Entertainment For Lively Minds
iPod OCD or songs have feelings too you know
This troubles me, it doesn't keep me awake at night, but it definitely does bother me. I listen to my iPod in the car to and from work and more often than not the end of the journey does not coincide with the end of the song and this is when it starts, do I sit in the car for another 2 minutes or do I turn the iPod off thus leaving the nightmare scenario of getting back in the car later to find the unfinished song there with pleading eyes imploring me to press the back button and start again. That song has had it's chance and the next one is waiting for it's turn and why should it wait an extra 90 seconds? It taps it's fingers impatiently waiting but I can't just start the other song half way through can I? After what seems an eternity I press the back button and start the unfinished song again and find myself apologising to the next song in my head. What's that? Just me then and I should get a life, fair enough. Worse than that I left this half finished tonight and I know it is waiting on my iPod like a wife with a rolling pin daring me not to start it again, maybe I won't sleep tonight.
Human League "The Lebanon"
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You do make me chuckle Dave.
Personally, if I've got to get out the car in the middle of a particularly song, I like to rewind it to the start of the track, then immediately turn off the ignition. Thus, I am leaving Future Hannah a present of a truly excellent song to start the journey home.
Then, by the time I get back to the car, I've forgotten all about the "present", so I start up the car and am immediately greeted with some of my favourite noise. Always makes me smile.
(BTW Dave, hope all is well with you. xx)
The future Hannah
Is very lucky they have the present Hannah looking out for them:). I would do the same as you unless its on the radio then I would sit tight. Have been known to do this with articles on 5live with my children staring out of the window waiting for daddy to come in. One day the toddler started bellowing out of the letter box to get me in.
Yes!
A couple of points related to this:
Firstly, I'm incredibly OCD about my iTunes playcounts (I reset them at the beginning of every year, so by the end of the year, I have a complete chart of what I listened to most that year) but iTunes only counts a play if the song plays all the way to the very end. This means I have to stay and listen to every last second, even if there's a long, dull fade out at the end.
Secondly, on a side note, I had a ridiculous situation the other day whereby we were listening to my wife's iPhone in the car, and a song came on that we couldn't identify.
My wife's iPhone was still in her handbag (playing via bluetooth) so in order to identify the song, I used Shazam on MY iPhone to identify the song playing on my wife's iPhone, that, itself, was about 2 feet away from me.
Technology, eh?
On long journeys
my wife likes to DJ on the Ipod. But she never quite plays to the end of the track - she cues the next one as the previous one fades.
I sit and seethe in silence. One day, somewhere north of Newport Pagnell, I will suddenly scream YOU'RE MESSING UP MY PLAYCOUNTS! as I steer us through the central reservation.
I was worried I was the only one!
Often when I walk home I will get to the door halfway through a song, leaving me no alternative (in my mind) but to linger about the doorway for a couple of minutes before ringing the bell!
I just have to pray that my walk home never coincides with Tubular Bells coming up on shuffle.
Imagine if
Morton Feldman's String Quartet #2 came up just when you reached the door.
You'd have to wander around for more than 5 hours (it's in a single movement).
I can assure you
I'd be out of your car like a shot if you put "The Lebanon" by the Human League on. Doubtless should I play "Songs from the wood" you'd be the same. :-)
I can solve the problem
I will lend you my GLW. Among her sterling qualities, an appreciation of music doesn't figure. In the car, the radio/iPod will have one of two default settings: so low as to be inaudible or off. So I don't have any half-finished songs to worry me.
Wow...
...once again the Massive amazes me. I don't think I've ever even thought about the play counts on my iPod.
I'm the same
I too like tracks to finish before switching the iPod off.
I thought it was a bloke thing, but my (15 y.o.) daughter is even worse. She hates it if we start listening to an album on her iPod in the car and don't listen to the whole thing. ("But the early tracks will have higher play counts than the later ones, Dad!") She has even been known to listen to albums on shuffle to stop this happening.
I'm only like this with certain songs
There's no way I'm getting out of the car before the end of "I'm An Agent" or the extended version of "She Sells Sanctuary."
(I should point out that this has nothing to do with iPods or play counts)
I just turn the car off
and get out. The iPod will start at the same place next time. I don't mind that. In fact it's great for podcasts.
Play counts are not that important to me and I have got rid of Last FM because scrobbling wasn't adding any value to my life what so ever.
Oh me too.
I lost my playcounts recently and spent ten quid getting them back. Read the full thrilling story here:
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/atm-itunes-query-my-precious-play-...
May I ask...
...what difference it makes to you all? Not criticising, just genuinely curious why it makes the slightest difference if you have heard a song 45 times or 48 times?
The only way I ever use them is to see those with 0 plays, to either listen or delete, but I'm interested as to why one would sit in a car to ensure you don't skip or to play a whole LP so they equal play.
Ta.
I tend to favour
songs I've heard less. Every couple of months I'll strip the least played songs out of a playlist to start a new one. Other than that it's just a silly fascination that blokes have with statistics, especially league tables - as any conversation about sport will tell you.