iTunes Finally Catches Up With Me

I've had three iPods. Technically I have had four, but I am not counting my iPhone.

The first one was a two gig nano. I put a few must-always-have-with-me records onto it and then would swap other stuff on and off every few days depending on my mood.

My second iPod was a 30 gig video. I loaded it up to nearly full very quickly (as in the first time I plugged it in) but left a little room to add new music as it came into my hands.

The third one was a surprise Christmas present given to me by Santa Jen. An 80 gig classic. I've had it for close to two years now and it is nearly full. I basically throw anything I happen to have in mp3 format onto it.

That's not what I'm really thinking about right now though. I'm thinking about the new iTunes 9.0 and what it calls Genius Mixes. Genius debuted in the last major iTunes release. (or was it two releases ago?) To use it you would select a song and it would sift through your files and it's database and create a short (20 songs was the default) playlist of songs that, based on it's algorithm, were complementary to the song you chose.

Genius Mixes are similar, although it doesn't require any user input. When you turn it on it creates 12 mixes based on your library. It gives a title based on genres, for example my library at work is currently playing a mix called Alternative Mix. It also tells you a few of the artists included. When you click on one of these mixes it will start playing relevant music. I haven't tested long enough yet, but I think it's supposed to keep playing until you tell it to stop. Kind of a nice feature if you like randomizing your library but want the randomization to be a little restricted.

Which brings us to the point. I set this functionality up all by my lonesome on my iPod Video about 2 years ago. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to listen to when I get into the car for my loooong commutes to and from work. Other times I want the music to pick itself for me. In other words, I just pick the shuffle all function and either listen to it for the whole drive, or listen to it until something really grabs me. For instance, yesterday morning I started with the shuffle all and about 4 songs in it played something by Mary Lou Lord that just hit the spot for me. I then switched to my Mary Lou Lord playlist and listened to that for the rest of the ride. The day before that I did the same thing but settled on Dada.

Sometimes though the random selections would piss me off. Say for instance that I feel like being a folkie but can't decide on who to listen to. Then say I go to the shuffle all and it plays me a string of jazz cats all in a row. That really doesn't help me. I could sort the library by genre and then shuffle that. That could work, but what if I'm in the mood for something broader than that? Say folkies and/or 80's rock bands from Boston? Shuffling by genre doesn't work for that.

What did I do? I set up playlists for shuffle use only. Lots of them. 60's rock. 70's rock. 70's prog rock. 90's rock. 90's rock bands from Boston. Jazz. Jazz guitarists. Jazz sax players recorded prior to 1960. Lots of stuff like that.

Essentially I created Genius Mixes. You're welcome iTunes 9.0. Call me Rob the Innovator.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the longest, boring-est, most pointless, useless post on this entire blog.

Your welcome.