You guys? I love my iTunes “Most Played” playlist. I’m like… kind of insane about it. I play certain songs over and over because I want them to “move up my chart,” and I’ve expanded my playlist to include my 40 most-played hits, instead of the factory-issued 25.

Do you keep an eye on your playlist as well? If not, take a look at it now. See if you can discern the larger patterns of your life.  I bet you can. Seriously.

Here’s my idea: Let’s discuss our most-played songs, one number at a time. And let’s start with the song that’s ranked #8.

For me, that song is “Guilty In Here” by country artist Miranda Lambert. I’ve listened to it 25 times.

(More on the song–and the general bad-assitude of Miranda Lambert–after the jump)

If you don’t know her, Miranda Lambert is awesome. She comes off as a wild-child hardass who occasionally cries herself to sleep.

And her bad-girl persona seems much less forced than, say, Gretchen Wilson’s. Lambert’s music–especially on her recent album Crazy Ex-Girlfriend–has an effortless confidence. Instead of arena rock, Big-and-Rich-style production, she opts for more intimate sounds, which stresses she’s a musician and not just a marketing tool. (She co-writes most of her material, and she plays a mean guitar.) 

Her voice is also really appealing: She’s not a belter like Carrie Underwood or Martina McBride, but she makes up for it with growls and sobs and coloring. 

Plus, the songs she writes and the songs she covers imply she’s really smart. In the second verse of the song “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” in which she talks about beating the crap out of her boyfriend’s new girl, she sings:

She looked at my man
like he didn’t have on a stitch.
Somebody tell that girl
to step up to the plate, I’m gonna pitch

What’s cool is the way she emphasizes the word “stitch,” like she’s getting ready to rhyme with the word “bitch.” But instead, she drops “pitch” on you, and then the fiddles and drums kick in for a high-speed instrumental.

But then! After a few seconds of the instrumental, she mutters, “Little bitch.”

Bam! Fake out! By making us wait for the obvious rhyme, she makes it surprising. (If you follow the link up there, this all goes down at about 1:15.)

This song is similar to Carrie Underwood’s fantastic “Before He Cheats,” but my girl Miranda comes off as three hundred times more insane. For one thing, she hasn’t been cheated on… she’s just pissed that her man has moved on. And she’s not destroying her fella’s car like the wronged Ms. Underwood… she’s going kabuki on another person.

Add the full-tilt boogie of the music, and you’ve got some fierce, honky-tonk shit.

And that song’s not even in my top 40! 

By the way, neither is “Gunpowder and Lead,” which just became Lambert’s first top ten single on Billboard’s Country Chart. But that song also rules. (Its ascendancy was probably helped by the album’s surprise win for Album of the Year at the 2008 Academy of Country Music Awards.)

And before I get to “Guilty In Here,” my # 8 most-played song, I should mention that Lambert’s ballads “Easy From Now On” and “Desperation” are #25 and #26, with 19 plays each. People, seriously… buy this album.

But I digress. “Guilty in Here” is my favorite track from the record. Take a listen…

 

For one thing, I love the sound of this song… like a back porch jam that gets more and more out of control. The slow accretion of instruments, the subtle changes in key, the relentless tempo… it’s exciting.

And then there’s the lyrics. Ol’ Miranda is feeling guilty because all the men she’s fooling around with are in the same bar at the same time, and they all want a damn relationship. Snap! Now she has to juggle these fellas and their damn fool affection, when all she wants is a good time.

Lord, it’s hard out here for a pimp.

This lyric would be cool on a male singer, but it’s even cooler on a woman. It’s like how “Different Drum” by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys is cool: Again, it’s about a woman who can’t put up with a man’s messy feelings. It’s nice to hear the script get flipped.

So go on, Miranda. You teach those boys a lesson. I’ll keep listening until you’re in my top five.

Now it’s your turn! What’s your #8 most-played song?