![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The 20-year sleep playlist top 30
Nov. 19th, 2023 01:34 amSleep is important to me, but falling asleep is hard. I think I set the wrong tone early in life by staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning on school nights to mess with the computer. I didn't use caffeine; it was sheer force of will.
Actually, perhaps it's the other way around, and I stayed up late back then because I already had the same insomnia problem that I have now. Either way, when I get in bed I need something for my brain to chew on that's inconsequential, or it will chew on something important, and the hours will slowly pass...
Ever since high school I've been using music to meet that need. Back then I could program the CD player to repeat a track 3 or 4 times, so it would fall silent after I drifted off. Then I burned custom CDs. Then MP3s took over, and I made playlists. Then it was the iPod. And so on, across various digital devices.
It's been 30 years, and for twenty of those years, I've been using the same music playing app. (iTunes, a.k.a. Apple Music.) That means I have some pretty remarkable statistics at hand.
I'm about to re-make a bunch of my sleep playlists, and before I do, I thought I'd put this table here for posterity:
These are the 30 tracks that have the highest play counts in my music player. They are all from "fall asleep" playlists. The number one track has been played over 2500 times.
That top track, "Groundswell" (originally released in 1998), is a minor masterpiece of ambient music. It's just a few shifting chords, and at the halfway point they're joined by some echoey counterpoint that sounds a bit like a bird calling in the distance. It's simple, and in that simplicity it's unlike anything else I've heard. (And I've listened to a whole lot of ambient music.) More than any other track, this one opens the door to slumberland for me, because it brings to mind rolling hills of oak trees, stone walls in shadow, and the comfortable blur of darkness.
2500 times is a lot. If I played "Groundswell" once every day, it would take about seven years to reach that total. In reality it was a lot fewer days, because it's repeated three times in my most popular sleep playlist, and I restart the playlist when it doesn't work the first time around. So, more like... Every day for two years. Which is, uh, still pretty excessive. My ears have been subject to about 150 hours - six straight days - of just that track. Getting to sleep can be hard.
Just a bit further down the list, in 6th place with a remarkable 1500 plays, is a track by Zach Archer from the Drowning River Phoenix soundtrack. I don't think that's a coincidence, because I'm pretty sure he had "Groundswell" in mind when he was composing it. We're both big Rapoon fans.
If you listen to many of these, you'll notice a pattern: A lot of the music that I consider super-relaxing is actually pretty creepy to most people. Like, to the point of unpleasantness. Some people describe it as tense, or brooding. I'm not sure how to explain myself here. When I don't soak my brain in this stuff on a regular basis, I start to feel twitchy and discontent.
Anyway, if it's bedtime, and you're wondering what I'm listening to, chances are pretty good it's one of these 30 tracks.
The 31st track - just off the end of the list above - is not from a sleep playlist. It's "Premonition", by David Sylvian and Holger Czukay. Specifically, the 7-minute extract that appears on the compilation album "A Brief History Of Ambient Vol 2: Imaginary Landscapes", from 1993. I've played it well over 500 times.
Why? Well, cue it up and play it for yourself. It's weird. Then, check out this interview that describes how it was recorded. It's warm, eerie synth and analog organ sounds, layered shortwave radio beeps, and melodic fragments of processed piano and vibraphone, shifting around quietly, occasionally resolving into structure. There are voices as well, in a language I can't identify.
I've played this song as background so very many times that it's become difficult to listen to it directly, and consciously process it. When I try, the first thing I notice is that it's actually very busy, and I think for most people it has too much going on to work as background to any task. But then I de-focus my ears again, and sink into a wave of old sense memories: Mostly of sitting in my room on warm summer days, playing a fantasy adventure game called Ultima 7 on the computer, wandering through brightly colored landscapes full of magic and medieval pageantry on the pixelated screen and in my mind.
Another fun question: In this vast heap of music, what's the track I have played least recently?
"Boss' Domain", track 20 from the unofficial rip of the soundtrack to a console game called Viewtiful Joe. Last played on May 6th, 2004.
Actually, perhaps it's the other way around, and I stayed up late back then because I already had the same insomnia problem that I have now. Either way, when I get in bed I need something for my brain to chew on that's inconsequential, or it will chew on something important, and the hours will slowly pass...
Ever since high school I've been using music to meet that need. Back then I could program the CD player to repeat a track 3 or 4 times, so it would fall silent after I drifted off. Then I burned custom CDs. Then MP3s took over, and I made playlists. Then it was the iPod. And so on, across various digital devices.
It's been 30 years, and for twenty of those years, I've been using the same music playing app. (iTunes, a.k.a. Apple Music.) That means I have some pretty remarkable statistics at hand.
