iTunes rating system
So, I love iTunes. I love the Music Store, and the iPod, and the smart playlists and everything. I found that creating playlists is a lot more efficient when my songs have ratings, so I went and rated them all.
It took weeks.
What I’m finding now is that my initial rating doesn’t always jive with my current opinion. I believe this is because during the initial rating phase, I was using snap judgments, based on my current mood. Maybe I just wasn’t into the “bitter chick”-ness of Fiona Apple that night, for instance.
So, I think it’s probably best if I come up with a definitive system for rating songs. iTunes provides a 5 star scale (1 for “worst”, 5 for “best”, 0 for “delete this crap”), and I figure I could deal with a mostly-quantitative attribute to represent each star. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
= Well-written. This applies to the music as well as any applicable lyrics.
= Good sound quality. This star will unfortunately mean that no Jimi Hendrix song can get 5 stars, since his music was apparently recorded digitally, then erased and re-recorded on a dictaphone.
= The sentiment is intelligent. This will reduce the rating of songs like Hoobastank’s “The Reason,” which sound like they are written by broken-hearted 7th graders.
=
= I enjoy this track every single time I hear it, no matter the circumstances. This is very rare, reserved for gems such as Perez Prado’s “Mambo No. 8” and “Try a Little Tenderness” by The Commitments.
My problem is in assigning a value to Star No. 4. What do y’all think should go in there?
10 January 2005, 11:15
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