Richardgm's Last.fm Journal

E Lucevan Le Stelle

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:06:19 +0000

It has been a while since I wrote a note on a song. But I had to express my love for the track E Lucevan Le Stelle.

Oddly, I have had this track in my library for over two years without really noticing it. (This is one of the reasons why I don't delete songs I find "ok" on a couple listens... you never know what gem you my find when my 5,500+ mp3s are on shuffle).

I can't tell the exact time I downloaded my first version of E Lucevan Le Stelle, but I know for a fact it came from a bootleg Era album titled Ocarina Dream Opera.
I played this version 22 times, up until I realized that most of the songs came from the artist Quinn's album The Solemn Vow.

Oddly, the track doesn't exist on that album.... I still don't know who is the original artist for the track I currently have, now still titled Quinn - E Lucevan Le Stele (Tosca).

----during writing this Journal, something came to me; why not use SHAZAM, the iPhone application that allows you to determine the track and artist of any given song. Guess what? That version of E Lucevan Le Stelle came up UNRECOGNIZED. Anyone willing to take a listen to the version I have, feel free to download here, and if you know who it is (artist, album), please tell me.\

Anyway, back to my discovery of this track. It is important to note that the version I had for years now ( tagged as ERA then QUINN) contained no lyrics. This is probably the reason for me not taking note of the song.

Interesting to note that both versions of this song was played 44 times in total.

Enter Paul Potts' latest album Passione. Guess what? The last track on the album is E Lucevan Le Stelle.

It was one day a few weeks ago I realized that I knew this song; it did sound familiar. Indeed... this was when I realized I had it for years.

I really began to grow into the song when I discovered Jonathan Ansell... and he too had a version of the track. Since then (back in May) I favourited both versions.

It was not until yesterday June 18 that I really begain to love this track. So I decided to download / listen to all versions I could (thanks to the Zune Pass). I am, however, disappointed in the fact that Luciano Pavarotti did not record a studio version of this track. On the other hand, this version of the song is never-the-less great.

But unfortunately because of my OCDness, I can't download and keep a live-version of a track in my library. The cleanness of studio-tracks is my forte. I may concede, and download the live track after all. We have to wait and see though.

E Lucevan le Stelle by Mario Lanzo is another version that I really like. Powerful good stuff.

I then downloaded Russell Watson's version, he does a great job with his interpretation of the classic song. His version is titled differently (according to Zune) it is Tosca, Act III: E Lucevan Le Stelle. I am tempted to rename it for the sake of order; since all the versions I have is simply:

E Lucevan Le Stelle

----

After doing simple mathematics I realize that I have played the track over 170 times by the above artists. If it was a single artist track it would have been placed at 78 on my overall tracks played since August 2006.

Martin Phipps - New 3 Month King - in 1 day!

Mon, 9 Mar 2009 14:49:34 +0000

In a little over 24 hours since I started playing Martin Phipps, he has been played 392 times. This means that he tops X-Ray Dog, who was played 391 times in three months.

The album that I have been listening to is Elizabeth 1 The Virgin Queen. I discovered this soundtrack after watching the movie of the same name.

If you haven't figured it out by now; the album is great. Some notable tracks are:

The Work Of The Lord
The Virgin Queen
A Legacy Of Comfort
God Breathed
The Queen Lives
Remember Me
Gloriana

These tracks, coupled with the visual (the movie), are great... seamless... timeless.

Download it here. (iTunes)

/March 21 Edit: With 824 plays, Martin Phipps is now #1 on the 3 Month Chart.

120,000 Tracks Scrobbed

Fri, 9 Jan 2009 16:23:29 +0000

Today, Friday January 9 2009, I scrobbed my 120000th track: Tina Turner's The Best

It took me 132 days to play 20 000 tracks.

First Track of 2009

Thu, 1 Jan 2009 14:56:06 +0000

I recently downloaded the album Tina! because of the song Private Dancer by Tina Turner. It was my first track scrobbed of 2009.

2nd Year - The Tracks

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:03:30 +0000

Today, August 31 marks my second year (and 1 day) registered on Last.fm. To mark the date, I will list my top ten songs, and artists, played over the some 365 days.

number denotes amount played in 12 months
(number denotes amount times played in total)

NEW 1. Andrea Bocelli – Canto della terra - 338
NEW 2. Sarah Brightman – Canto della terra (Duet with Andrea Bocelli) - 234
NEW 3. Britney Spears – Gimme More - 231
NEW 4. Moby – Everyday It's 1989 - 227
NEW 5. Tarja Turunen – Our Great Divide - 211
▲ 6. Hans Zimmer – Calypso - 193 (530)
▲ 7. Pink – Who Knew - 162 (165)
▼ 8. X-Ray Dog – Dark Empire (Remix) - 151 (1,087)
▲ 9. E Nomine – Schwarze Sonne - 147 (148)
▼10. Josh Groban – Un Giorno Per Noi - 146 (1,005)

Interesting to note, 5/10 tracks are tracks I played prior to August 30, 2007.While 5 my top 5 played tracks are new.

