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iTunes Top 200 Albums Wrap-Up

Last week, we wrapped up our latest look at the top 200 albums that I’ve listened to, according to iTunes, since late 2007.  Now it’s time to take a final look at those 200 albums and the 536 (or so) artists that contributed to them.  The average number of listens was just under 150, with the median number being 113.  There were 13 new entries, and of the returning entries, there was an average increase of just a tad over 58 listens per album.

Most Represented Band

The Beatles – 15
Garbage – 8
George Carlin – 7
Patton Oswalt – 6
Foo Fighters – 4
Tegan and Sara – 4
Garfunkel and Oates – 4
AC/DC – 4
R.E.M. – 4
Pearl Jam – 4

Largest Play Increase

400 – George Carlin – Complaints and Grievances
231 – George Carlin – It’s Bad For Ya
194 – Garbage – One Mile High… Live
182 – Patton Oswalt – Werewolves and Lollipops
174 – Various Artists – Television’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 (70’s & 80’s)

Smallest Play Increase

2 – 2008 Highlights – WSCR 670 The Score
9 – Queen – Queen: Greatest Hits I & II
9 – Garbage – Absolute Garbage
11 – The Outfield – Play Deep
11 – P.O.D. – Satellite

Largest Percent Increase

Infinite – Patton Oswalt – Annihilation
404.55% – George Carlin – Jammin’ In New York
186.11% – Florence + The Machine – Between Two Lungs
175.56% – Patton Oswalt – My Weakness is Strong
170% – Various Artists – The Osbourne Family Album

Smallest Percent Increase

1.83% – 2008 Highlights – WSCR 670 The Score
7.20% – Garbage – Absolute Garbage
7.26% – Queen – Queen: Greatest Hits I & II
8.43% – Various Artists – Pirates of the Caribbean (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)
10.78% – P.O.D. – Satellite

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By The Numbers – 6

In 1929, uniform numbers appeared on the back of baseball jerseys for the first time, thanks to the Indians and the Yankees.  By 1937, numbers finally appeared across all uniforms, both home and away, across both major leagues.  Since that time, 81 distinct numbers have been worn by members of the White Sox, while the Cubs boast 76.

Today, we continue our look at those players, picking our favorite, if not the best, player to wear each uniform number for both Chicago teams with #6.  67 different players have donned #6 while playing in Chicago, 27 for the White Sox, who haven’t retired it but have not issued it since 1995, and 42 for the Cubs.

In his second go-around with the Cubs after being selected off waivers from the Mariners on July 6, 1998, Glenallen Hill, wearing #6. hit .351 with 8 homers and 23 RBIs in 48 games.  He appeared in one game during the NLDS against the Braves, where he was one for three with a run batted in and a stolen base.  Returning in 1999, Hill hit .300 with 20 home runs and 55 runs batted in.  On May 11, 2000, Hill became the first, and thus far only player to hit a home run on the three-story residential building across Waveland Ave. from Wrigley Field in the second inning of the Cubs’ 14–8 loss to the Brewers.  With the Cubs far out of contention, he was traded to the Yankees on July 23.

On the south side of town, Jorge Orta signed with the White Sox out of the Mexican Baseball League in 1972 and made the team out of spring training.  Playing shortstop, Orta batted just .211 through the middle of May before losing his job.  He returned to Chicago when rosters expanded that September.  Orta was shifted to second base for the 1973 season after batting over .500 in spring training.  Playing through injuries for much of the year, he batted .266 and tied for second in the league with eighteen errors among second basemen.

Orta began the 1974 season batting at the bottom of the White Sox line-up but was moved up to the two spot Chuck Tanner’s batting order, hitting .411 with 23 runs scored in the month of June.  For the season, his .316 batting average was second only to Rod Carew.  In 1975, Orta batted .296 with four home runs and 46 RBIs in the first half, good enough to be named to the All-Star team.  He topped that by hitting .314 with seven home runs and 37 RBIs in the second half.

New manager Paul Richards opted to move Orta to third base for the 1976 season, which proved to be a poor decision.  Orta was eventually moved into the outfield and the Sox narrowly avoided a hundred losses while Orta hit .274 with hitting a career-high fourteen home runs and scoring a career high 74 runs.  Orta returned to second base when Bob Lemon took the reins as manager in 1977.  The surprising White Sox, dubbed the South Side Hitmen, won 90 games and Orta, now batting third, finished second on the team with a career high 84 RBIs.  He remained at second in 1978, but new player-manager Don Kessinger deployed Orta as the designated hitter in 1979, a role Orta struggled with, putting up a .212 batting average, three home runs and 21 RBIs through June 27.  Orta returned to second base in the middle of July, and batted .313 with seven home runs and 22 RBIs the rest of the way on his way to free agency.