I'm about to re-make a bunch of my sleep playlists, and before I do, I thought I'd put this table here for posterity:
| Artist | Album | Song | Play Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rapoon | The Fires Of The Borderlands | Groundswell | 2,509 |
| Lull | They're Coming Out of the Walls | The Passing | 2,071 |
| Biosphere | Autour De La Lune [Reissue] | Disparu | 1,945 |
| Biosphere | Shenzhou | Spindrift | 1,733 |
| Andy Partridge + Harold Budd | Through The Hill | Great Valley Of Gongs | 1,638 |
| Harold Budd | the room | the room of oracles | 1,554 |
| Zach Archer | Drowning River Phoenix OST | dreamcity (Airship) | 1,510 |
| Biosphere | Shenzhou | Shenzhou | 1,430 |
| Rapoon | Darker By Light | Sunday's Shadows | 1,370 |
| Harold Budd + John Foxx | Drift Music | Curtains Blowing | 1,328 |
| Harold Budd | the room | the room of ancillary dreams | 1,203 |
| Harold Budd + John Foxx | Drift Music | Someone Almost There | 1,024 |
| Robert Rich | Somnium | Part 3B - Rotylenchus buxophilus | 1,014 |
| Harold Budd | the room | the room obscured | 971 |
| Cliff Martinez | The Knick | Placental Repair | 935 |
| Cliff Martinez | The Knick | Never Read Him | 914 |
| Skinny Puppy | Bites | One Day | 907 |
| Harold Budd + Brian Eno | The Pearl | A Stream With Bright Fish | 891 |
| Harold Budd + John Foxx | Drift Music | Avenue Of Trees | 891 |
| Harold Budd + John Foxx | Drift Music | Weather Patterns | 740 |
| Normally Invisible | Always Ultra With Wings | Clockwork | 736 |
| Harold Budd + Brian Eno | The Pearl | Lost in the Humming Air | 723 |
| Steve Roach | Streams & Currents | Present Moment | 707 |
| Mick Chillage | Sonitus Liberabit Vos | Time Reflects (excerpt) | 696 |
| Oöphoi | Time Fragments 2: Hidden Visions | Requiem For The Green Planet | 694 |
| Brian Eno | Ambient 4: On Land | Lantern Marsh | 686 |
| Rapoon | The Fires Of The Borderlands | Circling Globes | 686 |
| Harold Budd | The Serpent (In Quicksilver) + Abandoned Cities | Children On The Hill | 684 |
| Robin Guthrie + Harold Budd | After The Night Falls | The Girl With Colorful Thoughts | 590 |
| Robin Guthrie + Harold Budd | Mysterious Skin | A Silhouette Approaches | 576 |
These are the 30 tracks that have the highest play counts in my music player. They are all from "fall asleep" playlists. The number one track has been played over 2500 times.
That top track, "Groundswell" (originally released in 1998), is a minor masterpiece of ambient music. It's just a few shifting chords, and at the halfway point they're joined by some echoey counterpoint that sounds a bit like a bird calling in the distance. It's simple, and in that simplicity it's unlike anything else I've heard. (And I've listened to a whole lot of ambient music.) More than any other track, this one opens the door to slumberland for me, because it brings to mind rolling hills of oak trees, stone walls in shadow, and the comfortable blur of darkness.
2500 times is a lot. If I played "Groundswell" once every day, it would take about seven years to reach that total. In reality it was a lot fewer days, because it's repeated three times in my most popular sleep playlist, and I restart the playlist when it doesn't work the first time around. So, more like... Every day for two years. Which is, uh, still pretty excessive. My ears have been subject to about 150 hours - six straight days - of just that track. Getting to sleep can be hard.
Just a bit further down the list, in 6th place with a remarkable 1500 plays, is a track by Zach Archer from the Drowning River Phoenix soundtrack. I don't think that's a coincidence, because I'm pretty sure he had "Groundswell" in mind when he was composing it. We're both big Rapoon fans.
If you listen to many of these, you'll notice a pattern: A lot of the music that I consider super-relaxing is actually pretty creepy to most people. Like, to the point of unpleasantness. Some people describe it as tense, or brooding. I'm not sure how to explain myself here. When I don't soak my brain in this stuff on a regular basis, I start to feel twitchy and discontent.Anyway, if it's bedtime, and you're wondering what I'm listening to, chances are pretty good it's one of these 30 tracks.
The 31st track - just off the end of the list above - is not from a sleep playlist. It's "Premonition", by David Sylvian and Holger Czukay. Specifically, the 7-minute extract that appears on the compilation album "A Brief History Of Ambient Vol 2: Imaginary Landscapes", from 1993. I've played it well over 500 times.
Why? Well, cue it up and play it for yourself. It's weird. Then, check out this interview that describes how it was recorded. It's warm, eerie synth and analog organ sounds, layered shortwave radio beeps, and melodic fragments of processed piano and vibraphone, shifting around quietly, occasionally resolving into structure. There are voices as well, in a language I can't identify.
I've played this song as background so very many times that it's become difficult to listen to it directly, and consciously process it. When I try, the first thing I notice is that it's actually very busy, and I think for most people it has too much going on to work as background to any task. But then I de-focus my ears again, and sink into a wave of old sense memories: Mostly of sitting in my room on warm summer days, playing a fantasy adventure game called Ultima 7 on the computer, wandering through brightly colored landscapes full of magic and medieval pageantry on the pixelated screen and in my mind.
Another fun question: In this vast heap of music, what's the track I have played least recently?
"Boss' Domain", track 20 from the unofficial rip of the soundtrack to a console game called Viewtiful Joe. Last played on May 6th, 2004.
This is all the dialogue I can hear in the background of Ambient Fruit (Chapter 2), on the album The Dragon Experience. It's creepy as hell and I've searched all over the internet for some clue as to where it originally came from, and come up with absolutely nothing.
A mashup of 8-bit nostalgia, chiptunes, and crazed industrial music, with a few surprises thrown in. The inspiration for ToorCamp's first ever mosh pit!
00:00 - Dark City (Dialogue)
The full tracklist is embedded in the "lyrics" tag of the file. It's also posted below.
Altogether this release is about 20 minutes long. NES games weren't known for long soundtracks. Let me know what you think!
