Understanding Playlists

Simply put, playlists are custom collections of songs that you create or that iTunes creates for you based on criteria you define. After a playlist has been created, you can listen to it, put it on a CD, move it to your iPod, share it over a network, and more.

note

In the Source list, the playlist icon is a blue box with a musical note in its center (see Figure 18.1). A smart playlist has a purple box with a gear inside it (see Figure 18.2). Smart playlists are grouped nearer the top of the Source pane, while standard playlists remain toward the bottom.

Figure 18.1. Here is a standard playlist that contains a wide variety of tunes from an assortment of artists.

Figure 18.2. On the surface, a smart playlist doesn't look all that different from a playlist, but when you take a closer look, you will see that a smart playlist lives up to its name.

There are two kinds of playlists: standard playlists and smart playlists.

The Standard-But-Very-Useful Playlist

A standard playlist (which I'll sometimes call just a playlist from here on) is a set of songs you define manually. You put the specific songs you want in a playlist and do what you will with them. You can include the same song multiple times, mix and match songs from many CDs, put songs in any order you choose, and basically control every aspect of that music collection (see Figure 18.1).

Playlists are useful for creating CDs or making specific music to which you might want to listen available at the click of the mouse. With a playlist, you can determine exactly which songs are included and the order in which those songs play. Playlists are also easy to create and they never change over time unless you purposefully change them, of course.

caution

Creating smart playlists depends on your music being properly tagged with information, such as genre, artist, song names, and so on. Sometimes music you add to your Library, such as by MP3 files that are stored on your hard drive, won't have all this information. Before you get going with smart playlists, make sure you have your music properly labeled and categorized. Chapter 17, "Labeling, Categorizing, and Configuring Your Music," explains how you do this.

The Extra-Special Smart Playlist

A smart playlist is smart because you don't put songs in it manually. Instead, you tell iTunes which kind of songs you want included in it by the attributes of that music, such as genre or artist, and iTunes picks those songs for you (see Figure 18.2). For example, you can create a playlist based on a specific genre, such as Jazz, that you have listened to in the past few days. You can also tell iTunes how many songs to include.

The really cool thing is that smart playlists can be dynamic, meaning the songs they contain are updated over time based on criteria you define. As you add, listen to, or change your music, the contents of a smart playlist can change to match those changes; this happens in real time so the songs included in a smart playlist can change, too. Imagine you have a smart playlist that tells iTunes to include all the music you have in the Jazz genre that is performed by Kenny G, the Pat Metheny Group, Joe Sample, and Larry Carlton. If you make this a "live" smart playlist, iTunes will automatically add any new music from any of the artists to it as you add that music to your Library. The content of a live smart playlist changes over time, depending on the criteria it contains.

note

Whether it's a standard playlist or a smart playlist, the playlist is the starting point for some iTunes activities such as burning a CD. And much of the time, a playlist makes listening to specific music easy and fast.