I've been thinking hard about how to bypass what I think is a limitation in iTunes' smart playlist capabilities, that is to create a list with a combination of logical operands. You can create lists with only AND or only OR operators linking the different conditions. But if you want to have, for example, a smart playlist named 'Pop/Rock from the 80's,' you want to create something like:
- genre is pop OR genre is rock AND year is between 1980 and 1989...
Until iTunes 4.5, though, you where out of luck. But with this new version, Apple has added a "playlist" criteria in the smart playlist dialog. This new criteria can help you construct a whole new set of playlists. To build your 'Pop/Rock from the 80's' playlist, you'll have to do the following:
- Create a pop/rock playlist: that is, a smart playlist with the two conditions genre is pop, genre is rock with the "matching any of the conditions" button checked.
- Create your 'Pop/Rock from the 80's' list itself, with the "matching all of the conditions" option selected, and the two following criteria:
- playlist is pop/rock
- year is between 1980 and 1989
With this new criteria, you can build a final playlist with any set of AND and OR operators ... just use your imagination!