Have a few questions.

Do you use iTunes music genre tags for categorizing your music?
I don't. For genre I look up and use allmusic. Occasionally I will add styles in the "Comments" window, but adding styles is like splitting hair.

Do you create (geeky) Playlists?
I've made about 90-100 Smart Playlists based on Billboard Charts. I've added highest chart positions in "Grouping" and/or "Composer" windows for every song I own that charted. Example:

Elvis Presley - I've Lost You (1970)

"Grouping": 0032 The Billboard Hot 100 / 0005 Adult Contemporary / 0057 Country Singles

Meaning, 'I've Lost You' will show up in these Smart Playlists: The Billboard Hot 100, The Billboard Hot 100 #32, The Billboard Hot 100 70-79, The Billboard Hot 100 1970. Same goes for Adult Contemporary and Country Singles.

Did the same with whole albums that charted.

Do you use iTunes music genre tags for categorizing your music?

I'm not sure I understand this. Do you mean to ask whether I leave the Genre field defined by iTunes? For music that's outside my field of interest, I will often defer to the default but as a rule I prefer the Genre be as accurate as possible. For instance, I dislike the term, "Classical" and have undertaken to specify whether a composition was Baroque, Romantic, etc.

If that's not what you meant by the question, I'll be happy to answer once I better understand it.

Do you create (geeky) Playlists?

Well, duh! That's the whole point of personalized customization, isn't it? I've been working on creating playlists based on books I've been reading, for instance. After finishing a book and then dutifully reviewing it, I've taken to going back through the book and recording the references to music, be it to a specific song or a more generalized, "classic rock was playing on the jukebox" kind of reference. I've taken to trying to complete these "book soundtracks" for two reasons. I find they add a little something to the reading experience to actually hear the music the characters discuss or hear, and they're also an interesting way to nudge myself into exploring music outside my typical comfort zone.

Do you use iTunes music genre tags for categorizing your music?
I ignore genre tags completely. They're too often wrong and there's too many to fix. Jimi Hendrix is Rap/R&B? Ravi Shankar is Reggie? Bah! I always just sort by artist, then pick an album.

Do you create (geeky) Playlists?

Of course. Here's one...


I also made an all zombie playlist, and a playlist where all songs were 2 minutes long (+/- 5 seconds).

What I was trying to say is if you generally use iTunes music genre tags (defined or not) and apply them (or leave them) to the artists in your collection.
But you already answered what I was asking for. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

Well yes! but, believe it or not, none of my friends or family create playlists because its "too complicated" or they simply don't care. I was curious to see if others do this. I always felt like I'm the only person on earth doing this, and I know lots of people who just don't bother.

I have over 300GB of mp3s, and I've never once used a playlist. When I want to listen to something, I just navigate to the folder and play it. I'm never so far away from my media player that I need it to set up several hours worth of songs for unattended listening. Besides, I usually listen in tangents. Even if I queue up several songs, one of those songs will remind me of something else, which I'll then go listen to, usually destroying the queue. Setting up a huge playlist is too much like listening to the radio, to me (even though it's my own music).

Don't use tags. And I only listen to full albums.

Do you use iTunes music genre tags for categorizing your music?

Yes? I use genre tags, and itunes is generally correct. If it doesn't seem right, I'll assign it myself. Overall, I have very broad genres, and then use the "grouping" field to further classify. For example: All metal songs get the metal genre, and then the grouping would have something like "death", "industrial" or "gothic" for further organizing.

Do you create (geeky) Playlists?

Yes. For example: I have a playlist that pulls one track from each year, starting in 1965 to present.

Do you use iTunes music genre tags for categorizing your music?

Yes, and I hate "genre" tags since there are a million of them. I try and limit it to Rock, Pop, Alt, etc... and it's based on what I think, not someone else. I do like my latest Genre tag of "Bootleg".


Do you create (geeky) Playlists?
Of course. It's the ultimate mixtape. I use both smart playlists, and manual ones..."Guitar Songs" (Songs I can plan on the guitar) "Guitar Hero" (Songs in RB & GH), U2 -Opening (Songs that U2 has played on the PA right before their shows), etc...

Same.

Do you use iTunes music genre tags for categorizing your music?

yeah my MP3's get tagged automatically when I add them into my WMP library and whatever genre is tagged on those just carries over when I add it into Itunes. I think it retrieves the info for the tags from AMG.

Do you create (geeky) Playlists?

yeah I use that Genius playlist function quite a bit, got about 20 or so with different genres and types of music on them, some created playlists as well.

I dont like itunes.. I dont know... I prefer my mp3 files.

No, and no. I've got around 95 GB of music, and categorizing all of them - correctly - would take me way too long. I only make playlists for syncing to the iPhone. I'd consume way too much useful time if I made specific playlists.

I do use genre, but seems the majority of time I change what Itunes gives it. I dislike the term "indie" for example, why define the music by the label it's on? Btw, anyone have a good definition of what Alternative is?

No playlists, I'd make one if I were hosting a themed party or something.... but the opportunity hasn't presented itself.

alternative is a marketing term aimed at kids who haven't developed a full sense of self yet. it makes them think they are listening to something different since it's alternative and not mainstream. and since the herd is listening to it then it must be the in thing and they have to do it as well

historically, i think it was an outgrowth of one of the forms of punk rock of the 1970's which was too broad anyway

iTunes is easily the worst piece of software with such wide adoption.

This is pretty much what I do.

Do you create (geeky) Playlists?

Heck yeah, the smart playlist feature is one of the best aspects of iTunes (a so-so media manager). I can really take advantage of tags and genres and create playlists that will suit my mood or to keep my iPods fresh. The genius feature I use when feeling lazy and sure, I listen to full albums generally, but the smart playlists are great.

Do you use iTunes music genre tags for categorizing your music?
Not really, but I do change incorrect genre tags on anything I've bought, just because I'm totally anal. I'll also change the artist field to remove any featured guests to prevent my iPod from creating 10 different artist folders for a 12-track hip-hop album.

Do you create (geeky) Playlists?
Probably the geekiest thing I do is with the "tags" I put in the comments field. Some of my more frequently used tags are "local", "cover", "acoustic", "instrumental", and "holiday". Then I just use a smart playlist to pull all those tracks together and put in on shuffle. One thing that's always bugged me about smart playlists though is that there's no option for the playlist to be shuffled by default; seems like such a no-brainer option, but that's iTunes for ya. What I do more often than not these days is just queue up albums in the on-the-go playlist.

i like smart playlists because they make it easy to separate the songs you like from everything else. especially if you have a lot of unlistened to music

i'll do something like create a genre generic playlist with only artist names. create a genre unplayed list that looks for music in the above but with a play count of 0. create a faves list that looks for music in the above genre list but with 5 stars. any song you like just give it 5 stars. every time you sync your ipod or iphone it will update the lists automatically