Something about me you probably don’t know, is that I am absolutely terrible with song names and album names. Personally, I blame my iPod and digital music. You don’t have to pick up an album and insert it into some machine to play it anymore. Lengthy playlists dilute albums and lose them amongst orphaned songs. Even the pre-mp3 albums I used to listen to have become muddled in the chaos of digital music. I just play endless music in the background as I post on blogs and answer emails and read press releases. I never really see the song name or artist name, and being as I am constantly sent albums to listen to from bands who want to be reviewed or picked up by Worn Records (not an active label anymore, kids, more of a publishing company), I am pretty much at a loss when it comes to naming songs and their respective albums.

I counteract this issue with two tools, one is called TidySongs, which is an easy app to use and goes through your entire iTunes library, fills in missing info, corrects misspelled stuff, organizes your music and adds artwork. The other, is SecondHand Songs. This killer web site, lists every version of a song, including the original, who takes credit for writing it and what albums it’s appeared on. It basically fills in all the musical gaps in my head.

Here’s what the info for the song looks like (of course, I chose Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd… who saw that coming?) :

And then it gives you a list of versions:

SecondHand Songs is crowd sourced so you can add your info, if it’s missing. Check it out: SecondHand Songs

secondhand songs, songs, albums, covers, originals, music

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