iTunes 8's "Genius" Playlist Creator is the Best Thing to Happen to iTunes in a Long Time

I love this new feature.

If you have a song selected in your iTunes library you simply push the "Genius" button on the bottom right and iTunes will automatically create a playlist for you based on user's listening habits related to that song. So iTunes collects data on usage for creating playlists and if people usually have said selected song iTunes will group it with other songs that users frequently have also. It will also look, I believe, to see what songs usually accompany this song in people's playlists.

This is great for lazy people like me. I used to just pick a different song every couple of songs. It was the way I liked it, because I could listen to what I felt like listening to, but it took a lot of time and thought for me to decide upon a song. But this new feature is so easy I have used it literally every time I have listened to music since I downloaded it. The reason I have stuck with it so religiously is that it is "Genius." I skip through, at most, two songs each time I listen to a playlist of 25 songs. It is incredibly good at knowing what I will want to listen to by selecting one song. It makes my music listening experiences much more effecient (less time going and finding songs I want to listen to) and enjoyable.

Also, there is a "Recommendation" sidebar that offers you recommendations on songs you do not have that people who listen to that song usually do. I love this also, it has made me purchase more (smart marketing tactic) and discover songs I had forgotten about. I have often seen the song in the sidebar and thought "Holy crap, I used to listen to that song with this song all the time in 7th grade!" Or something to that effect.

The more people use this feature the better it will be. Also, the more songs you have in your library, the better the "Genius" feature will do in matching up songs you want to listen to. I have about 2400 songs and it does great with this many. The more obscure artists it struggles with, for instance, Joshua James, but overall it is great. Joshua James songs only bring up other songs by him and my music by Damien Rice and Nick Drake. The three of them are great artists, but more variety would be nice.

If you have not downloaded the recent iTunes 8 update I highly recommend it. It has made me rediscover my music in a new way. For those of you who do not have iTunes and use WMP or another program, well . . . we have bigger issues to work out.