M: Let's try this. I'm... looking to... find... Let me think how to put this. I started building a playlist that goes to level 80 when Pokemon Go changed the level cap from 50 to 80, just as kind of a project in the way to find new music. I walked away from that when you and I started having trust issues. That is, you told me you could remember stuff that you can't, etc, etc. Trying to get back at that just because I realized that I was finding a couple new songs that I enjoyed in the process. The way I did it before was going with a rubric-building situation. And that was fun, but that's not what we're going to do here. What I want you to do is to try and find, or try and help me help me filter things out as possibilities. We're going after stuff that I haven't heard before, although stuff that I already have listened to is not something to be rejected. I'm just saying, do not limit yourself to things that I've already heard. What I had done, and I did this by myself and then walked away from it after that second attempt to build a full playlist, was taking the move names and searching for variations of them. And the reason I stopped was that I started doing it alphabetically, which makes sense, except the first alphabetical name of a quick move in Pokemon Go is Acid. As you might be able to imagine, depending on how broad your music knowledge is, a word that defines a genre is going to have a lot of entries, even if you limit your search to just the title. I got a few good songs out of it, but it also was way too much at once for me to really get into any kind of work rhythm. So I'm asking you to help me try and get back into it. Right now, after Acid, the next term is Air Slash. That's the next move. I don't know how well you work in this venue, but we're going to see if you can find me songs songs that have Air Slash or similar terms in the title. And if you can, filter out anything that is slow or melancholy. This is supposed to be stuff you listen to while you walk around playing a game and trying to get some exercise. So we're looking for... Honestly, this is why I was building the rubric in the other silo. There isn't a good way to say what it is I am looking for. It's a lot easier to say what I'm not looking for. Heavy slash tangible beats are a plus. So, you know, things that are just a banjo solo or something like that, I'm not going to say that they're a plus, but I'm not going to say that they're a minus. So, you know, things that are just a banjo solo or something like that are likely to be rejected. And shorter stuff is prioritized over longer things. Prioritized over longer things. We don't want eight-minute ballads, even if they are being done by Slayer or something like that. I'm trying to be a little bit broader with these because the initial idea was to have a core set of songs that were either appropriate for Pokémon Go or at least had the right spirit. You know, whether the primary ones being songs that could be somehow connected to the idea of playing the game and the other ones just being good for keeping your ass in gear. But then there was a side group of things that were related to various types. And in that, I was using a little bit more of a broad set of restrictions or lack of restrictions. I'm saying it badly, but I was a little bit more leaning on songs. That being said, still not looking for slow or melancholy stuff. So with that, what can you do with what I just said to help me out? And if you can come up with a list, just give me the song name and the band to look up. I don't need a full explanation as to the advantages and disadvantages. I'm working from a phone. That's where part of the problem is and why I'm looking to get you to help instead of just continuing myself. The searching part is easy and the listening part is easy, but they are easy on two different machines. It's really simple to go into the desktop interface for Spotify. And do a search, you know, build a temporary playlist for testing, etc. But for actual listening, I have to do it from a phone because if I'm just sitting at my computer listening to music, I'm going to end up getting involved in something where I'm not listening to the music and testing out the new stuff anymore. So yeah, before you start, I guess repeat back to me what it is you think you're going to be trying to do and let me know if there is any kind of particular Spotify functionality you've got that I'm not aware of which could make this a little bit easier in some way.

