When a person is up late and fairly bored but has access to the internet, strange things are bound to happen. During my late night internet adventures of March 29th into March 30th, I somehow discovered a rather fascinating web application of sorts that gave me rather detailed information about the music I listen to most often. The application didn’t simply track the number of times I had played a song by a particular artist or how many times overall I had listened to a single artist; the application did all of that, but also graphed how much I listened to an artist and whatnot over various periods of time. When I saw this, I was blown away and thus ended up playing with the application for quite some time just to laugh at my own evolving musical tastes (as the title of this entry suggests). After seeing all of the graphs, though, I knew I wanted to share the statistics with other people and perhaps get others to use the web application themselves to see their own results over time.

I registered with the website Last.fm originally in 2005 and always found the service of simply recording every song I played in iTunes very interesting. Last.fm is an internationally popular website based out of the UK that allows users to create a profile for themselves that displays statistics about what music they listen to through various audio applications. My own profile – which you can access freely at Last.fm if you choose – is similar to most user profiles and generates data based on music tracks I’ve recently listened to (in ‘Recently Listened Tracks‘), the most played artists in my musical library (in ‘User’s Library‘), and even progressive charts spanning from 7 days to over 12 months showing the most played artists and songs in my library (in ‘Top Artists‘ and ‘Top Tracks‘, respectively). Last night, however, I was curious enough to locate a different way of looking at my data through the Last.fm Playground and the free Scrobbling Timeline web application. This is how I generated the graphs and overall statistics for my playing habits that I found too interesting to not share! After examining all the graphs I was able to create, I saved a key few to show how musical taste overall can drastically change over the course of less than two years. My evidence is as follows…

Scrobbling Timeline: 浜崎あゆみ (Ayumi Hamasaki)

I have listened to Japanese pop artist Ayumi Hamasaki since 2002, so when I registered my Last.fm account she was already well-established in my musical interests. I have a huge amount of music of hers on my iPod, and thus she has consistently been one of my most played artists over time. At the same time, I know I have begun listening to her less and less over the years, so I was curious to see how accurate that assumption was. I thus generated the following overall cumulative timeline graph of how much I listen to Ayumi Hamasaki during the life of my user account:

Ayumi Hamasaki (cumulative timeline) - Click to enlarge to full size for better viewing

This graph displays how many times I have played tracks by Ayumi Hamasaki, how long it took me to reach the total number of played tracks, and what tracks I played at various intervals such as the 1st track and the 1000th track. As the graph shows, I listened to Ayumi Hamasaki enough around mid-2008 (when my account was registered) to reach the play “milestones” of #1 through #100 almost immediately. It took me a good while to reach milestone #500 in early 2009, but then a rather long time to get to play milestone #1000 in mid-2009. Having listened to her an approximate 1,220 times overall, I have only listened to her about 220 times since hitting the #1000 milestone on August 12th, 2009. That was a substantial amount of time ago, and the chart shows how my listening of her music literally “flattened out” after the #1000 play mark. At that rate, it is likely it will take a very, very long time for me to get to the #2000 mark.

Scrobbling Timeline: t.A.T.u.

Similar to Ayumi Hamasaki, I had listened to Russian duo t.A.T.u. for a long time even before I registered my Last.fm account. Though no longer making music together, they released three albums of English music and three albums of Russian music (not including compilation or remix albums) during their career as a duo. On October 21st of 2008, t.A.T.u. released what would be their last Russian album that had been continually a source of frustration for fans because of delays and changes. Upon its release, though, I played it pretty much non-stop. Here is the generated cumulative timeline:

t.A.T.u. (cumulative timeline) - Click to enlarge to full size for better viewing

In total, I have listened to t.A.T.u. the most out of any of the artists in my music library with over 3,500 total plays. I quickly racked up enough plays to reach the first six play milestones – #10 to #2000 – from mid-2008 to only a few days before 2009 hit. Since the release of their last Russian album in October as mentioned previously, I was still enjoying it enough through the beginning of 2009 to hit the #3000 play milestone a few months later on May 18th. It took me seven months to go from 500 to 1000 plays with Ayumi Hamasaki, so in comparison to her, I have listened to t.A.T.u. a heck of a lot more in the same amount of time.

