First off, I’d like to apologize for disappearing for the past . . . three or four weeks, I think. While school and soccer are the conspirating culprits, I’m not entirely free of blame, myself. I don’t promise to update weekly like I was before school, but I’ll try to at least post once a month until soccer ends from now on.

Moving on to the main point of today’s post, I’m re-posting some mp3s that I’ve gotten requests for.

Tano (aka Vince, according to the email field) requested Nuyorican Soul – “I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun” – MTV Weekender CD 2: Chill Out and, as promised, up it re-goes.

Also, Joe asked for Party Ben – Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs Company B – “Fascinated by Gold”, and it is now up again, as well.

As a note, the filehost I was previously using sort of went belly-up, or at least no longer offers near the same amount of space, so I’m in the market, as it were, for a free filehosting service of 150+ mb if possible. Please comment and/or email any suggestions.

In case you can’t tell by my tone, soccer’s kicking my ass right now and I’m barely awake.

EDIT: Was going to post this a while ago, but my filehost died and I couldn’t re-upload the zip. I’ve found an interim solution, and here’s the post:

Sorry for the lack of a real update. I had the religion mp3s selected, but hadn’t uploaded them yet, and now it’s too late b/c school started. So rather than sitting here at midnight and posting 50-odd mp3s, I’m posting one zip file: the same one that was up before. For those who missed it before, here’s the link (http://z15.zupload.com/file.php?filepath=30536), and the track list:

arty fufkin – “crazy logic” = [gnarls barkley - crazy] vs [supertramp - logical song] vs [the who - go to the mirror boy] vs [rockwell - somebody’s watching].mp3
Party Ben – Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs Company B – Fascinated by Gold.mp3
Party Ben – Clash Killers (The Killers vs The Clash) – Somebody Rock Me.mp3
Team 9 – The White Stripes vs N.E.R.D. – she wants to twist.mp3
Team 9 – The Killers – somebody told me (team9 remix).mp3
Team 9 – Beck vs Michael Jackson vs ACDC – screaming pro.mp3
Team 9 – Gnarls Barkley vs The Purple One – crazy times.mp3
Team 9 – Hard-Fi vs Red Hot Chili Peppers vs The Flying Lizards vs ABBA vs Jay-Z – the money song.mp3
Team 9 – arctic monkeys vs team 9 – kick me out (version 9).mp3
Party Ben – Daft Queen (Daft Punk vs Queen) – Another One Bites Da Funk.mp3
The Legion of Doom – Gnarls Barkley vs Raconteurs – Crazy As She Goes.mp3
DJ Payroll – Amerie vs Modest Mouse – One Thing 2 Float On.mp3
ArcticMonkeys-Remixed.com – Arctic Manuvas (Arctic Monkeys vs Roots Manuva) – Witness The Curtains Closing.mp3
ArcticMonkeys-Remixed.com – Arctic Monkeys vs The Kaiser Chiefs (Performed by the Cheshire Chord Company) – I Predict That You’d Look Good In A Riot.mp3
ArcticMonkeys-Remixed.com – Arctic Monkeys vs The Killers – Scumbody Told Me.mp3
Bavor – The Beatles vs Shaggy – Let It Be Me.mp3
? – The Beatles vs Sublime – Lady Madonna Is What I Got (Version 2).mp3
Go Home Productions – The Beatles vs The Monkees – Paperback Believer.mp3
Party Ben – Death Cab for Maddy (Death Cab for Cutie vs Madonna) – Hung Up on Soul.mp3
mcsleazy – Franzie Boys (Franz Ferdinand vs The Beastie Boys) – Triple Take (mcsleazy bootleg).mp3
Party Ben – Gorilla Cake (Gorillaz vs Cake) – Never Feel Good.mp3
Party Ben – Green Day vs Oasis vs Travis vs Aerosmith vs Eminem – Boulevard of Broken Songs.mp3
mcsleazy – Kelis vs Kasabian – Get I.D. (mcsleazy bootleg).mp3
DJMonsterMo – Madonna vs M.I.A. – UR Hung Up.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – My 1st Song.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Public Service Announcement.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – What More Can I Say.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Encore.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – December 4th.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – 99 Problems.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Dirt Off Your Shoulder.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Moment of Clarity.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Change Clothes.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Allure.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Justify My Thug.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Interlude.mp3
My! Gay! Husband! – Modest Mouse vs M.I.A. – Unknown.mp3
? – Pink Floyd vs Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out of the Wall.mp3
Team 9 – Team 9 vs White Stripes vs Jay-Z vs Queen – The Doorbell Encore.mp3
DJ Booty Von Dralle – Pink vs Electric Light Orchestra – Don’t Start Me Down (2005 Booty Von Dralle Mix).mp3
Go Home Productions – Temptations vs Coldplay – Papa Was A Clock.mp3
loo & placido – The Black Beatles (The Beatles vs Ludacris & The Black Eyed Peas) – The Black Beatles.mp3
Party Ben – The Clash vs Gwen Stefani – Radio Hollaback.mp3
Party Ben – White Stripes vs Eric B & Rakim – Pump Up the Doorbell.mp3
Party Ben – Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs Green Day vs Oasis vs Love & Rockets vs Samantha Fox – Golden Boulevard.mp3

alwaysBETA, a great site with all sorts of random articles (their button is on my blogroll) recently put up an article detailing the installation of rockbox, an alternative non-linux based os, to one’s ipod. It’s pretty involved, but as long as you follow the fairly straight-forward directions you should be fine. Basically, with rockbox, you add about 25 games, including Doom, Bejewled, Snood, PACMAN, Snake, Snake 2, Tetris, Asteroids, and a whole bunch of others; as well as support for OGG and FLAC files and a kick-ass list of user-creatable themes to replace that same old apple interface you’ve gotten bored with, many of which support a “next song” feature so you can peak ahead on your shuffle, for example. Unfortunately for some, this only works with ipods that are 4th gen or newer. I tried it on my ipod video (5g) and it worked like a charm. I’m still deciding on what theme to use, and there’s a crapload of functionality I need to wrap my head around before I can use it effectively, but it’s still pretty damn cool.

Basically, you have to install the iPodLinux Loader2 bootloader, then install Rockbox and set it up to automatically detect your mp3s via ID3 tags instead of via file system since Apple screws with the filenames on your iPod. Then you can install a theme, play a game, run a search, or one of literally hundreds of other available actions, all on your iPod. Here’s the link.

So, as you might’ve noticed, I didn’t get a chance to fix those broken links like I said. The reason is that some idiots from verizon cut the power to the whole neighborhood while doing something down the road. As a result, I had no power all day yesterday, and no internet until a few hours ago. However, as promised, here are the links for the mp3s from yesterday (I found out that the reason the links failed was that the host I’m using ran out of space, so the quick fix is to delete the “Love” tracks in addition to the Mash-Ups. A potential long-term solution would be to open additional accounts, but that’ll be a ways away – at least ’til the end of soccer season, most likely.):

David Bowie – “Diamond Dogs” – Changesbowie
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Enya – “Silver Inches” – A Day Without Rain
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Hawthorne Heights – “Silver Bullet” – The Silence In Black And White
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Jay-Z – “Diamond is Forever” – Blueprint 2 The Gift And The Curse
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Kanye West – “Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix) (Feat. Jay-Z)” – Late Registration
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Kanye West – “Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Bonus Track)” – Late Registration

Enjoy. Next week’s theme will be “Religion”. I have 57 tracks lined up, with more to come, though I’ll probably narrow it down to 40ish when all’s said and done.

Note: mp3s more than a week old will be deleted. If I’ve deleted an mp3 that you really really want, just send me an email at singingxduckATgmailDOTcom with a request, and I’ll send you the mp3.

