I definitely use favorites. I’ve never really cared enough for the rating system. I almost use the favorites button as a bookmark for albums and songs I don’t want to lose in the collection.
Navidrome Music Server (Unofficial)
Navidrome is a free, open source web-based music collection server and streamer. It gives you freedom to listen to your music collection from any browser or mobile device. https://www.navidrome.org
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I see! What I'm trying to wrap my head around is the need for a playlist that I can just throw on the car or the home hifi when I have guests that will output a strong selection, meaning stuff I either very much like or absolutely love. My server has every CD I have in the house copied onto it; and while I am sure that nobody minds Bob Dylan, my dad's collection of over 30cd gets a little invasive after I hit random shuffle of all songs.
I kind of solved that with favorites. For albums I favorite them like I said previously to bookmark them to see all of the ones I care about most front and center.
The favorites for songs though, I use for the use case you described above. Every song I favorite gets added into a playlist using Navidrome’s “smart playlist” feature automatically.
Don’t get me wrong I use playlists ritually, but for an easy “brain off” playlist with every single song I clicked the heart on automatically, it can’t be beaten for ease of use.
Ratings are amazing. Bad song? Jusz rate it with 1 or 2 stars and you'll never hear of it again!
Good song? 4 stars. Very good song you want to listen each day? 5 stars. Could be a good song? 4 stars. OK song 3 -> stars. 3 stars are like radio songs. You don't really like them, you wouldn't play them by yourself but it's ok if they play in the background.