Posted in March 2009 …

Mar 31 2009
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General, itunes

What does your life sound like?

I’ve recently returned from a very enjoyable week’s holiday in a cottage in Brittany (I missed you too) and discovered an interesting note left for me on Facebook by a friend with impeccable (and eclectic) musical taste.

Apologies if you’ve already come across this little game, but although most of these FB quizzes suck (as Sarah rightly suggested) this one proved quite diverting and worth the four minutes or so it takes to complete.

If your life was a movie, what would the soundtrack be?

An intriguing premise for sure, and the rules are as follows:

  1. Open your library (itunes, ipod, Media Player etc)
  2. Put it on shuffle (very important!)
  3. Press play
  4. For every one of the ‘stages of life’ below, type the name of the song that’s playing
  5. When you go to the next ‘stage’, press the ‘next’ button
  6. Don’t lie in order to pretend you’re cool.
  7. Read through and be amused (or bemused) by the results
  8. Do the exercise again, picking the songs you would have preferred to turn up!

I’ve added the last couple of steps myself, (7) to replace the directive to pass it on to friends (in case you don’t want to!) and (8) to give you the chance to redeem yourself if the original answers turned out too embarrassing or just plain weird.

It’s your life, after all!

The movie soundtrack of my life is …..

The stages of life are listed below (in bold) together with my answers. I didn’t cheat, and got some interesting results …

Opening credits Connection – Elastica

Waking up Super-connected – Belly

First day of School Go Karts – The Bees

Falling in Love Easy Skanking – Bob Marley

Fight Song Up All Night – The Young Knives

Breaking Up Little Bear – Guillemots

Prom Why? – Tracy Chapman

Life Dolphins – Beth Orton

Mental Breakdown Look Up – Zero 7

Driving So Tonight That I Might See – Mazzy Star

Flashback I Love You – The Bees

Funeral Song Race For The Prize – The Flaming Lips

End credits

Song 1: The Fear by Travis; cross-fade into song 2: Radio Ga Ga by Frank Sidebottom

A strange mix, but not a bad soundtrack really. I was particularly impressed by the uncanny segue from the opening credits to the wake up song, and mightily pleased that the end credits finished with Frank Sidebottom’s mercurial take on Radio Ga Ga. Thank you.

How does your life sound?

What about you? Have a go and see how your soundtrack shapes up.

I’d be very interested to see your results – feel free to post as a comment below or write it on the wall of the Facebook group for this blog.

I’ll add my ‘Fantasy Soundtrack’ answers – see step 8 – in due course when I’ve had a bit more time to mull it over.

In the meantime, enjoy selecting the movie soundtrack of your life ……

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Mar 23 2009
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spotify

Spotify: give it a try?

My article about Spotify has proved very popular. Top post so far by a country mile.

Some of you have even said you’ve downloaded it on my recommendation and been very grateful for the tip off. That makes me very happy.

So, let’s strike while the iron’s hot(ish) and have a poll!


I’d like to add another massive thumbs up for Spotify while I’m here – in the past 24 hours I’ve been able to listen to “It’s Blitz” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs and “The Hazards of Love” by The Decemberists just hours after the albums were available as downloads and released in the shops.

Now, that’s what I call service!

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Mar 22 2009
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Great artists, Reviews

Angel of Barnsley

Kate Rusby

Kate Rusby: Voice of T'Angel

If you were to be marooned on a desert island for an indefinite period, and you could only listen to one female singer-songwriter, who would you choose?

For me, the choice is easy, despite the fact that I like many artists who fall into that category.

It has to be Kate Rusby, the Angel of Barnsley.

The first time I heard her voice, on ‘The Good Man’, track one of her 2003 album “Underneath the Stars” I was struck by two things: the startling purity of her tone, and the unvarnished Barnsley accent which made the word ‘much’ sound like ‘mooooooooooooch’. I found both aspects utterly delighful and have been hoooooooooked ever since.

