Artist – Song – Album

• The Killers – Bones – Sam’s Town
  
• Sean Lennon – Bathtub – Into the Sun

This song was rather fitting considering that I was taking a shower (standing in the bathtub) while it was playing

• tobyMac – Ill-M-I – Welcome To Diverse City

TobyMac’s new CD came out yesterday. I tried to snag it at Wal-Mart this morning on the way to work but they didn’t have it. Wal-Mart used to be the place for buying new releases from Christian artists but no more. At least not the one that’s near work. It’s on the outer edge of the hood. They specialize in edited R&B/Hip-Hop and Latino music. Lots of Latino music.

• The Click Five – Lies – Greetings From Imrie House
• Madonna – Let It Will Be – Confessions On A Dance Floor
• Sam Cooke – Cupid – The Man Who Invented Soul
• Lupe Fiasco – Trials And Tribulations – Food And Liquor
• india.arie – There’s Hope – Testimony, Vol. 1: Life & Relationship
• Stars – Elevator Love Letter – Heart
• Wilco - Jesus, Etc. – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
• Imogen Heap – The Walk – Speak For Yourself
• Janet Jackson – Velvet Rope – Velvet Rope
• Pigeon John – The Grand Ol’ Waltz – Pigeon John Sings The Blues

This is refreshing. You don’t hear many songs in popular music today with a 3/4 time signature. Most everything is in 4/4 time. I had flashbacks to beginner band in 8th grade and piano lessons when we first learned about counting time. 1-2-3, 1-2-3. 3 beats to a measure. 1-2-3, 1-2-3. My non-accelerator foot and fingers just naturally started tapping to the beat while driving. I couldn’t help it. It was engrained in me through years of musical training.

• Cake – No Phone – Pressure Chief
• Hoobastank – Don’t Tell Me – Every Man For Himself
• Janet Jackson – janet – Where Are you Now

Very eclectic mix today. I made a tweak to my linked smart playlist system over the weekend. It’s made for a vast improvement in the song selection on my radio playlists. That in turn is leading to more songs in the list that I want to hear and less skips. I’ve been using this system for about a year. It’s really improved my ipod listening experience. Over that time I’ve come across a flaw in the system based upon how the logic is set up. The method of linking the playlists is designed to move new songs into the playlist automatically. The problem is when I skip a song it stays in the playlist instead of cycling out. So I’d end up with some new songs on the playlist each day (or every few days depending on how often I update) and a bunch of songs I didn’t want to hear or didn’t feel like hearing at that time languishing there for days or weeks. I got tired of skipping the same songs each day.

The advent of skip counts in iTunes 7.10 was the answer to my problem. I added a toggle to my exclusion playlist to exclude any track skipped in the last 2 weeks. With that in place any track I skip today or whenever is banished to exclusion temporarily. That way I’m getting a larger group of fresh songs populated to the playlist each day when I sync. The system is more efficient at cycling in new songs to replace ones that have already been played or skipped that day now. That translates into a more enjoyable listening experience for me and less battery drain for Gordo Negro (a.k.a The Black Ninja) since I’m not having to skip every few songs.