Sunday, May 24, 2009

Four Star Songs

I've been working outside a lot lately-staining our deck and replacing the warped and splintered steps and risers. While doing my work, I keep the ipod running, usually catching up on the podcasts I listen to: Buzz Out Loud, This Week in Tech, Mac Break Weekly, Mac Geek Gab, This American Life, among several others. Sometimes, I actually use my ipod to listen to music.

There's a slick tool in iTunes called "Smart playlists" and it lets you have iTunes automatically sort your songs in any number of ways and it can auto-update, so you don't have to actively manage it. One of the ways I've recently decided to use the smart playlists is by using the track rating system. You can give a song zero to five stars. I've created three play lists: A five star, four star, and three star list. Anything song not fitting into those categories doesn't deserve to be on a list. Especially not a smart playlist.

I have another playlist that contains only songs that don't have a rating. When I'm driving around town I'll shuffle songs from this list and add my rating as I go. When I sync the iPod up to iTunes, the folders automatically get updated. In my "unrated songs" smart folder, I have 4,264 unrated songs.

I've gone through about 300 songs so far and I'm already digging my four star playlist.

The five star play lists are all time favorites. Songs that I will probably never not like. There are only a couple songs in that list so far.

The four star play list contains songs that I'll always stop and listen to. I like them for reasons ranging from fun to sentimental, to technically enjoyable, to great performances, etc. Basically, my criteria for giving a song a four star rating is that when it randomly comes on I say "Oh yeah!"

So far I think I have 39 songs in my four star playlist. I'm being vulnerable here. Don't judge me.

  • All About Glory For You - Mark Condon
  • At Last - Etta James
  • Autumn Leaves [Take 2] -Bill Evans
  • Bye Bye Blackbird - Miles Davis
  • Celebration - Kool and The Gang
  • Dreamlover -Mariah Carey
  • Everlasting Love - Stevie Wonder
  • Feels Like Redemption - Michael English
  • For The Honour - Parachute Band
  • God Great God - Kurt Carr
  • Gravity - Embrace
  • Hear My Worship - Jaime Jamgochian
  • Hosanna - Kirk Franklin
  • Hot N Cold - Katy Perry
  • How Can I Not Sing? - Lakeview Worship
  • Hungry - Kara
  • I Fall in Love Too Easily - Bill Evans
  • I Give You Worship - Ashmont Hill
  • I Live to Worship You - Ashmont Hill
  • I Won't Be Afraid - Ashmont Hill
  • The Last Jesus - Kirk Franklin
  • The Love Of God - MercyMe
  • A Love That Will Last - Renee Olstead
  • Magnificent - Tulele Faletolu
  • My Life, My Love, My All - Kirk Franklin
  • Oh What Love - Cindy Morgan
  • One Sweet Day - Mariah Carey
  • The Reason - Hoobastank
  • Run, Baby, Run - Sheryl Crow
  • Song of Glory - Ashmont Hill
  • Take My Breath Away - Berlin
  • This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) - Natalie Cole
  • Under The Influence - Anointed
  • We All Bow Down - Kara
  • What If - Jadon Lavik
  • When I Fall In Love - Keith Jarrett
  • Without You - Christina Aguilera
  • You Are Good - Israel & New Breed
  • You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine - Lou Rawls

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Next Year's Halloween Costume

If I ever actually DO dress up for Halloween, this is how I want to go.