I saw Kate in concert last night as part of the Oxford Folk Festival, and she put on a truly memorable performance which delighted the large sell-out crowd. Backed by her regular bass player Andy Seward, and joined by Donald Grant and his Red Skies string ensemble, she mesmerised the audience for the best part of 90 minutes.

If I could have sent Kate my ‘Desert Island Set-list’ then what she chose to play last night was pretty much a carbon copy. Apart from the opening song (whose title I didn’t catch thanks to the very rude couple sat behind us and talked incessantly through the first four songs), and a stunning version of the traditional song ‘I am stretched on your grave’ that closed the first half, she played most of my favourite tracks from her last five albums.

These included:

  • ‘I courted a sailor’ and ‘Who will sing me lullabies’ from “Little Lights“
  • ‘Sir Eglamore’ and ‘The Drowned Lovers’ from “10“
  • ‘Let me be’ and ‘Underneath the Stars’ from “Underneath the Stars“
  • ‘You belong to me’, ‘The Lark’ and ‘Take my Hand’ from “The Girl Who Couldn’t Fly“
  • ‘Bitter Boy’ and ‘Planets’ from “Awkward Annie“

If you’re not familiar with Kate’s music or these songs, I would simply urge you to seek them out at your earliest convenience. If you are, I hope you’d agree that this represents a high calibre selection from her considerable back catalogue. As it does on rare but very special occasions, the sound, setting and musicianship all blended beautifully to lift this collection of gorgeous songs to a higher level. I could write all night and still never adequately express how it made me feel – I just sat there with a massive grin on my face, hairs on the back of my neck bristling, and shivers running up and down my spine. And that was nothing to do with a draught in the Town Hall auditorium.

The other attribute of a Kate Rusby gig that shouldn’t be underestimated is the high quality banter between the songs. The band clearly have a lot of fun whilst touring, and whilst I wouldn’t quite go along with the Guardian reviewer who described Ms Rusby as a stand-up comedian, she is often quite amusing and has an endearing charm and infectious laugh.

She is also a very accomplished songwriter, and I hadn’t realised until last night just how many of the songs she performs are her own compositions. The fact that they blend so seamlessly with the traditional songs on her albums is a testament to her considerable talent of creating simple but beautiful folk songs for a modern audience.

Despite being four months pregnant, Kate is still touring for the foreseeable future – catch her while you can!

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Mar 21 2009
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General

Spoilt for choice?

1000s of albums, one pair of ears!

1000s of albums, but only one pair of ears!

So, I discovered Spotify … then what happened?

I stopped blogging, for a start. You may have noticed. Or not. I also pretty much stopped listening to music for two days.

I think I got a bit overwhelmed by having such an incredible amount of exciting music at my fingertips, and the knowledge that I could seek out an infinity of new bands without it costing me a penny. It’s the audio equivalent of ‘Blockbuster Blindness’, that unfortunate condition that afflicts me every time I walk into a video store in search of cinematic entertainment. Left to my own devices I could probably think of five or six movies at any one time that I’d like to see, but stick me amidst all those stacks of DVDs and blu rays and I instantly cease to function.

Choice is a wonderful thing for sure, but it can also be quite tiring.

I guess we all approach the challenge of choice in different ways.

The other day a friend told me she’d taken the plunge and activated itunes genius, and she was getting frustrated with it. When I showed her how to use it to create playlists from her current library she was confused and not the least bit impressed. “But I’ve already got that music, why should I be interested in that? I want it to tell me what else I should listen to, based on what I like.” she countered. A fair point, but that was far from my motivation for using genius, as I’ve already explained in a previous post. I always saw the genius sidebar as a necessary evil, an irritating by-product you could thankfully hide in a corner. For that reason I’d never actually seen it until she showed me.

This got me to thinking about the different methods we employ to discover and purchase new music.

For me, I think it’s all about the three Rs.

