It IS a Genius!

So I will admit I was a little slow to jump on the iPod/iTunes train. I know some people have been in LOVE with their iPod and the whole iTunes thing since they came out in full force about 5 or 6 years ago. They quit buying cds, immediately started buying everything on iTunes and never looked back. I was intrigued by a few friends having them and caved and got a mini in the summer of 2004- I think it was an 8GB. My mini served me well as a workout buddy and I even went so far as to have one of those iPod connector things installed in my car so it would play through normal speakers and charge while I was driving. Of course some of that was the result of having a brother with a serious car audio hobby, but all in all its very handy indeed!

Of course in time I filled up the 8GB on the mini and it became pretty much strictly used for working out. This was at about the same time that they started making iPod compatible everything and so I got a bigger iPod for Christmas. I think it was 2006 and at this time the smallest video one you could get was 80GB - big upgrade from the 8GB I was dealing with before! Now I was determined to upload more music and really use the thing. I even started buying more things on iTunes instead of on cds. I still feel kind of bad about this from time to time and do purchase some cds but for the most part I'm an iTunes girl now.

And now my very favorite part of iTunes is this new Genius feature! As I said before, I was slow to get into all this and therefore I never really paid attention whenever my software had an available update. One day though I decided to go for it and here was this handy little Genius feature. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time and just went about my way. Then my brother got an iPhone and he was just raving about this Genius thing so I tried it out the other night. Its A-mazing!

If you're not familiar with this feature I highly recommend it. All you do is pick one song in your library, push the Genius icon and it automatically generates a playlist of songs in your library that will go well with that song. The first song I happened to pick was "Be Here Now" by Ray LaMontagne and the Genius created a fantastic playlist in moments!

The folks at Apple think one of the best things about the feature is that it "helps you discover songs in your library you never knew you had — and rediscover forgotten favorites". I really got to listen to the playlist based off of "Be Here Now" while working on a project at work today and I found myself checking my iPod several times to see just what song was playing. I had so many good things on there that I had forgotten about or just did not realize I had downloaded!

Some of the things Genius picked for me were:

"23" by Jimmy Eat World

"See the World" by Gomez

"On The Radio" by Regina Spektor

"So Here We Are" by Bloc Party

"Breathe In" by Frou Frou

"Somewhere a Clock is Ticking" by Snow Patrol

"I Feel It All" by Feist

"Heartbeats" by Jose Gonzalez

I can't wait to see what it gives me when I put in some Britney or NKOTB for a fun road trip or girls weekend or maybe some Kanye West and Fergie for a great workout mix. I realize I am probably really behind on the times with this and that most of you have been enjoying this great feature for months but if you're like me and haven't checked it out yet - please do, it will not disappoint!

Maybe you could make a great playlist for this weekend??? Hope its a good one!