iPod Search/play music by release date?

[wonderbread57]

I would really like to be able to search for music by release date. That is, what DAY the album/single was released by the label. Does iTunes have any way of letting you do this?

Alternatively, does anyone know of a music service (like last.fm/pandora) that allows you to stream by recentcy? There is so much great stuff that comes out each day, I'd really like to be able to browse that collection and make picks of what I'd like to purchase by release date.

 

[c-Row]

Right now, the only possible way seems to be adding your own info to the comments tag, like "Release:1996-08-29". That way, you could do a search for the year, then the month and finally the day without too much hassle.

Until now, to my best knowledge iTunes doesn't support user-created tags, so this might be your best option. I'd like to see some new tags like album release date for compilations whose tracks weren't released the same year as the compilation itself. Oh, and iPhoto-like tags, but I rambled about them quite regularly.

 

[Jolly Jimmy]

Itunes doesn't have an option for this, but you can do it manually if you're up to it. It took me a while to find a way that works well enough and a fair bit of searching the nets for all the dates, but I can now search my library by release date. Bear in mind that this method scraps the standard alphabetical album sorting that iTunes imposes, and that it may need some (or lots of) tweaking to suit one's personal needs.

In the "Sort Album" field I entered the info the following way :

Band name / Type / YYYY-MM-DD

The type is the kind of release so A(lbum), C(ompilation), EP ,L(ive), S(ingle).

Any additional info such as the disc number I added at the end.

Here's an example : Supergrass' first album "I Should Coco"

 

[wonderbread57]

@Jolly Jimmy: I assume you have tagged your library with dates your self. Any tips on comprehensive release date sources (non nefarious)?

I sure would pay a pretty penny to get the opportunity to listen to a whole days worth of releases, at least for for a 24 or 48 hour period. C'mmon Apple, or someone, come through with this service.

 

[Jolly Jimmy]

I found most of the dates on wikipedia and the rest by googling. It took some time to get everything right, but at least this way my iTunes library is sorted the same way as the CD's on my shelf (Artist alphabetically > release date).