Oh is THAT right.

Genre's not for everyone

cleversimon:

I have 45 GB of music in my iTunes library.

I don’t really use the Genre tag

How do you keep your music library organized?

Or rather, Genre is only useful if you LISTEN within genres.

If, instead, you are the sort of person who is content to shuffle among SONGS YOU LIKE then Ratings are what matter.

In this case I recommend creating two (smart) playlists:

• Songs I Like (rating = greater than ★★★)
• Songs to Rate (rating = less than ★)

It will be useful to spend an evening starring some of your favorite songs so that “Songs I Like” contains some content.

When you are in a task-oriented mood, listen to “Songs to Rate”, and rate-as-you-listen. This can work while driving if you have a dashboard cradle for your iPod/iPhone.

Recommended ratings:

★★★★★ = favorite; never a letdown

★★★★ = like very much

★★★ = fine enough

★★ = novelty songs and deep album cuts; hard drive space is cheap

★ = delete me

Plan on spending two years actively rating songs before you can start to have a decent handle on your collection. (I’ve been rating mine for five.)

I currently use nested versions of these smart playlists to give me greater control.

For the Road (aka “Songs I Like”) meets ANY of the criteria:

• playlist <is> Recent Faves
• playlist <is> Old Faves
• playlist <is> All-Time Faves

Recent Faves meets ALL the criteria:

• rating <is greater than> ★★★
• last played <is not in the last> 1 week

limited to 500MB <sorted by> most recently added

Old Faves meets ALL the criteria:

• rating <is greater than> ★★★
• last played <is not in the last> 6 months

limited to 200 MB <sorted by> random

All-Time Faves meets ALL the criteria

• rating <is greater than> ★★★★
• last played <is not in the last> 3 months
• last skipped <is not in the last> 3 months

limited to 100 MB <sorted by> most often played

Hot List (aka “Songs to Rate”) meets ANY of the criteria:

• playlist <is> Recent Rate Me
• playlist <is> Rate Me (Random)
• playlist <is> Lost and Unrated

Recent Rate Me meets ALL the criteria:

• rating <is less than> ★
• last skipped <is not in the last> 1 week

limited to 500MB <sorted by> most recently added

Rate Me Random meets ALL the criteria:

• rating <is less than> ★
• playlist <is not> Recent Rate Me

limited to 200MB <sorted by> random

Lost and Unrated meets ALL the criteria:

• rating <is less than> ★

limited to 100MB <sorted by> least often played

That all said, I myself DO use thinly-sliced Genre tags to create thematic smart playlists. I also use del.icio.us-style tags in the Info field for the same purpose.

But then, in the 90s I used to program my mixtapes using Filemaker.

So bear in mind who you are dealing with.