It’s that time again, and as the title reads, today’s post is centered around money. However, since soccer preseason has started since my last post, I don’t have time to rustle up a full playlist, like I’ve done in the past. So here’s your 1-CD “money” mix (reviews and maybe (no time to do reviews thanks to soccer) more music to come later):

Dave Matthews Band – “Pay For What You Get” – Under The Table And Dreaming
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The Dresden Dolls – “Coin-Operated Boy” – The Dresden Dolls
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Enya – “Once You Had Gold” – The Memory of Trees
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Fountains of Wayne – “Bright Future In Sales” – Welcome Interstate Managers
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Hard-Fi – “Cash Machine” – Stars of CCTV
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Team 9 – Hard-Fi vs RHCP vs The Flying Lizards vs ABBA vs Jay-Z – “The Money Song”
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Head Automatica – “Million Dollar Decision” – Popaganda
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Nickelback – “Money Bought” – Silver Side Up
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Josie And The Pussycats – “Money (That’s What I Want)” – Josie & The Pussycats OST
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Panic! At The Disco – “London Beckoned Songs About Money Written By Machines” – A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out
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Pink Floyd – “Money” – Dark Side Of The Moon
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Rosie Thomas – “Sell All My Things” – Only With Laughter Can You Win
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Straylight Run – “Dignity And Money” – Straylight Run
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Nuyorican Soul – “I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun” – MTV Weekender CD 2: Chill Out
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Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Gold Lion” – Show Your Bones
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Party Ben – Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs Company B – “Fascinated by Gold”
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Party Ben – Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs Green Day vs Oasis vs Love & Rockets vs Samantha Fox – “Golden Boulevard”
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Yellowcard – “Life Of A Salesman” – Ocean Avenue

As always, comment w/ any corrections, suggestions for ordering the songs, or whatever you feel like.

[EDIT] A few more songs, potentially still more to come later tonight:

A.F.I. – “Silver And Cold” – Sing The Sorrow
.
David Bowie – “Diamond Dogs” – Changesbowie
.
Enya – “Silver Inches” – A Day Without Rain
.
Hawthorne Heights – “Silver Bullet” – The Silence In Black And White
.
Jay-Z – “Diamond is Forever” – Blueprint 2 The Gift And The Curse
.
Kanye West – “Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix) (Feat. Jay-Z)” – Late Registration
.
Kanye West – “Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Bonus Track)” – Late Registration

Enjoy. [/EDIT]

[EDIT #2] Had a slight problem with the second batch of mp3s, the links will be available tomorrow. Sorry guys. [/EDIT]

[EDIT #3] Here are some more mp3s with links that actually work. Don’t worry, I’ll be able to fix the other ones tomorrow.

Beastie Boys – “The Skills To Pay The Bills” – The Sounds of Science
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The Beatles – “Can’t Buy Me Love” – One
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David Guetta – “Money” – ?
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Disturbed – “Avarice” – Ten Thousand Fists
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The Donnas – “The Gold Medal” – Gold Medal
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Pink – “I Got Money Now” – I’m Not Dead
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The Polyphonic Spree – “Diamonds” – The Polyphonic Spree

Enjoy for real this time. [/EDIT]

[EDIT #4] Okay, see the new post for the correct links and an explanation of why they took so long. [/EDIT]

In light of the relative dearth of mash-ups in relation to music in general, and my music in particular, I’ve decided that from now on, Mondays will bring sexy mp3s, but not necessarily sexy mash-ups. So without further ado, I give you this Monday’s tried and true theme: Love. Note: not all Mondays will be themed.

