Genius of Love

Since my recent post about the crisis I was having with mixes actually got people talking, I've decided to write yet another post on the subject. This time it involves the new iTunes Genius function. I'm currently listening to the first playlist generated using this tool and I don't know how I feel about it.

Obviously the technicians at Apple have written code that considers several factors and creates an equation that pumps out a list of related tunes. It's all ones and zeroes in the end, right? Digitally recorded music is audio frequencies turned in bits of binary code that are organized and arranged into easily reproducible packages of information. This part doesn't cause any problems for me because that's also a similar process that electric instruments do (sort of... the analogy I'm making between the two processes is that noise we hear is mediated by a variety process that change it. I think Marshall MuLuhan famous phrase "the medium is the message").

Okay, that last paragraph rambled a bit and slightly off topic. I'm trying to hard to sound serious. Let's try again.

I kind of like the genius function because it allows me to listen to variety of music that somehow goes together. While setting my iPod on shuffle has it's advantages*, there are sometimes when I just want to listen to specific songs/genre. On a pure practical level it works really well.

HOWEVER, I worry about the kids. How are future generations of girls supposed know that the boy she liked (or doesn't) spent hours and hours working on that perfect mix that expresses everything he wanted to say to her but didn't have the guts? There's doubt. How can love be created on a foundation of doubt**. At least if he burns it to a CD she'll know he spent the 2 bucks to make it a physical object.

Then again, do teenage girls think about this stuff? Isn't that a staple of stereotype of teenage girls; they over analysis everything. Or is that the domain of their thirty-something counterparts?

Am I now going to get hate mail from women everywhere?

These are questions I don't know the answers to. I do, however, know that people will continue to express romantic and non-romantic feelings using other people's art.

*I've been doing that all week and I've heard some stuff that I wouldn't have usually made a point of listening to. I was happy about the fact that I was able to recognize 90% of songs with a statement like "this sounds a lot like [insert artist's name]" and being right or close.
**I realize that mixes don't make people fall in love, but I did just see Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist a couple of weeks ago and that seemed like one of the messages of the movie.