MetaChat - Meanings of music library song ratings

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15 December 2005

Meanings of music library song ratings I spend all day at work listening to my digital audio device and then at the end of the day, I sync it up with my music library software (guess what they are; they both start with "i"). →[More:]Since I am an anal-retentive librarian-type, who downloads a lot of stuff I haven't listened to before and want to try out, I've come to lean pretty heavily on the ratings for keeping track of what I want to keep, what I want to hear more of, what I want to nuke, and what would be good fodder for mix CDs and/or streaming radio sets. I've come up with a system for what each of the five star ratings means.

* - delete from library
** - don't like it right now but give it another chance
*** - pretty decent but I don't have to hear it too often
**** - like it a lot/good for a mix
***** - reserved for songs that totally blow me away and/or that I have loved for a long time

I'm wondering how you rate your songs and what the different ratings mean to you.

post by: matildaben at: 11:41 | 10 comments

***** Out of this world. Best of the best.
**** Really good, excellent.
*** Not bad, above average.
** Average. Neither here nor there.
* Crap. Won't listen to this again. But I won't delete individual songs, only albums. I'm anal like that.

But after I while, I got tired of this rating malarkey and didn't bother.

posted by flopsy 15 December | 11:48

I thought about rating songs when I got ze iPod, but there's just no way. I song I like today, I may not like tomorrow. And I find a lot of albums are growers, I'll be kinda "meh" on them at first but they will slowly enter heavy rotation.

posted by Capn 15 December | 12:57

I use the rankings similarly. I periodically delete my one and two star songs when I need to clear space (I sort on time first and delete the longer songs of lowest rank until I've got the free space I need). Most of my "smart" lists are set to pull four and five star songs of a given genre.

On preview: I often change ratings up or down, it might mean I delete the occasional two or one star song that's actually of good quality, maybe something I'd listen to and enjoy on the album, but with the limited space I have slotted for music on my computers it's something I've come to accept.

posted by safetyfork 15 December | 13:01

I don't bother with rating individual tracks (I can keep that stuff in my head) but I make a lot of playlists for various moods, sounds, etc. And I keep a running "recent downloads" and "best of 2005" playlist that I update pretty much every day.

posted by jokeefe 15 December | 13:06

I won't delete anything from my library either. I usually just uncheck songs I don't want to show up on my iPod.

posted by terrapin 15 December | 13:48

I'm obsessed with rating tracks, 1. because I really enjoy it and 2. I need the space for new shit. I delete ones and twos, which can include stuff that doesn't really "fit" on the iPod, usually quieter, avant gardier tracks and duplicates. But my rating system is otherwise the same as yours, matildaben. For some reason, the hardest one for me is whether to give something 3 or 4 stars.
Oh, and I don't really get around to making playlists, so when others are listening, I can play "my best rated" and it's not completely random like "shuffle" is.

posted by Hellbient 15 December | 16:24

What a relief! I'm not the only one who has to hack something usable out of the ratings.

My biggest problem right now, I think, is having too many songs at 3 stars that should be 2 or deletia, and too many songs at 4 stars that should be 3. I rationalize having the bell curve peak at 4 (like IMDb ratings, which peak at 7.7 or so) because it's not all the songs in the universe, it's songs I *like*. This works fairly well for Party Shuffle, which I almost always feed from a playlist of all the 4 & 5 star songs, or 3, 4 & 5 stars if I'm feeling in a rut.

The only real difference is that to me, 2 stars means "only listen to in album mode", and 1 stars is anything less than a minute long, which I don't want shuffling. (These sorts of interludes usually only work in context.)

posted by stilicho 15 December | 18:22

hey who wants to tell me how i change 'top 25 most played' to 'top bajillion most played'?

tell me!

posted by sam 15 December | 20:50

This playlist is already on your pod. Go to music:songs and push play! It's even alphabetized!

posted by pointilist 16 December | 03:08

jerkface!

posted by sam 16 December | 10:44

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