Top 5 Most Played Songs From Swap's iTunes

This Week’s Top 5 Most Played Songs From Swap’s iTunes

The Rules: I reset the play counters for all the songs currently on my iTunes. Then at the end of every week, I check to see what the top five most played songs are. Whatever happens to be in this top five are then presented in order here from most played to least. If I have posted a particular song in the past, then I will bypass that song and post the next in line. If one artist dominates the list, then I will write about that artist in lieu of a Top Five list.

If you’re reading this, then you either A) are getting ready for all the Black Friday sales, B) are missing Black Friday sales, or C) do not care or did not even KNOW it was Black Friday. Whatever the case may be, we’re glad you stopped by to check out what made this week’s list!!!

Remember, if you shop through Amazon.com, you can easily access their site by clicking on any other Amazon.com links throughout the site. I checked out their “Black Friday” deals page, and I must say there are some GREAT deals going on right now… like 50 mp3 albums for $5 each. Cool!

Ok, let’s get on with This Weeks’ Top 5 Most Played Songs From Swap’s iTunes…

I’ve been a Pearl Jam fan for quite a long time now. Their debut album, Ten, still stands as one of the strongest debuts of any band, and I still consider that to be the standard that all subsequent PJ albums must be compared to. Vs was awesome, and their self-titled was excellent, but none have matched the power or identity of Ten.

Clearly I remember, picking on the boy… uh… I mean, clearly, I remember watching Pearl Jam’s Unplugged show on MTV. They were straight out of the gun, going balls out, trying to prove themselves, treating the acoustic set as if it were turned up to eleven. I guess that’s always annoyed me about that performance. I really wish they would have just calmed down and modified their songs to fit the more intimate setting, but alas, what’s done is done.

Why is it that Nirvana’s Unplugged show is the Holy Grail of Unplugged shows? At least that’s what I think…

Anyhow, despite what I just said about Pearl Jam’s Unplugged show, I still dig it. “Even Flow” is one of my favorite PJ songs… not because the verses sound like The Icicle Works’ “Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly),” but because it’s just a kick-ass rock song with lyrics I’ve spent my lifetime trying to figure out.

I played this song twenty two times. Completely blew away everything else on this week’s list.

Your Dig-It Download:

Download: Even Flow (MTV Unplugged performance)
Buy Pearl Jam on Amazon
Buy Pearl Jam on iTunes

First off, the Drive-By Truckers’ lastest record, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, has one of the coolest titles I can recall… even cooler than In A Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy by Pat Boone.

Anybody ever hear that Pat Boone record? WOW. And that’s all I gots to say about that!

Brighter Than Creation’s Dark contains one of my favorite DBT songs, “Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife.” I’m gonna throw out my lyrical interpretation and say that the song’s about a guy who doesn’t know he died. If this IS the case, then WHOOPDEEDOO I’M RIGHT and the song is even awesomer than before because I RULE. If this isn’t the case, then I’m going to just ignore that fact and say that I RULE.

Spooky song, spooky song. I dig this side of the DBT, and especially of Patterson Hood’s writing style. Creation’s Dark was a simpler DBT affair, and I sincerely hope they do more of this in the future.

Anyhow, I must have had “Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife” on repeat because it was played fifteen times in one night… I don’t recall listening to this song fifteen times in a row. I wonder what the hell I was doing at that time. The song’s only about three minutes long… did I pass out for about forty-five minutes?

Your Dig-It Download:

Download: Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife
Buy Drive-By Truckers on Amazon
Buy Drive-By Truckers on iTunes

I was sold on Dierks Bentley’s 2006 release Long Trip Alone when I saw the video for the title track. It told the story of good ol’ Dierks making a “long trip alone.” To be honest it was kinda boring, but the song was excellent and the video cemented in the song title “Long Trip Alone.” I went out and picked up the record the very next day… just goes to show you how effective a good video can be.

Anyhow, the album was pretty good, but doesn’t ever really stretch him as a singer or writer. I get it, Dierks… you’re a lonely guy whose middle name is “danger” and you’ve been down on your luck and/or have had a lot of heartbreak. Waitaminute… that describes every single cotton-pickin’ male country artist. Practically every song celebrates this and after about three songs of the same theme, it gets kind of old.

One song that deals with this subject matter in a good way is the track “The Heaven I’m Headed To.” He groups himself with “sinners, thieves, prostitutes, beggars, renegades…” you get the idea. I actually don’t know why I was so attached to this song this week, but for some reason I played it thirteen times, and not all in a row… which means that I must’ve actively searched for this song on a daily basis. Interesting.

I’ll have to figure this out one.

Your Dig-It Download:

Download: The Heaven I’m Headed To
Buy Dierks Bentley on Amazon
Buy Dierks Bentley on iTunes

Here’s a fun one… The White Stripes released an EP in 2005 called Walking With A Ghost. This was a collection of mainly live material recorded right before their Get Behind Me Satan album hit the shelves.

“Same Boy You’ve Always Known” was recorded live on June 1, 2005 in Brazil. This is actually a pretty old song of theirs… this performance features Jack White on an acoustic guitar, which is always cool to hear when coupled with Meg’s drumming.

Here’s something interesting about The White Stripes: Meg White originally planned to become a chef. Drumming was not in the cards for her as she worked towards putting herself through culinary school. I’ve always found it fascinating to hear about the “other life” of artists, before the hit it big.

Take me, for example. Now, I know I’m not a huge, famous artist, but I thought you’d be interested to know that when I was a kid, I wanted to be a cowboy.

Pretty anticlimactic, huh?

Your Dig-It Download:

Download: Same Boy You’ve Always Known (live)
Buy The White Stripes on Amazon
Buy The White Stripes on iTunes

Ah, The Band. What can be said about The Band that hasn’t already been said?

How about, “They suck!!!!!”

HAHAAA!!! See? That probably has never been said about The Band. Why? Because they are the epitome of non-suckage. I mean, if Eric Clapton wants to join your group, YOU DO NOT SUCK.

The Band possesses the one song that perhaps EVERYBODY knows, but if asked to actually NAME the song, they’d get it wrong.

That song, ladies and gentlemen, is “The Weight.” Yes, this is the song that has the famous chorus:

Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny, and you put the load right on me

It’s either “Fanny” or “Annie,” depending on the time of day.

So people often call the song, “Take A Load Off Fanny,” because nowhere IN the song are the actual words “The Weight.” Now that you know the real name to this classic song, here is the song from The Band that I’ve been listening to for the past couple of days, “Up On Cripple Creek.”

Yeah, I wasn’t listening to “The Weight.” Sorry.

Here’s an alternate take to “Up On Cripple Creek.” As explained in the liner notes to their self-titled album: “There is a slight lyric change, the jew’s harp/clavinet breaks are quite different and the yodeling on the end is not quite as robust. Ultimately it is not as strong or as sharp as the released version but, nonetheless, it is very interesting to hear the variations between the two takes.”

Indeed it is… indeedio it is.

Your Dig-It Download:

Download: Up On Cripple Creek (alternate take)
Buy The Band on Amazon
Buy The Band on iTunes

Well, that wraps up this week’s Top 5 list! It’s always fun to see what ends up on this list. Sometimes I have a feeling what will be number one, like this week… but most of the time I don’t pay attention to the number of plays. I’m sure one of these weeks I’ll scratch my head and say, “How the fu…?”

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