Free Music Friday #98: Miss The Occupier on Soundcloud

I have posted about Miss the Occupier before giving links to a free download, some streamed music and a few videos. They were brought to my mind again the other day when my sister referred to them as part of her 30 Day Song Challenge. She said:

DAY 25 - A song from a band/artist you've just "discovered".
Thanks to David Muir (the singer's a friend of my sister-in-law), am loving this track...

She then linked to The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things which she discovered when I featured it in a Free Download post. It's nice to know wee brothers are occasionally useful!

Today's free download comes from the band's Soundcloud page where you can stream nine of their tracks and (currently at least) download one:

All Day by Miss The Occupier

All Day starts brilliantly with what sounds like Magnus just hitting his guitar to produce noise and feedback and it gets even better after that! First the bass riff kicks in, then the staccato guitar, drums, and Roz's vocals before revealing the catchy chorus in a burst of music that I imagine gets a live audience bouncing along. Great stuff!

So what do you think Sister Number 1? Up there with The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things?

Day 30 – Your favourite song of all time

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 30 – Your favourite song of all time

This is too hard as my favourite changes on a regular basis depending on mood and circumstances. That it would be by Rush though was fairly certain!

I've already used a couple of classic Rush tracks in this challenge that otherwise might have been contenders, after all, if it is the one you play most on your iPod, it's likely to be one of your favourites!

Then, it hit me. Of course it's a Rush track but it has to be something off their latest album. I've gone for one of the instrumental tracks:


What I like most about Rush is that they are a progressive band and by that I mean that they are never content to rest on their laurels. They are always challenging themselves to explore new areas of music, to develop their already considerable musicianship, ...to use ever more complex time signatures! They challenge their fans. With every new release they say, "Come on. Keep up! This is where we're going this time." And let's be honest, they challenge their record company who probably just want some rock radio friendly product! There were complaints on their last tour that they played too much from their new album but I thought that was brilliant - they were not doing a nostalgia tour, they were promoting the new album, an album that they were proud of and that they enjoyed playing.

So my favourite track is not a trip down memory lane but something new. It is one from my favourite band, one that makes me think and one that reminds me why they are still my favourite!

Day 29 – Your favourite Love song

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 29 – Your favourite Love song

This is the trickiest yet since, as my wife will tell you, I am not naturally the world's most romantic person. If I hadn't already used Joni Mitchell in Day 22 I would have probably gone for for something off of Blue. As I struggled to come up with something, I thought of a few tracks but none felt right. For example, some sounded a bit stalkerish (Every Breath You Take or I Don't Want To Miss A Thing). Others were about breaking up (Ain't Gonna Cry No More) and some were just weird (No More "I Love You's").

Then I thought of this track (if you are not familiar with it, listen right to the end; you'll thank me later!):


To be honest, I think that as a Split Enz track, this is just OK but the keyboard player decided to re-arrange some of their tracks for orchestra and worked with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. They released the resultant recordings under the name ENZSO, (See what they did there?) The album is interesting but this track is outstanding – real hairs on the back of your neck stuff. I especially like the section around the 4:10 mark where the music builds up until the orchestra cuts loose and the section at the end where, despite his firm resolution, he doesn't seem to be able to get past repeating, "I don't wanna to say..."

Day 28 – A song you would sing at a karaoke night

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 28 – A song you would sing at a karaoke night

I've never been to a karaoke night but if I ever go, I think I'd sing something like this:


My thinking is it's best to go for one that's catchy, reasonably well known, and one that might get everyone joining in on the chorus!

Day 27 – A song no one would expect you to love

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 27 – A song no one would expect you to love

I might have gone for Joni Mitchell had I not already gone for her in Day 22. Other contenders were Annie Lennox/The Eurythmics, Newton Faulkner and The Roches. In the end, I decided my least likely like was Michael Jackson, at least from Thriller era and before:


The outstanding video helps!

Day 26 – A song off of the last album you brought/track you downloaded

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 26 – A song off of the last album you brought/track you downloaded

I've always liked David Coverdale's voice so I was saddened to hear he had problems on the last tour. There were suggestions that his voice was shot. Decided to risk getting the new album anyway. Only had time for a couple of listens, no favourite track yet, so here's the single:


Unless it's all studio trickery and ProTools, I'm pleased to hear that he is sounding pretty good.

Rock Radio Playlist

I am a member of a couple of facebook groups where there has been discussion of the Rock Radio playlist. Some people seem very grumpy about what is and isn't being played. Me, I'm more relaxed.

The legend... and Tom Russell :-)
A photo by DavidDMuir on Flickr.

Obviously, I'd like them to play more Rush but it's a radio station, not my iPod: to a certain extent you have to take the rough with the smooth. As long as there is more that I like than there is that I dislike, I'm happy to stick with them. Certainly, there is no other radio station I can receive in the car that I'd rather listen to on a regular basis.

However, it got me thinking... so I decided to collect data about what tracks were played over a a few days and then do a wee bit analysis just to see what was being played. I'll present here some of the more obvious conclusions now but there's loads more I could look at, so I will probably return to this data again in future posts.


Data Collected

I decided to concentrate on the Breakfast Show and the Afternoon (drivetime) Show. I focussed on these shows because I guessed that they are the two most listened shows and that they probably best reflect the station's playlist. The tracks played on both shows are published on the website but unfortunately (unless I'm looking in the wrong place) they are not archived so you have to collect the data each day or you lose it! I was aiming to collect data from 14 April 2011 to 22 April 2011 - seven week days, 14 shows. Unfortunately, I missed the Breakfast Show data for 18 April, so I only have six days of Breakfast show data.


First Observations

Over the thirteen shows, 427 tracks were played altogether, that is an average of 32.8 tracks per show. They played tracks from 185 different artists and 361 different songs. Inevitably some songs will get more airplay at particular times, just as they do on my iPod, but 361 different songs over a seven day period is not bad.

The list of artists played more than three times is shown below:

Artist	Plays
Ac/dc	14
Aerosmith	11
Def Leppard	9
Bad Company	8
Foo Fighters	8
Free	8
Guns N Roses	8
Mr Big	8
Deep Purple	7
Kiss	7
Led Zeppelin	7
Pink Floyd	7
Rolling Stones	7
Michael Monroe	6
Thin Lizzy	6
Van Halen	6
Who	6
Foreigner	5
Queen	5
Ramones	5
Red Hot Chili Peppers	5
Saxon	5
Sixx A.M.	5
T Rex	5
Whitesnake	5
Doors	4
Eagles	4
Jimi Hendrix	4
Joe Elliot	4
Metallica	4
Rainbow	4
Rush	4
Steve Miller Band	4
Tom Petty	4

The full list can be found in a public Google Doc I've created called RockRadio Artists.

Mostly, it is no surprise who is at the top of the pile and the data confirmed my suspicion that, while it could be argued that some bands get more than their fair share, there is a fairly good spread. There are, however, a few oddities some of which can be explained but some I find more puzzling. For example, Joe Elliot was interviewed on both shows and the station was promoting the gig where he was supporting Paul Rogers so Def Leppard and Joe himself both feature strongly (as do Free and Bad Company presumably for the similar reasons) but I'm not sure why Mr Big had the same track played eight times!

So, at first glance, I'm encouraged. What do you think? There are a few more things I want to look at and report on but is there anything you'd like me to investigate? (I also have data on what songs were played.)