iTunes OCD

When I am home, I always have music playing - via iTunes - through our home stereo. I utilize iTunes DJ to get a decent mix, but I am a little crazy and particular about the order in which songs are played.

I decided a few years ago I wanted to make sure I listen to every song in my Music Library, so I took steps to make that happen. This is how I organized the listening experience:

Goal 1: Listen to every song (11,000+) in iTunes Music Library.
-Step 1: Make sure the Play Count column is showing in the iTunes DJ window.
-Step 2: Using iTunes DJ, pull songs from the general Music Library and allow for 50 upcoming songs.
-Step 3: When a new song loads into the bottom of iTunes DJ, make sure it is a song that has never been played. If the song has been played previously, delete it from the playlist and see what comes up next.
-Step 4: If a song plays that you do not like and will probably never listen to again, delete it from your Music Library entirely. (That's right, the concept of an album just went out the window.*)
-Step 4: Repeat Step 3 until the Play Count on all songs in Music Library is 1 or greater.

After I completed Goal 1, I needed a new project. Because Goal 1 spanned a year or so and some songs were listened to as far back as 2005, I decided to tackle the songs by year. Hence, Goal 2.

Goal 2: Listen to every song in 200_, starting with the oldest year.
-Step 1: See Step 1 from Goal 1
-Step 2: Make sure the Last Played column is showing in the iTunes DJ window.
-Step 3: Go into Music Library window and arrange all songs by Last Played. Highlight all songs from whatever year you are working on and make that into a playlist, naming it the year in question.
-Step 4: In iTunes DJ, change your Source to songs from the just-made playlist.
-Step 5: As songs are played in iTunes DJ, delete them from the playlist so you can keep track of what has been listened to.
-Step 6: Repeat Steps 1-5 for subsequent years.

I currently have 3,803 songs left to listen to from 2008. That's 10 days, 7 hours, 3 minutes and 9 seconds, but we'll see how long it actually takes. After that, who knows...

What about you? Any unique music arranging habits?

*I do honor some entire albums even if I don't like a song, but I'm sorry - I don't like every song on Bleach, nor do I feel the need to keep every one of those songs in my Library if I'm never going to listen to them. But that's me. You might be different.