Using Smart Playlists to make the same song have two different genres

Do you have songs that you would like to be in two separate genres?

The tags in audio files do not allow two separate genres to be assigned to one song, but effectively, this can be achieved with the use of Smart Playlists. This is done by creating a Smart Playlist that has all of one Genre and any extra songs from any other Genre. This user tip explains how to create a Smart Playlist that achieves this. Follow the steps in the practical example below. Once you have a better understanding of how this Smart Playlist works, try modifying the rules of the Smart Playlist to see how it changes the list.

Outline Example:

• Genre A and genre B
• You want song "C", with genre A, to be in genre B as well.
• Edit the tags for song "C" so that the Grouping field has "B" in it (without the quote marks). It is now Genre A, Grouping B.
• Create a Smart Playlist with the following rules:
  • match any of the following rules
  • Genre is B
  • Grouping is B
  • name the Playlist Two Genres (for example)

The resulting Playlist will have every song with a genre of B and also "song C" (even though it has a Genre of A), because "song C" has "B" written in the Grouping field. Of course, this means that to play everything you class as genre B, you will actually need to play the Playlist Two Genres.

At the end of this article is are some extra tips for advanced users, once this Smart Playlist has been understood. The tips answer some questions that may arise after you create your first Smart Playlist. My recommendation is that you do not attempt to follow the extra tips until you are comfortable with the practical example below.

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Practical Example:

In this example, we will create a Smart Playlist that includes all songs in the Genre Acid Jazz and one extra song that has the Genre of Afro-beat. That extra song will be "Music For Gong Gong". To create your Smart Playlist, substitute the genre types and the song title (anything with < > around it) for the ones you want.

In your iTunes Library, either click on the + symbol in the lower left corner of iTunes playlists, or click CTRL+ALT+N to create a New Smart Playlist. The following will appear (my orange numbering):

1. Using the drop-down menus, change "Artist" to Genre, "contains" to is and in the text box (marked 1) type in the text <Acid Jazz> (remember to chose the genre you want, and with the exact spelling used for that genre in your library - don't type in the < > obviously!)

2. Click on the + symbol at the end of that line (marked 2), which creates an additional line

3. In this new line, change "Artist" to Grouping, change "contains" to is and in the text box type in <Acid Jazz> (Notice that I have used the same name as the genre itself. You don''t have to, but it makes it easier to add those extra songs. This should become more obvious in step 7.) You now have a box like this:

4. Change the Match rule at the top to any (notice it has already changed between the two screenshots above). This is a crucial step, do not forget it, because if you do, your Smart Playlist will be empty.

5. Notice that I have also selected Match only ticked items. This is optional, but selecting it will exclude songs that have been unticked. If you use Sync only ticked songs and videos, this can be useful way of keeping the Playlist the same as the one on your device.

6. Click the OK button. You now have the opportunity to name your Playlist. I have chosen <Genre is Acid Jazz +> so that it is obvious what it is.

So that's the Playlist created. As you can see, <Genre is Acid Jazz +> has 89 songs in it, the same number of songs as the Acid Jazz Genre section. Now, all that remains is to add the additional song.

7. Find your "two-genre" song (in this example, we're using the song "Music For Gong Gong") and click File/Get Info/Info (or CTRL+I - that's an "eye") to bring up the edit song option. In the Grouping field, type in <Acid Jazz> (remember to use the same text you used in the Grouping box in step 3. This means you only have to type into the Grouping box the name of the second genre that you wish to assign to the song. I mentioned this in step 3). (The straight line after the word Jazz is the cursor, or typing indicator.)

• Notice that we are not changing the Genre. Click the OK button.
• Now look at the Playlist <Genre is Acid Jazz +> again.

• Notice that is now has 90 songs and at number 60 is the <Music For Gong Gong>. Note that the genre for that song is still Afro-beat, so the song still appears in the Genre Afro-beat as well.
• To add any other song to this particular two-genre Playlist, simply find the song in your Library and type <Acid Jazz> into the Grouping box, as in step 7.

That completes this example.

If this is your first attempt at a Smart Playlist, I suggest you do not read any further.

Return to the notes below when you are comfortable with your first Smart Playlist.

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Advanced:

Tip A. Learning more about Smart Playlists:

• You can create a duplicate of your first Smart Playlist by right-clicking the Acid Jazz Plus Playlist and selecting Duplicate:
• The copy will have a slightly different name - Acid Jazz Plus 1:
• You can edit the Playlist to experiment with the rules and compare it with the first one to understand how the rules affect it. Right-click/Edit Smart Playlist.
• Don't forget to rename your duplicated Playlist by clicking on the Playlist name and over-typing your new name.

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Tip B. Too many "Genre" Playlists and having issues finding your way through them?

I have renamed the Playlist Genre is Acid Jazz + so that it is now named Acid Jazz Plus and I've dropped it into a Playlists Folder named GENRE (capitals makes it easy to find the Playlist Folders on iDevices).

Notice that here in iTunes, Playlists are sorted in the following order:

... but on an iPod Classic (for example), they are sorted in one alphabetical list. So to find the Playlist Acid Jazz Plus, go into the Playlists menu and scroll down to G, go into GENRE, and in there will be Acid Jazz Plus, with all 90 songs!

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Tip C. Several additional "genre" in Grouping box (three or more genre per song).

The way the original Smart Playlist has been created means that the Grouping box in a song must have exactly the same text in it as the Grouping field in the Smart Playlist. However, suppose you have additional text (for other Smart Playlists to "see") in the Grouping field, separated by commas, as shown below; then the original Smart Playlist will no longer find "Music For Gong Gong", because it is looking for a precise text match in the Grouping box. In the example screenshot below, our Playlist will go back to only 89 songs when we click OK. To manage this eventuality, we can modify the existing <Acid Jazz Plus> Playlist so that it does continue to find the song.

Highlight <Music For Gong Gong> and use CTRL I to open Edit Song and add the text <World> to the Grouping field (don't forget the comma after "Jazz"):

Now the Playlist has to be modified. Right-click the Playlist <Acid Jazz Plus> and change the second line...

Notice that now there are not 90, but 91 songs in the list. This is because "Music For Gong Gong" is back (in position 61), but now another song has appeared because it too contains the words <Acid Jazz>. This song, "Moving On Up" (in position 39) has a Genre of Dance, but is now in the Playlist Genre/Acid Jazz because the Grouping field contains the phrase <Acid Jazz>. It did not appear originally because the Grouping text also contained the word "Disco", so the text was not precisely "Acid Jazz".