The Joy of Random Shuffle 718
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."
Radio killed the album star... (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Variety (Score:5, Interesting)
Give me Album Shuffle (Score:3, Interesting)
attention span? uh... no. (Score:2, Interesting)
20,000 songs on IPod never been heard? (Score:2, Interesting)
The article states that they interviewed one person who has 20,000 songs in their collection to which the interviewee have never even given a listen.
Either this person bought 2000 albums just for the one song they liked and never listened to the rest, or (more likely) they pirate a whole lot of random stuff.
Either way: Unbelievable. Why would anybody waste time and hard drive space like that?
The pod could handle shuffle better... (Score:3, Interesting)
Try Memento or Hiroshima Mon Amour (Score:1, Interesting)
Brain damage. Fuck. We are all braindamaged from reading Wired. Remeber: the are trying to turn us all into Libertarians.
Re:My shuffle world random rocks (Score:3, Interesting)
"Started I random it like time, all shuffle much the I've so the using."
to:
"I like the random shuffle so much, I've started using it all the time."
How many times would it take to shuffle a series of songs back into their original album order?
Artists killed the album star... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Artist knows best? (Score:3, Interesting)
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!
Re:My shuffle world random rocks (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:20,000 songs on IPod never been heard? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Give me Album Shuffle (Score:3, Interesting)
Most "artists" create with random shuffle (Score:4, Interesting)
> "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?
Re:Who would have thought? (Score:3, Interesting)
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...
I'm too old to be brain damaged by MTV ... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Adaptive playlists (Score:1, Interesting)
Transparent adaptive playlists frameworks (eg: Synapse [synapseai.com] (Windows) or IMMS [luminal.org] (Unix)) are totally the way of the future! I am surprised more hardware mp3 player manufacturers do not ship their players with software like that.
Re:Who would have thought? (Score:5, Interesting)
- 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?Missing the real point - it's like radio (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My shuffle world random rocks (Score:5, Interesting)
And I prefer something not quite so random [sf.net] myself.
Re:Who would have thought? (Score:3, Interesting)
What I am proposing is not sorted, but weighted randomization. iTunes would do what I want if it had selections like "Randomize with (strong|medium|weak|no) (positive|negative) correlations in (size|time|date added|year|artist|song name|composer|...)"
Random Singles vs. Albums (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Let me do the math.. (Score:3, Interesting)
CDs generally cost somewhere between $10 and $18, so let's be generous and say his average is $11. That would be $110,000 in CDs alone. In other words, this person should take out a nice insurance policy for his CDs.
Your friend is fortunate, indeed. Lots of money and free time.
Re:Who would have thought? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My shuffle world random rocks (Score:3, Interesting)
And there are some albums that just should not be broken up, as other posters have been saying. Tool's Lateralus comes to mind as one I've been listening to rather often recently.
-Carolyn
Just Goes To Prove Yet Again . . . (Score:2, Interesting)
Everybody Hates Marketing.
When I noticed his title, my immediate response was "They have professors? Mankind is DOOMED."
Re:Artists killed the album star... (Score:3, Interesting)
"When it became just a bunch of songs thrown onto a CD as a delivery mechanism, the idea of the album lost its meaning."
Actually, I think you may be onto something here. I think the "delivery mechanism" of CDs is half of the problem. Since there's so much space to store music on a CD, there's a tendency to use it all. Thus, in the LP days, you got maybe 5-10 songs and a half hour listen out of an album. Maybe half those songs were good, on average. Presently, you get 12-17 songs on a CD, and over an hour of listening. But IMO bands today are seldom more creative than their LP-era counterparts, so there are still only 4-5 good songs on the disc, only now 4-5 good songs constitutes a good deal less than half of the album. This leaves a marketing opportunity for those willing and able to sell grumpy (or discerning) listeners music in song increments rather than CD increments.
Re:I like my entire music library on shuffle... (Score:3, Interesting)
It was great, we would record on cassette our favorite albums! And then we'd play them over and over when we wanted.
Where was the RIAA then? I rarely bought music back then as I always taped it off the radio.
What about the radio? (Score:5, Interesting)
Random 25 What? (Score:2, Interesting)
From the article:
Attests? I think not. Try the link, 'cause I don't think they did.
Re:Radio killed the album star... (Score:2, Interesting)
rock song -- sweeper -- rnb song
sweeper is generally a short 3-10 second audio track, i,e, "you're listening to KACB, the true sound of hax0rs!"
the first reply to your comment refers to two items know commonly as post and eom. post is where the vocals start on a track (i.e. not the true beginning of a track) and eom is where the vocals fade out or the song stops and silence on the track continues.
Re:My shuffle world random rocks (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry grasshopper, you lack understanding of true randomness. Once song A has been played (hence has a playcount of 1) It is just as likely to be chosen as any other song, and therefore the odds of acheiving a playcount of two are double those of any song not yet played.
Really, if the playcount was even it would either indicate the player was tracking "played songs", commonly called "without replacement" since that song won't be in the pool of songs eligible to be played untill all remaining songs have been played. Which really isn't random, because once song A is played you know it wont be played again for a while. Which isn't very random now, is it?
Think of it this way. Craps is random, because after you set the point by rolling a six, the odds of rolling a six are the same as they were before you set the point. Blackjack is not random, because once the dealer gives me the queen of hearts no once else is can get that card (unless its a multi-deck shoe is used, and then it still affects the odds)
MoodLogic beats the random shuffle... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Shuffling Coincidences (Number Theory) (Score:2, Interesting)
It is easy to shuffle a massive amount of music and get shocking coincidences that will make you question the shuffling algorithm (Why does it play clusters of artists or albums? [riocar.org] ). Statistically, it's the principle of equal a priori probabilities [utexas.edu], so that there is an equal chance of a shuffle to create the exact same order that it started with.
Also, we humans are just too good at creating patterns where they don't exist. Combine our pattern matching skills with the Law of Truly Large Numbers [skepdic.com], and we get an explaination for our common experience of listening to a random shuffle of music, "It's not random".
IMO, the best implementation of shuffling is done on my Empeg [riocar.org] (Rio Car MP3 Player).
The 'real' solution for listening to music is to have different suffle modes and fancy heriarchical playlists... well um, read the FAQ!!! [riocar.org]
Re:Who would have thought? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, the Recently Played smart playlist comes already set up with iTunes. So does Top 25 Most Played, My Top Rated, and 60's Music.
My current fave smart playlist is one I set up called Unrated. It shuffles through all the songs I haven't assigned a rating to yet so I can hear them a few times and decide whether or not I like them.