  • Reviews
  • Recommendations
  • Roadtests (from now on, thanks to Spotify)

Reviews

I find reviews can be useful, especially after years of reading between the lines and applying my own sense and judgement to cut through the hyperbole to ensure I don’t get hoodwinked into buying a duffer. Working in a marketing and PR environment I am naturally wary of taking things at face value or getting caught up in the hype. I mainly read reviews in Q magazine and The Word magazine – after a while you get used to which reviewers you trust; who seem to like the same type of music or appreciate the same musical values. Reviewing is quite a skill: if you don’t believe me, give it a try. Take an album you really like and try and evaluate it in an entertaining way in 300-500 words and not cringe when you read it.

Really well written reviews are often the catalyst for me to find out more and listen to bands I might not have heard of yet.

Recommendations

Word of mouth is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways of advertising, but it is completely dependent on trust. We’re a fickle bunch, us 21st century consumers, and if we suffer one bad experience as a result of a personal endorsement that’s probably the last time we’ll take notice of that particular source. We all have one or two (possibly many if you’re very lucky) friends or acquaintances whose musical taste we have complete confidence in and are prepared to follow, however left field their suggestions may first appear.

My top spotter is my little brother. Years ago, as sibling tradition dictates, we each ploughed our separate furrows and drew up the barricades: these are my bands, those are yours – none shall pass. However, we’re too old for that now, and not quite so competitive anymore, so it’s OK to swap recommendations.

Thanks to Jon I’ve discovered some great music including Grandaddy, Joanna Newsom and one of my favourites, Iron & Wine. The key to his recommendations was to actually play me the music, and I think that’s always far more successful than the ‘you should check out so-and-so’ comment in passing. This method also resulted in me discovering one of my favourite albums of all time, ‘Closing Time’ by Tom Waits, thanks to my friends Jen and Stacy Zosky on a long drive from Toronto to Quebec. The same trip garnered ‘Tea for the Tillerman’ by Cat Stevens and the self-titled album by Lyle Lovett and his Large Band.

Which leads me neatly to:

Roadtests

‘Try before you buy’ has got to be the best method. I was very excited when we first got a Borders store in Oxford, because of their unique CD listening stations through which you could sample a few tracks of virtually any CD in store by scanning its barcode. Sadly it didn’t last, the novelty wore off and the headphones (and most of the CDs) have disappeared completely now.

I guess the itunes store was the nearest equivalent I encountered next, with its 25 second previews, but these have always seemed rather hit and miss to me – I’m sure we all know songs with a really duff 25 seconds segment that are otherwise brilliant and vice versa.

Which brings me back to Spotify, which so far seems to be a faultless roadtesting platform. Although there will always be a slight delay between an album’s release and its availability on the library, they do seem to be fairly up to date – I had a quick listen to a few tracks from the new u2 album the other evening to see if it lived up to the hype of the Q review (it didn’t).

I’ve managed to find recent albums by My Morning Jacket and Los Campesinos! that I was interested in buying, and have been merrily listening to them for the past couple of days. So far, so good.

The only dilemma this final step in the process presents me with is should I bother getting the download, or just learn to be content with listening to these new discoveries for free on my laptop…..

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Mar 17 2009
7 Comments
General, itunes, spotify

Spotify: the ultimate jukebox?

ipod killer?

The future of music?

I have tasted the future. And it’s not garlic bread.

It’s Spotify.

Those clever Swedes – first they revolutionise furniture with the blessing or curse of ikea (depending on how you like to spend your weekends) and now they’re set to change the way we listen to music. Instead of encouraging us to ‘chuck out our chintz!’, they will soon be ‘incapacitating our ipods.’

Why?

Because a group of Swedish boffins have only gone and invented what could prove to be the ultimate digital jukebox, and unleashed it on a largely unaware but soon to be very grateful British public.

What is it?

Spotify is a digital music streaming program that you download to your computer, and then use to listen to any music you choose on demand via your Internet connection, without the need to store terabytes of MP3 files on your computer. It’s a bit like itunes, but even better in some ways.

