The Songs Avalon Music's Bands List Most

Two songs lead the song lists of the acts Avalon Music books for Houston events, one list apart: “Brown Eyed Girl” is on 41 of 71 distinct lists (58%) and “Play That Funky Music” on 40 (56%), as published on the act pages in November 2026. Another 3 lists write only “Funky Music”, with no artist; counting them would put “Play That Funky Music” first, on 43.

By Avalon Music. Published November 13, 2026.

• 41 and 40 of 71song lists include “Brown Eyed Girl” (Van Morrison) and “Play That Funky Music” (Wild Cherry), the two most-listed songsAvalon Music act pages, Nov 2026
• 12songs appear on at least half of the song listsAvalon Music act pages, Nov 2026
• 171songs on the median act's listAvalon Music act pages, Nov 2026
• 71distinct song lists counted, from 77 act pages that publish oneAvalon Music act pages, Nov 2026

The top songs

Share of the 71 song lists that include each song; covers of the same song count together. The artist shown is the one the lists name most often for that song. For a standard recorded by many singers, that is the recording most lists name, not the writer or the first to record it.

Top 50 (54 with ties)

Songs tied at the same count share a rank. Download the table as CSV below.

By genre

Each genre's own lists, for the 5 genres with at least 9 distinct lists. Big band (4 lists) and Caribbean and mariachi (2 lists) are too few to table separately; they are in the overall count. A tie that would run a table past 15 rows is left off, and a note under the table says how many songs it holds.

Variety and cover bands: 20 lists

9 more songs tie on 14 of 20 lists, too many to table.

R&B and soul bands: 15 lists

Country bands: 15 lists

Jazz and swing: 9 lists

Latin and salsa: 9 lists

14 more songs tie on 5 of 9 lists, too many to table.

What this means for your event

• If a song near the top of the ranking is on your must-play list, many acts already list it, so it rarely needs to decide which band you book.
• Genre matters more than the overall list. A country band's most-listed songs (Margaritaville is on 13 of 15 country lists) look nothing like a jazz trio's, so match the band to the room first and the songs second.
• A song that is on no list is not ruled out. Every Avalon Music wedding booking includes a consultation where you share must-play songs, and our bands can usually learn a requested song unless it does not fit the band's instrumentation.
• Send a do-not-play list too. See our do-not-play list guide and the Houston wedding music guide for each moment of the day.

How we counted

We read the Song List section on each of the 83 act pages under All Bands by Genre. Chamber music pages were left out: they are recordings of single pieces, not acts. 6 act pages show no songs, which leaves 77 pages with a list.

Lists are written many ways (artist first, title first, titles only, medleys). We separated titles from artists, matched spellings (“Don’t Stop Believin’”, “Don’t Stop Believing”; “Boot Scootin Boogie”, “Boot Scootin’ Boogie”), longer and shorter forms (“I’ve Got Friends In Low Places”) and plain typing slips (“Brown Eye Girl”, “Tennesse Whiskey”), and counted covers of one song together (“Stand By Me” by Ben E. King or Prince Royce). A medley line counts each of its songs once (“Celebration – YMCA – We Are Family (MEDLEY)”).

Titles shared by different songs are told apart by the artist named (“Crazy” by Patsy Cline or Gnarls Barkley; “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran or One Direction), and a listing of such a title with no artist is left out. A shortened or misspelled title that could belong to more than one song counts only when the list names the artist. “Wonderful World” could be Sam Cooke’s song or Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”, and “Funky Music” could be Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music” or “Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On” (Edwin Starr; The Temptations), so “Funky Music” counts as “Play That Funky Music” only when the list credits Wild Cherry. A shortened title that fits only one song, such as “Ain’t No Mountain” or “I Can’t Help Falling In”, counts without an artist. The “Funky Music” rule decides the order at the top: 3 lists write only “Funky Music”, and counting them would give “Play That Funky Music” 43 lists, ahead of “Brown Eyed Girl”.

Some act pages repeat another page's list word for word. Pages whose lists match by 90% or more were counted as one list, which merges 6 pages into the others and leaves 71 distinct lists. No band is ranked here: the page counts songs, not acts.

A second script, written separately from the first and sharing none of its code, re-reads the live act pages, groups copied lists on its own and recounts every song in the tables above. Every count matched.

Limits

• These are songs listed, not songs played or requested. A list shows what an act says it can perform; it says nothing about how often a song is played at events.
• Lists are as published and some may be out of date. Each list counts once, however often the act is booked.
• A spelling variant we did not catch is counted as a separate song. That can only lower that song's count, never raise it, but it does inflate the number of distinct songs (5,694) and the share of songs that appear on only one list (61%), so read those two figures as upper bounds.
• 3 more pairs of lists share half or more of their songs but were counted separately. Merging them too leaves 68 lists, with “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Play That Funky Music” level on 38 each.

Sources

• Avalon Music act pages, Song List sections. As published November 2026. theavalonmusic.com/genre/

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