Top Artists Last Week


Top Tracks Last Week


Top Artists Overall*


Top Tracks Overall*


Most Recent Tracks, If Available



All links within the music charts take you to the last.fm website.

* Charts begin from May 22, 2006. Occassionally, the iPod tracks don't get uploaded right, but for most part, they represent!

Welcome To The Music Charts Page

May 29, 2006

These music charts reflect plays on my iPod and home computer's iTunes. What gets play is usually determined by what I want to hear in my headphones, car stereo (iTrip attached to iPod), or home computer speakers. Occasionally, I try out some of the playlists on friends and family through the house speakers.

My favorite things to play are, first, anything new that I get ahold of or anything that is hot in Nate Radio Land. Recent heavy rotational artists have been Gnarls Barkley, Murs & 9th Wonder, Army of the Pharoahs, and Little Brother. Plus, Abstract Rude has been a constant presence since around the same time I started doing music digitally.

Second, my "Needs Love" playlist, which contains top-rated songs with the least plays relative to other top-rated songs, where the song has not been played in a month. One amazing song after another that I haven't heard in a little while -- I freakin' love that playlist.

Third, I am slowly but surely listening to all my albums in alphabetical order so that I can rate all tracks in my library. No rush. I think I am about a year and a half into that project as of May 2006, and I am on the "P" albums.

Finally, anything that can please the audience. If there is one, its usually my wife and two-year-old son Benji. So you might find Raffi, played in the car for Benji, in the same "most played" chart as Eazy-E, played in my earbuds for background music while I'm working. Yep, that's my soundtrack while I'm on the computer at work. Sometimes I just explain myself to people as "I'm Michael Bolton from 'Office Space.'" I like more variety than Michael, but I won't deny that I have quite a few five star-rated Geto Boys tracks in my library.

Anyway, about the possible audience, I usually make sure my iPod is close at hand when I go to parties, as a backup for the in-house music. On the off-chance the music has technical difficulties or something, like a boy scout I am trying to be prepared. I am slowly creating "Ultimate Mixes" of various themes, like the "Allowed 2 Dance" mix. For these cases, the more general appeal a song has, the more plays it will get, but you can still be sure that it will be the Nate-certified real shit.

I like honest, real, true hip hop so much that I take it as a personal mission to spread the good news of good hip hop to the ill-informed, mainstream masses. Everyone needs a taste of great music from the many sides of hip hop. Even songs stretching the definition of hip hop or from outside the genre altogether, but with the same truth, feeling, or realness, can get in the mix. When I say hip hop, I mean the universal umbrella envisioned by Afrika Bambataa.

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