Make Easy, Themed iTunes Playlists with The Filter

At current count I have 5,748 songs in my iTunes music library, and that's nothing compared to some people. My library comprises a mere 22GB of space. Imagine those poor saps who are filling their 80GB iPods with 20,000 or more songs.

After a certain number of songs, picking out what you want to play becomes extremely daunting. Kind of the same problem as having 150 TV channels and nothing to watch.

Enter The Filter, a free add-on for iTunes that makes it easy to find music along themes you select. No need to pick 100 songs by hand. Instead, just snag 5 or 10 tunes that you like and tell The Filter to extend the playlist to 30, 50, or more. The Filter analyzes your library to find music that ought to sound like it's in the same genre, from the same era, and/or has other similar qualities.

I tried it with a few short playlists and found the system to work remarkably well. First I picked 10 classical numbers and expanded the playlist to 50. The Filter didn't miss a beat, and all were appropriate to the genre. Then I tried something trickier: I fed it 10 rock songs with female vocalists to see if The Filter would give me 40 more of the same. Surprisingly, it almost did: Only 4 had dudes behind the mic.

The Filter is a free download for PC only (a Mac version is on the way). And again, it only works with iTunes. Give it a spin and see if you aren't rediscovering your old music with gleeful abandon, and making that Saturday night party mix much less painful.