell.

The self-titled CD is a collection of covers and there's not really a clunker in the bunch, although there are some songs I like less than others. It's a moody CD that's perfect to listen to on a rainy day, although not very good to listen to while working because you find yourself stopping to really listen to the songs, even if you've heard them 1,000 times before. The linear notes are a little on the self-important side, though. …

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

79/100


The 79 related artists for my profile are Afel Bocoum Amadou & Mariam Amália Rodrigues Aretha Franklin Asha Bhosle Beck Billie Holiday Bob Dylan (3) Broken Social Scene Cassandra Wilson Chris & Meredith Thompson Cristina Branco David Bowie (2) Dinah Washington Ella Fitzgerald Emmylou Harris Erica Wheeler Fairport Convention (2) Flogging Molly Fotheringay (2) Gillian Welch Gram Parsons (2) Grateful Dead Indigo Girls Iron & Wine Jimi Hendrix Johnny Cash Josh Ritter Kathleen Edwards Kronos Quartet Led Zeppelin Leonard…

First, make a list of your top-20 artists overall. Then, for each of these artists, add the 8 most similar artists to your list. Delete any duplicates, count up the number of entries on your list and this will give you some idea of how eclectic your listening habits are. A score of 9 represents an extremely unvaried musical taste while a 160 represents an extremely varied one.

1.Vonda Shepard
2.Dar Williams
3.The Nields
4.Idina Menzel
5.Indigo Girls
6.The Paperboys
7.Original Broadway Cast(oops)
8.Sarah McLachlan
9.Simon & Garfunkel
10.Erin McKeown
11.Idina Menzel & Kristin Chenoweth
12.Jewel
13Billy Joel
14Radiohead
15Celine Dion
16Roseshel Doyle
17Toad The Wet Sprocket
18Enya
19Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel & Ensemble
20Alanis Morrisette
21The Corrs
22Sheryl Crow
23Shania Twain
24Dido
25Robbie Williams
26LeAnn Rimes
27Ani Difranco
28Catie Curtis
29Melissa Ferrick
30Girlyman
31Lucy Kaplansky
32Patty Griffin
33Jonatha Brooke
…

<b>1. What was the last concert you attended?</b>
Half of The Sweetback Sisters at the Cat. All of Ellis Paul at the Beachland Tavern.

<b>2. How many people were there?</b>
I'm never good at guessing; I was off by a factor of 3 when guessing the Birchmere's seating capacity. But, maybe 35-40 people at The Sweetback Sisters show and 50-55 at the Ellis Paul show?

<b>3. What bands have you seen in concert the most, and how many times</b>
I stopped keeping track, but the top are We're About 9, The Kennedys, and The Nields, in that order. As of ’03 or ’04 or whenever I stopped counting, I had seen each of them about 25 times in concert. Since then, We're About 9 has gone up a lot, The Kennedys some, The Nields a handful.

<b>4. Do you have any setlists? From what bands?</b>
A few from The Nields, grabbed by others and given to me.

<b>5. Are there any CDs in close proximity to you? Which ones?</b>
…

Garrison Starr (3 times)
Melissa Ferrick (3 times)
Indigo Girls (6 times)
Tori Amos (4 times)
Placebo (4 times)
Patty Griffin (3 times)
Dar Williams (2 times)
Ohio Casket (3 times)
product of influence (ex's band, who knows!)
Sarah McLachlan (2 times)
K's Choice (2 times)
My Latex Brain (3 times)
Tracey Walker

only once:
Cry Cry Cry
Buddy & Julie Miller
Girlyman
Go Robot Go!
Idlewild
Terri Binion
Dixie Chicks
Billie Meyer
Melkey Sedek
Sheryl Crow
Henry Rollins (spoken word)
Mudvayne
In Flames
Kentucky Overflow
Richard Shindell
Green Day
A Perfect Circle
Snake River Conspiracy
The Get Up Kids
Flick
Michelle Malone
Caelum Bliss
Audio Adrenaline
Steven Curtis Chapman
311
Fishbone
Carolyn Arends
Jars Of Clay
Silage
Katie Reider
Jason Walker
Burlap To Cashmere
Alanis Morisette
Garbage
Moby
Bush
Beck
Hank Williams III
Hole
The Devlins

bands i wanted to see the opener for and then left before they played:
…

Find the number of listeners for each of your top 10 artists and add them up and divide by 10 to get the average.

1. The Beatles - 267,601

2. Thelonius Monk - 22,737

3. George Strait - 9,242

4. Sting - 65,504

5. Richard Shindell - 974

6. Pink Floyd - 201,642

7. Steeleye Span - 4,011

8. The Police - 98,549

9. Marian McPartland - 191

10. Queen - 184,309

So, my mainstream rating is 85,476

Dividing that by the highest possible rating, 324,128 (based on the overall last.fm artists chart) and converting it to a percentage, I get: 27%

I would like to see this "mainstream rating" number divided by total members on last.fm .. but I cannot find that number .. oh well

EDIT: The highest possible rating (avg total listeners for the last.fm top ten artist) is 233,232 .. which makes my real rating against the top ten: 36.65%