I Like B-Sides... and I Do, or Do I?

Do you like Pandora? Do you use iTunes? Well good, I have something that meshes the two together pretty well: i like b-sides (they don't capitalize it). Basically, it uses a web-application to scan your iTunes library and then tell you track that you will probably like but that you don't have. Okay, most of you know this but what's a b-side? A b-side is just the less important side of an album - think records. Typically, artists put their best stuff on the A-side and the B-side is left to the less popular stuff. Now, however, artists sometimes refer to B-sides as being music that never even found its way to an album. Anyway, hopefully that sheds some light for those that didn't understand the somewhat esoteric name (well, not that esoteric).

Before I go much further, I'm sure all of you are like: "but doesn't iTunes, like, have the Genius Sidebar?" and I'm like: "well, yeah..." and you're like "soooo, why don't we just, like, use it?" and I'm like, "well duuuuuh, if I am, like, posting about it, there is probably, like, a reason." And then you're like "ahkay!" and I'm like "like, totally ahkay!"

So, like, now that that is covered, lets talk about how to use it, what it does, and how to benefit from it.

HOW TO USE IT: all you do is go to your iTunes music folder (in your music folder) and find a document called: "iTunes Music Library.xml." Right click that file, select "send to" then "compressed zipped folder." Then, select browse on the b-side website, upload the zipped file and POOF!, you are in business (its pretty much the same for Mac, except you just right click, select "compress" and POOF! you are in bussiness, too. The site has instructions, I just told you too so that I get more reading time out of you. It will output a list on the left that looks like this - these are my suggested tracks:
Okay, so far - not better than Genius Sidebar... Well, ultimately, I don't think it is better than Genius sidebar, but it does do THIS:
Those are the "cool" tracks in your library that you might be ignoring because you forgot you had them or something. So thats kinda cool... I mean, its not like you can do that in iTunes, right? WRONG, all you have to do is sort your music by least-to-most played (either by number of times played or by date last played, or whatever). The only thing this does is compare your possibly ignored music with a list of "cool" tracks that they have so that they only tell you stuff that is "cool." I assert, however, that if the music is IN your iTunes library, its probably cool (to you). If it isn't cool, sorting your music in iTunes like I just told you will at least tell you what you need to delete. Am I right or am I right or am I right, right, right, right?

BING!

I will tell you all about Genius Sidebar in my next post, by the way. Either way, I say that its worth a try. Give it a shot, see if you like what it tells you. If not, leave it alone. If it does, then use it to find music. The only other problem with it is that it links you to Amazon.com to buy music... Amazon.com. So that troubling. But either way, you could just search the new album or artist you want in iTunes. Not rocket science. So i don't really like "I like b-sides" but I think its worth a shot.