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The Joy of Random Shuffle
ajayvb writes "Wired has this article on how the iPod and other music players have brought random shuffling of songs to the fore. This generation seems to like their music that way, and according to one of the authorities in the article, it's because they are likely 'brain damaged' and have lower attention spans. Ouch."
Random shuffle of recorded music bears a resemblence to the other way people listen to their favorite genre of music... radio play. On the radio, rarely are two songs from the same artist played back to back, and it's extremely rare for twelve songs of the same artist to be played in a row.
But, actually, radio play is not a truely random selection. Radio programmers mark certain slow-paced songs as "do not play in the morning drive" because nobody wants to be put back to sleep while driving to work. They also bias their selections towards favoring more popular songs, artists who are coming to town soon, recent "fresh" hits, and the songs that best define their format.
iTunes, Real, and nearly every other music organizing program are starting to catch onto this with their playlist generator, which very closely resembles the way that radio program directors deal with their playlists... setting a ruleset that creates a quasi-random base for their day, and then displaying the results for potential human manipulation.
The end result is that we're all basically running our own cluster of radio stations. Sometimes you feel like listening to the songs you've rated 5-stars, sometimes you want a mix of high-energy fast-paced songs, sometimes you want some soft background music. Each of those is defined as different playlist, and as new music is added into your system they automatically drop into the rotation on their appropriate lists.
So, there you have it. As much as we want to escape radio, we love it when we're the one running the board...
First of all, I hardly think my preference for random translates to a lower attention span since many of the tracks on my playlist are half an hour or longer. Furthermore, a lower attention span is not necessarily a bad thing. It has been noted by more intelligent people than me that there is an extreme overabundance of information in this world. Perhaps a short attention span is a defense mechanism to help filter out people's bullshit.
OK, so I'm an old fart... Why don't any of the MP3 devices/programs/whatever that I use allow a "random album shuffle", that plays albums completely through, then chooses another album? /frank
And the worms ate into his brain.
It is the musicians themselves that have killed the album. When they record a CD with a few interesting songs, a couple of OK songs, and a bunch of filler, nobody values the album format. And why should they, since it would just be boring to listen through the filler to get to your favorite songs. An album, in the true sense, is a collection of songs that are similar and put together well (example: Pink Floyd). When it became just a bunch of songs thrown onto a CD as a delivery mechanism, the idea of the album lost its meaning.
Very true - I was shocked when I got the SACD version of Peter Gabriel's So - I had listened to that album since 1986, and "In Your Eyes" was song #5, and the album closed with the Laurie Anderson collaboration, "This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)".
Now, I find out that was originally put like that because of vinyl limitations, and he's now moved "In Your Eyes" to the end. After 16.5 years of one track order, I can't quite get into the album as much with the new track order - it doesn't feel right to me. I'd have better enjoyment putting it on shuffle!
As i sit here I have Winamp open with a playlist of 1483 songs. I have the playlist on random shuffle because
A) I like most genres of music, so shuffling gives me much more variety than listening to 20 songs from one artist, 20 from the next ad nauseum.
B) It's exciting not knowing what the next track will be! Will it be Paul Simon or Weird Al? Vanessa Mae or Mighty Mighty Bosstones? Nobody knows!
If there is a song in particular that I 'must immediately listen to' then it takes 2 seconds of scrolling and clicking and, bam, I can break the randomness for a moment.
The only time I use a set playlist order is when playing Unreal Tournament multiplayer - trance/techno really sets the mood for the gameplay so I'll fire up Tiesto and let 'em spool off.
Let's not forget that shuffling of this magnitude (not shuffling itself) is a new thing to play with. A few years ago it was a pain in the arse to keep changing CDs after one or two tracks, you'd usually listen out the whole album before changing.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
A good friend of mine has a CD collection now in excess of 10,000 cds. If he likes an artist from the one or two songs he hears, he buys the cd. If he likes that album as a whole he buys their entire catalog. He is in the process of ripping all of his cds. Last I checked he was up to "M" (between Madness and Madonna). He has never listened to some discs at all, but once he gets them categorized into a genre and puts the ipod on shuffle, her hears a lot of music that he would not otherwise hear. My points is, 20,000 songs that one hasn't heard is not at all unrealistic, even for someone who pays for their music.