Scrobbling Timeline: Josh Groban

Although he’s been highly active in the music industry since his self-titled debut album was released in 2001, I didn’t really listen to any of Josh Groban’s music until mid-way through 2008. Even then, I only listened to a very select few – perhaps half a dozen – of his songs on occasion. In September of 2009 as the chart below shows, I some how decided I was going to start listening to all of his other music. The results were quite surprising and also very hilarious:

Josh Groban (cumulative timeline) - Click to enlarge to full size for better viewing

According to my Last.fm charts and this graph, when I started listening to a wee bit more of Josh Groban’s music in October 2009 – when I hit the #100 plays milestone – I must have been somewhat intrigued. Starting in January 2010, though, my recorded plays of his music began to increase much more before spiking and going through the roof in February through March. At the beginning of February I had not reached the #500 plays mark, but less than one month later I had already surpassed the #1000 plays milestone. It is now in the very last few days of March entirely and I am nearly up to 1,400 plays, thus making Josh Groban the second most-played artist in my entire library.

I’ve always been aware of changes in preferred music in myself and other people. It’s just a part of life that everyone goes through as we try new things and experience different sounds we were unaware of before. However, most of us don’t get to see the actual data on how our tastes and preferences evolve over a long period of time in a nice diagram! If any of you have a Last.fm account you’ve been using for a while, I highly recommend you check out the application used for the data graphs to see how your own musical interests have changed. You’ll be fascinated and possibly shocked when you see what the numbers reveal!

My older sister and I have always joked to each other, our family, and friends that both of us need to make our own countries. Hers was always called “The Island”, and sadly I don’t think I ever named mine. Either way, “the island” was always what we referred to as a utopia society where everything was the way we wanted it to be because, obviously, we were in charge. Throughout the years as our political, religious, and moral ideals have changed, we have drifted away from the outrageous idea of ruling our own unique countries. For me, though, as I saw my peers grow to accept and praise the society we currently live in here in the USA, I have grown continually disappointed and disgusted by it.

America is no longer the country it set out to be, what our Founding Fathers wanted it to be, or what we used to be, either. We are a country of two ruling parties, neither of which I agree with at all anymore. We are a country ruled by sensationalism, fear, and greed. We are a country that continually contradicts our own constitution, even though our lawmakers – including Presidents – are meant to obey it. We are also a country of great excess to such an extreme that I am often embarrassed that the US has become the example of such a definition.

A lot of people tell me “become an activist” or “join a movement“. Unfortunately, I know that the USA is quite far gone into the depths of ridiculousness, and even if I were to join a movement or become some sort of activist, I would not live to see the USA change to the degree it needs to. Call me impatient, but I don’t want to live and die in a country whose current stances on fundamental human issues are as such that I am ashamed of them. Everyone says these days that the USA will change thanks to the next generation. Well guess what? I won’t be around for much of that because I’m already in my 20′s. For me, wanting to leave the USA is not something I just want to do; I need to do it for my own peace of mind, happiness, and health. Although I was born an American, I am not an American that fits with the rules and expectations of 2010 America. While I thank America’s past for giving me the freedom to leave the country in the first place, I have to kindly decline the opportunity to live here for the rest of my days.