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Post Mortem – Archive 81

Cancelled by Netflix after only one season, Archive 81 was a horror show about a video archivist hired by a mysterious company to restore video footage of grad student Melody’s documentary project on an apartment building that burned down.  As he restores more of the footage, he finds himself not only drawn to Melody, but interacting with her.   Despite good reviews and an ending setting up a second season, Netflix chose not to move forward.

 

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Post Mortem – Mr. Mayor

After two mini-seasons on NBC. Mr. Mayor was cancelled this past May.  Created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, following their Netflix hit Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the show starred Ted Danson as the newly elected mayor of Los Angeles, trying to impress his teenage daughter while dealing with a staff of characters.

Following his starring turn on The Good Place, Danson put on a good performance here, and the show overall was enjoyable.  However, I don’t know if network television is the place for shows as absurd as this one.  I can understand why Fey and Carlock would want to work with NBC, their longtime home from their SNL and 30 Rock days, but they may be better served sticking to streaming services, where shows like this can be a hit without needing the mass appeal that their inherent absurdity drives away.

I’m sure the cast will move on to other projects.  Bobby Moynihan showed some pretty good chops outside of the confines of SNL.  Vella Lovell is also someone I look forward to seeing more of in the future.

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Throwback Thursday – Batting Leaders Of The 2000s

Our Throwback Thursday feature continues, as we point the wayback machine back to the turn of the 21st century and put our focus on the offensive leaders of the decade of the 2000s.  As a reminder, I’ve identified 518 games that I attended during this time period, when I would have been ages 25 through 34.

Home Runs

Name Total
Paul Konerko 57
Jermaine Dye 39
Aramis Ramirez 38
Derrek Lee 38
Jim Thome 35
Sammy Sosa 35

Hits

Name Total
Derrek Lee 234
Aramis Ramirez 215
Paul Konerko 211
Jermaine Dye 168
A.J. Pierzynski 154

Runs

Name Total
Derrek Lee 131
Paul Konerko 129
Aramis Ramirez 110
Jermaine Dye 103
Sammy Sosa 90

RBI

Name Total
Aramis Ramirez 143
Paul Konerko 141
Derrek Lee Continue reading →
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FB8 – Week 19

After four pretty good weeks, things fell off a bit this week as my streaks of 30,000 step weeks and weeks with at least one day over goal came to an end.  Things got off to a decent enough start on Sunday, thanks to the final crosstown matchup of the year between the Cubs and the White Sox, finishing wth 4400 steps.  Monday saw a pretty steep drop-off, coming 7 steps away from 3200.  Tuesday saw a nice bounce back, jumping back up to 4300 steps.  Wednesday’s drop-off was even steeper, falling all the way down to 2800 steps.  Thursday jumped back up to 4300 steps.  Friday fell back down again, ending with 3600 steps.  Saturday was the best day of the week, ending on a high-ish note with 5500 steps.

Total steps: 28,227

Daily average: 4032.4

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Book 28 (of 52) – The Storyteller

The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music – Dave Grohl

When the world shut down in March of 2020 due to the corona virus, Dave Grohl put down his guitar and picked up a pen.  His stories cover the gamut of his life, from his childhood in Virginia, to his fateful trip to Chicago where a concert at the Cubby Bear introduced him to the world of punk rock, from joining local-punk legends Scream right out of high school to hooking up with an up-and-coming Nirvana after Scream imploded to creating the Foo Fighters after the death of Kurt Cobain, from going on epic concert tours to planning tour dates around his children’s school dances.

Dave Grohl has been a favorite for years, from his time with Nirvana through his years as the leader of the Foo Fighters.  The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music does a great job of explaining where his love of music came from and how he has used that to build a pretty great and surreal life for himself and his family.  If you are looking for a tell-all book about the inner demons of Kurt Cobain or a listing of all the celebrities he slept with, this is not the book for you.  Instead, it is a journey through life with music, and the love of music, as its throughline.  Dave Grohl is considered to be one of the nicest people in rock and roll and, reading his stories, you can see why.

 

 

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Top 200 Albums: #1 – 10

itunes_imageWe last counted down the Top 200 albums in my iTunes library four years ago. Since that time, the world has literally changed, and my commute has decreased from 1+ hours each way to 25 steps. So, despite the decrease in potential listening time, I figured it was time to take another look, based on number of plays from late 2007 through the morning of January 1, 2022.

Well, it all comes down to this: the top ten.  We finish things off today with the ten albums I have listened to the most over the last 15 years. including three comedy albums, three compilations, two soundtracks, one greatest hits package, and one bootleg live performance.

