doug — off the record

As a little boy, I always wanted to learn to play the guitar. When I was in Grade 1 or 2, my parents gave me one for Christmas. I was overjoyed and looking forward to learning to play.

There was a music teacher in town so we took my guitar to meet him. It was such a sad day. My little fingers weren’t long enough to wrap around the neck. I was devastated.

But, he had a solution. He added a bridge to the neck and gave me a steel and three finger picks. I was going to learn to play the Hawaiian guitar. For a number of years, I learned to play Hawaiian and Country music. I ended up buying an electric steel (which I still have today) and played concerts with other music students. In fact, I played at my wife’s elementary school so long ago and she had to have been in the audience!

My first love was Rock but I grew to appreciate all kinds of different types of music, especially Country music.

Fast forward to a month ago. If you know, you know. By serendipity, I discovered Channel 558 on SiriusXM which they brand as Country Top 1000.

Now, normally when we’re in the car, I’m a channel surfer. If a song comes on, I’ll switch to another channel in search of something I like. I have Springsteen, the 70s, the 80s, Prime Country … but now I have Country Top 1000. And, to be honest, I haven’t been switching since there are so many good songs and memories.

Now, if there’s a list, you know the logical questions – what’s Number 1 and what’s Number 1000? Surely, they have a list. I checked and no. I’ve been listening for a month and never seem to tune in to catch it when they play it.

So, I did what anyone with a computer would do – I searched for it – with bizarre results. I was so excited to find this result. On closer inspection, the list was from 2022. I edited the URL to change things to 2025 and got no page found. Sigh. Shouldn’t there be an update?

Maybe someone has created a playlist and made it available to all on Spotify so that you can go directly to a song. There are a number of them that turn up in searches. The one I’ve got going in the background has 1027 songs in it so we must be talking art rather than science!

In 2025 though, you don’t just search once and be done. Use some AI, Doug. And, if you’re going through all this effort, why not a Top 10 list?

Please don’t hallucinate.
Please don’t hallucinate.
Please don’t hallucinate.

ChatGPT gave me a list. It is a good list.

I figured that I’d better double check with another search – this time on Perplexity.

This was a bit frustrating. Are they even listening to the same channel? <grin> After doing some more poking around, the algorithm behind the search results showed an interesting approach. Maybe the exact list for 2025 doesn’t exist anywhere other than SiriusXM’s computers?

I always figured that a good Country song should have horses, dogs, love, and broken hearts.

DuckDuckGo’s summary makes better sense.

As I looked at the results which are all great songs, one stood out and until I hear #1 on SiriusXM, I’m going with it as my #1.

And, Alan Jackson had a moving tribute at George’s funeral. How he held it together amazes me.

It was a frustrating experience trying to find Number 1 and maybe I still haven’t found it. But, I like my choice.

Do you have a better recommendation? Even more importantly, have any readers of this blog found the absolute Number 1?

=====

This post goes live on September 11 so it’s so appropriate to include here.