M: You've got the idea right, except that, um... If this works out... Genre-level terms might need narrowing. For AirSlash, don't worry about that. Sigh... The overload was partly my responsibility, if not my fault. I have a tendency to put a lot of energy into the first few steps of a project, and in doing so sap the... pattern I would use to continue it past the first couple hours, and into a long-term project. Because I didn't think things entirely through, that meant that instead of being able to power through a few moves and figure out what worked, I got hung up on trying to listen to the entirety of things that came up that looked appropriate with Acid in the title. Sigh... At that point, narrowing would have been useful, particularly if you'd been able to do it at that point. But I didn't think to, so instead, I did the equivalent of eating an entire... box of cookies. And then... have felt a little bit queasy every time I thought about coming back, even though the cookies themselves were good. Sigh... So, don't... worry about narrowness with the... less generic terms like Air Slash. In fact, to find appropriate things... in that direction... I mean... I might, depending on how much you find with the first look, because I'm trying to get at least a few songs for each entry or related to them, you might need to broaden the idea to, like, Wind Cutter or other things, you know, thesaurus variations on the theme of an Air and a Slash, both in terms of the words used and the order. So, when... the term or the move name is... not yielding many results, I need you to use a kind of intelligent thesaurus approach to try and find stuff with similar titles. Or that... are associated with it. Sigh... This will vary from move to move depending on how well things go and the nature of song titles. Like, if we ever make it to Hurricane, at that point, you probably will need to actually narrow things down just because that's the kind of concept that... so many things refer to. Oh, and if it comes down to it, Country has a low priority. I just thought of that when we were talking about the term Hurricane. I have a feeling that it's really prevalent in Country Western music, and... Sigh... I don't dislike Country so much as I think a lot of it is musically repetitive, so... Like, one... entry in Country is likely to give the same diversity as, like, three or four across other genres. I mean, that's kind of a given when we're talking about other genres. The point is, I'm not as big of a fan of Country as other things, so if you have to make a cut, that's one of the criteria you can use. Oh, and before you suggest it, we're not worrying about song lyrics unless, again, we get to the point where it's difficult to find related songs. So if, for example, Air Slash doesn't give anything workable, we would want something, like I said, with thesaurus variations. If that still doesn't work, then you can start looking into the lyrics, but not until... well... a broader title search only yields two or three results. I'm reading through what you can do about your functionality, and it made me think. Another way to broaden the search if specifics don't work is to drop the quotes. But keep looking in the title. Of course, if you do that, you'll need to put a little bit more thought into inspecting the title names. Airslash might be fairly consistent no matter how things are arranged or what words are between them. But I can't remember if it was in this particular situation or another one entirely. Sometimes the terminology variation and removing the quotes will allow for some results that have a completely different meaning. I already knew about the song radio thing, but for what we're talking about right now, it doesn't give me any kind of progress towards building a Pokémon GO-specific playlist. To do that is like one of the earliest successes was a song called Earthquake by, I think, FamilyForce5. Never heard of them before. Exactly what I was looking for. The name is exactly a move name. But if I were to go to the song radio, well, first of all, Spotify tends to include stuff that you already know, so that takes out the whole concept of finding new stuff. And for this particular project, it doesn't matter how good the other songs are if they're not tied in somehow to move names. It's a distraction. I like good music, but I'm also very easily distracted, so I have to try really hard if I want to actually focus. And as far as what happens next, I don't know if I've clarified this part, but I don't need a tight list of songs. It can be more expansive, it's just, it can't be a catch-all method. If it's included, I need to know that it's because it should be included, not just, not because, you know, it barely squeaked by. I need to know that you've actually examined what's going on with it before I give it a shot. Like, with the Acid version that I did. I don't really regret the thoroughness with which I checked everything. It just was the wrong time at the beginning of a project to come up against that kind of brick wall or mountain of a result set. I want to do this thoroughly. I'm willing to let that mean that it also goes slowly, I just don't want it to go slower than necessary. Which would be why I'm trying to tie you into the effort. Like, I wouldn't even call it a, like you said it was the Acid disaster. Yeah, it downgrades to incident, like I said, if this had happened, like in the letter D or E, I would have already had my pattern established and just known that when I went into it, it was going to be eating up a couple hours of listening time at the very least. But because it was the first thing, it was just too much at once the first time.

