On the whole song rating business or "boy am I complicated!"

Posted on November 25, 2004

How people can actually rate their songs and keep playlists of things they like is, quite frankly, beyond me.

Oh I do rate all my songs in iTunes, and I do have my playlists. But the thing is that after I rated a song I keep constantly updating it’s rating. It is a never-ending process.

It just seems that there is no way on earth I can be absolutely accurate about how much I like a song. There are many, many examples of songs which have swung from 4 starts to 2 and then back to 3 or 4. The songs don’t change, of course, but my mood does.

And this is only on a small, day-to-day scale, let alone songs or albums I absolutely adored a few years back and I just can’t stand now.

So when I hear people talking about the “album of their lives” or their “favorite song of all time” or how great their playlists are and how they only have music they absolutely love on their iPod and how all those songs are their absolute favorite I actually envy them.

The closest thing I’ve ever come to this bliss is to have “mood” playlists, one kind of playlist for when I’m coding and need the power jolt, another one for when I’m really happy, yet another for when I’m angry, another for when I’m depressed and so on. And the most peculiar thing about this is that when I listen to one of the playlists which I’m not in the mood to hear, I hate it and actually hate most of the songs in it. And yet they are usually rated 4 or above (nothing gets on a playlist with a rating bellow 4) so I do love them when I’m in the right mood.

So, again, my point is: how can people just rate a song and put it on a “favorites” playlist and actually listen to it all the time, no matter what, and like it? Boy I wish I could…