iTunes playlists that don’t suck
Step 1: Get rid of everything you don’t want popping up at random.
Create a playlist that goes something like:
- Genre contains: Christmas
- Genre contains: Classical
- Genre contains: Spoken
I call it Archive. You don’t want to listen to it, ever.
Step 2: Set up playlists for differently rated songs.
This will take some fine-tuning, but mine are set up like this:
- Rating is: ★★★★★
- Last played is not in the last: 7 days
- Last skipped is not in the last: 7 days
- Playlist is not: Archive
I also have one for ★★★★ with last played and last skipped set to 14 days, ★★★ with 28 days and ★★ with 56 days. These are called “★★★★★ Björn”, “★★★★ Björn” etc respectively.
Note that by setting Playlist is not: Archive you make sure that even though you LOVE Mariah Carey’s christmas album, you won’t hear her high-pitchedly advocating Mother-on-Santa action around easter.
Step 3: Set up an über-playlist.
Create a playlist that includes all the ★-lists.
- Playlist is: ★★★★★ Björn
- Playlist is: ★★★★ Björn
- Playlist is: ★★★ Björn
- Playlist is: ★★ Björn
I call this one “Björn of”. It’s like Best of, only Björn-ier. Since it includes all the other lists, it has all five star songs that haven’t been played or skipped in the last 7 days, down to all the two star songs that haven’t been played or skipped in the last 56 days. Make it the source in Party Shuffle iTunes DJ and you’re ready to go.
Step 4: Fine-tune.
Once these lists are getting fairly well balanced, it’s easy to make more specific lists. I have one called “Jazzy Björn”.
- Playlist is: Björn of
- Genre contains: Jazz
Similarly, another list called “Jazzless Björn”, which contains all the songs from “Björn of” that are not Jazz. Duh.
There. Now you have playlists that don’t suck.
