How do I keep a record of the last track played in an album?

Question

I have a lot of albums which have many completely individual pieces of music. For example Chopin ballades. I may only listen to a single track and not return to that album for several months. Is there a way to record the last track played in an album that show up next time the album is open? I'm thinking of something like the little blue arrow that shows which track is now playing.

Answer 1

For the Last Played column to make any sense, you need to click on the Last Played title itself, so that an arrow appears in the title, pointing down. If it points up, simply click on it a second time and it will point down. This puts everything in "last played" order, with the most recent played at the top of the list.
You cannot see the Last Played information on your iPhone, but a Smart Playlist may help. In this respect, an iPhone is just like an iPod Touch, and almost the same as an iPod Classic.
To create your style of Smart Playlist in iTunes (which is then Synced to your iPhone), make a note of the following:
     A.  Album name (copy it, ready to paste into step 4, below.)
     B.  The number of "plays" times you're going to set. For example, if most tracks have been played twice, and some only once, and you want to begin by playing only the tracks that have been played once, then choose "2". (It will make sense, in steps 7 & 8.)
Now perform the following steps:
Click on File/New Smart Playlist (on the top menu bar)
In the dialogue box that appears, change "Artist" to Album (from the drop-down menu)
Change "contains" to is (from the drop-down menu)
In the empty box, type (or paste) in the name of the album (it must be exactly the same, no errors. That's why I suggested copy-and-paste.)
Click on the + symbol at the end of the current line (this creates a new line)
Change "Artist" to Plays (from the drop-down menu)
Change "is" to is less than (from the drop-down menu)
In the third field, which probably has a 0 in it, replace the zero with 2 (the number you decided in the preparation step B, above)
Leave all the other boxes and fields as they are. (You may notice that the very first one at the top, has changed. This is normal, it now reads "match all the following rules".)
Click on OK.
The Smart Playlist should be automatically given the name of the "album name" field from line 1. You can change it if you wish, to whatever you prefer. It will contain only the tracks from your chosen album that have been played less than twice.
If the Playlist is not in track order, simply add the Track No. column to this Playlist and click on the title bar (as before) to make "track no." the decider. Then Sync your iPhone to iTunes.
Here's a list I prepapred. Notice only the eight songs that have been played less than four times, are shown. The other eight songs have all been played at least four times:
Notice too, that my track order is correct, and that the priority column is the "number" column on the left.
Finally; when the list empties out because all tracks have been played three times, simply edit the Smart Playlist to is less than "3".
Message was edited by: the fiend