Down to 43 songs from 148, so enjoy, damnit. (Another beneficial side effect of the change is that I can afford to consistently post a shitload of music w/o running out of new material for a looong long time (4,000+ songs in my library). Also, note that while these tracks are in alphabetical order by artist (except for craig armstrong, spiller, kylie minogue, and sean paul because they’re under “various artists” in my library), that is the only order they’re in. This is by no means a mix tape, and I didn’t try to make the songs flow at all, just match a fairly common theme. So feel free to arrange in whichever order you feel appropriate and/or comment on said order. So much for no further ado. For real this time:
.
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Anna Nalick – “Forever Love (Digame)” – Wreck of the Day: soft beginning, beautiful voice, good beat kicks in a few seconds in
Buy
.
Arctic Monkeys – “Love Machine” – Live BBC Session; Girls Aloud Cover: as usual, sounds like they’re having a great time. fast and wonderfully british.
Buy
.
Astaire – “L-L-Love” – Don’t Whisper Lies (EP); they have since renamed themselves “blondfire”: simply an amazing song. begins with some sensuous sounds to suck you in, and never lets go. synth guitar or something like that kicks in almost immediately, followed by snare. then comes the amazing voice. apparently Don’t Whisper Lies was a self-recorded album, which makes it all the more amazing. a brother sister duo band that really pulls it off.
Buy
.
Audio Bullys – “I’m in Love” – Generation: like most Audio Bullys songs, very techno and very british. in my opinion, not as good as their perhaps more famous “We Don’t Care”, but still damn good.
Buy
.
Björk – “All Is Full of Love” – Homogenic: although she doesn’t actually start singing until around the :45 mark, once she starts it’s classic Björk. shiver-inducing, soaring, sliding, slippery, classic Björk. the instrumental portion is pretty cool, too.
Buy
.
Blue Man Group – “I Feel Love” – The Complex; Featuring Venus Hum: with The Complex, Blue Man Group basically just recruited a different amazingly talented singer for each song and played their usual fare – insane percussion – behind the particular singer whose work was currently on display. again, a wonderful voice – reaches the high notes effortlessly. nowhere near the ease with which Björk slides through songs, but then, this is more of a rock feel.
Buy
.
Bon Jovi – “Without Love” – Slippery When Wet: starts with some late eighties/early nineties upbeat instrumentation with a strong beat underneath, and it’s Bon Jovi’s usual recognizable voice. the lyrics are a bit repetitive, but definitely not a “background music” song.
Buy
.
Cake – “Love You Madly” – Comfort Eagle: holy hell I love Cake. seriously. one of the most unique and wonderful bands in existence. for those not in the know, trumpet, guitar, drums and various percussion instruments behind a completely unique voice. at times vaguely rap-like, at times just spoken word, at times following a catchy tune, but always fucking addictive. and the trumpets are just so perfect. anyway, like all their songs, the instrumentation is flawless and the lyrics are smart.
Buy
.
Daft Punk – “Digital Love” – Discovery: another band I just adore. Daft Punk has to be heard to be believed. it’s techno slash electronica slash pop slash who the hell knows. like every single one of their non-instrumental tracks, amazingly catchy, with a beat that holds on. yes, some of their tracks are entirely “instrumental” (i’m 90% sure it’s all synth, or at least all computer-edited), but even those tracks are amazing for what they are; they even transcend Jean-Michelle Jarre’s wonderful work, though to be fair he’s in a completely different category. anyway, while the music is to die for, they have a shitload of animated music videos which are must-see. just really cool, completely-matches-the-music type animation.
Buy
.
The Darkness – “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” – Permission to Land: while there can be no excuse for the music video to this one, The Darkness is unbelievable. the lead singer hits ridiculously high notes – AND SOUNDS GOOD – while the band rocks underneath. makes you palpably aware of how frustratingly limited your own range is. but so fun to listen to. did i mention the guitar is fucking ridiculous, too? well, it is.
Buy
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Dave Matthews Band – “Lover Lay Down” – Underneath The Table And Dreaming: probably the closest to “background music” of any of these, but it’s really just the usual Dave Matthews Band chill, lazy day style. both the instrumentation and his voice are nice to listen to. definitely a relaxing track. the lyrics are probably a bit depressing, but it’s not a song you listen to just for the lyrics, so it doesn’t matter.
Buy
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David Guetta – “Just A Little More Love” – Just A Little More Love: starts with catchy vocals that build up with back-up vocals and some nice electronics in the back ground and a few seconds in he holds a note forever and it’s amazing. like most David Guetta songs, there’s a lot going on in the form of percussion and synth. Personally, I like “Love, Don’t Let Me Go” better, but I don’t have the mp3 handy, so that’s for another day. the lyrics are a mite repetitive, but the pulse of the song means you don’t really notice.
Buy
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Death Cab for Cutie – “All Is Full of Love” – Stability EP: the standard ethereal vocals and wonderful instrumentation with amazing lyrics. probably not one of the better known songs, since Death Cab for Cutie only became really popular with Transatlanticism and Plans, and Stability EP was both before and an EP. this also isn’t their best song, but it’s still good.
Buy
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Dion & The Belmonts – “Teenager In Love” – Teenager In Love: definitely an oldie. so, if you like oldies, great, but if you don’t, maybe not so much. i personally love oldies, so this is great for me. obviously, the singing is amazing, with vocalizing back-ups underneath a smooth lead and an unobtrusive band. it’s also damn catchy for an oldie.
Buy
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Don McLean – “And I Love You So” – The Best of Don McLean [EMI]: another song that doesn’t reach out and grab you, but hardly background music. like all of Don McLean’s songs, it’s soulful and almost painful in it’s intensity. the vocals are smooth, the lyrics are poignant, and the package is perfectly executed. in case you didn’t know, Don McLean is an 80s/early 90s singer, but he’s definitely not the rock of that era. sort of like Cat Stevens, except not as irritating, because Cat Stevens can definitely get on your nerves after a few plays, while Don McLean just soothes. he also sings “American Pie” which is much more famous (you know, “bye bye miss american pie, drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry . . . “).
Buy
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Enigma – “Principles of Lust: Sadeness/Find Love/Sadeness (Reprise)” – MCMXC A.D.: amazing. hellishly long, but simply amazing. begins with gregorian chants over top of an awesome beat and some nice synth stuff. some of what sounds like a wind flute in there, too. Enigma is really good and really unique. I’ll just let you listen to it.
Buy
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Fall Out Boy – “It’s Not A Side Effect of the Cocaine, I Am Thinking It Must Be Love” – My Heart Will Always Be The B-Side To My Tongue: since the album is obviously one of b-sides, this is an acoustic track and therefore lacks some of the kick of most fall-out boy songs, but the lyrics are still wonderful, and fans of Fall Out Boy will recognize the voice and realize the talent behind it even more. it’s also quite short.
Buy
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Fountains of Wayne – “Peace And Love” – Welcome Interstate Managers: a “groovy” song. completely unlike their more famous “Stacy’s Mom”. it’s easy to relax listening to this song, and in that sense it might be considered background music, but it deserves more than that. the vocals are catchy without being overly pop-ish.
Buy
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Frou Frou – “It’s Good To Be In Love” – Details: you have no idea. seriously. Frou Frou is effing ridiculous. brilliant vocals – sheer poetry – and an inhumanly perfect voice. Frou Frou is composed of Imogen Heap (who has another song in this collection b/c she went solo after producing Details) and Guy Sigsworth, who no one’s heard of but has worked with literally everybody in the music business – from Madonna to Björk. amazing electronica.
Buy
.
Hawthorne Heights – “Ohio Is For Lovers” – The Silence In Black And White: standard Hawthorne Heights, but probably one of their more melodic and less screamo tracks. the lyrics are pretty good, and the tune is pretty catchy. not amazing, but still pretty good. if it weren’t for the sea of similar sounding bands, this would probably be better.
Buy
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Honeydrippers – “Sea of Love” – The Honeydrippers, Vol. 1: another oldie but goodie. some pretty cool vocalizing in the background and, as with the other oldie, great vocals and an unobtrusive band.
Buy
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Imogen Heap – “I Am In Love With You” – Speak For Yourself: like I said before, I adore Imogen Heap both for her vocals and for her lyrics. her solo album conveys better her style than Details, I think. lots of cool effects with layered vocals. awesome awesome awesome.
Buy
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Interpol – “Length of Love” – Antics: cool vocals – vaguely Killers-esque except less urgency – and a good band behind it. not much to say, except check out Interpol if you’re looking for a new band that won’t take over your life but will still be pretty good.
Buy
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Jimmy Eat World – “The World You Love” – Futures: like most Jimmy Eat World – cool lyrics, awesome vocals, good band behind it. somewhat calmer than their more popular work (“Pain”, for example), but still head-nodding-inducing.
Buy
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(can you tell I’m starting to get bored of writing these descriptions?)
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Kelly Clarkson – “Before Your Love” – Thankful: though this is pretty reminiscent of her American Idol stuff, and EXTREMELY pop, it’s not that bad to listen to and hints at some of her better, more recent songs (like “Since U Been Gone”, though I hate the intentional awkward spelling). obviously, soaring vocals and pretty textbook piano, etc. in the background.
Buy
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Liz Phair – “Love/Hate” – Liz Phair: this song can definitely become irritating very quickly, probably b/c it’s so repetitive, and her voice kind of rubs me the wrong way. also very pop. not that that’s a bad thing, but there you go.
Buy
.
Madonna – “Love Profusion” – American Life: you also have to be in the right mood for this song, just because too much Madonna can be a bad thing. I mostly included this b/c a) it’s Madonna, and b) well, it’s Madonna. not one of my favorite songs, but it’s not bad, either.
Buy
.
Maroon 5 – “She Will Be Loved” – Songs About Jane: okay, I know Maroon 5 was ridiculously overplayed when it was popular and now has faded a bit, but they have some damn good songs, they just were played too often. I forewent the more obvious “This Love” because it’s even more overplayed than “She Will Be Loved”, and I don’t like it as much anyway. the lyrics tell a sad story, and the vocals are appropriate to it. the band doesn’t suck, and neither does the song.
Buy
.
Matchbook Romance – “Lovers And Liars” – Stories & Alibis: Matchbook Romance is a vaguely Fall Out Boy-ish band with less “clever” lyrics and more rock feel. I love the lyrics anyway and love the vocals. the guitar and drums behind are damn good, too.
Buy
.
Michelle Branch – “I’d Rather Be In Love” – The Spirit Room: Michelle Branch has an amazing voice that actually sounds real, not like all the ethereal beauty of some other singers. her lyrics are good, too; and when you consider she wrote this song at age 14!, it’s flipping amazing. just a beautiful track.
Buy
.
The Raveonettes – “Love In A Trashcan” – Pretty In Black: The Raveonettes aren’t really uber-famous, but they have some damn catchy songs, and this is one of them. the lyrics are strong, and the delivery is languidly head-bobbing. the tune sounds like you’ve heard it somewhere before and you probably have without knowing it.
Buy
.
Relient K – “In Love With The 80’s (Pink Tux To The Prom)” – Two Lefts Don’t Make A Right…But Three Do: Relient K is a Christian Rock Band, but they’re a lot more versatile than that usually connotes. their lyrics are funny and catchy as a rule, and their singing is infectious. this song is upbeat and definitely sing-along-able.
Buy
.
Rooney – “That Girl Has Love” – Rooney: this whole album is surprisingly good for the fairly unknown status of Rooney. their most famous song is “Blueside”, and it’s similar to this, but this one is a little calmer. the lyrics are good, and I like the lead singer’s voice, but this is just a little too easygoing to be one of my faves. Rooney’s still a fine band, though, so check them out.
Buy
.
Soft Cell – “Tainted Love” – Tainted Love: everyone knows this song. it’s insanely catchy and sweeps you away in a whirlstorm of beats, little sounds, and a repeating chorus that burns itself into your brain. apparently this is a remake of a Gloria Jones song, but no one remembers it as anything but theirs. Marylin Manson also remade it later on, and I think that one’s just a bit cooler b/c it’s more synth, but this is still the most popular and well-known version.
Buy
.
StellaStarr* – “Love And Longing” – Harmonies for the Haunted: the name makes it sound like it should be an all-girl band, but the lead singer is male, and only the back-up singer is female. I’m of two minds on this song. the lead singer’s control is a little lacking, but that’s partially the style of the song, and makes it easier to sing along, etc. there’s a great repetitive vocal bit that goes “won’t you stay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay; i’m drowning in the rain, darling say the words and i will stay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay” and sounds amazing (not just one note). the lyrics are heartfelt and the singer delivers them well. the band is also pretty damn good, too.
Buy
.
The Strokes – “Between Love & Hate” – Room On Fire: similar sound to most of the other songs on the album, great vocals and a good beat/guitar to back it up. sounds a bit like Kings of Leon, too.
Buy
.
The Thrills – “Your Love Is Like Las Vegas” – So Much For The City: The Thrills are another amazing unknown band. love the vocals, a more than strong backing from the band. apparently an Irish band, but you wouldn’t know it from their lack of accent. really cool song.
Buy
.
Craig Armstrong – “This Love” – MTV Weekender CD 2 (Chill Out); listed as “Various Artists” in my library, hence the breaking of alphabetical order: Craig Armstrong is actually the name of the composer (he’s Scottish) – he’s done all sorts of work for orchestras and movie scores as well as electronica (which this is an example of). the singer’s name is Elizabeth Fraser and she’s done work for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack and used to be part of Cocteau Twins as their lead singer. this song is really low-key and smooth, and like most of the songs on the MTV Weekender set (a European release), is by people no one here has heard of.
Buy
.
Spiller – “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)” – MTV Weekender CD 4 (Dance); see previous song: starts immediately with a hispanic beat (maracas and drums) and is pretty damn catchy the whole way through. (Cristiano) Spiller’s the name of the DJ (a well-known Italian DJ), the song itself is sung by Sophie Ellis Bextor, another European well-known who has a relatively small following in the US.
Buy
.
Kylie Minogue – “Love At First Sight” – Now That’s What I Call Music 7; see previous song. also, note that this is NOT the american version. not sure where it’s from, but the US version has different songs: very pop, with a slightly electronica background, sounds like something custom made for a dance-hall. ie very catchy but if you’re not in the right mood for it very headache-inducing.
Buy
.
Sean Paul – “I’m Still In Love With You” – Totally Hits 2004; Featuring Sasha: standard Sean Paul – incomprehensible lyrics with a vaguely reggae feel, Sasha has a pretty nice voice. I mostly included this to widen the genre of songs I had here. not one of my favorite songs, but Sean Paul is just good enough as a curiousity to keep my attention.
Buy
.
Westlife – “Why Do I Love You?” – World Of Our Own: okay, technically this is the Euro equivalent of *Nsync or the Backstreet Boys, but they’re a lot more vocally smooth and less canned pop. Westlife is a European boy-band, but they sound a lot more mature than their US counterparts, and are a whole helluva lot more succesful considering that they’re a) still in existence, unlike any US versions, and b) 4th behind Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Cliff Richard for most number one singles in the UK (they have 13) and they hold a number of other records as well. this is standard fare for them – soaring instrumental background and perfect vocals with decent lyrics and a damn catchy chorus.
Buy
.
White Stripes – “Fell In Love With A Girl” – White Blood Cells: aha! the last song! i’m pretty sure everyone’s heard this song, too. fast and strong, good guitar and better vocals. a little faster than most White Stripes songs, but twice as catchy as some of them. definitely check out White Stripes if you’ve never heard them before and/or like this one. they’re also well-known for “The Hardest Button to Button”, “Seven Nation Army”, and “Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground”.
Buy
.
.
A-be a-be a-be a-that’s all folks!

