My Top Songs of 2019, Part 1

My top-played artists of 2019 were swept by J-Pop, so it’s no surprise that my top songs of the year would follow a similar fate. Exactly what metric to use though turned out to be the big question.

Since I’m stuck with using the limited data I can gather from iTunes, I can’t just take a frequency analysis of songs played since January (or if Apple has that data, they’re not sharing it with me…). So what to do instead?

Like my artists of the year, I’ll start by limiting the list to songs I acquired in 2019. Then there’s the question of also limiting it to songs released in 2019; this was a big year for discovering new music, so I’ll take the easy way out and make two lists! Then obviously the “times played” stat is crucial, but misleading, since clearly a song I got in January will beat one from November.

So clearly I need to weight them by how long I’ve owned them. I could just divide plays by time owned, but that seems overly harsh. I play a song I like a lot more in the weeks after getting it, but then even for songs I love that’s going to taper off over time. So a song I got in January is at a big disadvantage to one from November.

In general the linear weighting factor seems arbitrary, so clearly I need something fancier and more reasoned. This seems like a math problem that’s probably long been solved for just this sort of thing, but I’m not sure quite where to look for the answer. So instead I’ll make up another arbitrary weighting curve.

I tried all sorts of formulas, including exponential and arc-tangents and whatnot, before finally deciding what I really wanted was just a power relation. Going for nice round numbers, say that after a year I’d play my favorite song 1/10th as much as another arbitrary song, so I end up with something like:

Ranking = (# of plays) / (Time owned)^0.39

Ok, that doesn’t look that exciting after what was a lot of thinking about the problem. And trying various formulas, it looked like the songs in my top 20 wouldn’t really change that much anyway, just some adjustments to the order.

So, after that long-winded introduction, the finalists are:

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My Top 10 Songs Released in 2019

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10. King Gnu — 飛行艇

Maybe King Gnu is more rock than pop? Anyway a couple of their songs really grabbed me this year; they were big beneficiaries of the Count Down TV effect. 飛行艇 (hikoutei / Flying Boat) is a nice jam.

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9. 日向坂46 — Footsteps

One of my early ones and my first Hinatazaka sub. Like I said in the post, this is a song that grew on me — I didn’t think that much of it at first, but both the lyrics and the MV aesthetic really grabbed me at some point later on.

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8. ラストアイドル — 桜が咲いたら

From the Last Idol sub-group Good Tears, 桜が咲いたら (sakura ga saitara / When the Cherry Blossoms Bloom) always catches me off guard. It has a somewhat grating high-pitched vocal start that makes me want to skip to the next song, but when it gets going it really is quite pleasant and sing-songy.

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7. 日向坂46 — Cage

Somehow one of several inspirational/word of warning songs in my top 10. I’m not sure there’s really one part of it that stands out to me, I just like it overall, though the choice of unit was an inspiration to get me to sub it. Also if the traffic analysis is to be believed, it’s far and away my most popular sub. Should probably give it another quality pass.

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6. King Gnu — 白日

After hearing the excellent stinger for 白日 (hakujitsu / Broad Daylight) about a hundred times on Count Down TV I finally picked up the full version. A nice roller coaster sort of melody, and the MV is a fantastic bit of artistic minimalism.

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5. ラストアイドル — 青春トレイン

I remember I saw this released on my Twitter timeline and saved it for later since the thumbnail looked interesting. Then their live performance videos started getting posted and I saved those, too. When I did finally get a chance, turns out 青春トレイン (seishun TOREIN / Youth Train) was 100% awesome. I guess I could even have seen this being a Keyaki A-side since the lyrics are very in-line with their theme.

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4. NMB48 — 焼け木杭

Another tumultuous year as a relatively recent Ota Yuuri oshi, but we got a great song out of it in 焼け木杭 (yakebokkui / Embers). Dark, cool Yuuri, awesome outfits, and a bopping tune, so to say. It’s from February but I feel like I’ve had this around for years.

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3. STU48 — 青い檸檬

The STU vocal senbatsu nailed 青い檸檬 (aoi remon / Green Lemons). Though the group actually has a fair number of good singers, I’d take anything headlined by Naachan. It was my first lyric sub, so please excuse the weird equalizer.

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2. SKE48 — 夢の在処へ

夢の在処へ (yume no arika e / To Where Dreams Hide) is a solid example of how to win over my attention — I went from 0 to Nojima fan on first listen. I really like the build and the structure of the song; it’s just fun to listen to. I translated it, but it’s definitely on my list for a lyric sub now that I think I’ve got that process figured out.

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1. Little Glee Monster — 恋を焦らず

Despite releasing in January, there was little chance of this not coming in on top of my list regardless of the sorting algorithm. 恋を焦らず (koi wo aserazu / Don’t Rush Love) was the first song I subbed after starting this site (eh, I should really work back over the lyrics…), and it’s everything I love about LGM, including a good MV, which is not a guarantee from them.

A bit retro, some nice vocal variation, and a good beat. Definitely one of my favorite LGM songs, period.

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Honorable Mention

There were four songs released in 2019 that were just at the cutoff for the top 10, so I’ll at least give them a mention here to make up for the whims of the algorithm:

乃木坂46 — 路面電車の街 (romendensha no machi / The Trolley Town)

IZ*ONE — ケンチャナヨ (KENCHANAYO / 괜찮아요 / It’s Ok)

日向坂46 — 耳に落ちる涙 (mimi ni ochiru namida / Tears Running Down My Ear) Sub

Little Glee Monster — Baby Baby

Also not making the list from number of plays — but hey Keyaki apparently doesn’t like performing it either — is 欅坂46 — 黒い羊 (kuroi hitsuji / Black Sheep). I really liked the song and the MV, and Yamaguchi Maho choosing it for her graduation performance solidified its place for me in 2019.

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Next time, the Top 10 old songs I only found out about in 2019!