For starters, it has a much larger library. They are currently adding around 10,000 tracks per day, and seem to have pretty much every song in existence. And of course, unlike itunes you get to listen to the whole song for free, rather than around 20 seconds worth.

Free?

Oh, yes. Did I mention that it’s free? The beta system is currently available throughout Europe, but for those of us living in the UK, since 10 February we have been able to join for free. For once, it pays to be living here rather than elsewhere in Europe! ‘What’s the catch?’ I hear you cry? Well, to listen for free you have to be prepared to listen to an advert every 10 songs or so. Big woop. They last about 5-10 seconds. And they’re not like the cringeworthy ones you get on local radio that make you want to disembowel yourself with a teaspoon. They are quite inoffensive and you hardly even notice them.If you are completely ad averse you can subscribe to the absolutely ad-free version for £9.99 a month, but that seems a bit of a waste of cash to me.

The only other downside is that you can’t transfer the tracks to your ipod or any other device. On the face of it that may seem a fairly big flaw, but to be honest it isn’t. So long as you’re near your computer and connected to the Internet you can play whatever you want, whenever you want. For no money!

Save money!

In these credit crunch crazy times, here is a great way to listen to new music without paying for it, or at the very least the opportunity to try before you buy. Whilst writing this I have been very happily listening to my first Spotify playlist made up of ‘Picaresque’ by The Decemberists and ‘Songbook’ by Woodpigeon, two albums I intend to purchase (or at least request for my birthday). I searched for the two albums, then literally dragged and dropped the songs into a playlist, hit the shuffle button and I was away (with the fairies, in the case of The Decemberists). I can listen to those albums as often as I like now, and I might even decide not to buy them after all. Although I think I’d find it hard not to have Woodpigeon’s ‘Death by Ninja (A Love Song)’ on my ipod.

It’s easy!

The more technically challenged amongst you might be thinking that there’s a large hurdle between you and this Promised Land of Digital Delights: downloading the software. Don’t worry for a second, it’s a cinch! Go to the website, choose the free option, follow the very easy steps and with a decent Broadband connection you’ll be up and running in about 5 minutes or less.

Be your own DJ

Spotify also allows you to share music with your friends. You can create playlists and send them to anyone else you know who uses it, which gives you plenty of incentive to encourage your mates to join up (apart from those who might inflict dodgy tunes on you of course). A clever twist is that you or they can change any playlist while they’re being played, so you can collaborate with like-minded friends and hold your own virtual festival.

The end for the ipod?

I’ve heard and read it suggested that Spotify could kill off the ipod: tales of people who’ve left their little black (white or garish-coloured) box of tricks untouched for days at a time in favour of the unrivalled variety on offer from the Swedish streaming sensation. I doubt it myself, mainly because there are so many situations where an mp3 player is so more versatile than lugging a laptop around with you. However, if the clever folk at Spotify ever find a way of making this thing mobile and providing truly portable access to their infinite playlist, it could be a whole different story.

In the meantime, I’m like a kid in a sweetshop of sounds, totally mesmerised by the vast array of treasures to be sampled.

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Mar 16 2009
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General

Variations on a Theme

If you’re new here you’ll be perfectly oblivious, but possibly wondering if you stumbled upon a blog that’s going to wax lyrical about Haydn and the whole pantheon of classical shenanigans. Fret not, I wouldn’t do that to you.

If however, you are one of the literally tens of people who have been here before and perhaps would consider yourself a regular reader (and for that, bless you!) you might be wondering what the heck is going on.

Apologies, but like the Chameleon of Rock (David Bowie) or the She-meleon of Pop (Madonna) this blog has undergone some ch-ch-ch-changes and reinvented itself for the second time in little over three days. I’m still getting used to this blogging lark (we’re only just into week 2) and I have been trying to get the ‘look and feel’ right as well as the words.

The first one looked ambient and pleasant but didn’t have a sidebar, and if you want to escape the blog equivalent of the pub-rock scene and head for the stadium circuit, you need a sidebar. You can then add all manner of widgets to make yourself look more professional and accessible to a wider audience.

