I finally got around to playing with the iTunes Genius feature last night.  Basically, you pick a song from your library, Apple then recommends new music from their store which will go good with it.  I mostly ignore this part, because it mostly recommends music I already own, although I may not have purchased it from the iTunes store.  Click the genius button, and it will suggest a playlist of 25, 50, 75 or 100 songs from your library.  You can save that playlist or refresh it a couple times to see if there aren’t other matches.

Most of the time I got some really good songs that I may not have put together myself.  As far as I can tell, the “Genius” makes it’s matches from “similar artists,” “year song was released,” “beats per minute,” and “genre.”  “Jersey Girl” by Tom Waits gave me everything from Springsteen’s “Nebraska” to “Romeo’s Tune” by Steve Forbert to “Stuck Between Stations” by The Hold Steady to “Not Fade Away” by The Crickets.  Those feel right.  But it also gave me “Angel From Montgomery” by Bonne Raitt/John Prine, “Handbags and Gladrags” by Rod Stewart, and “Tumbling Dice” by the Stones.  And Dylan…lots of Bob Dylan.  So maybe there’s a “Gravel In Their Voice” category in the database that doesn’t show on the front end.

I basically like Genius.  I’m lazy.  When I try to make playlists myself, I over-think my way into complete paralysis.  I’m not completely in synch with the Genius, but it does give me a good starting point.

The initial setup takes some time, so before you download it and set it up, understand that depending on the size of your collection, you’re probably going to need at least an hour.  And Apple will read your entire library before it sends a copy of that list to itself.  If you’re afraid of Apple knowing what’s in your library, you’re not going to choose to do this.  Personally, I bought and paid for all of my music, not all from iTunes, but it’s all bought and paid for so I don’t much care if they know or not.