#10: Various Artists – Television’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 (70’s & 80’s)
iTunes stats: 378 plays
Previous Ranking: 13

Another collection of TV theme songs, this time covering the late 70s and the early 80s, uses 32 songs, from shows such as The Facts of Life, Inspector Gadget, and Barney Miller, sees an 85% increase over the past four years.

#9: Garbage – One Mile High… Live
iTunes stats: 378 plays
Previous Ranking: 17

The audio rip of the band’s live video release, featuring 21 different tracks, jumps up eight spots after more than doubling its number of plays in the past four years.

#8: George Carlin – It’s Bad For Ya
iTunes stats: 391 plays
Previous Ranking: 24

The final album from George Carlin, released just over a month after his death, increases its total by over 144%, thanks in part to being used as a sleeping aid when I’m away from home.

#7: Patton Oswalt – Werewolves and Lollipops
iTunes stats: 395 plays
Previous Ranking: 10

An 85% increase for Patton Oswalt’s second comedy album, which would be significantly higher if I were to ever sync my old iPhone 4s, which I use to lull myself to sleep at home, again.

#6: Various Artists – Living in the 90’s
iTunes stats: 396 plays
Previous Ranking: 8

A whopping 22 songs, from bands like The Proclaimers, EMF, and Roxette, racked up an additional 172 new listens for this compilation of early 90s hits.

Continue reading →

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By The Numbers – 7

In 1929, uniform numbers appeared on the back of baseball jerseys for the first time, thanks to the Indians and the Yankees.  By 1937, numbers finally appeared across all uniforms, both home and away, across both major leagues.  Since that time, 81 distinct numbers have been worn by members of the White Sox, while the Cubs boast 76.

Today, we continue our look at those players, picking our favorite, if not the best, player to wear each uniform number for both Chicago teams with #7.  88 different players have donned #7 while playing in Chicago, 43 for the White Sox and 45 for the Cubs.

After wearing #12 when he was first called up to the big leagues, Tim Anderson switched to #7 starting with his second season in 2017.  Showing that he was still a work in progress, Anderson slashed .257/.276/.402 in 2017, with a 2.1% walk rate, the lowest in the major leagues.  Defensively, he led the major leagues in errors, with 28, as well as fielding errors (16) and throwing errors (12).  He showed slight improvements in 2018, with slight improvements in his OBP and slugging percentage, while reducing his overall errors.

2019 was Anderson’s coming out party.  He led the major leagues with a .335 average while raising his OPS to .865, setting career highs with 167 hits, 32 doubles, and 81 runs.  He still had some issues on defense, leading all major league players with 26 errors, leading to the lowest fielding percentage amongst all shortstops.  His hot bat continued into the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, notching a .322 average and an .886 OPS.  He won his first Silver Slugger award while leading the White Sox to their first post-season appearance since 2008.  He thrived in the Wild Card series against the A’s, going 9-14 in the three-game series.

Anderson continued to prove that he his offensive improvement wasn’t a fluke when baseball returned full time in 2021.  He was named to his first All Star team and, on the game’s biggest stage, he hit a walk-off home run against the Yankees in the inaugural Field of Dreams game in the cornfields of Iowa.  Overall, he hit .309 and posted an .807 OPS while hitting 17 home runs and driving in 61 RBIs.  Continuing where he left off the previous October, Anderson hit .368 in the ALDS against the Astros.

On the north side of town, Peoria-native and Northwestern graduate Joe Girardi made his Major League debut for the Cubs on April 4, 1989 wearing #7.  He batted .248 with a home run and 14 runs batted in (RBIs) in 59 games as the surprising Cubs took home a division title. Getting more consistent playing time in 1990, he hit .270 with a home run and 38 RBIs.  Limited to only 21 games in 1991, he managed just a .191 average with only 6 RBIs. In 1992, he rebounded to play in 91 games, hitting .270 with a home run and 12 RBIs.  Following the season, he was left unprotected in the expansion draft and was selected by the Rockies.

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Post Mortem – Black-ish

After eight successful seasons, Black-ish aired its final episode in April, going out with a creative renaissance fueled, I assume, by the knowledge that this was their last go-around.  Debuting in 2014, the show has bounced back and forth between Tuesdays and Wednesdays on ABC’s lineup, never a huge hit, but always delivering quality laughs.

I assume the cast, especially the younger actors, will go on to other projects where they will continue to make a stamp on Hollywood.  Anthony Anderson has already shown up starring on the re-booted Law & Order.  Marcus Scribner will be joining the spinoff Grown-ish for its fifth season.  Marsai Martin, still only 17, has already started producing movies and is well on her way to becoming a mogul in her own right.