I never really used the Genius feature in iTunes much since I pretty much have all of my shuffling goodness taken care of by a bunch of Smart Playlists.  But I was pretty intrigued by the new Genius Mixes – 12 auto-generated radio station-like mixes derived from your library and Genius information.  So I decided to give it a spin because it does sound pretty fun if it works.

The one that first jumped out as me was a mix based on Electric Light Orchestra, Steely Dan and Suga Shikao – a Japanese singer-songwriter that I like.  I thought that this was an intriguing and eclectic starting spot for a mix.  I also had them filed in different genres, so Genius was clearly not doing simple genre-matching.  And hey, it seemed like it would work.  So while I was working, I fired that one up to see what it came up with.  Turns out that it would have been a good mix had I wanted to listen to an ELO song, followed by a Steely Dan song, followed by a Suga Shikao song, followed by an ELO song, lather, rinse, and repeat.  Not so awesome.

Went back to the selection screen to seek a different mix.  Perhaps the first one was a little too eclectic for the Genius algorithm.  Ah-ha – one based on Queen, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Tom Petty.  Certainly they can manage to toss together a serviceable classic rock mix.  That one got off to a decent start with Honky Tonk Women, but in a couple moves I was getting Roxy Music ballads and some crappy NeoProg I didn’t know I even had.  Now, while I realize having the crappy NeoProg was indeed my fault, in my defense I had forgotten about it, and either way, it really had no business being in that mix.

So I punted and went back to classic Genius configuration – select a specific tune and then hit the Genius button.  At least that way you can see what is in the generated mix.  I started off with Tempted by Squeeze – expecting a peppering of 80’s New Wave, assorted Power Pop and perhaps some other British singer-songwriters like Graham Parker or Richard Thompson.  Instead it coughed up some Rush and pulled tracks from the single Grateful Dead album I have.  Strike three.

Another flaw of note: it seems to completely ignore user ratings.  I know not everyone rates all their stuff since it can be a pain.  However, I would expect that it would prioritize on higher-rated stuff if someone had rated everything as I have.  Apparently not.

I really like the Genius/Genius Mix idea, but sadly it still seems to be pretty half-baked.  Time to go back to the good old Smart Playlists.