The greatest thing about the Internet is not the widespread dissemination of information, or the creation of a worldwide community, or even the easy, nearly unavoidable access to naked people. No, the Internet's greatest child is the playlist.
When it comes to saving time for me personally, I mean. The rest is good, too.
Playlists allow me to arrange my music as I see fit to suit my needs, and not in the prepackaged "order" that some fancy pants "artist" thought they should be in. And it's incredibly easy! Not like it used to be (cue old timey music as the column fades to sepia).
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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TONS of stuff that shoulda gone into this one, but I was already 150 words over my usual limit and I had to stop sometime...
I didn't mention my own mix tape proclivities, which generally mean driving tapes. I favor either songs I can sing along with or otherwise pretend I'm performing, or else music with powerful driving soundtrack potential. I'm partial to James Bond themes and the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack ("Arr! That Escalade has a boat trailer! Pull alongsides, ye scurvy dogs, and ready the cannons!")
I don't mention the downside of mix tapes: finding your old ones years later and being mortally embarassed by what you used to think was relevant, meaningful, and cool. Now we'll have to find our old shames through Google and the Internet Archive.
And I missed the fun of trying to figure out what message someone was sending you when they gave you a mix tape, something wonderfully captured in the mix tape song from "Avenue Q" when a girl who likes a guy is trying to deduce his feelings for her from the tape he gave her:
"'I Am the Walrus'? 'Fat-Bottomed Girls'? 'Yellow Submarine'? What does it mean?"
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Oh, I use random-play mostly as well. I usually only make mix cds if I'm planning on going on a long trip and need to take music. I really need a portable mp3 player so that I can just take the entire library with me.
Mixes can be fun, though, if you get a really cool idea.
posted
MP3 players have added a new dimension to playlists: volume. It's difficult to craft a mood when you're using 1,000 songs.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I have an mp3 player that I can store a few hundred songs on and I still find myself wanting to limit playlists or at least group songs into playlists. I actually tend to limit my playlist size to 80 minutes so that I can burn it to a CD and listen in the car (my car stereo won't play mp3s).
Posts: 1336 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Volume doesn't bother me. My standard procedure is to take my 2000+ song library and dump it into a playlist, then put it on random play. That way it's like listening to the radio, only without all the annoying commercials, talk, or repeats.
It drives my husband crazy. Some people just can't stand that kind of chaos. He, on the other hand, only plays complete albums, never individual songs. He also has a complicated algorithm that involves an Excel document with 52 different spreadsheets to determine what album he will listen to next.
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That is so true
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