The second theme (introduced Friday) did that, but was rather minimalist and a bit sparse and had a banner photo vaguely reminiscent of New York but otherwise did not really resonate with the topic of music. A bit too Philip Glass or Brian Eno for my liking.

So I’ve plumped for this one instead, and I hope you like it, because I’m not planning on changing it again in the near future. And check out that sidebar!

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Mar 15 2009
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Now playing

Now playing: Dark Was The Night

Now that's what I call a compliation album!

Now that's what I call a compilation album!

Current favourite album

There’s a subtle hint in the name of my blog that I’m not a fan of a certain chart hit compilation series, now in its early seventies.

In fact, I’m not a huge fan of compilations full stop, but here is an exception I’d like to highlight.

‘Dark Was The Night’ is a 4AD compilation album in support of the Red Hot Organisation, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS.

I discovered the album via an advert in The Word magazine and was immediately interested because the artists listed included several of my favourite recent favourites such as Iron & Wine, Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, Spoon and Conor Oberst. In addition it includes several others that had been on my radar such as The Decemberists, My Morning Jacket, The National and Andrew Bird.

So, I duly downloaded and was delighted to see it contained 32 tracks, and although most of the songs tend to the folky end of indie rock that’s exactly my current genre of choice. All of the tracks are exclusive to this album, so it’s not like you’re duplicating songs you have elsewhere.

I was instantly hooked when I started to listen, and overall I’d say the standard was uniformly excellent. The contributions from artists I was familiar with didn’t let me down, and some of the new ones turned out to be very nice surprises.

For me, the absolute standout track is ‘Sleepless’ by The Decemberists, a band who I find fascinating and intend to write more about soon. It’s over eight minutes long, but is hauntingly beautiful and quite unlike anything I’ve heard recently.

Other favourite tracks include:

  • Feeling Good – My Brightest Diamond
  • Lenin – Arcade Fire
  • Big Red Machine – Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) & Aaron Dessner
  • Well-Alright – Spoon
  • Lua – Conor Oberst & Gillian Welch
  • Cello Song – The Books featuring Joses Gonzalez (great cover of Nick Drake’s classic)
  • Happiness – Rice Boy Sleeps
  • Gentle Hour – Yo La Tengo

If you like any of the artists mentioned above, or are curious to find out what they sound like, this is well worth paying just under a tenner for the download.

Other albums I’m enjoying

A few other recent notable mentions include:

What’s new for you?

How about you? What are your current favourites, and latest discoveries?

Let me know by posting a comment below, or via the Facebook group.

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Mar 13 2009
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General

Divine Comedy?

Probably the only thing that’s as subjective as musical taste is sense of humour. Combine the two then, and you are asking for trouble.

Today is Comic Relief day in the UK, and whilst I totally support the cause and am happy to contribute to the charitable effort, like Tim from The Office, I find all the enforced zany-ness and madcap ‘humour’ rather difficult to stomach. As a man who is famously 10 times funnier than Chris Moyles (and that’s only when I’m not trying), it does make me cringe to see people doing ‘something funny for money’ that isn’t funny. Don’t get me wrong I’m more than happy to cough up the cash, but just don’t expect me to wear my pyjamas to work or put my shirt on back to front, or something equally ‘hilarious’.

One thing I did do to support the cause this week was to write new lyrics to fit the tune ‘Hey Big Spender!’ (most definitely my ‘Earworm of the Week’!) for our senior management team’s entry in the company’s charity talent contest. It was good fun, took me about 15 minutes to do, and the resulting video was actually very funny thanks to the talents of our HR Director in particular. The entry finished a creditable third … out of four. It made me wonder if there was money to be made in rewriting well known songs for special occasions – if anyone wants to commission me for a future event, let’s talk!

On the subject of funny songs, why are most of the official songs for Comic Relief over the years so awful? I guess the novelty song’s problem is its very limited shelf-life. The only funny thing about one-hit wonder ‘Shaddap you Face’ by Joe Dolce back in 1981 was that it kept the far more laughable ‘Vienna’ by ultra-serious Ultravox from getting to number 1 in the UK.