His next planned purchase is an Xserve RAID. I believe he is over half a terabyte now in ripped music and is looking for a better way to manage it all. And he is very eager for Apple to release a bigger ipod. Right not he has three that he uses regularly, with different subsets of songs on each.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
> "I appreciate listening to music, ..., in the sequence in which the artist decided to present it,"
> "Temporal order is an important element of how a work unfolds dynamically over time, an important factor underlying the aesthetic effect. Random shuffle pretty much flushes that down the toilet."
I call B.S.
Most artists today throw together a bunch of random songs in no particular order KNOWING that today's audience will be listening to individual tracks in a club, on the radio, or on 'random shuffle' on their player; Or they don't put that much thought into it at all.
This is probably dating me, but the last albums I recall that had a meaningful sequence were 'Pink Floyd The Wall', and maybe 'STYX Mr. Roboto'. Any more recent examples, please?
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...You mean like a group of 10 songs that are run through a "Heavy Rotation" in a 4 hour time slot? This is along with the single song they'll play from "Selected Artists"?
Do shuffle right and you get the wide range of variety with suprises that ramdom playback provides. I setup an old system in my family room with over 2,800 song and set WinAMP to shuffle play. I haven't listened to radio at home for the last 8 months. No comercials, no DJ's flapping their gums and none of repititous crap. That amount of music gives me over 8 days without a repeat!
With the breath of music I have on it, the ramndom playback comes up with some interesting runs of music that no DJ can even come close to.
Radio Killed The Radio Star...
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... and I like random shuffling because listening to songs in the same sequence all the time imprints the order on my brain. Knowing that "I love Rock and Roll" ALWAYS follows "Pretty Paper" makes music much less enjoyable.
What I'd like to see is a Tivo-like feature where the player takes your preferences and downloads other songs that you might like as well. Sorting thru tons of dreck to find the gems is so, like, last century.
- Time-correlated shuffle, so that songs heard within the last few days are more likely to show up again. This allows songs to "stick in your head." This is more like what you actually hear on radio.
- Low-discrepancy sequences based on, e.g., date and/or genre. This provides a more uniform sampling of your music library for short duration listening, since in, say, four songs you are guaranteed four maximally different dates or genres, or whatever.
Any others?taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Here's the big point I think that's missed about random play. It is essentially like listening to the radio, without the commercials, and with the music you WANT to hear. Radio is always random in the eyes (ears) of the listener - you never know what is going to come up next. This is not a generational thing, not an MTV thing, it's a radio thing (and last I checked, radio dates back way before MTV or the current generation). --*Rob
I pay for them every time I buy blank media. The courts agree.
And I prefer something not quite so random myself.
I grew up listening to albums, so I'm not impartial, but...
When I got my iPod I did have a great time listening to my entire 2000+ song collection on shuffle. There was certainly something about it that seemed cool and fresh. Certain songs popped out and other seemed less engaging than I thought.
After a few months, though, I got sort of tired of it. There was something unsatisfying... like watching a bunch of movie trailers instead of watching a movie. There is something to be said for a well constructed album that takes you on an extended journey. Even if I end up skipping one or two songs, listening in album or near album format does have a sort of depth to it you just don't get listening to singles collections.
Going back to albums was a bit uncomfortable at first -- I would find myself getting impatient for a change. But what's with that? Shouldn't I be able to relax and have someone tell me a good story? It took some time to get over the attention span deficit, but once I did, I did find myself able to get a deeper enjoyment from music again.
Just my thoughts.
Radio stations have been "shuffling" music for years. Why so much shock and disdain for people who do it at home?
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
The result is that it does a damn good job of playing unique playlists of music that are thematically grouped--they "go together." It's like having a REAL DJ who knows a lot about music pick your playlist for you.
You can pick any song, artist, album, or arbitrary "style" and MoodLogic will create a playlist for you on the fly with songs that fit that selection.
I can't emphasize how much of a difference this has made to my music listening - I used to listen to whole albums or make my own limited playlists because the random shuffle was TOO random. But MoodLogic actually exposes a WHOLE lot of individual tracks I normally don't listen to. Very nifty.
They've recently released a version of their software that will siphon music to your TiVo as well, if you have the Home Media Option installed (check TiVo's website for this download). Instead of playing albums straight throguh, you can build themed playlists on the fly with your TiVo interface from another room. Brilliant.
This is where things will head, I hope.