Which Bands & Songs Steve Jobs Kept On His Own Personal iPod

Steve Jobs favorite Grateful Dead song was Uncle John’s Band; and his favorite band was Bob Dylan, followed by the Beatles and then the Stones, according to Isaacson’s Steve Jobs book.

Isaacson outlines the below songs/bands that were on Steve Jobs’s own personal iPod.

Bono's U2 made the cut on Steve Jobs's personal iPod.

Here they are, roughly in order of which artist he had the most albums of:

Bob Dylan

All six volumes of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series.

15 other Bob Dylan albums from Dylan’s early career leading up to Oh Mercy from 1989 (though Dylan was Jobs’s favorite musical artist, he didn’t own any Bob Dylan albums later than 1989).

Jobs felt that Dylan peaked at Blood on the Tracks (1975).

Jobs’s favorite Dylan tune was “One Too Many Mornings.”

The Beatles

• A Hard Day’s Night
• Abbey Road
• Help!
• Let It Be
• Magical Mystery Tour
• Meet the Beatles!

There we no solo albums from any of the Beatles.

Rolling Stones

• Emotional Rescue
• Flashpoint
• Jump Back
• Some Girls
• Sticky Fingers
• Tattoo You

Joan Baez (Jobs’s Ex-Girlfriend)

Four albums

Old School Bands Represented

• Aretha Franklin
• BB King
• Buddy Holly
• Buffalo Springfield
• Don McLean
• Donovan
• Doors
• Grateful Dead (“Uncle John’s Band” was his favorite)
• Janis Joplin
• Jefferson Airplane
• Jimi Hendrix
• Johnny Cash
• John Mellencamp
• Joni Mitchell (“Both Sides Now” was his favorite)
• Simon and Garfunkel
• The Monkeys (“I’m a Believer”)
• Sam the Sham (“Wooly Bully”)

More Contemporary Bands

• 10,000 Maniacs
• Alicia Keys
• Black Eyed Peas
• Coldplay
• Dido
• Green Day
• John Mayer
• Moby
• U2
• Seal
• Talking Heads

Other

• Bach (including the Brandenburg Concertos)
• Yo-Yo Ma (3 albums)
• Spiritus Domini (by Benedictine Monks)

I highly recommend Isaacson’s biography of Jobs. It’s a wealth of information on our time’s most prolific creator.