CameraDave.co.uk

Yes, she of The Power of Love ‘fame’.

But one track isn’t a big enough sample to form any judgement of how great my music taste is! Luckily however I have a much largely sample to show you.

A year ago I signed up at LastFM to monitor my music listening habits and see what new music I could find. One yea and 26,489 tracks* later I have made two very worrying discoveries - The bands occupying the top 2 spots on my most listened to artists…

Queen and Abba…

Now I was expecting Queen to do well as I do own most of their albums, but that isn’t the real reason they did so well. Several months ago I was stuck with the same half a dozen albums on my mp3 player for far too long, as I kept for getting to change the albums over when I was at home.** Consequently I wound up listening to the Flash Gordon soundtrack about 8 times in the course of a week, meaning that Queen got a bonus 120 plays.

Still I am grateful that accident happened after all if it hadn’t happened ABBA would have been my most listened to band for the year and that would be even worse - Wouldn’t it?

Still despite the evidence so far to the contrary I do have at least a modicum of musical taste, dulled as it may have been by the saccharine of Stock, Aitken and Waterman in their glory days - Yes I was a Jason Donovan fan when I was younger, but I also listened to a plethora of music from the 60s when rock and roll, both rocked and rolled - Whatever that means!

Over the course of the year I have listened to over 26,000 tracks, which assuming that they were all of a radio friendly 3 minutes means I have listened to over 3.5 hours of music a day, and only 7.5 minutes of that has been either ABBA or Queen. Here’s my top 25 most listened to artists for the here to show you just some of the other things I have been listening to and to hopeful show that I have some taste when it comes to music.

I try to vary what I listen to and as 7 out of my top 25 are bands I “discovered” in the past year; Cake, Candy Dulfer, The Detroit Cobras, Bonde Do Role, Zero 7, The Long Blondes, Regina Spektor, Novelle Vague - I’d like to think that I’ve succeed somewhat.

That said there are some definite trends in my preferences, it is a running joke with my more musically aware friends that I am drawn towards female vocalists in particular and with 10 out of 25 being solo female artists and a further 9 being bands whose vocals are (predominantly) provided by females - I certainly stand guilty as charged.

Now go and listen them, if I have listened to them so much they must be good! I particularly recommend Cake, Emmy The Great, Nouvelle Vague and Zero 7.

And James, I know you’ll have a opinion on this - So go on tell me what you make of my music choices.

*This “only” counts music played on my computer and mp3 player - Radio and nights out are not factored in at all - If they were Rhianna would have the top spot purely for the number of times I have heard Umbrella over the past year.

**When you only have a 128Mb mp3 player, as I used to you need to change the music most days - But if you have a memory like I still have, you’ll forget. That is why I now own a 2Gb mp3 player, I only have to change the music once a week.

It’s been a while since I’ve done any pointless, but undoubtedly accurate Internet tests and what better one to start the new year off than one that i suspect isn’t really intended for men to do in the first place?

The test proposed to answer the question, “Which Sex In The City character are you?”. I would like to state for the record that I have probably at best/worst seen one episode in it’s entirety and obviously unable to work out for myself which character best represents me.

Personally I’d have said I was Charlott, as according to Wikipedia she is, “the most conservative and optimistic of the group, the one who places the most emphasis on emotional love as opposed to lust, and is a true romantic; always searching for her “knight in shining armor.” She scoffs at the lewder, more libertine antics that the show presents (primarily by way of Samantha), but in her own way Charlotte presents a more traditional attitude about relationships, usually based around “the rules” of love and dating.”

But apparently I was wrong and I am actually…

I mean seriously, I am far better looking than her even when I wear a dress.

Now I have to admit that when it comes to the world of Internet tests, I am not always convinced about the veracity of them, however having completed a test today I have found one that I suspect for me is wholly accurate.

The test itself asked the question, “What is your break up song?” A question that is relevant to me currently as I recently  broke up with my girlfriend of three months and whilst I wasn’t expecting her to be happy about it I didn’t expect it to go quite as badly as it did - I expected the tears, but not that items of mine were going to go flying out of windows.

Anyways why was the test so accurate?  Just look at the song it came up with:

A few months back I asked the Internet what my secret identity was, but it was only today I asked what villain am I? and the answer it would seem is Tommy DeVito from Goodfellas.

A quick check with a couple of friends confirmed that this was the probably a good call as whilst I didn’t beat anyone to death at school I was known as a bit of a psycho thanks to the number of ’scuffles’ I found myself in and the number of people I took a swing at for little or no reason.

In my defense I a had a good reason - My idea was if I hit people for doing minor things and sometimes didn’t hit people for more major things some of the assholes who gave me grief might decide that it wasn’t worth the risk of shouting an insult at me, because I might just launch myself at them fists and feet first.

So whilst it looked like I was a psycho I wasn’t, it was all part of a cunning plan. Just like the time when I had 5 people provoking me and so I launched myself at them trying to sweep around as many of them as possible with one punch.  What I could see was a teacher just down the corridor who as soon as they all attacked me in response would break it up within seconds, but what they and everyone else saw was me launch into 5 opponents not seeming to care that I would lose and probably get a kicking.

Now I have great fact in the fact I am invincible and if dropped; like a baby, I’ll just bounce.  So as I should never need one I have decided that I’ll save money and rather than have a solictor create it let the Internet write mine for me:

	I, Camera Dave, being of sound mind, hereby bequeath my entire estate to the Power Rangers. I do this because they understand me.My only regret in this life was that I didn’t cry in the corner enough.

I’m off to cry in a corner for a bit because I certainly don’t cry in corners that often, so maybe I don’t do it enough.

Currently I am 24 and I when I was at school and university people always seemed to think that I was older than I actually was. My looks didn’t help either as thanks to permastubble and dressing like a middle aged man, even if I had of acted my age I still wouldn’t have looked it.

When I was 14 I could pass for 18 even in school uniform, and in my passport photo taken when I was 15 or 16 I have been described as looking as between 30 and 50 years old and looking like:

• a Czech refugee
• a Parisian artist
• a member of the Russian mafia
• and a Japanese pervert

Unfortunatly I don’t have my passport handy so that I can put the pic up on here (I’ll try and do that early next week), but I have found a test that purports to sum up how old I act and as it’s an Internet test it must be right and so what did the results say?

Now I wouldn’t have denied that I acted older than I am, but 83!?! I am beginning to doubt the veracity of Internet tests.