More than one genre tag or keywords possible in iTunes?

[motulist]

Is it possible to assign more then one genre tag to a song in iTunes? Basically, I want to assign more then one genre to a song so I can browse by different keywords that the same song will fall under. For instance, I would want to tag a Mozart song as both +classical and +mellow so it would show up if I wanted to browse through my classical music or my mellow music.

The are a couple of ways I can think of that come close but have problems.

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Idea 1) Put these key words in the comments section and then use spotlight to look for them (which I assume it would do even though I am still on OS 10.3).

Problem 1) I'd have to manually write in the keywords for every song which would suck and be prone to spelling errors which would defeat the system

Problem 2) It would only work through iTunes and not on an ipod or any other system

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Idea 2) Use playlists for each keyword

Problem 1) Then I'd have a big unwieldy stack of playlists and I'd have to do a ton of drag and drops

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Does anyone have any better ideas?

 

[balamw]

Does anyone have any better ideas?

iTunes doesn't handle "multiples" very well. It would be really nice if duets were sorted according to each artist not just the duo. e.g. Simon and Grafunkel would appear under Paul Simon; Art Garfunkel and Simon & Garfunkel.

For your needs the "Grouping" field seems like a good place to put "mellow", then use a smart playlist.

B

 

[Keebler]

comments is the way to go

Is it possible to assign more then one genre tag to a song in iTunes? Basically, I want to assign more then one genre to a song so I can browse by different keywords that the same song will fall under. For instance, I would want to tag a Mozart song as both +classical and +mellow so it would show up if I wanted to browse through my classical music or my mellow music.

The are a couple of ways I can think of that come close but have problems.

_________________________________________________

Idea 1) Put these key words in the comments section and then use spotlight to look for them (which I assume it would do even though I am still on OS 10.3).

Problem 1) I'd have to manually write in the keywords for every song which would suck and be prone to spelling errors which would defeat the system

Problem 2) It would only work through iTunes and not on an ipod or any other system

_________________________________________________


Idea 2) Use playlists for each keyword

Problem 1) Then I'd have a big unwieldy stack of playlists and I'd have to do a ton of drag and drops

_________________________________________________


Does anyone have any better ideas?

it would be great for tunes to have a way to link more than 1 genre or anything for that matter.

that said, i use comments and then smart playlists like a madman it works

 

[kavika411]

I check on this topic/question every several months. Like you, I really want the ability to assign multiple genres. Unfortunately, the solutions listed above are about as good as it gets for now. I haven't tried the grouping trick yet, but I suspect it will only accept one grouping name, meaning that you are limited to one genre and one grouping; anything else, like you said, would have to be done in the comments, which flat out stinks.

I realize iTunes is free and that I shouldn't b*tch about something I get for free, but they do souch a good job with it that I don't understand why they won't fix this.

I want to see two significant improvements in the next iTunes update: (1) the ability to assign multiple genres, and (2) the integration of picture-friendly software, like the Delicious Library software.

 

[Bengt77]

Personally, I use multiple genre and grouping tags a lot. I just put a comma between the different values. Making a smart playlist from grouping keywords works great. Making smart playlists using genre values works pretty well, too. Say, you have a song to which you assigned the genre value Jazz, Dance. Then, when you set one smart playlists to contain the genre Jazz and another to contain the genre Dance, both playlists will include the song.

The only downside is, that browsing for multiple genres (both in iTunes and on the iPod) doesn't work yet. The song from the above example will display under the combined genre Jazz, Dance, and not under the two seperate genres (Jazz and Dance). So yes, that's a shame, but for me the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

Also, I use the grouping field in the same way. When I decided I wanted a smart playlist containing what I find to be the most beautiful songs in my library, I placed the keyword beauty in the grouping field for those songs. Later, as I were adding other smart playlists (containing either hits or good party music), more values became needed. Works entirely as advertised. It's great!