P.S. – leave a comment if one of these songs is linked to the wrong URL. there were a lot of them and I might’ve messed one of ‘em up.

Lifehacker just posted a second article about Yes.com, mentioning the first one, which I missed. Basically, if you hear a song on the radio and want to know more about it without the mess of googling the lyrics, go to yes.com, put in the radio station’s call letters if you know them, or your zip code if you don’t (you’ll have to choose from the available radio stations for your area), and click on the handy “24 hour look-up” link. Scroll through the songs for when you heard it, and voila, you have the artist and song name. Pretty exciting stuff.

UPDATE 2-2-08: Well, I’ve had another request to re-upload the file. Unfortunately, I’m currently at school with my laptop, and the file in question is on my desktop back home. Now, I’ll be visiting home next weekend, so I should be able to re-upload it then.

Rather be two days early than five days late. Besides, I’ve got a lot more than I will on most mondays (45, count ‘em, 45 exciting tracks!).

Here’s a (EDIT: fixed!) link to a zip with a crapload of mash-ups. (Or copy and paste the following into your address bar: http://tinyurl.com/nmyh8) EDIT as of 10/13/07: the file can now be found at http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=67bvbvt3w7c

And the track list:

arty fufkin – “crazy logic” = gnarls barkley – crazy vs supertramp – logical song vs the who – go to the mirror boy vs rockwell – somebody’s watching.mp3
Party Ben – Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs Company B – Fascinated by Gold.mp3
Party Ben – Clash Killers (The Killers vs The Clash) – Somebody Rock Me.mp3
Team 9 – The White Stripes vs N.E.R.D. – she wants to twist.mp3
Team 9 – The Killers – somebody told me (team9 remix).mp3
Team 9 – Beck vs Michael Jackson vs ACDC – screaming pro.mp3
Team 9 – Gnarls Barkley vs The Purple One – crazy times.mp3
Team 9 – Hard-Fi vs Red Hot Chili Peppers vs The Flying Lizards vs ABBA vs Jay-Z – the money song.mp3
Team 9 – arctic monkeys vs team 9 – kick me out (version 9).mp3
Party Ben – Daft Queen (Daft Punk vs Queen) – Another One Bites Da Funk.mp3
The Legion of Doom – Gnalrs Berkley vs Raconteurs – Crazy As She Goes.mp3
DJ Payroll – Amerie vs Modest Mouse – One Thing 2 Float On.mp3
ArcticMonkeys-Remixed.com – Arctic Manuvas (Arctic Monkeys vs Roots Manuva) – Witness The Curtains Closing.mp3
ArcticMonkeys-Remixed.com – Arctic Monkeys vs The Kaiser Chiefs (Performed by the Cheshire Chord Company) – I Predict That You’d Look Good In A Riot.mp3
ArcticMonkeys-Remixed.com – Arctic Monkeys vs The Killers – Scumbody Told Me.mp3
Bavor – The Beatles vs Shaggy – Let It Be Me.mp3
? – The Beatles vs Sublime – Lady Madonna Is What I Got (Version 2).mp3
Go Home Productions – The Beatles vs The Monkees – Paperback Believer.mp3
Party Ben – Death Cab for Maddy (Death Cab for Cutie vs Madonna) – Hung Up on Soul.mp3
mcsleazy – Franzie Boys (Franz Ferdinand vs The Beastie Boys) – Triple Take (mcsleazy bootleg).mp3
Party Ben – Gorilla Cake (Gorillaz vs Cake) – Never Feel Good.mp3
Party Ben – Green Day vs Oasis vs Travis vs Aerosmith vs Eminem – Boulevard of Broken Songs.mp3
mcsleazy – Kelis vs Kasabian – Get I.D. (mcsleazy bootleg).mp3
DJMonsterMo – Madonna vs M.I.A. – UR Hung Up.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – My 1st Song.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Public Service Announcement.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – What More Can I Say.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Encore.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – December 4th.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – 99 Problems.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Dirt Off Your Shoulder.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Moment of Clarity.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Change Clothes.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Allure.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Justify My Thug.mp3
Jay-Z + DJ Dangermouse – Interlude.mp3
My! Gay! Husband! – Modest Mouse vs M.I.A. – Unknown.mp3
? – Pink Floyd vs Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out of the Wall.mp3
Team 9 – Team 9 vs White Stripes vs Jay-Z vs Queen – The Doorbell Encore.mp3
DJ Booty Von Dralle – Pink vs Electric Light Orchestra – Don’t Start Me Down (2005 Booty Von Dralle Mix).mp3
Go Home Productions – Temptations vs Coldplay – Papa Was A Clock.mp3
loo & placido – The Black Beatles (The Beatles vs Ludacris & The Black Eyed Peas) – The Black Beatles.mp3
Party Ben – The Clash vs Gwen Stefani – Radio Hollaback.mp3
Party Ben – White Stripes vs Eric B & Rakim – Pump Up the Doorbell.mp3
Party Ben – Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs Green Day vs Oasis vs Love & Rockets vs Samantha Fox – Golden Boulevard.mp3

