All the way to the top of my charts

I've downloaded exactly 3,500 songs to my iPod since August 2004. One feature I am completely obsessed with is the iTunes Play Count, which I believe can be the ultimate indicator of what my favorite music is. Numbers don't lie, do they?

So with 15 months of music activity recorded, what are my Top 5 most played songs as of Nov. 23?

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MOST-PLAYED SONGS SINCE AUG. 2004

"Wonderwall" by Ryan Adams - 44 times
"Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane - 37 times
"Broken" by Seether featuring Amy Lee - 36 times
"Ride" by The Vines - 36 times
"The Widow" by The Mars Volta - 32 times
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Hmm. Not exactly the artists I anticipated at the top of my list. In fact, I bought all these songs as singles on iTunes. In addition, they are the only songs I have by these artists, unless you count Amy Lee as a part of Evanescence.

So, I got to thinking. What's the best indicator of overall achievement? I went to my "10-Time All-Stars" Smart Playlist -- which includes only songs I've played at least 10 times -- and I counted the number of unique songs by a single artist. The results appear to be much more reflective of my overall favorites in the last 15 months:

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NUMBER OF SONGS PLAYED 10+ TIMES SINCE AUG. 2004

Stone Temple Pilots - 15
Linkin Park* - 14
U2 - 12
Sting - 10
Foo Fighters, INXS - 7
The Beatles, The Killers - 6
Alicia Keys, Audioslave, Green Day, Led Zeppelin, The Police - 5

*Not including 4 tracks from Linkin Park/Jay-Z's "Collision Course" album.
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Notable omissions of artists I consider myself a fan of: Garbage, The Bravery, Billy Joel, Radiohead, Eminem, Evanescence, Jay-Z, Coldplay, R.E.M., AC/DC. I'm guessing these I've listened to these artists more in years prior to owning an iPod.