In 2009, I knew I was going to leave the US someday, probably a lot sooner than later. I opened a savings account that I transfer $50 into automatically every month, along with any extra change that is rounded up from purchases (thanks to Bank of America). I have nearly $1,000 in it currently, and I don’t plan on ever withdrawing from it until I am ready to actually leave the US. Unfortunately, I don’t know exactly where I’m going to move…yet. Thus, I am starting a List of Requirements that a country should probably meet to qualify for consideration. Mind you, this list might be incomplete because I keep thinking of new things all the time. Currently, the list contains a few things such as follows:

CORE REQUIREMENTS (non-negotiable)

1) Less than 6,500ft (1,980m) above sea level
Due to an absolutely wonderful genetic heart defect that totally sucks, I experience pretty darn bad altitude sickness within 1 hour of reaching an altitude of around 6,500ft. The average, healthy person may experience Acute Mountain Sickness (the “technical” name) at around 8,000ft (2,440m), and this is even expected a lot of the time because it is so common. In my case, I experience severe AMS at much lower altitudes and in much less time. On the family trip to Flagstaff, AZ in 2009, I experienced extreme AMS symptoms at 6,910ft (2,100m), and some progressed into symptoms associated with High-Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) after going to the Grand Canyon which is about 7,000ft (2,135m). I don’t really want to die only 30 hours after moving to a new city somewhere, so a tolerable altitude is something I can’t really compromise on.

2) Potential jobs in my career field
I know that IT, Internet, and Administration are all growing fields, but there are obviously some places where there will be more jobs in these fields than others. As I am double majoring in both web development (Visual Basic, PHP, MS SQL, MySQL, ASP.NET, etc) and web design (CSS, X/HTML, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, etc), I am getting the best of both worlds for my education. On top of those, though, I am getting into advanced server administration with UNIX-based operating systems for desktops and servers. I know there are many, many jobs out there already for these areas, but I need a job in the future, too.

SUGGESTED REQUIREMENTS: LEVEL 1 (can be somewhat negotiated if needed)

1) Reasonable amount of moderately proficient speakers of the English language
I don’t think I would want to move to some place like Russia, China, India or whatever because their language is fairly hard to learn for a total foreigner. I have some experience in French from taking it from middle school through high school, but my knowledge is more limited to syntax, grammar, and pronunciation versus actual useful vocabulary. Since there are many languages that are fairly similar to French syntax, grammar, roots, and so on, it is possible that I would have a slight advantage in some countries versus others. However, I don’t really want to spend unwanted time here in the USA learning a foreign language just so I can move to another part of the world. Thus, I am hoping to move somewhere that has a decent amount of English speakers. I know there are plenty of countries that require school kids to study English from a young age – possibly even until college – so hopefully then I will have an easier time adapting to a new country versus not understanding anything at all.

2) Decently affordable and adequately available health care
As lucky as I am (note the invisible online sarcasm), I have some health issues that are constantly kicking me in the butt. Some people may be more concerned with one – maybe two – aspects of health care (eg: dental, pediatrics for their kids, etc), but there are many that play a big role in my life. My biggest “issues” revolve around mental/behavioral health, cardiovascular health, and prescription drug availability. Of course, I need dental and vision care, as well, but those are kind of a given. The USA has the most horrendous health care system that actually qualifies as a “system”. Pre-existing conditions, health insurance lobbying 24/7, no importation of generic or brand name prescriptions, huge deductibles, enormous up-front co-pays, and absolutely ridiculous terms and agreements are commonplace here. People deal with them every day, including me. I would much rather live in a country that had some sort of public/universal/government health care system, or at least a partial one. I don’t care if the government taxes my income a lot higher, because frankly I would rather have less money in my pocket overall but better health services that don’t force me into bankruptcy after receiving.

3) Beautiful surroundings: natural, man-made, or both
There are plenty of aspects of cities, towns, villages, and countries overall that make a location beautiful. Natural surroundings such as plant life, wild life, general weather/climate, and landforms are all things I would like to have. On the other hand though, having a busy city with unique architectural history, varying cultural influences, and reflections of the past are all things I would want too! I honestly don’t mind either one, or even having a nice mix of both. For example, when I lived smack-dab in the middle of San Francisco, it was awesome because everywhere I went was very different from the previous block, there were many different world influences, etc. Right across the Golden Gate Bridge, though, there was immense beauty in the natural surroundings involving the water, the hills, the greenery, and much more. It was a wonderful mix of both and that would be nice to have once more.

