Pete's Log: Three Things on the Topic of Music

Entry #2548, (Music)
(posted when I was 46 years old.)

1

Every time I drive JB anywhere recently, she asks me to put on R.E.M. She particularly likes Stand off Green but any R.E.M. song seems to satisfy her. I'm OK with this development. Today she was asking questions about the band like if they still play and if it's the same musicians on all the songs.

2

We bought our Riot Fest tickets back in January, and since then there's been some drama. In June they suddenly announced that Riot Fest wouldn't be at Douglass Park but would be at SeatGeek stadium in Bridgeview. This upset a lot of people since it's not in the city and doesn't have great public transit connection. But it is only a 15 minute drive from our house (assuming no traffic).

Today, Riot Fest suddenly announced that they're back at Douglass Park after all. With just over a month to go. Shenanigans for sure. Either way, we'll be there.

3

I came across my 2007 iTunes Top 25 in On This Day a few days ago, and decided to make a playlist out of it, since I haven't listened to most of those songs in a while. But then I discovered that 3 of the 25 songs I don't even have in my mp3 collection. But I found them in my old iTunes library as DRM-protected m4p files that I bought from Apple. So I played around a bit seeing if I could convert them, but no luck so far. The most common suggestion I came across was using iTunes to burn them to a CD and then ripping the CD. But I don't currently have iTunes.

For the sake of completing the playlist, I acquired the three songs I was missing.

In my old iTunes library I have 317 m4p files. But comparing to my mp3 collection, I do have 161 of those songs in mp3 format as well. So I must have been intentionally or unintentionally re-acquiring those songs over the years. Another 13 of those 317 m4p files are from some "iTunes New Music Sampler" and a few more songs I'd rather not re-acquire for various reasons. So I'm left with roughly 130 songs I would like to have back. Maybe one of these days I'll get iTunes installed on something again. I do have some blank CDs, after all...

One thing's for sure: I need better metadata on my music collection.