The Ultimate Playlist

[rabidrage]

So every year I have a big birthday party, and every year for the past four years I've debuted the latest and greatest version of my random playlist. The first year it was nothing more than a pair of mp3 cd's that I would switch out that had my favorite songs by my two favorite bands on them--one had Helloween songs and the other had Therion songs. I was in quite the metal mood back in those days. But the following year, I had an mp3 player. I realized after loading all of my favorite metal onto it that I could load a bunch of other random tracks, stuff that I liked before metal became the be-all end-all of my listening experience. Slowly but surely I was getting back into other styles of music, and that party featured a 700-something track playlist that was set to shuffle, and mostly metal, including some crappy songs that were deleted by the next year, in which I had endeavored to demonstrate a more diverse selection, but had only increased the track count by about 300. This last time I had added quite a few more tracks, although even less than the last time. There was more diversity, but the odds of hearing a rap song were pretty slim, and the odds of classical coming on were even more slim. But I had by that point enacted an exercise by which I tried to find 100 versions of "Popcorn" that I liked, and use them as a unifying factor. After I had started looking for those, I started a concurrent search for 100 versions of "The Devil Went Down To Georgia". Both are different enough and yet intersect in enough places, and I figured they would provide the playlist with both diversity and flow--flow is very important to me. So I've also spent considerable amounts of time mastering all of my tracks so that they start and end abruptly, with no silences at the beginning and end, no crowd noise sans music at the beginning and end, and I've made sure they all come on at the right volume. And no, that doesn't mean I made acoustic tracks come on as loud as metal tracks, but I made them proportionate.
I have just over 1400 tracks and counting right now. I want to make next year's playlist (my birthday's Sept. 2) the best ever. The current exercises involve finding one song from each genre on wikipedia's list of musical styles that I can enjoy, finding 100 versions of "Yesterday" by the Beatles that I like, a real challenge since I'm not a fan of the original, and finishing up "The Devil Went Down To Georgia". Also, I'll be adding in other random things as I find them.

Whew. All of that said, is this a futile exercise, or might I succeed in creating the most interesting playlist of all time? Also, where might I find the right technology to shuffle it intelligently so that it flows well? There's got to be something at least in development.

Am I crazy?

[lepeos]

Most interesting playlist of all time, with 100 versions of 1 or 2 songs and a load of metal? Christ

[leonaozaki]

Whew. All of that said, is this a futile exercise, or might I succeed in creating the most interesting playlist of all time? Also, where might I find the right technology to shuffle it intelligently so that it flows well? There's got to be something at least in development.

Am I crazy?

Futile exercise. 100 versions of Yesterday and the Devil Went Down? Why not 200 really different, interesting songs?

rob

[rabidrage]

I think you missed what I said, or I was unclear. Those are two of the exercises I'm currently performing, but I am also looking into other things. I find new and interesting songs all the time! The 100 versions of 3 songs just works as a unifying element. I did say I'm also looking for at least one song from each of wikipedia's list of genres, and they don't end up being versions of Popcorn, DWDTG or Yesterday...plus I'm cheking out anything else which strikes my fancy. I might be looking into the soundtrack for Dr. Horrible soon, and I've been listening through Mark Knopfler's discography on Rhapsody...not to mention I've been spending time sculpting my Pandora station and discovering new material that way...

But nobody remembers all of what they read, ever. I've noticed that about forums. Or maybe it's just that nobody reads everything I type. Sorry for being nasty, but it's very tiring.

[The Confessor]

But nobody remembers all of what they read, ever. I've noticed that about forums. Or maybe it's just that nobody reads everything I type. Sorry for being nasty, but it's very tiring.


I'm not trying to be an asshole or anything (honest!) but you might find more people read what you've written if you work some paragraph breaks into your messages. A whole solid block of text like the first block of your initial post is very off-putting to readers. I almost skipped it myself but then decided to persevere and read it.

Paragraphs are your friend and they'll help make your longer messages look more inviting to readers. As I say, I'm not knocking you...just trying to offer some friendly advice.

[rabidrage]

You have a point. It's actually a habit I've gotten into with regard to the emails I write, but I don't typically type so much when it comes to forums. I was also treating my little story there like a list of events, in which it could all be contained in a single paragraph. But I see your point! I just wish people wouldn't reply if they didn't read it.