Can anyone suggest a comedy song that has actually raised a smile past the second or third hearing? There are maybe a few here and there, but it’s a short list.

Topping it for me would be the rap parody Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenocerous by The Flight of The Conchords. It ridicules the macho posturing of the genre brilliantly, as well as featuring one of the most lyrically accomplished raps of all time. As an occasional writer of comic poetry I can only doff my cap to the peerless rhyming of :

“They call me the hiphopopotamus/Flows like low light phosphorous/Popping off the top of this oesophagus/Rocking this metropolis/I’m not a large water-dwelling mammal/Where did you get that preposterous hypothesis?”.

I could watch/listen to that on a regular basis and still laugh every time.

Less is more

I think humour in songs works much better when it’s more subtle – a few wry lyrics in a ‘normal’ song is actually far more effective than going all out for comic effect.

Some of my favourites include:

Belle and Sebastian

‘This is just a modern rock song’ by Belle and Sebastian – I especially like the following lines:

“I put my arm around her waist/She put me on the ground with Judo/She didn’t recognise my face/She wasn’t even looking.”

See also ‘The State That I am in’ and ‘Dear Catastrophe Waitress’ by the same band for more lyrical witticism.

The Divine Comedy

Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy also has a way of infusing his songs with dry humour and most of his back catalogue is quite amusing – ‘National Express’ being a good example.

Morrissey

His acerbic wit deserves an article of its own, but just for now here’s my favourite, from ‘The Queen Is Dead’:

So I broke into the Palace with a sponge and a rusty spanner/ She said: “I know you and you cannot sing”/ I said: “That’s nothing, you should hear me play piano”.

Now we’re talking!

The ultimate combo

But for a perfect combination of music and comedy, you need look no further than the diminutive, hirsute genius of Bill Bailey. The man is a multi-instrumentalist and one of the funniest people on the planet.

If you’re already a fan, you will know exactly what I mean, and are probably chuckling to yourself as you recall your favourite moments from his live shows or DVDs. If you haven’t experienced his live shows and just recognise him as that hairy bloke from ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ or Manny from ‘Black Books’ here are a few of my favourite Bill Bailey moments you might like to check out:

  • Bill ruminating about sirens, leading to his song based on the French ambulance siren on “Bewilderness”
  • His alternative National Anthem: ‘Zippedy Doo Da’ as performed by Portishead on “Part Troll”
  • His hilarious ‘Love Song’ depicting the various stages of a love affair from infatuation to betrayal on “Part Troll”
  • His awesome “Kraftwerk Tribute” which forms the finale to “Part Troll”

Now, that’s funny.

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Mar 12 2009
2 Comments
itunes

Are you a genius fan?

You’ve heard what I have to say – what do you think?

If you do use genius to create playlists, feel free to share any of your favourites via the comments page or the Facebook group.

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Mar 12 2009
2 Comments
itunes

Genius or idiot savant?

itunes genius - is it?

itunes genius: is it?

When I got my new ipod classic 120GB just before Christmas (to replace the much lamented 80GB that succumbed to ‘sad face’ syndrome in mysterious circumstances in early December) I was intrigued and alarmed in equal measure by the new ‘genius’ feature.

A friend had described it as ‘brilliant’, and then when she proceeded to explain that you activated it by sending Apple all the data from your itunes library and then it suggested music you might like to buy from the itunes store I was less convinced.

This reminded me of all the highly irritating prompts and suggestions that my Amazon account has become riddled with over the past couple of years. When I buy a Richard Scarry illustrated book for my godson or a Tales of the Night Garden toy for my two-year-old niece I am not making a statement about my purchasing choices from here on in. It is not a logical step to assume that every time I log on to Amazon from now on that I wish to purchase associated childrens’ toys, DVDs or CDs, and to find my recommendations page plastered with these alongside the latest Guillemots album is bizarre and frankly quite disturbing.

