Smart Playlists Auto-Update on the iPod
Smart Playlists is one of iTunes strongest, and probably most under-used features. You can make an automatic playlist with nearly any criteria you want – a particular word in the title, the number of times a track has played (or not played), how you’ve ranked a track (either good or bad) and so on. iTunes comes preloaded with a few smart playlists, one for ’90’s Music’, ‘Recently Added’, and ‘Top 25 Most Played’. Well, you can also make a Smart Playlist to make all of your podcasts play one after another, which is the point of this rambling.
I’ve got roughly 30 podcasts that I subscribe to. Most are fairly short, coming in at under 10 minutes in length (C|NET, Slate, Onion Radio, various NPR shorts). While it’s pretty easy to pick out and play a single podcast on the iPod, it becomes cumbersome when you’ve got a dozen episodes to listen to because you have to let a single podcast run thru to the end, have it go back to the main menu, and then navigate manually to the next program to want to listen to.
You can make a Smart Playlist that puts all of your unplayed episodes into one playlist and they will all run in one long really good radio program. Go to File -> New Smart Playlist
You should get a window similar to the photo accompanying this post (click on the photo for a larger version). Choosing the genre and play count are key – putting a restriction on the time is my personal choice. Set genre to ‘Podcast’, and play count to ‘0′. I chose to make this playlist a collection of all the short stuff because I want to make sure that I have the time to listen to a longer podcast. 20 minutes works well for what I’ve subscribed to.
Now, while this so far has been a mind-blowing ‘Oh God why didn’t I think of that’, this next revelation will just make you weep with just how amazing the iPod really is. Make sure that ‘Live Updating’ option is checked. If you’ve got a newer iPod (Nano, and I would assume Video iPods) this playlist updates itself live, on the iPod, away from iTunes. So, you can start with a jam-packed playlist and as you listen to each episode they drop out of the playlist one by one. The smart playlist works for the older iPods, but does not update itself away from iTunes. Despite not auto-updating on the older iPods this tip is most-usefull for you long-time iPod users. Your iPods don’t show what podcast episodes you’ve listened to already. Newer iPods place a dot before new episodes, just like in iTunes. For the 3G and earlier iPods this smart playlist takes the guessing out of ‘have I listened to this yet’? Let me know if this works differently on any of the various iPod models that I’ve not been able to test it on.
The Best Dirty Little Song Ever
Louis XIV is at the top of my playlists right now. Their songs are loud and fast without being irritating. The best song ever, though, is Pledge of Allegiance.
Ah little Stacy Q
When she doesn’t have a thing to do
She comes to my house
Well, let’s keep that between me and you
She takes off her clothes
She likes to tell this boy what to do
Let’s keep that between me and you, ok
She said oh come on boy aren’t you tired of talking about sex
I said little girl what do you really expect
And then she pledges her allegiance
To the united states of me
She says you’re such a little bitch
(They’ve got pretty decent cover art, too)
Radio is Dead! Long Live Last.fm!
I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with online radio stations. It’s great to hear new music that you don’t have in your own collection, but it totally sucks to have to wade thru crappy song after crappy song in-between gems. Too often it seems like someone had a collection of a few thousand songs and they just hit ’shuffle’. Not to say that they all suck, the Atlanta Blues Society has a superb online radio station. Radioio gets an honorable mention for a wide selection of genres and audio formats.
Last.fm runs things a little different. You can get a custom-generated radio station based on a certain artist of your choosing. Now, who remembers musicplasma.com? You could type in ‘Eric Clapton’ and MusicPlasma returns all the artists that are like Clapton (Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Allman Bros, Neil Young, etc). Last.fm creates a radio station based around all those artists. The ‘Eric Clapton’ station includes the Eagles, Jimi Hendrix Cream, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, CCR, The Beatles, etc etc.
There’s iTunes and Winamp plugins, as well as an RSS feed of what has been playing that you can include in your website or whatever.
