Best recent feature: "Genius" (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

I got the new nano for Christmas (and my tricky wife totally totally psyched me out on the surprise

). A couple of months later I've disabled the accelerometer features as annoying and pointless and turned off the Voice feature as too intrusive; unfortunate because I thought that would be a real safety feature for iPod use while driving.

However, the one feature I thought nothing of has become a favorite: Genius. I've a few basic playlists to crudely manage my music. But I don't care to actively manage playlists, I don't rate my music, and largely don't have much interesting in "managing" iTunes.

Genius, though, means it's now trivial to make new and fresh playlists. And it does an adequate job of keeping to the style of the key-song that I can use it at work to make a list of songs for the tone I want when working, be it metal or mellow.

Also important to me is that Genius is deterministic: given a song, Genius makes the same playlist everytime so I can recreate a list if I realize I liked it enough but didn't save it.

If you've not tried the Genius feature yet, give it a spin. Whether you you don't like to fiddle with playlists, or feel like you're in a rut with your collection, it's a clever and effective playlist maker.

 

[Jimi C]

I also love it.

 

[Carlo_M]

+1. Very cool feature, and the intelligence behind it is pretty darned good. Not perfect, but overall very successful at doing what it's supposed to. For a library like mine (6K songs) it really helps create dynamic, relevant "mix tape" style sessions (where songs are related) without the hours of poring over your library like you used to do.

 

[Jimi C]

I have 4,237 songs and only 58 artists, 338 albums. I think I need to expand my music tastes. Or just start ripping more cds.

 

[Carlo_M]

Interesting numbers. I looked mine up: 6050 songs, 220 artists (which will include some duplicates like Dave Matthews (solo) vs. Dave Matthews Band) and 514 albums. I pretty much don't buy singles, only albums. I will say I probably own between 700-800 CDs but I've pretty much ripped most of my catalog that I still listen to.

Just curious: How do you have such a high song to artist ratio? My catalog includes the entire Beatles, Zeppelin and Dave Matthews (including live CDS!) catalog, so it's not like I'm only buying one or two albums per artist, but your song to artist ratio is way higher than mine!

 

[DaveF]

He's got, on average, 6 albums per artist. That's easy library to imagine.

Talking stats:
2491 songs
290 albums
181 artists

I thought my "artist" count was skewed by soundtracks, but it's mostly Rock singles, then Soundtracks and Christmas (tied).

 

[Citizen87645]

I never got around to trying out Genius but I'm giving it a spin now. As long as we're sharing stats...

9765 Items
389 Artists
786 Albums

This seems crazy, even for me...

 

[Will_B]

I thought Genius just recommended songs to buy! Now that I've read your message, I'll check it's playlist ability out.

 

[Jimi C]

I have alot of Beatles and Zeppelin albums, but i dont think its the entire catolog, I have all of their studio albums at least. I also have all of Bob dylans studio stuff. I a lot of AC-DC as well. I went through a lot of phases in high school/Jr High where I would become obsessed with certain artists, and I lived within walking distance to a used CD store. Also, iTunes counts multiple disc albums as more than one album.

So, the short answer is, when I decide I like an artist, I pretty much buy everything from them I can get my hands on. I'm sort of picky when it comes to music and I probably only come across one or two new artists a year that I like.

 

[Will_B]

I tried the Genius thing this evening and it was great! I also liked the way it only picks about an hour's worth of music, so rather than becoming less and less relevant, it just ends after its idea of a perfect set.

My stats: 13,179 songs, 1,216 albums, 352 artists.

That includes nearly my entire lifetime CD collection, which is currently in several boxes in a basement crawlspace... which I still visit whenever I need to file a new CD away... which is pretty much every other week since I work a couple blocks from a used CD store. Half.com ebay.com and amazon have been a factor as well.

I figure I buy about 50 or 60 CDs each year, and have for the past 20 years or so.

If the average price of those albums was $11, apparently I've spent about $13,376 on music in my lifetime. I don't mind that. Music is one of the best cultural institutions we earthlings have.

 

[sestamuch]

It definitely is a big help specially if you have a big library.

 

[JohnRice]

I guess I'll have to try out Genius. I just instantly disabled it when it appeared.

Stats:

15,699 songs
598 Artists
1,532 Albums (Only complete albums)

I also have about 30 albums waiting to be converted. Keep in mind I have a lot of classical as well as progressive rock, so it's not unusual for some of those "songs" to be 20-40 minutes each.