32 Flavors of Whine

You can probably tell that I’ve reached that point in the semester when assignments have piled up and I have fallen behind enough to make blogging (along with other things) a guilt-ridden and restless activity.  Still, I have a fear that if I don’t post anything before December begins, I just might never post again.  Sure, this may be as irrational as my fear of squirrels, but I’d rather not prove nor disprove that theory, and instead I'll go ahead and throw something into the cosmic space of the internet before November officially comes to a close.

I must confess, I don’t have an album to listen to with you this time around.   It’s not that I haven’t been listening to albums lately, but I haven’t been paying them the attention they deserve.  Still, there's something I want to acknowledge that has recently affected my listening experience.

About a month ago I complained about iTunes’ rating system, and how it would not allow me to rate albums separately from the songs that are a part of them. It seems things have changed with iTunes 9.0.2., and my only possible explanation is that I have a reader with enormous power sway in the world of my favorite digital media manager.  Then again, maybe I just spoke too soon.

There are actually a number of features in the new iTunes update that make for an even fuller listening of albums.  First of all, they have brought back the option of viewing your songs in the context of their particular album by simply clicking a side-arrow which displays the artwork of the cover.   A clean single line separates songs on one album from those on another.   It’s beautiful.

And now for the best part:  Under the visible album cover is a number of stars (out of five) that do not necessarily match the average of the album’s individual song ratings.  It does rather courteously offer you in fuzzy grey stars, a suggested rating that is based on an average.   However, if you choose a greater or lesser number of stars, there are no complaints or consequences of any kind.  And vice versa(!):  If I rate an album before rating individual songs, iTunes will suggest the album’s number of stars for any unrated track in grey.  How thoughtful!

Finally, 9.0.2. has also added an Artist scroll bar directly to the left of the Artwork pop-out display tab. This fabulous feature allows us to browse our artists without moving away from a particular track that we’re listening to or working with, or creating extra playlists to do this work for you. Not to mention, searching multiple albums of one particular artist has become that much easier.

So there you have it.  I take a great amount of pleasure in eating my words.  Thanks to iTunes for listening to my advice and offering their best update yet! 

Peace out,

Danice

…Someday you are going to get hungry, and eat most of the words you just said…
- Ani DiFranco