This, That and the Other

Somewhere in the blogosphere (or possibly somewhere else), a friend wrote about the difficulties of putting his ipod on shuffle and subsequently having his pop(etc) music interrupted by classical. Actually, I think it was Dave- I don't think anyone else would really have that problem.... well, except Jeremy...but I think it was Dave*... or somewhere else. Anyway, the point is, rather than put his ipod on shuffle, he would just listen to music in alphabetical order by song name. This way he got a good variety of music without the classical interruptions.

I tried this method. It mostly works for me. There are two places where it the system breaks down: I have multiple versions of one song, or when there are several songs with the same first word.

Example of the first: Swing Life Away (Rise Against), Swing Lover (Indigo Swing), Swingin' Uptown (Jimmie Lunceford), Swingtime in the Rockies (Benny Goodman). Except for the first song, these are all big band, swing songs. So much for variety. Or, another example: America (from West Side Story (I like showtunes, sue me)), America: Fuck Yeah (from Team America World Police), The American (Angie Aparo), American Music (Violent Femmes), American Patrol (Glenn Miller), American Pie (Don McClean), Americano (Brian Setzer). While these songs are pretty varied in type, there is a definite theme going on, and I would prefer things to be a little more randomized.

Example of the second: I have Across the Universe by The Beatles (twice- one from Let It Be and one from Let It Be... Naked), Fiona Apple, and Rufus Wainwright. I have three versions of Sing Sing Sing, Hallelujah, Blue Skies..... several others. And there are plenty of songs I have two different versions of. So, listening straight through by song name doesn't work so well because I would hear the same song 3 different ways right in a row.

So, what's the point? Well, there is none, really. I just thought I'd let you all know that I am going to stick with the simple "shuffle songs" method.

Since I went on for a while with no point, I will end with a little game. I like to call this game Put iTunes on Random and Let It Tell My Readers 10 Songs They Should Make A Major Effort to Listen To**.

1. Space Invaders by Arctic Monkeys
2. Tonight Tonight by Smashing Pumpkins
3. She's Not There by Santana
4. Everywhere by Bran Van 3000
5. My Alcoholic Friends by The Dresden Dolls
6. Story About a Girl by Our Lady Peace
7. Money Money by Billy Idol
8. Taya Tan by Pink Martini (actually, I would pick a differnt song by them. Hey Eugene or Sympathique)
9. Ne Me Quitte Pas by Baronessa
10. Funky Town by Lipps Inc

*If either Dave or Jeremy read this: yes, I am cyber stalking you! Muahahaha. Though I am apparently doing a terrible job as I can't remember what you've written. And by cyber stalking I mean I don't have anything to do at job#1 so I read your blogs.

** I promise I didn't skip any and that these are really the first ten songs itunes came up with. Except for a few that were really embarrassing. No really, I didn't skip any. (or did I?) (seriously, no)