Request themes
Even though it seems like a no-brainer, I thought I'd explain how request themes, or "theming" works.
Sometimes you come to a point where you get tired of picking the same thing (songs, artists) and need to try something new. Instead of waiting for blacksnow to play some weirdness, you can try theming. All you do is, go to the 'request' tab, and in the search field type some word... any word. Killbot will then provide you with a list of every song on HMR with your theme word included in the title. Then, you begin with the top song on the list, and continue through to the bottom.
Theming helps you hear new stuff, helps more obscure stuff get played, and of course makes sure that you always have something to request.
You can choose a large theme or small - Loafy and I keep daring each other to do "Black" or "Dark", both of which have over 1000 songs in the list. Ultimately, we decide that too many of those songs would be deep death doom metal, and we don't want to spend that much time on something that we don't really want to hear. Right now, Loafy is in the middle of the "Fire" portion of his "Blood, Fire, Death" theme, and I am doing several very small themes, like "whiskey" "puzzle" "driver"... until my tier raises a bit and my requests drop in faster.
I've found that not being too broad helps, but don't be too specific either. I was doing several colors, but found that "red" was a bust because every word spelled "_____red" would come up, and that's not quite what i was hoping for. I tried "evil" once, and every song with "devil" would also come up, and that's straying too far from the theme for my own tastes.
Some other guidelines: I don't play songs again, if they appear on more than one album by the same artist, such as "Pizza Driver" by Acid Drinkers, which appears on 4 different albums. I only pick one of them, and move on. I don't pick live recordings as a rule, just because I don't like live versions. I don't skip around on the list, unless something like The Flower Kings would come up on a Tuesday or during peak hours. Then I'll fudge a bit, so I don't get so many death threats. It also helps if you can print out the list, and cross off songs as you go, so you always remember where you left off.
Lengthy post, sorry - but if it sounds like a good idea to you, good!
iamnotfrom
