Okay, as I'm writing this I haven't actually hit 20,000 tracks scrobbled, 19,941 and counting...but by the time I get around to finishing this I should have hit the milestone.

And before I start, this probably won't be anything that special. But it's a rainy sunday afternoon and I want something to do...just not so much I'd actually do anything useful...

So yeah, I guess that 20k has covered a lot of change musicwise, I think the start (November 2005, apparently) was around the time I was starting to get into gothic/symphonic metal. I'd had a few Nightwish song demos off their site and demos off a few other sites, liked the stuff there and started looking for internet radio stations that fit the genre (Little or no money to buy stuff, so little space on my poor old laptop to download anything even if I wanted to), I found two main ones: Here (of course) and Gotham Radio (when I could get onto their rather overworked servers...)
I can't remember very clearly what the other favorites I picked up around then were, I think I found all of Soulslide, Xandria, Within Temptation, Sirenia, Theatre of Tragedy, After Forever, Edenbridge, L'Âme Immortelle, EverEve and Leaves' Eyes around then. Basically..gothic metal...and nothing else.

After a bit of that - a week or two, I think - I got (understandly) a bit bored of that, and moved more over to last.fm and it's radio streams. I think I moved more towards symphonic metal and power metal around then, looking for new stuff..and found a lot of stuff I still listen to now - Angra, Avantasia, Edguy, Liquid Tension Experiment, Sonata Arctica - some I've gone off since... Haggard, My Dying Bride - and probably more..only one I can think of that might be worth a mention is Emperor...who I hated every song that ever came on from...and last.fm in it's infinite wisdom carried on playing at me >:|

About that time I both got a new PC with a hell of a lot more space (400mb free --> 230gb free was a nice change), I also had a little more money to play with..so I started with my own collection, Nightwish - who were one of the few I'd stuck with all along (and I still do..) - I'd only really known by a few of their better known but - to me - far from their best songs: Nemo, Dark Chest of Wonders, Elvenpath (okay, maybe not well-known, but it's far from a favorite now..), Dead to the World and End of All Hope are the ones which spring to mind as ones I heard a lot then.. But then I got some of their much, much better - in my opinion - stuff. 10th Man Down, Over the Hills and Far Away, Ghost Love Score, Beauty and the Beast (The live version with Tony Kakko (from Sonata Arctica) is my favorite)..sorry, getting sidetracked on Nightwish-raving...

Okay..so, I think this is getting to late-winter this year (February 2006, maybe?), started getting more into power metal and moving, for a bit, away from the symphonic and female fronted stuff, got more seriously into Edguy, Avantasia, Gamma Ray, Stratovarius, Helloween, Sonata Arctica, Kamelot (Karma is one of those tracks I liked the first time I heard it and I never go off) and DragonForce (and probably more..I don't remember everything...) stayed with that kind of genre (Avantasia probably being the overall favorite, closely followed by Edguy) for quite a while, eventually started to get bored of that, started listening to some of the gothic metal bands I'd liked before.

From there onwards..it's stayed fairly stable, more recently found Lacuna Coil, found a bit more by L'Âme Immortelle (only really knew Lake Of Tears before), Epica are the main recentish discovery, they seem to have something which..others don't somehow. Evanescence wandered in somehow, some more conventional stuff too, Sarah McLachlan (wheee, I finally mentioned someone who's not even vaugely metallic), Tenacious D (!), Queen and...Metallica, who I'd never really liked before - and I still hate most of - but Metallica - S&M (Disc 1 / Disc 2) is just..awesome, Metallica has some decent stuff too. Everything else is a little..crap though, to me, anyway.

Getting more recent I've found and liked some more progressive metal kind of stuff, I love Dream Theater at the moment, I think I said Liquid Tension Experiment before, but they deserve another mention, Opeth too... :) I also bought the Aina CD (Well, 2CD+DVD), which is quite good :)

I'm not going to rave more. Honest. But Nightwish still manage to come out on top, I don't think I've ever really got tired of them (:|), End of An Era was good too..

I don't think I've mentioned Apocalyptica yet either, liked their stuff recently too, especially the later stuff when it's not just Metallica covers...

Okay, more stuff. I need 48 more tracks before the title will be true... (the first part, anyway)

The Gathering..another recent 'discovery', not sure quite why I like them, they're pretty..boring in a lot of ways, but I seem to have listened to a lot by them while I'm doing schoolwork and stuff. I guess Blackmore's Night are another group I should mention, they seem to have managed to grab 5th on my overall charts. Somehow, I didn't think I listened to that much by them :\ A few nice tracks maybe, Fires at Midnight, Ghost of a Rose...uhm, probably some more I like too, the names escape me...

So yeah, finishing up my horrendously long and boring journal..a random list of songs which I think everyone should hear. Everyone :P
Ghost Love Score
The Seven Angels
The Beast Within
Judgement Day
Enter Sandman (Live on Metallica - S&M (Disc 1 / Disc 2))
Solitary Ground
When the Water Breaks
Lake Of Tears
Last Drop Falls

Okay. Enough.

*saves this to post when he's hit 20,000*

Oh, and the 20,000th song was Ghost Love Score - Live on the End of an Era DVD :>