iTunes 8's new "Genius" feature is awesome. You give it a song to start with, and it builds a playlist of 25 songs based on the song you started with. As far as I can tell, it picks them based on style, tempo and shared band members.
For example, I started with Son Volt "Mystifies Me" (a Ron Wood song) and got:
- Uncle Tupelo - New Madrid (half of Uncle Tupelo is Son Volt)
- Wilco - Summer Teeth (the other half of Uncle Tupelo)
- Yo La Tengo - Stockholm Syndrome
- Rolling Stones - Torn & Frayed (Ron Wood connection)
- Big Star - I'm In Love With A Girl
- Pavement - Silence Kit (as folk-rock as Pavement gets)
- Son Volt - Flow
- My Morning Jacket - Masterplan
- REM - Pale Blue Eyes
- Calexico - Cruel
etc..
That's a great, cohesive, interrelated list.
Even better, a few sings later, it picked something I'd never heard before: The Damnwells, "Sleepsinging". That's a song I got on a magazine sampler a few years ago, which I imported into iTunes, but never listened to. But, this song fits the list perfectly.
I hate to say it, but I think this feature just made the hand-crafted mixed tape obsolete. What's the point in spending an hour finding a nice blend of songs when iTunes can do it in a couple of seconds? Well, OK, the personal touch - iTunes can't handle the meaning of songs. But, if we're talking about samplers, or party mixes, or some things to put on a work-out mix, Genius owns it. And I say that with the absolute confidence you can only get from using something for all of 10 minutes.
What’s worse is it recommends songs missing from your collection with a handy ‘Buy’ button. It’s great.
BTW, Thank you for the link about hiding the f*cking Genre list in the iTunes 8 browser bar. :)
did you try the Genre-hiding trick? i haven’t had the energy to do it, yet.
I did. It’s a bit of hoop jumping, but it works. What were Apple thinking?