For a long time Apple Music (nee iTunes) offered an option called “Genius Playlist”. You selected a track from your collection, and Apple generated a playlist of 25 titles that were somehow related to the seed track. I had 15 or 20 of these. It was my own personal radio station. One without ads or an annoying DJ talking over the intro or outro of a song.
I’m not sure when Genius Playlists were eliminated from Music, but I miss that option. So I set out to make my own. Once upon a time fifteen or more years ago, I remember reading an article where someone created a set of smart playlists that categorized tracks, and then a master playlist that used those category lists as its input.
What I have create are four category smart playlists:
I also scrolled through the list of tracks and ticked the “favorite” star on several hundred tracks that I particularly like.
Never Played: Tracks that are favorites, and have a play count of zero.
Not Played in 90 Days: Tracks that are favorites, and that haven’t been played in the last 90 days, but have a non-zero play count.
Not Recently Played: Tracks that are favorites, that have been played less than 90 days ago, but more than 15 days ago.
Recently Played: Tracks that are favorites, that have been played in the past 14 days.
Each of these category lists is limited to 50 tracks are are selected randomly.
The master list draws from all four category lists. Where the category lists AND all the rules together-Favorite AND never played-the master list ORs the rules-Playlist is Never Played OR Playlist is Not Played in 90 Days OR ….
The master list is also set to only 25 tracks, randomly selected.
I understand that the Never Played playlist will eventually run dry. And I’m not completely satisfied with using date ranges for the rest of the lists. What would work better, but requires considerable work, would be to rate tracks from 1 to 5 stars, and build lists around ratings and play frequency. A long term project.