Rating Your Music in iTunes

So it's late, you're feeling like rocking out to your favorite tunes, and you really don't want to listen to a random selection of everything in your iTunes Music Library. You could really go for just the best tracks of your collection without the weird b-sides or songs that just didn't quite make the cut. This is where the Rating Stars come into play.

Rating stars are a way to organize your music in yet another way, unique to you alone. It is a way for you to pick just the cream of the crop when a playlist is too limited and the full library is too much. Rating stars allow you to listen to just those couple of great tracks that get your heart rate jumping and your feet hopping, like radio stations way back when, but without the annoying DJ's and used car commercials.

To assign a star rating from 1 to 5 onto a track, right-click (or Control-Click for 1-button users) on a track name in the iTunes main window. This will bring up a short menu on which the second track is My Rating. Select a star or 5 and let iTunes do the rest. For even more control, make a Smart Playlist and tell it to put only 5-star songs in that contain "Sad Songs" in the comments box. I explain the beauty of Smart Playlists here. For now, shoot for the stars!