4) Fairly calm political and social environments
Since ridiculous politics play a huge part into why I want to leave the United States, the country I choose to make my new home will need to be a tad better than the country I currently live in in terms of political and social environments. Currently, I completely disagree with the direction the USA is headed in, as I have for many years. Citizens are not equal here in many, many areas, such as health care availability, educational opportunities, average salary, etc etc etc. While most countries might have very similar issues, the USA also has some fairly outrageous ones in my view. Gay marriage and same-sex partner rights are hotly debated even though it is the year 2010¹. Abortion rights for women are still up in the air mostly because of religious groups². The USA condemns many other countries stockpiling nuclear weapons, yet the government spent over $35,100,000,000 in 1998 alone³ on nuclear weapons creation and other programs. I could really go on for quite a while, but I think you get where I am going with this. The USA doesn’t have what I am looking for in a political and social environment, so I am hoping to find somewhere in this world that is a little more easy-going with politics and social issues, unlike the USA.

SUGGESTED REQUIREMENTS: LEVEL 2 (more negotiable than level 1 requirements)

1) Moderate or acceptable climate (including precipitation, daily high, daily low, etc)
Having lived in a city that is contained within the Sonoran Desert the majority of my life, I have continually dealt with daily low temperatures around 40°F (4.4°C) in winter and daily high temperatures of well above 100°F (37.7°C) in the summer. Arizona is extremely dry the greater part of the year⁴ even though we experience a summer monsoon⁵, but that doesn’t guarantee decent rainfall. In all honesty, Arizona has one of the best climates in the USA because we do not experience powerful tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, landslides, etc. as some other states do. The worst things we have to dealt with on a somewhat regular basis are the overwhelming heat, dryness/drought, flash flooding, and forest fires. For me personally, I would rather give living in a different climate a shot versus staying in the desert my whole life. That said, though, I also don’t really want to move somewhere that is the total opposite of Arizona and downright freezing most of the year. A somewhat moderate climate would be ideal, but not absolutely necessary if it means other advantages.

2) Acceptable quality/standard of living in major cities
Don’t get my wrong, I know the average “standard of living” varies drastically throughout a country all the way down to throughout a single city. I have been very fortunate to have grown up in a wonderful area that has provided my family and me with just about anything we could want. Scottsdale (the city I have lived in) is praised for being an extremely “livable” city, and the NRDC ranked Scottsdale as the #8 “smartest” medium-sized city⁶ in the USA. On the flip side, Scottsdale is also known for some things that I honestly don’t care about, such as plentiful couture shopping, world-class dining and restaurants, night clubs galore, PGA Tour golf tournaments, and collector car auctions. Those are things I rarely (or never) use. To me, those particular aspects of a city such as mine are simply excessive and most definitely not needed for me when I move to another location. I would much rather prefer a city/town/location/etc that did not cater to those with “expensive taste”, but did focus on keeping the air fresh, the water clean, and residents happy overall. Honestly, I don’t even need a big city to live in; I would be happy with anything from a rural farming area all the way up to a jam-packed busy city if it had what I wanted.

As I mentioned originally in the beginning of this immense posting, this is definitely an incomplete list. However, the “requirements” I’ve come up with so far cover a lot of ground in most cases. Within my own research, I’ve found a surprisingly large number of countries that supply the vast majority of things I am looking for. The process of choosing the one country that is right for me when the time comes, though, is going to be a lot more thought-intensive than this, I’m sure!

Since I have a while to go before I am genuinely able to leave the USA, I think I will have plenty of time to figure out just where to head off to in the future. Until then, though, I will keep researching and monitoring the continuous changes around the world. Hopefully I can figure out where I want to ship off to soon, but then again, I have well over 1.5 years to get through in the USA first!