P.S. – if you know who made “Take Me Out of the Wall” and/or “Lady Madonna is What I Got” and/or *you* made one or both, please let me know and I’ll update the credit.

Situation: You just heard an amazing song on the TV, say in the background of a commercial, or on your favorite show, and you manage to catch a few odd words, but not the name of the band or the song. Here’s how you find it and get the song.

1. The first step is to identify the song.

I usually google the name of the show, if you heard it on a show, or the product if it was a commercial, and the words you remember from the song. For example, let’s say you heard that song in the background of the Budweiser select commercial. Something about “don’t hold back”? Sometimes even googling ["budweiser select" song] will be specific enough, as it is in this case: the first two results both mention “Galvanize”, but searching for ["budweiser select" "don't hold back"] yields an affirmation that “Galvanize” is, indeed the name of the song, and clicking through to any of the search results will reveal that the song is Edit: a remix of a Q-Tip song (thanks Dan) by “The Chemical Brothers”. At this point, you can proceed to the next step.

2. Making sure it’s the right song.

In other words, finding any source that has this song – streaming, or w/e. At this point, we’re just verifying, we don’t actually need the mp3 yet. For this, we turn to www.singingfish.com. Since we just want to make sure we have the right song, search for “Audio & Video” of “Any Length” with all the format and category checkboxes filled. The search terms are the song name in quotes, or, if it’s common, the name of the band in quotes. Since “Galvanize” isn’t a very common song name, we don’t need to bother searching for the band name, but if we were looking for a more common song name, we’d need to search for “Chemical Brothers” and look for galvanize among the results (notice I left out “the”, since sometimes “the chemical brothers” are referred to as just “chemical brothers”, and searching for “chemical brothers” will match both “chemical brothers” and “the chemical brothers”). As I said, we’ll just search for Galvanize this time; we don’t need quotes since the name of the song is only one word (quotes around a search term means “find the words between the quotes exactly as they appear” – the difference between “chemical brothers” and chemical brothers can be a large one, but there’s no difference between “galvanize” and galvanize). Once you’re satisfied that you’ve found the correct song, it’s time to . . .

3. Find a downloadable version of the song.

There are several methods I use for this:

www.singingfish.com with “audio only”, “>3 minutes”, and only “mp3″ checked;
www.altavista.com with “> 1 minute” and only “mp3″ and “wav” checked (others may result in streaming files)
—search for the song name in quotes
—search for the band name in quotes and find the song in the results
www.google.com
—search for ["index of" mp3 -html -htm] and the song name in quotes
—search for ["index of" mp3 -html -htm] and the band name in quotes, looking for the right song in the results
—search for the band name in quotes and [torrent], assuming you have a bittorrent client (BitTorrent, Azureus, and uTorrent are popular clients)
—search for the song name in quotes and [torrent], assuming the same
www.mininova.org,
www.isohunt.com,
www.thepiratebay.org,
www.bittorrent.com
—assuming you have a bittorrent client, search for the band name (no quotes necessary)
—assuming same, search for the song name and be prepared to sift through a lot of irrelevant crap to find it

when all else fails, check the following four sources:

the band’s official website (find via google) and the “media” or “downloads” section
any fan sites of the band (again, find via google)
the band’s purevolume website, if they have one, and if any of their songs there are available for download
the band’s myspace, if they have one, and if any of their songs are available for download

If none of these methods bear fruit, ask your friendly neighborhood google guru to find it for you.

Alternatively, if you have a program that can record speaker output, say Audacity, and have a lot of time on your hands, whole new worlds are open to you. You could sign up for the “25 free plays per month” plan with Rhapsody (which offers 25 streaming songs for free each month). You could search in “Winamp Music” under “Online Media” in Winamp, or even “Winamp Videos”, since you’re only recording the audio anyway. You can record any of the streaming music you found via singingfish or altavista. Songs on the band’s website which aren’t available for download can nevertheless be recorded. Granted, the quality won’t be as good, but it’s better than nothing.

Happy hunting.

that’s hot.

All right, the other day I posted a tutorial on manipulating the iTunes COM with Python to give you better searching capabilities than iTunes does natively, and how to make a playlist with the resulting tracks. Since then, I’ve managed to change the code a bit because there were a couple of places where it wasn’t working correctly before (eg including duplicate tracks) and some features I felt were missing. So let’s see the changes, shall we?

def union(l1, l2):
    pl1 = [i.GetITObjectIDs() for i in l1]
    pl2 = [i.GetITObjectIDs() for i in l2]
    pl3 = sorted(list(set(pl1+pl2)),
                 key=lambda x: list(pl1+pl2).index(x))
    return [list(l1+l2)[i] for i in
            [list(pl1+pl2).index(x) for x in pl3]]

def andnot(l1, l2):
    pl1 = [i.GetITObjectIDs() for i in l1]
    pl2 = [i.GetITObjectIDs() for i in l2]
    pl3 = [i for i in pl1 if i not in pl2]
    pl3 = sorted(list(set(pl3)),
                 key=lambda x: pl3.index(x))
    return [l1[i] for i in [pl1.index(x) for x in pl3]]

def intersect(l1, l2):
    pl1 = [i.GetITObjectIDs() for i in l1]
    pl2 = [i.GetITObjectIDs() for i in l2]
    pl3 = [i for i in pl1 if i in pl2]
    pl3 = sorted(list(set(pl3)),
                 key=lambda x: pl3.index(x))
    return [l1[i] for i in [pl1.index(x) for x in pl3]]

def difference(l1, l2):
    pl1 = [i.GetITObjectIDs() for i in l1]
    pl2 = [i.GetITObjectIDs() for i in l2]
    pl3 = [[i for i in pl1 if i not in pl2],
           [i for i in pl2 if i not in pl1]]
    pl3 = [sorted(list(set(pl3[0])),
                  key=lambda x: pl3[0].index(x)),
           sorted(list(set(pl3[1])),
                  key=lambda x: pl3[1].index(x))]
    return [l1[i] for i in
            [pl1.index(x) for x in pl3[0]]] +
           [l2[i] for i in
            [pl2.index(x) for x in pl3[1]]]

Okay, before I talked about how with “OR”, all you had to do was add the two lists together, but that sometimes means duplicates, so I wrote a union function to fix that. Let’s take a look. Like the other functions, it takes in two lists/IITTrackCollections and makes parallel lists containing the IDs of the tracks, this time. Next, it makes a set of the two lists together. However, since sets are unordered, when making pl3 a list again, it sorts it by the index of each track in the combined list, returning it to the correct order. Then it performs the same last step as the others, returning a list which contains the corresponding tracks to the IDs in pl3.

