Last.FM Milestones

1st track: (30 Jan 2007)
Paul Simon - Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall

1000th track: (02 Mar 2007)
Carole King - Way Over Yonder

2000th track: (30 Mar 2007)
Return to Forever - Flight Of The Newborn

3000th track: (24 Apr 2007)
Bernd Stelter - Camping

4000th track: (15 May 2007)
Rosenstolz - Lass Es Regnen

5000th track: (06 Jun 2007)
Stabat Mater - Inflammatus

6000th track: (11 Jul 2007)
Dani Siciliano - Remember to Forget

7000th track: (26 Jul 2007)
Tic Tac Toe - Aftershow

8000th track: (10 Aug 2007)
Lesley Gore - Better Angels

9000th…

Break out the bubbly! January 30, 2009 marks the second anniversary of my registration at last.fm. As I did on the 18-month mark on July 30, 2008 and on my first anniversary on January 30, 2008, I have taken a snapshot of my listening during these two scrobblicious years.

The lists
I have included four lists in this snapshot: two examining the past year (2008) and two examining my entire last.fm "career".

The information in these lists is worth what it is worth. (And that's not much.)

The Top 25 Artists of 2008
Here is a list of the top…

Mon 3 Nov – Mendelssohn’s Elijah: A Choral Masterpiece

The Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal's (OMGM) regular conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, was at the podium for the third concert of the OMGM's 2008-2009 season. This concert was dedicated to one work: Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah, opus 70, a monumental oratorio for soprano, alto, tenor, bass, chorus and orchestra. The OMGM was accompanied by the OM Choir, with four guest artists: Canadians Measha Brueggergosman (soprano), Lauren Segal, mezzo-soprano, Joseph Kaiser, tenor, and New Zealander Jonathan Lemalu, bass. The young Ludovic…

Mon 20 Oct – Beethoven and Bizet: Symphonies in C

As the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal's (OMGM) regular conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, was off working in Europe, he invited the French conductor Fabien Gabel to direct the second concert of the OMGM's 2008-2009 season. This was Gabel's North American debut.

Unfortunately for Gabel, things got off to a rocky start. It was by no means his fault: the technicians at the Place-des-Arts could not get the lights to work in the Théâtre Maisonneuve! The start of the concert was delayed a good 20 minutes. Even then, the lights…

Further to my journal entries of September 24, 2007, January 26, 2008 and September 1, 2008, the October 4 edition of Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper, once again under the title "This week in history", ran a copy of the CHUM Radio Top-10 charts for Saturday, October 7, 1978: 30 years ago.

As this was about a month since the last time the G&M had looked back at 1978, I was interested in seeing what had changed in the five weeks.

Here is the list:

1 Kiss You All Over (Exile)
2 Whenever I Call You "Friend" (…

Further to my journal entries of September 24, 2007 and January 26, 2008, the August 30 edition of Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper, once again under the title "This week in history", ran a copy of the CHUM Radio Top-10 charts for Saturday, September 2, 1978: 30 years ago.

I immediately recognised nine of the ten songs on the list only one stumped me. (As they say, nine out of ten isn't bad.) Have a look at the list and see how many you recognise.

Here is the list:

1 Three Times a Lady (The Commodores)
2 Love…

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

91/100

The 91 related artists for my profile are Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Alastair Moock, Andre Watts, Anita O'Day (2), Antonio Vivaldi, Arthur Rubinstein, BBC…

July 30, 2008 marked a year and a half since my registration with last.fm. As I did at my first anniversary on January 30, I have taken a snapshot of my listening during these 18 months.

The snapshot is composed of two lists: a list of my 25 top "artists" up to now, and a list of my 10 top tracks played.

The information in these lists is worth what it is worth. (And that's not much.)

Twenty-five Top "Artists"
Here are the "artists" that I apparently have listened to most often in the last year.

The list shows the…

James Taylor and His Band of Legends

James Taylor's last visit to Montreal was in 1997, and it was with a friendly "Hi, how've you been? It's been too long." that he addressed the 8600 in the audience at the Bell Centre.

Taylor seems to enjoy playing in Montreal, if only as it gives him the opportunity to bring out his French. Mixing his banter with English and French, translating the title of Why Baby Why as "Pourquoi bébé pourquoi", translating some jokes and teasing the audience in French, he won over his audience quickly.

The concert was part of…

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

86/100

The 86 related artists for my profile are Aldo Ciccolini, Gabriel Tacchino, Alexis Weissenberg, Anita O'Day, Art of Noice, BBC Radio, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 5…