iTunes advocacy Part I
I may be the only person in my age group and industry that does not yet own an iPod. This does not preclude me from being an ardent fan of iTunes. If there were a perfect job for me it would probably be product manager for iTunes. I use it continuously and I use it well in my opinion.
I bought a used Powerbook on eBay last fall and it came with a ton of music in an iTunes library. I threw away half of it right off the bat because I knew I would never ever listen to it - not even in an alcohol induced search for "that song." Britney, Christina, Justin and all the other mouseketeers went into the trash. It was very liberating. The rest of the music I decided to keep for personal use. The problem with it was the previous owner wasn't as "meticulous" as I am: songs were mislabeled as to title, artist, genre you name it. The music itself was fine, it just wasn't very well organized. I chucked the entire iTunes library and started at the file level. After I cleaned up the flienames and established some basic conventions, I gradually dragged whole folders back into iTunes and started to work on the meta data.
Rather than change each file individually, I used the different sort capabilities and managed the meta data like Year and Genre in bulk. With the new Smart Play List function, I could add info to the comment field like "live" or "cover." These strings of text allowed me to find things like the live REM medley that includes Time After Time (AnnElise), Red Rain and So. Central Rain recorded in Utrecht on the document tour in 1987 (Finest Worksong single, 1987). It is both live and a cover. Cool. Geeky, but cool. I also include text like "soundtrack" so I can find all 1980s songs that were on a soundtrack or featured in a movie. More cool.
I find that I am not dumping my CDs into iTunes en masse as I expected. My ambient level of interest in an album directs how much gets added. Something I listen to as an entire album goes in as a complete unit. Stuff I generally listen to for a song or two gets the "song or two" treatment. I have a ton of compilations which are ripe for iTunes - epsecially the pop compilations. The DJ mixed compilations are messy with iTunes because they tend to be continuous and even if you rip the whole thing you get a little audio pause between tracks. iTunes lets you designate a playback gap of 0,1,2 seconds between songs but it is a little off fr my taste. Same thing with something like Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys (1989). Call me picky.
I bought a used Powerbook on eBay last fall and it came with a ton of music in an iTunes library. I threw away half of it right off the bat because I knew I would never ever listen to it - not even in an alcohol induced search for "that song." Britney, Christina, Justin and all the other mouseketeers went into the trash. It was very liberating. The rest of the music I decided to keep for personal use. The problem with it was the previous owner wasn't as "meticulous" as I am: songs were mislabeled as to title, artist, genre you name it. The music itself was fine, it just wasn't very well organized. I chucked the entire iTunes library and started at the file level. After I cleaned up the flienames and established some basic conventions, I gradually dragged whole folders back into iTunes and started to work on the meta data.
Rather than change each file individually, I used the different sort capabilities and managed the meta data like Year and Genre in bulk. With the new Smart Play List function, I could add info to the comment field like "live" or "cover." These strings of text allowed me to find things like the live REM medley that includes Time After Time (AnnElise), Red Rain and So. Central Rain recorded in Utrecht on the document tour in 1987 (Finest Worksong single, 1987). It is both live and a cover. Cool. Geeky, but cool. I also include text like "soundtrack" so I can find all 1980s songs that were on a soundtrack or featured in a movie. More cool.
I find that I am not dumping my CDs into iTunes en masse as I expected. My ambient level of interest in an album directs how much gets added. Something I listen to as an entire album goes in as a complete unit. Stuff I generally listen to for a song or two gets the "song or two" treatment. I have a ton of compilations which are ripe for iTunes - epsecially the pop compilations. The DJ mixed compilations are messy with iTunes because they tend to be continuous and even if you rip the whole thing you get a little audio pause between tracks. iTunes lets you designate a playback gap of 0,1,2 seconds between songs but it is a little off fr my taste. Same thing with something like Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys (1989). Call me picky.
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