The only change to intersect and difference is a similar fix to pl3. In addition to the previous construction of pl3, I’ve added the same sorting of the list resulting of the set made from pl3.

I also added an andnot function to allow the “not” operator – ie find tracks that match one query, but not another.

Also, as you can see, the duplicates are removed via track ID instead of name, now, so that multiple songs with the same name by different artist, for example, aren’t weeded out.

In addition, I changed custompl to allow for searching not limited to the default searches. For example, you can now search within the year of a track, or its comment, or even the genre or date added, assuming you know the correct format (the field for date added, for example, is “DateAdded” – all the possible fields can be found in the help file for the iTunes COM).

def extend(alist, element):
    alist.extend(element)
    return alist

def custompl(quer1, logic, quer2):
    res = []
    temp = [quer1,quer2]
    if len(quer1) == 3:
        if len(quer2) == 3:
            return dic[logic](custompl(*quer1),
                              custompl(*quer2))
        res.append(custompl(*quer1))
        temp.remove(quer1)
    elif len(quer2) == 3:
        res.append(custompl(*quer2))
        temp.remove(quer2)
    for query in temp:
        srchstr, field = query
        if field == "Playlist":
            res = res+[reduce(extend,extend(res[0:0],
                      [list(pl.Tracks)
                          for pl in source.Playlists
                              if srchstr in pl.Name]))]
        elif field in dic:
            res.append(list(library.Search(srchstr,
                dic[field])))
        else:
            try:
                res.append([track
                    for track in library.Tracks
                        if srchstr in eval(
                            "track.%s"%field)])
            except TypeError:
                res.append([track
                    for track in library.Tracks
                        if srchstr in repr(
                            eval("track.%s"%field))])
            except AttributeError:
                __import__("sys").stderr.write("ValueError"+
                    ": Sorry, can't find %s field to search
                    "in.\n"%field)
    return dic[logic](res[0],res[1])

As you can see, instead of just checking for “Playlist” as a field, custompl now also checks if the field is in the dictionary, and if it’s not, tries to find it by accessing it with eval. AGAIN, THIS SHOULD NOT BE ATTEMPTED UNLESS YOU TRUST YOUR END USER. For example, by making the following function call, “bad” gets written to your stdout; and with a few modifications, all sorts of havoc can be wreaked: customplaylist((" ", '__setattr__("Name",__import__("sys").stdout.write("bad"))' )) (Note that this doesn’t actually change the name of any tracks, but rather raises an error after writing to the stdout.) Alternatively, you could make a dictionary with all the possible fields to search in and check if the field is in that dictionary and work through it that way to avoid eval.

In any case, first we try to see if the search string is in the field, then, if the field isn’t a string (eg the DateAdded field, which is a time instance), we see if the search string is in Python’s representation of the field ('<PyTime:4/17/2006 12:05:32 AM>' for a sample DateAdded, for example). At some point I’d like to see if I can make it possible to specify whether you want exact pattern matching for each query, ie if srchstr == eval(...) or if srchstr == repr(eval(...)). Anyway, if the field isn’t available, we write the error code to stderr without stopping the program.

You’ll notice that I changed the treatment of playlists a bit. This is because the previous method only kept the tracks in the first playlist found. This way, all the tracks from all the matching playlists are added together, then that list is added to res. The way I acheived this is by taking an empty list (res[0:0]), and using reduce to extend it by the list of tracks from each matching playlist. Then, I added the current res to it, making sure we didn’t lose the tracks already in it. Since we add [reduce(...)], it keeps all the tracks from this query in a separate list, like it should. The way reduce works is to apply the first parameter (a function) to the elements of the second one in twos. For example, reduce(operator.add,range(10)) is the equivalent of (((((((((0+1)+2)+3)+4)+5)+6)+7)+8)+9). So our code is the equivalent of extend(extend(extend(res[0:0],tracklist1),
tracklist2),tracklist3) etc. So we contain that in a list ([reduce(...)]) and add res to it to get the new res.

I also modified the main function to allow for single query searches:

def customplaylist(querylist,title=None):
    pls = []
    if type(querylist) is str:
        querylist = (eval(
            querylist.replace(" XOR ",", 'X',"
                     ).replace(" AND ",", '+',"
                     ).replace(" OR ",", '|',"
                     ).replace('" in "',"', '"
                     ).replace('"',"'"
                     ).replace(" AND NOT ",", '+!',")))
    if len(querylist) != 1:
        querylist = [querylist]
    try:
        pls.extend(custompl(*querylist[0]))
    except TypeError:
        res = []
        srchstr, field = querylist[0]
        if field == "Playlist":
            res.extend(reduce(extend,
                extend(res[0:0],
                    [list(pl.Tracks)
                        for pl in source.Playlists
                            if srchstr in pl.Name])))
        elif field in dic:
            res.extend(list(library.Search(srchstr,
                dic[field])))
        else:
            try:
                res.extend([track
                    for track in library.Tracks
                        if srchstr in repr(
                            eval("track.%s"%field)
                                           )])
            except TypeError:
                res.extend([track
                    for track in library.Tracks
                        if srchstr == repr(
                            eval("track.%s"%field)
                                           )])
            except AttributeError:
               __import__("sys").stderr.write("ValueError"+
               ": Sorry, can't find %s field to search in."+
               "\n"%field)
        pls.extend(res)
    plname = str(querylist).replace(", 'X',"," XOR "
                          ).replace(", '+',"," AND "
                          ).replace(", '|',"," OR "
                          ).replace("', '","' in '"
                          ).replace("[",""
                          ).replace("]",""
                          ).replace(", '+!',"," AND NOT")
    cpl = win32com.client.CastTo(
              iTunes.CreatePlaylist(title or plname),
              'IITUserPlaylist')
    for track in pls:
        cpl.AddTrack(track)

We first try to send querylist to custompl, but if there’s only one query, it’ll raise a TypeError, which we catch; and then we proceed to copy the code from custompl, slightly modified. The only difference is that, since there’s only one query, we don’t need the crap at the beginning of custompl, nor do we need as much fancy footwork to make res have two elements, one from each side. We just extend res by all the tracks found.

Finally, we just need to update dic, and we’re on our way.

dic = {"All":0,"Visible":1,"Artist":2,"Album":3,
       "Composer":4,"Name":5,"+":intersect,
       "|":union,"X":difference,"+!":andnot}

All right. Head over here to get my updated full code.

A blow-by-blow breakdown of how to use the iTunes COM to search for and make playlists out of songs that meet specific criteria through Python (much more complex than the native iTunes search capabilities). I’ll be doing the step-through in a rather legible, but not very line-efficient method; also, I’d like to apologize in advance for the horrible formatting – the columns in this theme have a fixed size, so text just gets cut off if it’s too long; my actual final script is available here (rename the resulting file to .py instead of .py.txt): custompl.py. If you want to look without downloading, it’s also up here.

If you don’t have the iTunes SDK, get it here. If you don’t have Python, or don’t know what it is, check here (Wikipedia entry) and here (Python’s official homepage).