My top 2 tracks are actually the same song; just sung slightly differently. You can see that I clearly prefer Andrea Bocelli's version of Canto Della Terra over the duet with Sarah Brightman.

2nd Year - The Artists

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:49:08 +0000

Click for 1 Year - The Artists

/note/ I started this Journal on the 30th, but didn't publish until I finished editing.

Today, August 30, 2008 marks my second year on last.fm. And to not break with tradition, I am going to list, and detail my top 10 artists played in some 365 days.

number denotes amount played in 12 months
(number denotes amount times played in total)

– 1. X-Ray Dog - 3,709 (10,186)
▲ 2. E Nomine - 2,483 (2,503)
NEW 3. Future World Music - 1,534
▲ 4. Immediate Music - 1,409 (3,149)
NEW 5. Within Temptation - 1,399
▲ 6. Mariah Carey - 1,353 (2,569)
▲ 7. Moby - 1,218 (1,744)
NEW 8. Tarja Turunen - 1,203
▼ 9. Lesiëm - 1,181 (6,904)
▼ 10. Enya - 1,121 (3,117)

Firstly one must note that X-Ray Dog is once again atop my charts.
Additionally, 3 artists are new, while 6 are artists I played prior to Aug 30, 2007.

One Hundred Thousand Tracks Played

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:33:40 +0000

Today (two years, and one day into last.fm), I played my 100,000 track, Same Mistake, by James Blunt.

It is the first time I played a 'milestone-track' on purpose. I must admit, I was hoping to play my 100,000 track on my 2nd anniversary here on last.fm, but I have seemed to have gotten somewhat of a life lately.

It took 2 months 2 weeks to play 10,000 tracks from my 90,000.

Un Giorno Per Noi (Finally) Tops 1,000 Plays!

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:43:35 +0000

My top actual song (having excluded Dark Empire (Remix) as a song because its length) Un Giorno Per Noi by Josh Groban has passed the 1,000 threshold.

84 Plays currently separate number one track Dark Empire (Remix) & number two track Un Giorno Per Noi.

With a track length of 5:10, Un Giorno Per Noi, if I played it consecutively would have to run for 4.6 days.

On the other hand, Dark Empire (Remix), with a track length of 0:35, has only been played for 10.5 hours.

10,000 Plays of X-Ray Dog

Wed, 6 Aug 2008 23:55:37 +0000

Today, I played my 10,000th track from X-Ray Dog.

They are the first artist in my almost two years here on last.fm to reach 10,000 plays.

Future World Music - Brilliance

Sun, 3 Aug 2008 23:32:14 +0000

After just listening to Dominion on my Zune, I couldn't resist creating a journal on the music group Future World Music.

Future World Music is a high impact soundtrack source that has the big epic sound and style of an actual feature length motion picture score.

That being said, so far, the project has racked up over 1270 plays according to last.fm. But more importantly, thanks to someone uploading Volumes 4 & 8 of their work, they have become my most listened to artist in the past 3 months with 628 plays. Overall Top Artist X-Ray Dog is in second place with 589 plays.

The two projects create for the same market; more specifically trailers. Their sound is, while similar, is somewhat different. The best Future World Music songs in my opinion are more epic than the best X-Ray Dog songs (with the exception of Dark Empire (Remix) who's epicness, according to me is "35 seconds of bliss").

Thanks to the latest update on last.fm, one can easily see which songs I listen to most by the both artists.

Future World Music's top 5 songs (click to view all):

1. Aqua Vitae (60 plays)
Soon to be replaced. This song got me into the group.

2. Time Bomb (57)
Dark Empire Remix's counterpart. A short heavy track, a must listen for trailer music lovers.

3. Fight (no choir) (54)
While the version with rap isn't bad. Just the instrumentals are good enough to be a top trailer music track.

4. Final Seconds (50)
One day I was blown away when this song was playing loudly. This too is the definition of epic.

5. Follow You or Follow Me (33)

Without a doubt, as time progresses, these tracks will be showing plays in the hundreds.

X-Ray Dog's top 5 songs (click for all):

1. Dark Empire (Remix) - (Read More)
2. Somaquado
3. Dreamstate
4. Imperial Force
5. Live Or Die