Did I mention that it’s free?
Read on for more…
iTunes Essentials: MORE COWBELL!
Someone’s been having a bit of fun over at the iTunes Music Store…
Invented by dairy farmers for use in fog, the humble cowbell has evolved into a vital component of rock’s percussive arsenal: hit with enough style and vigor, it can make the difference between a track that rocks, and a track that totally rocks. Try to imagine Chicago’s “Beginnings” without the cowbell. It can’t be done. No Way.
Some cuts get a boost from the cowbell, others are simply naked without its insistent hollow thowk. Here, we’ve stashed some of the greatest cowbell-dependent tunes in history, from “Stuck in the Middle with You” by Stealers Wheel to the Strawberry Alarm Clock’s “Incense and Peppermint” and the Donnas’ “You Wanna Get Me High.”
The songs are a bit all over the place. Includes (of course) ‘(Don’t Fear) The Reaper’ by the Blue Oyster Cult, Santana’s ‘Evil Ways’, Bob Dylan, Kiss and Tom Petty. The compilation continues with natural inclusions like Sir Mix-a-Lot and Britney Spears.
Good Music You’ve Not Heard Yet: B.R.M.C.
I’m not so good with writing music reviews, so I won’t bore you with a bunch of BS about what B.R.M.C sounds like or what the music means. If you dig solid rock\blues bands, check these guys out.
Preview the songs in iTunes or listen to two of the full tracks on the band’s website (warning: link goes to a page that pops up a new page that automatically starts playing music. needs flash to work).
We here at Hell Yeah Bitch! like things with good names.
Phantom Planet’s playlist on iTunes!
So every once in a while I go on the the iTunes Music Store and check out the “Celebrity Playlists”. They are usually kinda lame, namely becuase the artists usually pick their own songs for their playlist…I’m sorry, that is stupid and lame. Well my boys, my favorite band of all time, did it right this time with their playlist / mix tape. In case you don’t have or use iTunes Music Store let me show you what they said:
The Perfect Mix Tape
“Hello? This is Alexander. I got started on this iTunes Playlist trying to make ‘The Perfect Mix Tape.’ I hope the idea of the mix tape isn’t lost on the next gneration of music listeners – how about ‘Mix Flash Memory Card?’ When I was younger a good mix tape symbolized much more than just a bunch of songs put together. Giving someone a mix tape was giving him or her an insight into who you are as a person. It was also a way to gauge the degree of compatibility between two people. The mix tape existed when and where words and physical action could not. Maybe that’s just how I though of it. Well, I got into making this list. I think I got into it a little too much so I’m just gonna post them up and see what happens…”
Their list is pretty long, I was going to post it hear, but I got too lazy. But it looks like a good, soild list…with none of their own songs!
Personal Note to the guys in Phantom Planet:
I’m sorry I can’t make it to your concert this weekend, I have to go back up to my old University and go to my girlfriend’s formal and some frat stuff. Please, go ahead and have the concert without me. I know it will be tough, without one of your biggest fans there, but I know you guys can do it.
Be strong,
Mike.
I think Korn is pissed
Everyone be sure to go to the media section and check out Korn’s new video (its under the “other videos” header). Its not very likely that this video will make on MTV, but everyone needs to go give it a look-see. Korn apparently aren’t very happy with the record industry and they made this video to express that view as clearly as possible. I think they did a good job.
Source: In House
The “Grey Album” is making EMI see red
If you haven’t heard about it yet a New York DJ recently took the words only version of Jay Z’s “The Black Album” and mixed the words with the beats of the Beatles classic “White Album”. The response has been amazing, the few printed records of it are going on E-Bay for $81. Everything was all fine and dandy until the company that holds the rights to the “White Album”, EMI, slapped DJ Danger Mouse with a copyright infringement suit.
I guess record companies don’t mind if you are a DJ mixing tunes but the minute you make a buck off of it they flip out and sue your ass. But that just leaves us with the only real question…