Better late than never. Here are the results of the 2013 Music Survey. I changed scoring this year to include negative points for any mentions for “Least Favorite Song” and a small positive bump for any “Guilty Pleasure” selections.
If you can’t see the embedded box above, the top song for 2013 is “Royals,” by Lorde, followed by “Wake Me Up” (Avicii), “Safe and Sound” (Capital Cities), and “Mirrors” (Justin Timberlake). “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk was probably the most divisive song, with 6 people giving it positive mentions and 3 people claiming it was the devil’s favorite song.
___
I originally started this music survey as a way to make a compilation of my college roommate’s favorite songs. Here are the compilations from 2012, 2011, and 2010. And here’s a refresher from 2011:
The “FC12 Music Project” started when I wanted to gather favorite songs from my college roommates and their families and turn it into a CD. We lived in the 12th unit of a somewhat dingy apartment complex called Fountain Circle, hence the name of the project (FC12). So the final track listing mainly represents songs chosen by them but with some input from friends.
Since 10-11 people are submitting 5 songs each,we have too many songs to choose from to fill 80 minutes. So, while I have some input in how songs are chosen, I follow a priority list to ensure that the music selection is somewhat diverse and not overly affected by my mood at the moment. Here’s the priority list, along with the songs chosen:
1. All #1 selections by Fountain Circlers
Ten songs were chosen using this criterion:
- Sky Ferreira – Heavy Metal Heart (Criss #1)
- John Mayer – Wildfire (Andrew #1/Heather #2)
- Capital Cities – Safe and Sound (Brett #1/Brian #2/Diana#2/Stacy #2/Nadia #4)
- Justin Timberlake – Suit & Tie (Diana #1)
- Justin Timberlake – Pusher Love Girl (Heather #1)
- Justin Timberlake – Mirrors (Brian #1/Blake #5)
- Taylor Swift – I Knew You Were Trouble. (Nadia #1)
- Of Monsters and Men – Silhouettes (Stacy #1)
- Anna Kendrick – Cups (Blake #1)
- Nine Inch Nails – Came Back Haunted (Dan #1)
A lot of Justin Timberlake, as you can see, which made the running length of these ten songs take up about 2/3 of the album space. And even though I used the radio edit of Mirrors, but at this point we were down to about 25 minutes left.
2. Any marriages or kids get a song.
Brian and Diana married in November, and Dan and Nadia had a baby in December. Brian and Diana chose a song that Dan and I sang at their wedding. It’s a parody of When a Man Loves a Woman. Dan and Nadia chose a nice song by Andrew Bird.
- Andrew Ishak and Dan Patry – When Brian Met Diana
- Andrew Bird – If I Needed You
3. Any duplicates on top-5 lists of Fountain Circlers (meaning a song was on 2 or more lists).
This added two songs:
- Lorde – Royals (Dan #3/Diana#4/Stacy #5)
- Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Can’t Hold Us (Brian #5/Diana#5)
So at this point we had 17 minutes left.
4. 1 of the 3 most mentioned songs from all friends.
“Royals” and “Safe and Sound” were already chosen, so we were good here.
5. If only one song from a Fountain Circler’s list has been chosen–and they listed 5 songs–an additional song is chosen.
At this point, Brett, Criss and I only had once song each. I knew I would have an editor’s choice, so that left Brett and Criss:
- Lucius – Tempest (Criss #4)
- The Neighbourhood – Sweater Weather (Brett #2)
6. Editor’s Choice.
- The Shins – Simple Song (Andrew #3)
7. Other songs at the editor’s discretion.
- Daniel Kim – Pop Danthology 2013
And there you have it. 18 songs, including a “danthology” which has about 50 songs in it.