Fun with statistics ... and music charts!

So now that the first half of the year is written in the history books, it's time to look back at the year in SAW music, and assess the one thing that everyone most concerned about: Which songs are most popular! Because if there's one thing I've always said, it's that the artistic merit of a song is how popular it is.

OK, so maybe not, but it's still interesting to look back at the year in numbers and get an idea where we've been. It's some small consolation for the fact that we're well behind our weekly pace of late.

To figure out the number of downloads, rather than counting the number of hits, we take the total data traffic for the song, then divide it by the file size of the song, to get a sort of equivalent number of full downloads. This helps cancel out the effect of people who 'hit' the file but didn't actually listen or download.

So the top 3 downloads for each month were:

January: #1 - Distortion by Chris Devine, #2 - Stand Up by Richard E. Moore, #3 - Attach Another Line by Erik M. Hendel

February: #1 - Only When I'm With You by Chris Devine, #2 - Always Too Much by Richard E. Moore, #3 - Chance Has Favored You by Erik Matthew Hendel

March: #1 - This Conversation by Chris Devine, #2 - Salt Bones by Richard E. Moore, #3 - Before I Fall by Richard E. Moore

April: #1 - Cathedral Prayers by Chris Devine, #2 - Go Through Me by Richard E. Moore, #3 - Disgrace by Erik Matthew Hendel

May: #1 - Difficult Goodbye by Erik Matthew Hendel, #2 - Leaving by Richard E. Moore, #3 - There Are No Words by Chris Devine

June: #1 - Firing Line by Erik Matthew Hendel, #2 - I Wanted to Be by Chris Devine, #3 - Natural Disasters by Chris Devine

The busiest month for downloads was March, followed by May, which is ironic because May and June were the slowest months for music creation, with only three songs posted during each month.

The top five downloaded songs for the first six months of 2009 were:

#1: Attach Another Line by Erik M. Hendel
#2: Distortion by Chris Devine
#3: Stand Up by Richard E. Moore
#4: Only When I'm With You by Chris Devine
#5: Where the Grass is Greener by Son of Rust

In another special mention, Son of Rust wins the title for the highest average number of downloads per song. While that's due in some part to Son of Rust just being so fricking cool, it's also a factor that SoR has, so far, contributed only the one song and has hence had fewer opportunities to throw out a dud.

In a related story, Chris has contributed nine songs, Erik has contributed seven, Richard has posted six and, as previously mentioned, there has been one contribution from Son of Rust.

Here's to a creative and exciting second half of the year! If you have any comments or questions about the chart or the music itself, or simply want to vent and hurl ridicule, comment here and I'll see what I can do.