Really Re-Rating
I had the most “duh, why didn’t I think of that?!” comment to my iTunes Re-Rating entry the other day:
I baseline all my music at 2 stars, not 3 — I don’t really need a lot of resolution regarding how much I don’t like a song, but I do want the extra resolution for stuff I do like. 1 star is reserved for stuff that I just don’t want to hear.
I definitely don’t delete songs just because I don’t like them. My tastes change, other people visit, sometimes it’s useful to hear the complete album, etc.
Good thoughts from everyone about smart playlist ideas.
I agree that my tastes change, etc. I hadn’t ever considered wanting more resolution on the above-average stuff. It makes perfect sense, though: generally, me purchasing music and having it in my library means that I’ve already pre-filtered it and like it. My ratings system was, as a result, strongly skewed to the right.
- Five stars: OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS SONG PLAY IT OVER AND OVER!!!
- Four stars: This song is really good. I could listen to it pretty regularly.
- Three stars: This song is good.
- Two stars: Ehhhh … skip.
- One star: Never play this song again!
Now it looks like:
- Five stars: OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS SONG PLAY IT OVER AND OVER!!!
- Four stars: This song is really good. I could listen to it pretty regularly.
- Three stars: This song is pretty good.
- Two stars: Average.
- One star: Never play this song again!
It’s a subtle shift, but the big thing is that two stars is no longer a sting.
This does change two things:
- I have to re-rate everything.
- All my old album ratings are a bit skewed now.
Fixing the first isn’t hard: I just created five Smart Playlists: 1-Star Songs, 2-Star Songs, etc. I went to the 2-Star Songs, highlighted everything, and made their ratings all one star. [This is done with a right-click into the context menu.] I repeated the process on the 3-Star, 4-Star, and 5-Star lists, and now I’m listening to the 4-Star list so that I can promote truly worthy songs to 5-Star status. That list should ideally be <5% of my library [which, at the moment, is 4,560 songs, 13 days 8 hours' time, taking up 25GB on my work machine]. This will be a fun endeavor, as it makes me listen to the really good songs in my library. As such, no new music this week, other than the Matthew Perryman Jones disc I got the other day. I'll just put that in with next week's stuff, especially as I’ve been out-of-town.
As for the disconnect: I’ve just decided not to worry about it. I might run Alex’s iTunes Stats if I get bored.
Enough rambling … back to work.
Don’t forget, there’s actually one other level of resolution:
There’s a checkbox for each track, and a selection in the smart playlists for “Match only checked songs”.
So I use one star for “I probably don’t want to hear this, but play it once in a blue moon, just for kicks.” But once I uncheck a song, it means that I really don’t want to hear it. It’s probably deletion fodder, but I’m probably keeping it around just because it’s part of a CD that I want to keep complete, and because I’m just reluctant to delete things, in general.
June 7th, 2006 at 20:42You’re right: I use that, but I didn’t mention it. My storage solutions are such that, like you, I don’t delete stuff.
June 8th, 2006 at 22:05Have you had to modify your playlists that feed Radio Airtime? I ask only because I’ve got a new laptop (MacBook for the win!) and am re-ripping CDs instead of moving music over from my old one, which means I lose all my ratings. I’m switching to your rating system as described above, and I use the Radio Airtime playlists you have on one of your other websites, but I was just wondering if you’ve rejigged those at all…
August 10th, 2006 at 19:00Actually, I haven’t. I find that the two-star cutoff that I have there [from Dougal's suggestion] really gives me all the stuff I’d ever want; most of the two-stars from the old regime are still at that level, really, so it’s not an appreciable difference.
[I am attempting not to lust after your MB. I am failing.]
August 11th, 2006 at 10:07Christopher Allen on 5-Star Rating Systems…
Christopher Allen shot me an email the other day pointing to his work on practical applications of 5-star rating systems. I found it to be an interesting read, which you might expect given my previous commentary on the subject. Highlights:
August 12th, 2006 at 19:26Thus even …