I’m forever going on about playlists and soundtracks, so it seemed about time I actually did something with them. LastFM is great, but it doesn’t really do anything substantial with the idea of soundtracks. It seems a pretty big area given that lots of people buy singles online now, rather than albums.

I don’t always like the idea of playing songs randomly, so I have a couple of hundred playlists that I’ve created in iTunes. They’re generally for specific activities or occasions. I have one to help me sleep on aeroplanes, one for cleaning, some are for certain weather conditions and some for more more obvious things, like Christmas. They take a reasonable amount of effort and thought to create, but they do seem worth it. I get to feel super smug when I start my iPod up just after take-off, select the “Flying Across The Atlantic” playlist and “Leaving on a Jetplane” plays.

I have a few ideas of what I want to do with soundtracks, but the first bit is just to collect and organise them. It’s definitely the mundane bit, but it needs to be done, so I’ve started writing Soundtracker.

Originally, it was just going to be for me, but it seemed as easy to allow anyone to upload and describe their soundtracks. So that’s what you can do. At the moment it only accepts iTunes playlists, exported as XML. Now the bare bones are there, I can spend time making it do more interesting and useful stuff… but I may end up just making it look prettier instead.

• Excellent! I shall be thinking hard about soundtracks to share.

  I really like the bare-bones cut down simplicity of it, but I do wonder if tracks might provide links into other playlists (this track appears in 3 other soundtracks…).

  Great stuff Darren.

  Comment by Roo Reynolds — September 9, 2007 @ 5:57 pm

• Thanks Roo!

  Yeah that’s the sort of thing I want to do, as well as things like suggesting a song that would fit in someone else’s soundtrack, letting you work out which soundtracks you could make out of your own collection, working out what soundtrack you’re playing and therefore theorising about what you may be doing. There’s so many things to do!

  Comment by Darren Shaw — September 9, 2007 @ 6:50 pm

• Nice one Darren, looks ace. Now to make my first day back after two weeks holiday sound track…

  Comment by Rob — September 9, 2007 @ 7:49 pm

• Thanks Rob.

  I think Dolly Parton’s, 9 to 5 would be an obvious opener… or maybe Phil Collins’, Another Day in Paradise? If you happen to know any contractors on their first day back, they could use Kanye’s, Gold Digger.

  Comment by Darren Shaw — September 9, 2007 @ 7:59 pm

• oi how rude!!!! … but true haha :o)

  Comment by Hanan — September 9, 2007 @ 9:01 pm

• Hehe, I tried to go for songs that I will actually listen to on my first day back So dolly parton was out the window to start with, there is a time and a place for Dolly but it’s not this

  I have gone for some songs with titles I hope you’ll appreciate though
  Birdflu
  Goldfish bowl
  The Importance of Being Idle
  The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore
  and many others

  Comment by Rob — September 9, 2007 @ 9:04 pm

• Thanks Rob, glad it actually worked for someone not actually on my machine.

  I was trying to think of some Second Life related songs, I think GLC may have done one called, “Half Man Half Machine”… or maybe J-Lo’s, “I’m Real”.

  Comment by Darren Shaw — September 9, 2007 @ 9:27 pm

• ooh thats a good challenge let me cook one up… playlist challenge

  Comment by Rob — September 9, 2007 @ 9:35 pm

• I love it! I don’t make many playlists, but I think this might motivate me to start. I’m going to upload some now!

  Comment by Frank Jania — September 10, 2007 @ 4:46 am

• Thanks Frank and nice soundtracks!

  Comment by Darren Shaw — September 10, 2007 @ 7:19 am

• [...] first version of Soundtracker didn’t actually do anything all that useful, other than letting you upload [...]

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