Good morning everybody and welcome to the 1,000th TRACK OF THE DAY!!
You read that right - THE ONE THOUSANDTH TRACK OF THE DAY!
The hoddle has been doing some celebrating this month, first with fitzie celebrating his four-year anniversary at the helm of this wonderful daily blog.
When I took over the hoddle I jumbled down dozens of different notes in my notepad of all the things I wanted to do. I asked myself how I would introduce the links, how to write the hoddle in my own voice while also honouring the tenor set by my predecessor.
Probably the first idea I came up with was a daily song to feature, although I didn’t know what to call it, so I stole the name. And, one morning after listening to “Nick Harcourt’s Fresh Squeezed Track of the Day” on 88.5FM The SoCal Sound, we had our name: “Fitzie’s track of the day”.
I thought it would be fun to feature a different song every day. My goal was to have a unique song every day. With maybe five exceptions, I stuck to that (so 1,000 unique songs is pretty astounding!).
I also wanted to give you all the chance to have something to look forward to and listen to if you didn’t like the hoddle, if there was a putrid Spurs performance, if there was a result to celebrate, or if I felt there was a particular song that could give a little boost to a hoddler who might’ve had a rough day before.
Whether it was Charles Mingus, the Grateful Dead, Warren Zevon, Haim or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, I wanted to share a lot of the music that I enjoyed. I also wanted to use the TOTD as an opportunity to seek out different music myself and artists I might not have ever heard of before.
These were artists like Rosalia, Charli xcx, Haruomi Hasono or JD McPherson. I also have greatly enjoyed receiving your recommendations on artists or genres even though I do occasionally forget (and in some cases, such as Creed, ignore - although I’ve been close!) to include them. So please keep sending them to me.
After the first calendar year in which I took over the hoddle I decided to put together a playlist of every single TOTD to share with you all so you can access it whenever you please. And while I love that we have this playlist, I still recommend supporting your local radio station and favourite artists.
Now, I know what you’re asking: Fitzie, how do I access the Track of the Day? Well, here’s the embed link you silly goose:
Now, let’s get to some of the stats from the Track of the day playlist You might find this isn’t that much different from when we last checked in on it in December, but let me share it again:
Total songs: 1,000 !!!!
Playlist length: 74 hours, 48 minutes
Songs longer than 10 minutes: 35
Longest songs: Fables of Faubus (29:42) , Joan in the Garden (19:21), Help > Slip! > Franklin (18:58)
Songs shorter than two minutes: 9
Shortest songs: Fragile (1:18), Three Girl Rhumba (1:24), Mystery Dance (1:36)
Most featured artists: Charles Mingus (39), Grateful Dead (32), Queen (20), Fleetwood Mac (15) Haim (15), Tom Petty (13)
Considering how the top five most artists played on this list comprise of just 13.4% of the 1,000 songs featured over the last four years, I have to say I am quite proud of how varied the TOTD is.
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And now we look on to the next one thousand tracks of the day! You might think I’m running out of ideas, but I’m really not. For example, can you believe we’ve never featured The Cars?
Plus, there are so many more songs to discover that are out there. And so many more that are going to come out in the months and years ahead. This gives us more than enough fodder to keep the track of the day going for as long as possible.
Wherever you go, always take the Track of the Day with you!
Fitzie’s track of the day: It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me, by Billy Joel
And now for your links:
Jack P-B ($$): “The Lewis family owns Tottenham. Why haven’t any of them taken the Premier League’s OADT?”
Matt Law: “Tottenham lose key sponsor at cost of millions”
The Overlap (via Youtube): “Ange Postecoglou: Breaking Silence on Forest Exit & Spurs Job Drama”