Okay, I have iTunes on my home computer and my office computer, plus I've transferred albums from the former to my iPod. I haven't listened to any albums/songs so much that I'd get up to 3 digits in the count of times listened. The songs I listen to the most tend to have 20- or 30-something listens, even the ones I've practiced for karaoke, and that's for very few songs. One album I've listened to a lot has three songs with a count of 60-70 times listened. That's the highest, and I don't recall listening to those songs that much. But, okay, I guess I must have.

Now, on one of the albums, there's one song that has a listen count of 152. I like the song and the album but I haven't listened to it anywhere near that number of times. The next highest count for a song on that album is 17. The song right after the one with 152 on the tracklist has a count of only 6.

How did this one song get that many listens if I haven't listened to it that much? When I listen to my iPod at the gym (the only time I use it), does it add to the count on my home computer iTunes? Which still wouldn't explain the high count. I thought that maybe my office computer count was adding to it, but the count for that song on my office computer was only 6.

If I haven't listened to this song 152 times-and I know I haven't--how did it get that count? Does someone hack into my computer just to listen to that song? Doesn't seem likely to me.

Thanks for any insights that might help solve this mystery.

What can I say? I really like that song and you haven't changed your passwords.

Was the song ever first on any of your playlists? Is it the first song on an album that you used to listen to a lot.
My understanding is that iTunes counts it as a "play" even if you only play a few seconds of it, so if it's ever been first on a playlist or album you've started a lot, then it would have an abnormally high play count, even if you're skipping it most of the time without thinking about it.

Also, you are obligated to tell us which song it is. DVDTalk rules, donchaknow.

Flavor of Life

I believe that remote plays count toward your totals, just based on the count of some songs I only play on my phone.

iTunes has been borked for me for a few weeks now. It won't pull track listings etc. for CDs, and the store is completely inaccessible. I reinstalled with no success.

I'm guessing it's someting like this. When I hook my iPhone to my car it always launches the Music app and plays the first (alphabetically) song. I've heard the first few seconds of Astro by The White Stripes a million times.

It takes more than a few seconds of a song to count as played, you need to get the majority of the way through. Ipod plays are counted and added to itunes total. Networked computers using the same library can count, but that is an option that can be changed.

With that said, other people are having the same problem:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6549154

I think we're both wrong.

Lots of people seem to think that it counts a play only if you play any 2 or 3 seconds out of the last 5 to 10 seconds of a track. So you don't have to play the whole song, but you DO have to play a few seconds of the last more-than-a-few seconds of the song. People have tried this, and it seems to increase the count accordingly.

That said, your link seems to be right on the OPs issue. The latest iTunes and/or iOS8 are causing play count issues.

Thanks for that link. That seems to be it. Curious that it's only happened on that one song, although now I'm thinking the other three songs with high counts got that way through the same glitch. That's four out of a couple thousand songs. Weird.

As for the song itself, it's "Hajimete no Ken," by Erina Mano. (Aren't you glad you asked?)

Here's a shot of Ms. Mano swinging into action in a recent "Kamen Rider" movie:

Interesting. I don't think I've ever skipped a track at the very end of the song. At that point, I've just let it play out.