The Fear

I was fearful of enabling Genius and causing a similar effect to my ‘splash’ page on the itunes store. As you may have guessed by now (and if not you’ll soon realise) I am quite picky about the music I listen to and I don’t wish those high standards to be compromised. If, for instance, I love my wife so much that I’m prepared to download a Girls Aloud album for her from my itunes account (making darned sure it goes straight into her ring-fenced library only of course) I don’t want the whole world to know about it. What? Oh. Bother.

So, anyway, I was rather sceptical about the whole enterprise and although after Christmas my finger was poised over the genius logo button a couple of times, and I did click the ‘find out more’ section, I was still nervous about letting Apple have my library data. I have to admit, this was less to do with data protection and more to do with saving face. I would have been mortified if some data analyst geek somewhere assumed that the person who liked very cool bands like Interpol, Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire and Midlake was also a fan of Kelly Clarkson, Leona Lewis and (it pains me to even type this) Steps.

The Plunge

Eventually though, some time towards the end of January my curiosity got the better of me and I took the plunge. As I saw the library data chugging away into the ether I was sweaty-palmed and quite anxious, regretting what I had done, and anticipating a long list of recommended pop pap next time I hit the itunes store.

What happened next though was very interesting. The reason I had decided to bite the bullet was the intriguing prospect of genius concocting ‘instant’ playlists for me from a single song. So, I picked a song at random from my library, clicked the genius icon and waited. For about 3-5 seconds. And then there it was, so quick I almost missed it. A fully formed playlist of 25 songs, based on the one I’d chosen. The cynic in me insisted on trawling through each one of the 25 to find a quirk, a clear misfit that would make the application a dunce. I couldn’t find one. It was a really good playlist, and the ‘feel’ or ‘flavour’ of the songs were all a good match.

The Fluke

Obviously that was a fluke, so I had another go, choosing a favourite folk song ‘The Blooming Heather’ by Kate Rusby. ‘This’ll fox it’ I thought, but if anything, this playlist was even better: ranging from the traditional English folk of Kate Rusby and Seth Lakeman, to more modern quirky alt-folk artists such as Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart, via the latest singer/songwriter sensations such as Laura Marling and Emmy the Great with some classics such as John Martyn, Loudon Wainwright III and Fairport Convention thrown in for good measure. I listened to it regularly for the best part of a week, and it had taken genius around 6 seconds to compile!

Cutting a long story short (never a strong point of mine) I spent a delirious 5 minutes selecting songs from very different genres and being amazed and delighted by the results. I ended up with 15 really excellent playlists that would have taken me several days to put together myself.

The speed!

The best thing about genius for me is the speed, and the fact that it isn’t a perfectionist application: it doesn’t mind throwing things together. If I make a playlist I agonise for ages and invariably only pick the very best songs from a handful of groups I couldn’t be without. Genius is prepared to mix it up a little, and as a result I am suddenly hearing tracks for the first time that I might not have otherwise discovered in my collection.

I have well over 5000 songs in my library, and there are probably many hundreds of them I have not yet listened to: genius is helping me make my way through them, with a lot of delightful discoveries along the way.

On the downside, one or two songs did crop up a couple of times on different playlists, which is disappointing when I have only set my lists to contain 25 songs (you can also have 50, 75 or 100). I also discovered that, like all geniuses, it can be a little petulant at times. When trying to use ‘Le Toi Du Moi’ by Carla Bruni as the catalyst for a World Music playlist (as you do), genius was having none of it, insisting it couldn’t produce a list until I ‘updated’ my library data with Apple. It was the digital equivalent of “I don’t do foreign” accompanied by a sulky shrug.

However, I have to say that overall I am delighted with the feature and it puts a smile on my face every time it delivers a new list – I have only waded through about 5 of them so far. Perhaps best of all, you can actually refresh the playlist while it’s playing and it will choose another similar selection based on the original song. Now that’s clever, or some might say …….

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