If you already know what you’re doing with Python, skip to the code below. Once you have Python installed, fire up your favorite IDE, or just use IDLE, the one Python’s bundled with, and start typing. If you use IDLE, it will be an interactive prompt, so while you can see the results of what you do immediately, you can’t very easily save what you do directly from the prompt. Instead, you should go to File -> New Window and save the blank page as “<insert script name here>.py”. This will highlight everything for you the same way the interactive prompt will. I suggest doing both – experimenting with the prompt, then saving what works – but you can do it either way.

import win32com.client
iTunes = win32com.client.gencache.EnsureDispatch(
         "iTunes.Application")

Okay, first thing we have to do is import win32com.client, so that we can access the iTunes COM. Next, we connect to iTunes, using win32com.client’s gencache.EnsureDispatch so that we don’t get the funky behavior that Dispatch can sometimes cause.

source = iTunes.LibrarySource
library = iTunes.LibraryPlaylist

All right, now we have the iTunes source (contains all the playlists) and the main Library playlist. Now, if you want to search for songs using the iTunes COM, you have to specify which fields to search in as well as the search string (this is documented in the help file that comes with the iTunes SDK). So what we’re going to do is make a dictionary that will convert the string parameter of which field to search in into a number that iTunes can understand:

field_dict = {"All":0,"Visible":1,"Artist":2,
              "Album":3,"Composer":4,"Name":5}

We’ll worry about searching in playlist names later. Basically, the default choices available for searching iTunes are All fields, all Visible fields, Artist, Album, Composer, or Name of the song. All right, time to get down to some actual searching – just one query at a time to start with (we’ll add multiple searches at once later, and smart titling at the same time):

custom_playlist = iTunes.CreatePlaylist("untitled")
custom_playlist = win32com.client.CastTo(custom_playlist,
                                         'IITUserPlaylist')
query = "Imogen Heap"
field = "Artist"
results = library.Search(query, field_dict[field]))

All right, first we used iTunes to create an untitled playlist. Now, unfortunately, the default when creating a playlist this way, for some reason, doesn’t give you access to all the methods that the documentation suggests. So you have to use win32com.client.CastTo to, well, cast the result to a proper iTunes IITUserPlaylist (documented, again, in the help file). Next we can perform the search and start populating the playlist. Okay, so we searched the library for any tracks whose artist is Imogen Heap – a freakishly good singer, by the way – she used to be part of a band called Frou Frou before going solo . . . Coming back to the code, all we have left to do is populate the playlist we made with the tracks we found.

for track in tracks:
    custom_playlist.AddTrack(track)

And that’s it. Those are the basics. To be able to use multiple queries, quite a few additions to the above basics need to be made. We’ll start with adding logical operators – because there’s nothing more irritating than having a program assume you want all of the conditions to be met when there’s a specific order to which you want and which you can do without:

field_dict = {"All":0,"Visible":1,"Artist":2,"Album":3,
              "Composer":4,"Name":5,"+":intersect,
              "|":__import__("operator").add,"X":difference}

First thing we have to do is update the dictionary to allow for the logical operators: “+” for AND, “|” for OR, “X” for XOR. For those not familiar with logical operators, AND, appropriately enough, requires the fulfillment of both conditions (a AND b), OR requires one or the other or both, and XOR (aka exclusive or) requires one or the other but not both. Now, this may still seem a bit odd as there are no “intersect” or “difference” functions yet, and what’s this business with __import__? Well, we’ll work backwards. The expression __import__("operator").add is roughly equivalent to operator.add, once operator has been imported. I say roughly because __import__ doesn’t permanently import its parameter, it merely allows one to access the method of a class not in the present namespace. Anyway, by putting this reference to operator.add in field_dict, we can achieve the following: field_dict["|"](a,b) will produce the same as a+b. Now, just to be perfectly clear, this is NOT the same as field_dict["+"](a,b). I’m talking about putting a+b in the interactive prompt; actually adding them together. There’s a reason for this, which I’ll explain in due time. First, to define intersect and difference:

def intersect(tracks1, tracks2):
    names1 = [i.Name for i in tracks1]
    names2 = [i.Name for i in tracks2]
    names3 = [i for i in names1 if i in names2]
    return [tracks1[i] for i in
              [names1.index(x) for x in names3]]

def difference(tracks1, tracks2):
    names1 = [i.Name for i in l1]
    names2 = [i.Name for i in l2]
    names3 = [[i for i in names1 if i not in names2],
              [i for i in names2 if i not in names1]]
    return [tracks1[i] for i in
              [names1.index(x) for x in names3[0]]]+
           [tracks2[i] for i in
              [names2.index(x) for x in names3[1]]]

Well, well. This is confusing indeed. Let’s take a look at intersect first. This is meant to mirror the intersect method of the built in set class. There are two parameters: each a list of tracks or an IITTrackCollection, composed of IITTracks. Each IITTrack has a Name attribute, so the first thing we do is make some parallel lists containing the Names of the tracks in the arguments. Once these have been made, we make a list of tracks which are in both. Then, we make and return a list of the actual tracks (as opposed to just the Names) which are represented by the Names in the list we just made. Simple enough, right?

Okay, now we get to the really confusing bit. Again, this is meant to mirror the set method of the same name. The parameters are the same as in the previous function, as is the next step. Once we have two lists of Names which correspond to the provided lists, we make a third list which has two elements. The first is a list of all the Names in the first Names list which don’t appear in the second, and the second element is the reverse. With this in hand, we proceed to perform the same step as in the last function – using the Names we want to refer back to the original IITTracks. The only difference is that, since this time we have two lists to refer from (names3[0] and names3[1]), we have to collect the IITTracks from both and add them together. All right, now we can get to the fun part: parsing user input.

def customplaylist(querylist,title=None):
    pls = []
    if type(querylist) is str:
        querylist = (eval(querylist.replace(" XOR ",", 'X',"
                                  ).replace(" AND ",", '+',"
                                  ).replace(" OR ",", '|',"
                                  ).replace('" in "',"', '"
                                  ).replace('"',"'")))
    if len(querylist) != 1:
        querylist = [querylist]
    pls.extend(custompl(*querylist[0]))
    plname = str(querylist).replace(", 'X',"," XOR "
                          ).replace(", '+',"," AND "
                          ).replace(", '|',"," OR "
                          ).replace("', '","' in '"
                          ).replace("[",""
                          ).replace("]","")
    cpl = win32com.client.CastTo(
              iTunes.CreatePlaylist(title or plname),
              'IITUserPlaylist')
    for track in pls:
        cpl.AddTrack(track)

Okay, one thing at a time. Some of this should look familiar, since we’ve used some of the pieces before. First off, we take in a list of queries, which should look vaguely like this: ("<search string>", "<field>") or '"<search string>" in "<field>"'. The queries will be interspersed with logical operators where necessary. To see a working example of a call to customplaylist, look at the bottom of the final code, which is available by clicking on the link at the top of this post.

The second parameter is a title, should the user want to name the playlist something other than the string form of querylist, which tends to look like '(("Toasty" in "Playlist") XOR ("Something" in "Artist")) AND (("Sum" in "Playlist") OR ("Killer" in "Album"))', which is the “smart titling” I was talking about before. (Another of the features of the final product is that the search acts like an iTunes search, providing matches of “All Killer, No Filler”, say, for the search string of “Killer”. This means the user gets to be all kinds of lazy when searching.)

Our next step is to create an empty list, which will eventually hold the IITTracks we want to populate our playlist with. What follows that is an ugly way to parse the string version of querylist: you replace all the human legible stuff with the Python equivalent where it needs to be, then eval it so it’s a list and not a string. There are hundreds of rants and essays about this everywhere, so I’ll just put a small word in here. DO NOT USE THIS TECHNIQUE IF YOU DON’T TRUST THE END USER ON YOUR COMPUTER. eval has the potential to do a lot of damage to your computer in the hands of the right, or rather, wrong, person. If you don’t trust the end user, just change the function to look like this, and it won’t support strings anymore:

def customplaylist(querylist,title=None):
    pls = []
    if len(querylist) != 1:
        querylist = [querylist]
    pls.extend(custompl(*querylist[0]))
    plname = str(querylist).replace(", 'X',"," XOR "
                          ).replace(", '+',"," AND "
                          ).replace(", '|',"," OR "
                          ).replace("', '","' in '"
                          ).replace("[",""
                          ).replace("]","")
    cpl = win32com.client.CastTo(
              iTunes.CreatePlaylist(title or plname),
              'IITUserPlaylist')
    for track in pls:
        cpl.AddTrack(track)

Okay, now the next thing we see here is that we check the length of querylist, and if it’s not 1, we make it one by making it the only element of a new list. Why? Because the custompl function, which we haven’t seen yet, works recursively and requires there to be one group to begin with. That much is fairly straightforward.

