Good morning everyone - and the happiest of Christmases to you all!
I come to you with a Christmas gift of my own. I began the Track of the Day when I took over hoddling duties four years ago. One year I made a playlist that contained every single TOTD.
Today, I bring it to you once more.
I had not updated the TOTD in more than a year (closer to 18 months). It took a very, very, very long time to update it. Like, it took weeks. But I do it for you.
So here it is: Save it and enjoy it !!!!
Now, let me throw some stats in there for you all because I know how much you crave those X’s and G’s and everything in-between:
Total Songs: 959 (I thought it’d be more, but there are a few repeats that didn’t get added)
Runtime: 71 hours, 19 minutes
Most featured artists:
Charles Mingus: 39
Grateful Dead: 26
Queen: 16
Haim: 14 (much of it from their new album this year)
Fleetwood Mac: 13
Tom Petty (and the Heartbreakers): 13
Longest songs:
Fables of Faubus (Charles Mingus): 29:42
Joan in the Garden (The Decemberists): 19:21
Help on the Way / Slipknot! / Franklin’s Tower (Grateful Dead): 18:58
Take The A Train (Charles Mingus): 17:27
Late Autumn (Jeff Parker): 17:21
Shortest songs:
Fragile (Wire): 1:18
Three Girl Rhumba (Wire): 1:24
Mystery Dance (Elvis Costello): 1:36
Color of Autumn (Nujabes): 1:44
Tequila (Los Bitchos): 1:45
It’s getting pretty late here so I’m offering a few more takeaways before moving onto the 26th December hoddle:
There’s a lot of Charles Mingus here. That’s good. We love Charlie Mingus
Going through this I realised how little I featured some truly incredible classic rock artists like The Eagles, Doors, Who and countless others. I’ll try to rectify that.
Two of the top five in the most featured artists appear that way because there were specific weeks/hoddles dedicated to them, and so they benefited from that. I’m pleased no other artist got featured more than 10 times after Fleetwood Mac and Tom Petty. I want diversity in the TOTD.
Two Wire songs as the shortest? Wow!
After a certain while I gave up on listing the songs in order. This is because there were probably 16 or so months where I didn’t update the playlist. That’s on me. It took ages to update it again, and probably thrice as long if I tried to do it in order.
I recognise that a fair amount of the hoddlers here won’t be checking in today because of Christmas festivities. I’ll throw this TOTD up again a handful of times more in the future because I want to share it - after all it’s my gift to you.
And if anyone here has an artist or genre they’d like featured more, please let me know. The hoddler-in-chief does take your suggestions! Please note he does try to steer clear of songs with adult language in it.
I wish you all the happiest of Christmases. If you do not celebrate it, then I wish you happy Thursday or any day of the week. Know that you are welcome here (unless you get banned, of course, but please don’t do that).
COME ON YOU SPURS!
Fitzie’s track of the day: Father Christmas, by The Kinks
And now for your links: