(Pictured: the Beatles on TV, 1968.)

In April 2006, I began using LastFM to keep track of the music that plays on my laptop every day. In 10 years, it’s recorded over 153,000 plays. In a recent post, I wrote about the top jazz artists on the list. This post is about the non-jazz stars I listen to most. I’m not going to count these down because there’s not much suspense, really.

1. Van Morrison. Because my library plays on shuffle most of the time, it privileges artists with more tracks. And I have a ton of Van Morrison, so a day without Van is most likely a day when I’m not on the laptop. Most-played track: “Caravan.”

2. Elton John. It figures that a child of the 70s such as I would still be listening to Elton John. Most-played track: “Your Song,” primarily because every single live album and bootleg contains a version of it, so it’s inescapable.

3. Fleetwood Mac. I liked Fleetwood Mac’s radio hits well enough, but I didn’t start exploring their back catalog until the last decade. The pre-Buckingham/Nicks years were spectacular, even if the records didn’t sell much. Most-played track: “Monday Morning.”

4. Rolling Stones. Like Fleetwood Mac, the Stones were a band I liked on the radio, but I didn’t listen beyond the hits until relatively recent times. At their peak, they really were the World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band. Most-played track: “Brown Sugar,” which is news on par with the sunrise.

5. Steely Dan. Officially my favorite band. I have many, many bootlegs in addition to all of their officially released material, and I’m not quite sure how they’re not #1 on this list. Most-played track: “Josie,” which is because they play it at every show and it’s on every bootleg, and not because it’s a favorite. I can name quite literally 50 Steely Dan songs I like better.

6. Beatles. New data indicates indicates that two-thirds of the people listening to the Beatles on Spotify are under the age of 35. This is happening while oldies radio has largely dropped them (and other artists from the 60s) in the belief that they’re relevant only to those of us approaching retirement age. Radio remaining slavishly loyal to ancient dogma and refusing to keep up with the times? Color me shocked. Most-played track: “Across the Universe.”

7.  Boz Scaggs. I suspect I get more enjoyment from any random Boz cut than from any other artist who pops up on shuffle. Most-played track: “Lowdown,” and how. Various live versions rank #1 on my Boz list, and the studio version from Silk Degrees is #2.

8.  Rod Stewart. Rod has been in my music library even longer than Elton, ever since I bought “Maggie May” in the fall of 1971. Most-played track: “Mandolin Wind,” from Every Picture Tells a Story. 

9.  Bruce Springsteen. My most-played Springsteen album is The Seeger Sessions, and six of my most-played tracks are from that album, with “Erie Canal” and “Pay Me My Money Down” tied for first. That strikes me weird, but it’s OK: “Pay Me My Money Down” would be among my favorite Springsteen songs of any era, if I made a list.

10. Rosanne Cash. There’s no artist currently working for whom I have greater respect than Rosanne Cash. Although “daughter of Johnny Cash” will be in the first line of her obituary, she’s not overshadowed by him. She’s created her own great art and her own indelible image. And if you dip into her four-decade catalog at any point, you’ll find something highly worthwhile. Most-played track: “Tennessee Flat Top Box,” which is one of her father’s songs.

Add these 10 to the top five jazz artists in my earlier post (Jimmy Smith, Grant Green, Jimmy McGriff, Kenny Burrell, and Willis Jackson) and you have my 15 most-played artists. The next five are Lucinda Williams, the Eagles, Richard Groove Holmes, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and the Electric Light Orchestra.

My single most-played track is one I haven’t mentioned to this point: “Ruby My Dear” by Thelonious Monk. LastFM doesn’t differentiate very well between versions of the same song on different albums. I have four different versions of “Ruby My Dear,” so its prominence is mainly a shuffle anomaly. But I don’t mind. Here’s a good version.