[nredman]

this probably shouldn't be posted here but anyways - how do you guys decide what genre to put your music in. do you just let itunes decide for you. i have way too many genres going on here. like (rock) i could break into different genres (classic rock, 80's rock, hard rock) i know its probably just personal preference - any thoughts on this or should i just stfu

[driven]

Not an easy answer unfortunately. Deciding is an art form.

For example: What's the difference between Alternative and Rock? How about Rock and Pop?

Some songs are obvious, others are in a gray area. Nickelback can be classified as Alternative, Metal or Rock. What's your mood?

I've seen Elvis classified as "Easy Listening". He's the King of Rock, but he's over with Streisand and Frank! (Circuit City actually puts his CDs there!)

Good luck on resolving this one.

[Macfreak7]

Anything not classical is pop.

[anthonyvthc]

Originally posted by Macfreak7:
Anything not classical is pop.

Very true.

[rozwado1]

Originally posted by driven:
Nickelback can be classified as Alternative, Metal or Rock.

update: also classified as complete crap.



redman - make up your own.
I really wish there was a sub-genre classification in iTunes - would make life so much easier.

[Apple Pro Underwear]

Originally posted by rozwado1:
update: also classified as complete crap.

They are not "crap"! The correct term is "Canadien".


is it true the lead singer is the twister sister's lead singer's son?

[OwlBoy]

Does anyone else have a playlist for every album?

I have like 40 or so playlists.

I can't see how some can use just like 4 with this much music

-Owl

[dampeoples]

I pretty much just use the random play option for my music. I have a playlist for me, one for my wife, and one for my oldest daughter. The others are two sound effects playlists and the tp 25 one.

I prety much just listen to my tunes randomly, searching for them by artist or song title when looking for something specific.

[driven]

Originally posted by rozwado1:
update: also classified as complete crap.

Everyone has to be so judgemental as to what everyone else listens to. I'm so glad that we live in a country where everyone is required to agree with each other.

[driven]

Originally posted by OwlBoy:
Does anyone else have a playlist for every album?

I have like 40 or so playlists.

I can't see how some can use just like 4 with this much music

-Owl

Why? Turn on browse mode and the albums are listed. Same thing as you are doing, but a wee-bit more organized.

I do occasionally create a dynamic playlist for bands that I like.

[lavar78]

I use the same genres as the iTMS. I added some sub-genres (from allmusic.com) to the grouping tag. This allows me to create smart playlists based on more specific info without having too many genres to be useful.

Originally posted by OwlBoy:
Does anyone else have a playlist for every album?

I take it you're one of those people who listens to albums in order all of the time. I rarely listen to them that way. Most of my tracks are rated, so I have a lot of smart playlists that select songs with a rating higher than 3 stars. I also have specific playlists for my favorite artists, 5-star playlists for each genre, Recently Played, Recently Added, 500 Most Played, Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs (I currently have 260 of them), year-specific playlists, Heavy Rotation, Christmas, a playlist with my favorite albums, and my iPod shuffle playlist (among others).

[Apple Pro Underwear]

Originally posted by driven:
Everyone has to be so judgemental as to what everyone else listens to. I'm so glad that we live in a country where everyone is required to agree with each other.

yup, i agree with you.

over the last few years I have tried very much to use music the way it was intended: to be entertained. from the Beatles to Britney. They both are not reciting the unified theory, they're both blither blathering about love, life and everything in between.

my biggest guilty-for liking song:

give a little bit - goo goo dolls

I was horrified to learn they did this song. But I said f*ck it and I bought it from iTunes a week ago. And I can't stop listening to it. WHY THE F*CK should I not listen to it? The song is simple lyrics, simple guitar and quality vocals. Just because one of the fruitiest rock bands evar did it kind of horrifies me, but... WHO CARES! I can't make them less homo-erotic, and I can't make myself hate this song.

