There’s a fair chance that this is going to interest nobody, but that’s fine. I need some space for trying to get my thoughts in order, so at least indulge me.
iTunes has a five-star rating system that can be applied to individual songs. You can also rate albums, but if you don’t, iTunes takes an average of the ratings for each album’s individual songs and uses that.
I haven’t spent much time rating songs for a couple of reasons (about which, more in a second), but there are some really good reasons to do it. For one, you can set up a smart playlist that will play songs with specific ratings; for example, you can create a smart playlist that includes all the four- or five-star songs from a specific year, something I’m am inclined to make use of. Or you can make a smart playlist that plays five-star songs in a certain genre, something else that can be useful if you’re in a certain mood.
One reason I haven’t spent much time rating songs in eight years of using iTunes (I was something of a reluctant, slow adopter) is that for various reasons I won’t go into here, I pretty much wipe out my whole iTunes library every year and start again from scratch. This discourages me from going through the hassle, but again: some of the benefits of rating songs kind of make the hassle worth it to me, especially since I make an effort to listen to current music and then summarize my thoughts at the end of every year (or in the case of 2009, almost all the way through the following year…ugh). Even if I were to rate only new songs each year, it would enhance my appreciation of (and experience listening to) each year’s new music. It would also make my end-of-year summaries a lot easier because it's tough to remember, even looking at the list, every song that I listened to in any year.
The other reason is really the purpose of this post: I can’t decide how I want to set up a rating system. It would be easy to use the usual 1 = “I hate it,” 3 = “It’s all right,” and 5 = “I love it” system, but there are some problems with this method. First, it’s not as useful to me as, say, the ten-point rating system I’ve developed for films. You can find fault with it if you want, but the important thing is that it works for me. I listen to so much music that a ten-star (or ten-point) system would be a lot more useful, especially since it would create separation at the higher end of the scale. Unlike films, which I tend to see a wide range of, quality-wise, I’m probably like everyone else in that the music I add to my collection is likely to skew HEAVILY in favor of music I like.
There are often songs or albums that I find disappointing or downright awful, but because hard space is at a premium, I am unlikely to keep songs i dislike in my iTunes library. What’s the point of having five stars if you’re going to have very, very few songs in your library that have a one- or two-star rating? Yes, there are a few reasons I might hang onto bad songs (keeping whole albums together, for example, so I can listen to songs in order and in context), but that’s the exception and not the rule.
That separation at the higher end would really be useful to me; “Roundabout” by Yes and “Radar Love” by Golden Earring are definitely both five-star songs in my book, but there’s no question in my mind that “Roundabout” is a ten-point song while “Radar Love” falls a bit shy of that. When I want to listen to ten-point songs, I don’t want nine-point songs to creep into my playlist.
Since the rating system only has to work for me (it’s extremely unlikely anyone else would ever look at my ratings), I’m thinking of using one star to cover songs that range from bad to average, two stars to mean decent, three stars to good, four stars to mean VERY good, and five stars to mean great. Or something like that.
Do you use the iTunes ratings? Am I overthinking this? I’m at least making sense when I say that one- and two-star ratings for bad songs doesn’t make sense, right?
iTunes has a five-star rating system that can be applied to individual songs. You can also rate albums, but if you don’t, iTunes takes an average of the ratings for each album’s individual songs and uses that.
I haven’t spent much time rating songs for a couple of reasons (about which, more in a second), but there are some really good reasons to do it. For one, you can set up a smart playlist that will play songs with specific ratings; for example, you can create a smart playlist that includes all the four- or five-star songs from a specific year, something I’m am inclined to make use of. Or you can make a smart playlist that plays five-star songs in a certain genre, something else that can be useful if you’re in a certain mood.
One reason I haven’t spent much time rating songs in eight years of using iTunes (I was something of a reluctant, slow adopter) is that for various reasons I won’t go into here, I pretty much wipe out my whole iTunes library every year and start again from scratch. This discourages me from going through the hassle, but again: some of the benefits of rating songs kind of make the hassle worth it to me, especially since I make an effort to listen to current music and then summarize my thoughts at the end of every year (or in the case of 2009, almost all the way through the following year…ugh). Even if I were to rate only new songs each year, it would enhance my appreciation of (and experience listening to) each year’s new music. It would also make my end-of-year summaries a lot easier because it's tough to remember, even looking at the list, every song that I listened to in any year.
The other reason is really the purpose of this post: I can’t decide how I want to set up a rating system. It would be easy to use the usual 1 = “I hate it,” 3 = “It’s all right,” and 5 = “I love it” system, but there are some problems with this method. First, it’s not as useful to me as, say, the ten-point rating system I’ve developed for films. You can find fault with it if you want, but the important thing is that it works for me. I listen to so much music that a ten-star (or ten-point) system would be a lot more useful, especially since it would create separation at the higher end of the scale. Unlike films, which I tend to see a wide range of, quality-wise, I’m probably like everyone else in that the music I add to my collection is likely to skew HEAVILY in favor of music I like.
There are often songs or albums that I find disappointing or downright awful, but because hard space is at a premium, I am unlikely to keep songs i dislike in my iTunes library. What’s the point of having five stars if you’re going to have very, very few songs in your library that have a one- or two-star rating? Yes, there are a few reasons I might hang onto bad songs (keeping whole albums together, for example, so I can listen to songs in order and in context), but that’s the exception and not the rule.
That separation at the higher end would really be useful to me; “Roundabout” by Yes and “Radar Love” by Golden Earring are definitely both five-star songs in my book, but there’s no question in my mind that “Roundabout” is a ten-point song while “Radar Love” falls a bit shy of that. When I want to listen to ten-point songs, I don’t want nine-point songs to creep into my playlist.
Since the rating system only has to work for me (it’s extremely unlikely anyone else would ever look at my ratings), I’m thinking of using one star to cover songs that range from bad to average, two stars to mean decent, three stars to good, four stars to mean VERY good, and five stars to mean great. Or something like that.
Do you use the iTunes ratings? Am I overthinking this? I’m at least making sense when I say that one- and two-star ratings for bad songs doesn’t make sense, right?
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