M: Okay, the search methodology seems to be appropriate. There was something I wanted to say about it. Oh, with the lyric search part, I do want it to strongly align, but you can downgrade the priority of that barely squeak by thing. Like I don't want you to reach for it, but by the time that you're considering it, there might be few enough available ideas that match the concept that it kind of shifts the definition of what barely fits and what fits solidly. Instead of doing that, let's try and redefine that. So that it's a little bit more usable instead of subjective for you. If you've got to the point where you have to start resorting to lyric searches, refer to the chorus if you need to. Basically, the idea would be, see if the concept of the song fits. If it does, great, I'll give it a try. I can always hit fast forward. If it doesn't, even if the words are there in the right order, just let it drop. Because if we're trying to include something because of the song lyrics, it needs to be obvious why it can't be like a, you know, three or four step degree of separation from the concept to what the lyrics say. Do your best, we'll adjust this as necessary. And the reason why I'm trying to be careful is because if you do get to the point where you have to do a lyric search, the rules that govern whether or not a phrase would be in a title get dropped. Like I'm not sure, but the idea of there being a lot of songs where the term slashing the air is used, no matter the actual song topic, seems to be fairly likely. So at that point, you would have to use a little bit of thought to avoid introducing all of those as possibility and just skim the lyrics, make sure that the air slash concept is relevant to the song itself and not just being used as a colorful phrase. Musical filters are correct, and I think you've got the role correct. We'll deal with this one addition that I'd like to introduce if and when we get to a giant block of possibilities like with the ACID incident. As one might guess, a lot of the possibilities were some form of ACID techno. Now I enjoy techno, but a lot of it is not indistinguishable, but they're very near to each other in their content, especially if there are no lyrics involved. So at a point where there is a glut of possibilities, I'll need you to use some sort of available metric, whether it's on Spotify itself or through reference to another online source. I give you permission to go online, by the way, in order to make some kind of educated guess about which one of the five different, you know, instrumental ACID pop electronic songs would be the best suggestion. That may not come into play now, but if the situation arises, that's a place to start, and then you can let me know whether or not that was sufficient for you to work with, or if you need more guidance in order to be able to effectively filter out suggestions that could filter out suggestions that could be repetitive. And note, this, I believe, only applies to items that are instrumental and in the same genre. So, like, the Vengaboys do stuff where, musically, it all sounds alike, but lyrically is distinct, and in this situation, that is sufficient. So, like, if there were three Vengaboys songs that fits a search for some reason, you could comfortably rest knowing that, you know, including all of them is exactly what I would want you to do. But if it was just an instrumental, then maybe it would be better to filter things out in some way to present just a good representative of what the group sounds like, perhaps with an asterisk, letting me know that if, for some reason, I'm really into it, you've got like three or four different songs just like it. That does remind me of one thing that I haven't brought up. If a song is appropriate in terms of the title, but melancholy or slow, like I was saying, one option, especially if it's a song that is, you know, done by a group that's popular or well-known to some degree, is look for a cover version that's faster, cover version that's faster, or more metal or more punk or something like that. For songs that are considered popular but that otherwise miss the criteria that I've given, the cover version can redeem it. Like, I think there's a punk cover. This is an example of the effect. This isn't something that I actually want to include, but for the Cyndi Lauper song Time After Time, that version is, you know, emotional and melancholy and would completely not fit with what we're doing. But I think that there's a punk cover of it which would at least qualify for review because it picks the tempo up by like 30 or 40 percent, which changes the nature of the song.

M: Yeah, and just to clarify so that I know you were using an example of the situation and not explicitly just the situation, the instrumentals don't all have to be by the same artist. Like with the acid incident, there were four or five different songs that had some form of the word acid in the title, and they all were decent in terms of being representative of good acid techno. But without listening to each of them multiple times, I could not have told you afterward which one was which, you know, all by different artists, all with different variations on the term acid. At that point, you also can do the asterisk collapse and just let me know that this is representative of, you know, instrumentals that you'd be able to find later, but the point is that they all sound similar enough that this is probably the best representative if you want to include one of them in the list. Other than that, it looks like you've got everything, so go ahead and try and execute AirSlash once you've incorporated that little adjustment into your rule set and locked those in for now.

M: How do I search for just the title? Because airborne is the name of a band and that seems to be precluding a lot of stuff… I’m pretty sure there is a way but I don’t remember what it is and it would make life a little easier as we proceed.

M: You're not giving me anything I can work with. I mean, seriously. The first three, I did five or six different forms of search for what you suggested, and none of them seem to exist as songs. Can you tell me what's going on here? Like I was willing to accept that maybe I wasn't looking deep enough for Scooter and The Sid or whatever it's pronounced as. But I'm fairly well versed with Garbage and their discography. So when I wasn't able to find anything from them, I looked and it doesn't look like you're actually referring to songs that exist.

M: Okay, first we need to rephrase things because if you're thinking in terms of a circular rule like only include items that should be included, of course you're going to be going fucking nuts. That's so self-referential that however we got there it needs to be taken out. It's got nothing to do with the phone. When a song doesn't exist, it doesn't matter what media you're looking it up in, you're still not gonna find it. Try it again and see what comes up with. I found a few songs that I'm actually trying, but yeah there shouldn't be. Do some kind of logic check if you can on the rules that you think are set in place because in my mind it works but how I described it to you, you might have come up with that kind of circular reasoning which is going to lead to some kind of you know mental break before you get to output.

M: I would argue that Blades of Steel doesn't exist. It looks like it might be Heart of Steel. The term is fairly vague, so I'm not really holding you to a heavy... How would I put it? A heavy... Damn it, I know the word. Point is, you don't have to be that accurate, especially when we're dealing with a slightly odd concept, but... Keep trying to make sure that you give me at least things that exist. Let's try one where there's likely to be a lot more broad options. Try doing the same thing for the move Astonish.