[anthonyvthc]

Originally posted by OwlBoy:
Does anyone else have a playlist for every album?

I have like 40 or so playlists.

I can't see how some can use just like 4 with this much music

-Owl

Yeah, I do that. I have a couple hundred playlists. When I moved across the country, I put all my cds on my iBook and left the originals with my brother. Saved a ton of room in my car.
Also, I am one those people that has to listen to albums from beginning to end.

[wataru]

Having a playlist for every album is a usability nightmare. There's no reason to do that when you could just use the browse function.

[lavar78]

Originally posted by anthonyvthc:
Also, I am one those people that has to listen to albums from beginning to end.

But why? I guess it depends on the kind of music you like, but I still think you're limiting yourself arbitrarily. Do you ever use shuffle or non-album playlists? Do you have a favorite song? I'm not trying to be judgmental; I'm just trying to understand. There are some albums where that makes a certain amount of sense (e.g. What's Going On), but why would anyone want to hear something like "Octopus's Garden" as much as "Something"? You plan out your music listening so meticulously -- you might enjoy not knowing exactly what comes next.

Personally, I think a lot of the appeal of iTunes and the iPod is that they liberate you from the constraints of the album in a way records, cassettes, and even CDs couldn't. You really can have your own radio station.

[analogika]

Originally posted by lavar78:
But why? I guess it depends on the kind of music you like, but I still think you're limiting yourself arbitrarily. Do you ever use shuffle or non-album playlists? Do you have a favorite song? I'm not trying to be judgmental; I'm just trying to understand.

This habit stems from a time when you could stand listening to an album from beginning to end - not because they were all so much better, but largely because they didnt HAVE TO be 70+ minutes. (Laurie Anderson once made a great point at a Q&A after a performance of hers I saw a few years back: She loved the way vinyl always forced you to make a conscious *choice* for the music every 20 minutes. You'd be far less likely to just put something on and let it blather on and on like you would the radio.)

The consequence was that many albums, back when an album was a more humanly realistic length of 40 or so minutes, were actually *designed* to be listened to from beginning to end. Or at least per side - lots of albums used to have a "dance" side and a "smooching" side, with mostly kickers on A and mostly ballads on B.

My favorite comics - Asterix and Tintin - take about 45 minutes a volume to read through.

It has never occurred to me to read only, say, pages 5-8 over and over again.

Thankfully, artists are starting to realize that 74 minutes is just TOO ****ING MUCH, and this is resulting in a lot less filler.

Accepting that artists actually put thought into the sequence of songs on an album naturally leads to listening to the album in its entirety (or, for vinyl, at least one entire side).

That said, I do occasionally run iTunes on auto-pilot - but that's usually not when I'm actually *listening* to music (which I usually to on the turntable, anyway).

-s*

[lavar78]

Originally posted by analogika:
Accepting that artists actually put thought into the sequence of songs on an album naturally leads to listening to the album in its entirety (or, for vinyl, at least one entire side).

Sometimes? Yes. All the time? No. If they really wanted you to listen to it in its entirety, the entire album would be one track. Instead, it's a collection of songs -- songs that were probably composed independently of one another. The sequence may have some artistic significance, but any requirement to listen to it that way at all times is silly. In fact, it's possible to see a song in a whole new light when taking it out of the original context.

[anthonyvthc]

Originally posted by lavar78:
But why? I guess it depends on the kind of music you like, but I still think you're limiting yourself arbitrarily. Do you ever use shuffle or non-album playlists? Do you have a favorite song? I'm not trying to be judgmental; I'm just trying to understand. There are some albums where that makes a certain amount of sense (e.g. What's Going On), but why would anyone want to hear something like "Octopus's Garden" as much as "Something"? You plan out your music listening so meticulously -- you might enjoy not knowing exactly what comes next.

Personally, I think a lot of the appeal of iTunes and the iPod is that they liberate you from the constraints of the album in a way records, cassettes, and even CDs couldn't. You really can have your own radio station.