Next, though, we see an odd call to custompl. What the hell does it mean when there’s an asterisk in front of a parameter? Well, when that parameter is a list, it separates the elements of that list so that each element is treated as a separate argument by the function you’re calling. For example, let’s say you have a function printparams that takes in three parameters, a, b, and c and prints them out. And let’s further say you had a list, foo, with elements "b", "a", and "r". The function call to printparams would look like this: printparams(*foo), and would output b a r. Instead of branching off into custompl here, I’m going to finish up the rest of the main function, and then talk about what’s going on behind the scenes.

Once we’ve finished collecting the tracks we want, we make the name of the playlist by reversing what we saw before for parsing the string version of querylist. Then, we create the playlist and cast it to an IITUserPlaylist in one step. The only thing you haven’t seen is title or plname. The way Python treats True and False, None is equivalent to False, so if the user doesn’t enter a title in the parameter list, we end up with None or plname, which Python evaluates to get plname. This works even if a title has been provided because Python only evaluates the second half of an and expression if the first condition is false. After that, like you saw before, we add our tracks to the playlist and that’s that.

All right, so the last thing to look at here is custompl, the function we’re using to really parse querylist and return the right tracks:

def custompl(query1, logic, query2):
    results = []
    temp = [query1,query2]
    if len(query1) == 3:
        if len(query2) == 3:
            return field_dict[logic](custompl(*query1),
                                     custompl(*query2))
        results.append(custompl(*query1))
        temp.remove(query1)
    elif len(query2) == 3:
        results.append(custompl(*query2))
        temp.remove(query2)
    for query in temp:
        search_string, field = query
        if field == "Playlist":
            results.extend([list(pl.Tracks)
                            for pl in source.Playlists
                               if search_string in pl.Name])
        else:
            results.append(list(
                           library.Search(search_string,
                                        field_dict[field])))
    return field_dict[logic](results[0],results[1])

Whoo boy, here we go. Remember how I said that the asterisk makes the function treat the list as its component elements? Well here’s where it comes into play. When it comes down to it, every group, no matter how complicated, has three parts. The left side, the logical operator, and the right side. So first we make an empty list to hold our results. Then we make another list to hold the left and right side. Then we check each side to see if it is, itself, a group, or if it’s really a query (remember, groups have three components, and queries have two: search string and field). If they’re both groups, it applies the function that corresponds with the operator on the result of breaking down the group again by running *it* through the function. And so on until they both aren’t groups anymore. Once only the first one is a group, it adds the results of breaking down that group to the main results and removes it from temp to let the function know not to try to treat it as a query. On the other hand, if only the *right* side is a group, it does the same on that side. Once there are no more groups, it gets to the for loop. This looks at whichever side is left, or both, if they happened to have the same level of grouping, and breaks it down into search string and field.

Here’s where we deal with searching in Playlist names. We extend the results by the list of Tracks of each Playlist whose name even partially matches the search string. What this means is, it adds each track in that list to the end of results, one by one, instead of just adding the whole list as a list. This way, all the tracks on this side are at the same level.

Now, if we’re *not* searching in the Playlist name, we do what we did way back when. We search the library for the search string in the field, and append the list to results, or add it to the end. Now we should have two elements in results: one from each side. Even if there’s an uneven level of grouping on each side, the way we set it up, we still have two elements. Remember? If one side is a group and the other isn’t, we add the results of breaking it down to results, then get to here and add the results of breaking the non-group side down. Two elements. If it’s hard for you to visualize, try coming up with the most convoluted querylist you can imagine and working through custompl to see how it works. By the way, this type of programming, wherein a function calls itself, is called “Recursive” programming. To see simpler examples of this, just google “recursive” and the programming language of your choice. Since we have two elements now, we can apply the logical operator to them to get what we want. Oh yeah, I never explained why “OR” corresponds to “+”. Well, think about it. “OR” means “one or the other or both”. Which means that if we have two lists, every track in each list will be in either one, or the other, or both. We don’t have to do anything fancy to them, just add them together.

Anyway, that’s the whole cake. Once you have the results, you return them back to the main function, where we extend pls by the results, and add the tracks to our iTunes playlist.

Whew! That was a mouthful.

In no particular order:

Gnarls Barkley – the team composed of Cee Lo and DangerMouse. Great stuff. Sounds like gospel at times, like rock at others, sometimes electronica, and sometimes rap. I was turned onto it by the "Crazy" vid from the music awards, of course. Then I used Azureus to grab their album – St. Elsewhere. I'm excited. You should be, too.

Peeping Tom – catchy as all get-out. It's a Mike Patton project, and extremely hard to classify – somewhere between rock, rap, and metal. Think The Mars Volta with more conventional guitar and drums. Found it via work for it, a generally awesome mp3/music blog that you can also find on my blogroll as benlovesmusic. Their self-titled album is available as an Azureus torrent, as well.

Hot Hot Heat – okay, okay. So I was already familiar with Hot Hot Heat. But they're just so damn good. For those not yet familiar, Hot Hot Heat is kick-ass rock/pop with amazingly catchy songs that have great drums and better vocals. Anyway, I found some more of their music (I previously only had Elevator), so I technically did 'discover' their music. To get back to the point, I found Make Up The Breakdown (the torrent name is incorrect – it says "Or" instead of "The") and Knock Knock Knock.

Arctic Monkeys – alright, you got me again. I've known about these guys for a while, and I have no excuse; but they are effing amazing. British music at it's best. If you don't know these guys, you really don't know what you're missing. Their music is everywhere.

Hard-Fi – again, I've known about them for a little while, but they're still pretty damn good. Sort of like the Arctic Monkeys, except less hyped up and more polished.

The Fall of Troy – these guys are aMAZing. I can't find their music hardly anywhere, but they are well worth the effort to find it. They're sort of like rock/pop/screamo/amazing guitar.

Cute Is What We Aim For – ditto. Love their music, but it's damn near impossible to find. Similar style to The Fall of Troy, but more pop and less screamo. Got turned on to both of these bands, actually, by an article on alwaysBeta, surprisingly enough (also on my blogroll). The same article also turned me onto Chiodos, grouped in much the same category musically.

Head Automatica – I don't know much about them, except that their album Popaganda is really clever lyrically and pretty damn catchy, too.

The Faint – another one of those bands I've known for a while, but found new music for. Electronica/Pop/Rock. Awesome sound, especially in their Wet From Birth album – they sound more electronic and less pop in Blank Wave Arcade, and similar in Danse Macabre, but I like Danse Macabre better than Blank Wave Arcade. I just found a few scattered mp3s of theirs that I didn't have before, but they're still effing genius.

and finally, Ima Robot – I love this band, but to some it might be an aquired taste. Definitely listenable, lots of drums and guitar, great bass lines, too. The main point of possible contention is the quirky voice of the lead singer, which I happen to like, but some might not. Again, I found some random mp3s of theirs in scattered locations, but not a whole album.

I also finally downloaded The Grey Album in its entirety and Rooney's self-titled album, as well as Taking Back Sunday's Louder Now!

I've become pretty impressed with the mash-ups of some DJs, too – Party Ben and McSleazy in particular.

All right, that's about it, folks. Go forth and be fruitful and all that. Enjoy the quality music.