Alsop's Small Thoughts

The iTunes Playlist I Really Want

I want a REALLY smart playlist in iTunes and I can't figure out why I haven't got it yet, since I would end up spending a lot more money on the service if I had it. Right now, Apple offers what it calls Smart Playlists, which are simple scripts that select songs programmatically based on their metadata (name of artist, genre, publishing date, etc.). So a typical Smart Playlist might be  "blues from the 1940s". I want a much smarter playlist: I want a celebrity playlist from Eric Clapton that will review what I have in my iTunes library already (regardless of source, whether I bought it on iTunes or ripped it from a CD or even acquired it otherwise) and then recommend how to get what I don't have in that playlist from the iTunes Music Store and tell me how much it will cost to buy those songs. I can even imagine that this really smart playlist will recommend replacing one version of a song I have with another, say that's longer or live instead of studio or  that has different artists playing it.

Maybe I missed that this kind of playlist is already available?

iPod Conundrum

I am playing the "25 Most Played" playlist on my iPod. Does that mean that I am locking in these 25 songs into that playlist, because every time you select this option you are adding a play to the songs you've already played more than any others? How do new songs appear on this list if they aren't already on it? Or some engineer at Apple decide that a play from this playlist doesn't count, to give every song an equal shot at appearing on it? Phwew: Who know modern life would get so complex.