iTunes Not-So-SmartPlaylists

I officially declare the iTunes “SmartPlaylist” option as useless to me.  It seemed like such a good idea, but it has flaws.  Major flaws in my case.  I have something like forty or fifty playlists at all times but I can only use the SmartPlaylist as an organizing tool.  “Stuff I added to iTunes” this year/last year… “All Cradle of Filth”, type of stuff.  I can’t use them to listen to mixes.

I have a playlist that I have just for old pop-rock music that keeps me happy on a normal day.  Old rock that is simple and fun.  AC/DC, Van Halen, Aerosmith, Guns n’ Roses… stuff like that.  But Aerosmith has too many ballads so I have to weed them out.  Nothing kills a buzz like coming off of “For Those About To Rock” and hearing “Angel”.

Another playlist is the four popular thrash bands.  Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer.  I put this playlist on when I’m in old-school aggression mode.  But just about the time I really get rolling, something from the S&M album comes on or gods forbid, “Unforgiven”…  So I have to weed out any Newtallica.

And with both these lists, I have to weed out most of the live tracks.  So by the time I add all these rules to the smartplaylist, I might as well manually build the list.

I can’t even make a year/decade list because a lot of the music I have still doesn’t have all the date tags on them.  I add them when I can but with over 50,000 tracks and constant additions, I don’t have the time to sort through all of them.

So I’m still dealing with stagnant playlists and I’m trying to find ways to mix up the music.