For the past few weeks, I’ve been importing my collection of CDs into iTunes, and tweaking my mp3’s. Part of that process involves rating the songs on a
Yesterday, when I realized that I’d rated hundreds of songs, I created a Smart Playlist of all the songs I’ve marked with five stars. This was the best of the best to my ears. And I started playing them.
And I was treated to an eclectic but incredibly enjoyable set of music. I could listen to this music forever. No bad music.
Compare this to, say, radio. Any radio station just can’t do this. How many duds are you forced to endure before you hear a really good song? Even a personal CD collection can’t do this.
It was a bit of an epiphany, realizing that I could group individual songs together according to my own highly personal taste. It just rocked to listen to Beethoven one minute and Yoko Kanno the next, followed by They Might Be Giants and an anonymous techno piece.
Here’s a quick random sampling:
- The Chinese Dance from “The Nutcracker” by Tchaikovsky
- “Birdhouse In Your Soul” by They Might Be Giants
- “Stroll” from My Neighbor Totoro by Joe Hisaishi
- “Space Lion” from Cowboy Bebop by Yoko Kanno
- “Moon” from
Turn-A : The Concert by Yoko Kanno - “Shades of Revolution” from Rurouni Kenshin OVA 1 by Taku Iwasaki
- “Duvet” by BoA
- “Blue” from Cowboy Bebop by Yoko Kanno
- “Bolero” by Ravel
- “Pulse” from Macross Plus by Yoko Kanno
- Pines of the Villa Borghese from Respighi’s “Pines of Rome”
- End Credits from Batman Beyond
- Symphony #6 in F Major by Beethoven
- “The Tale of Ashitaka, Ending” from Princess Mononoke by Joe Hisaishi
- Overture to the L’Arlesienne by Bizet
See pretty promotional artwork (see February entries) for Howl’s Moving Castle.