I listen to a lot of classical music, which doesn't work too well on shuffle. As for albums, I tend to only purchase them when I like the band, not the song. I think a lot of bands put much effort into the "flow" of their albums; I'm only trying to preserve that.
As for the person that said having seperate playlists is a useability nightmare: it's certainly no more difficult than sifting through hundreds of cds to find the right one. I like being able to scan my entire collection by just scrolling up and down. Yes I could use the browse feature, but I don't really care for the way it's set up.


Also, I do shuffle from time to time, as well as just picking random songs. I have many individual songs that I have purchased from iTMS that I would never have purchased the albums of.

Am I starting to make any sense at all?

[lavar78]

Originally posted by anthonyvthc:
Am I starting to make any sense at all?

Yes, that makes a lot more sense.

[driven]

Try this:

Set a play list for all songs with a playcount of 0.

Kinda fun ... you'll find a few surprises.

[kalani79]

Originally posted by Macfreak7:
Anything not classical is pop.

I disagree. If it wasn't a popular form of music, it's not pop.

And, classical was "pop" in its day. Well, most of it.

[edit]

Further, I also listen to albums in full from start to finish as I appreciate the album as an entire work of the artist. The songs individually can be amazing, but amassing such work into a single album is something I find noteworthy.

[Superchicken]

All my music is put into either, Ska(Core), Punk(Rawk), Pop(Punk), Rap(Core) Praise(And Perhaps Worship), Techno, Swing, Rock, and Alternative.

[wdlove]

My list is small enough at 194, that I haven't placed them according to genre yet.

[analogika]

Originally posted by lavar78:
Sometimes? Yes. All the time? No. If they really wanted you to listen to it in its entirety, the entire album would be one track. Instead, it's a collection of songs -- songs that were probably composed independently of one another. The sequence may have some artistic significance, but any requirement to listen to it that way at all times is silly. In fact, it's possible to see a song in a whole new light when taking it out of the original context.

Did you read the rest of my post?

That said, I do occasionally run iTunes on auto-pilot - but that's usually not when I'm actually *listening* to music (which I usually to on the turntable, anyway).

Why the hell would I make anything a *requirement* for YOUR listening habits?

[driven]

do we have anyone here on MacNN that has a published CD? If so, what is your thoughts on the single song vs. entire album debate?

[analogika]

Originally posted by driven:
do we have anyone here on MacNN that has a published CD? If so, what is your thoughts on the single song vs. entire album debate?

Depends. Usually, most songs are composed individually, but a lot of thought is put into the sequence of songs on the album, for "flow".

A real "concept" album is a rare thing.

For a lot of pop products, the only real effort goes into the two singles, with the assumption that the rest of the album is just filler to be able to throw an album on the market once the single(s) get airplay. These are the ones screaming about the single-song-purchase model of iTunes.

-s*

[lavar78]

Originally posted by analogika:
Did you read the rest of my post?

Why the hell would I make anything a *requirement* for YOUR listening habits?

Yes, I read your entire post. The particular comment that (apparently) has you so heated wasn't directed at you but was more a general comment. To clarify, I was saying that people who require themselves to listen to albums in sequence may be missing out on something. I thought that was obvious, but I guess I was wrong.

Originally posted by driven:
do we have anyone here on MacNN that has a published CD? If so, what is your thoughts on the single song vs. entire album debate?

Technically, I qualify, but you already know where I stand.

[analogika]

Originally posted by lavar78:
Yes, I read your entire post. The particular comment that (apparently) has you so heated wasn't directed at you but was more a general comment. To clarify, I was saying that people who require themselves to listen to albums in sequence may be missing out on something. I thought that was obvious, but I guess I was wrong.

sorry.

conversely, though: people who rarely, if ever, listen to albums in sequence are definitely missing out on something.

e.g. just a single track off an older pink floyd album may be cool, but the context is what really makes them shine.