July 3, 2007
Am I the Only Person Who Obsessively Rates Their Music With iTunes?
Posted by Larry Karnowski at July 3, 2007 3:51 PMAm I? I had a conversation with some friends the other day and one a couple of months before that with some random strangers, and it seems that I was the only person who is obsessed with rating all (or near all) of my music. Is that right?
Back in the days of the 20GB iPod (my first), it was the only way I could squeeze my huge collection down into something portable. Now I'm given myself much more room to grow with my two-year-old 60GB iPod, but even it's starting to get pretty dang full. I'll have to switch back to ratings-based playlists again -- all four and five stars, some amount of random three stars, some amount of random unrated no-stars, and of course, absolutely NO one or two star songs.
But more than that, I've found that rating my music has given me some serious power in creating playlists that become mini-radio stations. I've made playlists of my favorite songs from a genre, year, artist, composer, etc. I do this all the time. Favorite songs with "whiskey" in the title. Favorite songs written but not performed by Bill Monroe.
And I'd never be able to do the end of year lists here at HickoryWind.org without my ratings... sheesh, I don't even want to think about it!
So tell me I'm not the only person doing this. Am I?
Are you ranking your songs? How are you using that? Anyone using play count or last played date interestingly?
And for the record, my collection is HUGE -- well over 200GB. It's just that I limit myself to only 60GB in iTunes at any time so I can sync it all to the iPod. When I have more than 60GB, though, I'll have to go back to the "sync only certain playlists" scenario.
Posted by: larry at July 3, 2007 4:02 PMI do exactly the same, Larry. My Ipod contains all of my 4 and 5 star songs, plus my least recently played 3 stars. Two stars is Christmas music and anything that I don't want to listen to often, but don't want to delete. And one star means it goes away in the next purge.
Right now, I'm listening to a playlist of all 4-5 song stars whose title, album or artist contain "America" or "USA".
Posted by: Mike Orren at July 3, 2007 4:14 PMI rate everything. I also have the BPM of every song (thanks to a program called Tangerine). I have smart playlists for everything; fast songs, slow songs, five-star songs not played in the last three days, four-star songs not played in the last week, songs which have been skipped recently (so they can be excluded from other playlists), songs added in the last six months ("Relatively new"), songs with less than five plays, songs with the comment "talking" which can be excluded when playing on shuffle. I could go on like this for hours :)
Posted by: Adam at July 3, 2007 5:57 PMmy collection came before iTunes, so the process of beginning to rate my collection is a daunting task. The only time I really use it is when a song plays and it grabs my attention like it never has before, and I want to "mark" it.
Posted by: JD at July 3, 2007 8:33 PMWhen I buy a new album, I create a playlist for it, as kind of a "bookmark" on my iPod. As I add more and more albums, though, I "age out" my older album playlists. It takes some care, but it's my passion.
I have a "Favorite" playlist for each genre -- Bluegrass, Country, Alt Country, Celtic, Indie Rock, etc., and I have a "Favorite" playlist for each of my favorite bands.
All told I guess I have around a hundred playlists at any given time. This includes my "real" hand-chosen playlists for special occasions too.
Posted by: larry at July 3, 2007 8:59 PMLook like I'm the freak here. 120GB and no ratings, no playlists.
Posted by: Hal at July 4, 2007 12:31 AMI'm with you, Hal! I do have playlists (but they're mostly just artists' names, not subdivided from there), but I've never rated a single song. Hearing how the rest of you use your ratings, though, it's something I might consider. It's also something I'll probably never get around to. :)
Posted by: stacy at July 4, 2007 8:37 AMOut of interest, what's the use of having playlists for artists or albums?
Posted by: Adam at July 4, 2007 2:53 PMI hacked my version of iTUNES so I can rate my most super ultimate favorite tracks as 6 stars!
Posted by: Hal at July 4, 2007 3:36 PMJD: The trick, even with a huge collection, is to just rate a little at a time. If you buy a new album, rate it. Might as well. If you get the hankerin' for an older album you've owned for ever, listen to it, and while you're at it, rate it. Slowly but surely, you'll have a database of your taste built up. It's taken me years, but I have almost 60GB of my 200GB collection rated -- and of course it's the most pertinent 60GB.
Adam: My playlists for albums are to quickly get to them on my iPod. Plus it keeps new albums from getting "swallowed up" in my huge iTunes library. Having a playlist for each new album gives me a quick place to scan and remember what albums I've bought recently. It's sort of a the new digital version of stacking your new CDs on your stereo or something.
As for playlists for artists -- they are "Favorites" playlists. For example, I have a "Whiskeytown Favorites" smart playlist that automatically picks up any Whiskeytown songs (regardless of album) that are ranked 4 or 5 stars. That way each time I go out and buy some rare various artists disc with a single Whiskeytown song, if I like it, it automatically goes into this playlist. I have one for most of my favorite bands.
Posted by: larry at July 4, 2007 11:00 PM"The trick, even with a huge collection, is to just rate a little at a time. If you buy a new album, rate it. "
Another trick, for Ipod users. Rating your songs is a fun game to play on long plane trips.
Posted by: Mike Orren at July 5, 2007 8:26 AMMike: Or when you're supposed to be working.
(Whoops!! Would I do that? Never!)
Posted by: larry at July 5, 2007 9:53 AMYes Larry. Yes you are. Just Kidding. I don't rate any of my music. Maninly because I don't have a need to do any sorting based on rating. All the music in my Library can only be rated in 2 ways : 1) music I LOVE, and music I like. I can't really get any more granular than that, so I don't bother rating anything because I just don't see how I could rate one song a "3" and another as a "5". I like just about everything in my Library, so isn't that enough? I just don't have a need to "pick nits" like that. I also tend to listen to entire albums, not just individual songs (unless I've put together a genre collection) because I think you should listen to a albums entirety, weak songs with the strong songs. So, for me Ratings really aren't very useful.
Now Larry, I can see that with your Library ratings would be useful. You have a huge collection of music, with some of it not even being music you like, so you need to be able to seperate out the stuff you care about and the stuff you don't. That's a perfect use for the rating feature in iTunes.
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