Genius at work
Patti gets some mileage out of that new feature of iTunes 9:
Listening to some Genius mixes on iTunes as I sit here at the Laughing Goat in Boulder, soaking up the lattés and the free bandwidth. This is a perfect way to re-discover all of those songs and tracks that you have loved but haven’t listened to in a while.
A folky sort of Genius mix just brought forth “Early Mornin’ Rain” from Peter, Paul & Mary’s 10 (Ten) Years Together album. This is an album that I first got in high school, back in those early, early days when the idea of a group of musicians managing to stay together for ten whole years was astounding to me, a feat of endurance which should probably hit the record books any day now. Of course, I played it often, and had most of the songs memorized, especially during that time when I was also learning how to play the guitar.
I had no facility for the guitar myself, but I bought this same PP&M album way back when, and wound up with several others, including the infamous Album 1700. And “Early Mornin’ Rain,” a staple of the Gordon Lightfoot catalog, is always welcome: I recently picked up a cover by Richard Hawley that approaches Lightfoot’s world-weariness.
But now I’m curious as to what Genius might concoct as a mix for me. Since Apple introduced Genius, I’ve kept it toggled off and out of sight, but the new Genius Mix feature looks almost intriguing. The PC World guy didn’t seem thrilled, though:
My tunes are largely a mix of alternative rock with some electronic thrown in. Genius created several alternative mixes, each combining different groups of artists, but it didn’t create a single electronic playlist. My guess is that I don’t have enough of that particular genre for Genius to make anything of it. The differences between my Genius Mixes, style-wise, are so slight that it defeats the purpose to some extent, too; it should work better if you listen to a wide array of music.
My big iTunes install is on the work box: 4,870 tracks. But I haven’t installed iTunes 9 there yet. (I probably wouldn’t have installed it at home, either, but I took an update to QuickTime — 7.6.4, I think — and iTunes followed it home like a lost puppy.) What I really want to see, I think, is what the Genius deems appropriate to go with, say, Tim Curry’s “I Do the Rock.”
Patti »
15 September 2009 · 6:14 pm
Strange, my iTunes gave me about 3 or 4 electronic mixes. That’s an impressive amount of tracks, too. Just added some Charles Mingus.
CGHill »
15 September 2009 · 6:52 pm
Now that’s what I need: Mingus.
Or even Joni Mitchell’s album Mingus, which might really confound the Genius.
canadienne »
15 September 2009 · 9:40 pm
Man, you must have an amazing playlist- I’d REALLY love to be on the same network, sharing your iTunes library. I have around 5,000 tunes on the work iMac, and find a lot of the Genius mixes just annoying.
I also had that PP&M album on vinyl and now own the CD. Takes me back to a simpler time, and somehow associates in my mind with early Ian and Sylvia recordings.
CGHill »
15 September 2009 · 9:58 pm
My usual playlist has been simply “Pick something that hasn’t been played lately”: the cutoff is presently 53 days, and the Smart Playlist gizmo picks up to 320 tracks meeting that criterion, which are then shuffled. The segues are often bizarre.
One example of OCD presents itself occasionally: trying to keep the level of variation up by keeping multiple songs by the same act well separated. I have, for instance, about twenty Marvin Gaye tracks, and I’d just as soon not have three in one day and then not hear him for a whole week. The Smart Playlist gizmo, up to now, hasn’t been smart enough to control this on its own, unless there’s some function I’ve totally missed.
The playlist is occasionally interrupted by Brian Ibbott’s twice-weekly (usually) podcast Coverville, which is always fun and often provides me with excuses to hunt down tracks for the permanent collection. (Actually, he usually provides links for stuff he plays, so I’m more gatherer than hunter.)
canadienne »
16 September 2009 · 12:00 am
I like your strategy with the smart playlists, will have to try that at work. I have been listening to whole albums, which is usually too much of whatever at once. Although I get interrupted often enough that it usually isn’t a problem.
I do need to exclude the classical stuff, as hearing Glenn Gould play Bach right after Gogol Bordello or something like that might be just too weird, even for me. I can listen to Marvin Gaye anytime.
Also thanks for the Coverville link, that looks pretty interesting too. Reading your blog often costs me money, because you lead me to interesting music. Deborah Henson-Conant, for example.
canadienne »
16 September 2009 · 10:24 pm
And, sad- this just popped up in Twitter-odd that just yesterday I read your blog post about them, after not thinking about them for a while:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2009/09/16/mary-travers-obit-peter-paul-mary-folk-music.html
have to go listen to that CD again.
CGHill »
16 September 2009 · 11:21 pm
Fark’s link to the story read simply: “Peter, Paul.”
I tried not to tweet anything on Mary’s death, simply because I was working on a piece where the whimsical and the horrible are ever at odds and I didn’t want that mindset to force me into a one-liner I would later regret.
esskay »
21 September 2009 · 12:15 pm
Can someone tell me how to get a Genius Mix onto my I Pod?
thanks
CGHill »
21 September 2009 · 1:56 pm
So far as I can tell (corrections welcomed), you’d need to dump all of the tracks into an actual playlist and drag it over to the iPod.