Specific songs. Definately. I hate the shuffle But then, I am a control freak.

Specific albums

I use the shuffle, but only in a playlist. My collection includes everything from Handel to Dire Straits to Enya to Enigma to Mozart to Bonnie Raitt to TSOP to etc. No way you can be a mood for that kind of mix at once.

A lot of people only seem to listen to one kind of music and that only -- never anything else. Then the full shuffle would be fine.

I like shuffle in theory, but the ipod makes the settings global. I don't want to have to go back into options every time I want to shuffle a playlist. So I generally just dont' waste time with shuffle and pick specific songs. The SHUFFLE (i.e. play everything on the ipod) just isn't configurable enough to be useful.

I use iTunes, as my wife has the iPod. I either listen album-by-album or else shuffle within an iTunes playlist. That way I can keep the Celtic Folk separate from the Fiery Furnaces.

No iPod, and I can imagine that might be a little different, but I use iTunes on my laptop all the time. I primarily select albums - probably due to my long history with them, from the 70's onward.

I use the shuffle for two things: 1) on rare occasions, when it's easier not to have to pick an album, I use shuffle on my entire library. and, more often, 2) I have shuffle on a "Less than 4 playlist", that picks out songs from the library that I rarely pick intentionally. Keeps the whole collection in use...

I never 'rate' songs - that would take too much thought and time, and plus, it would change.

Do others use the rating feature?

Count me in for "shuffle within playlists only." Most of my playlists these days are really just clusters of thematically or genre-linked music, so the order doesn't matter yet.

But that's probably because I've gotten used to making 50-200 song playlists, and I no longer wish to spend the time putting them in a specific order, like I used to do with mix-tapes.

Albums. Artists will often create albums with certain themes in mind, perhaps even requiring the listener to listen to the work as a whole to make sense of it. Removing single pieces, i.e. songs, from the work as a whole or listening to them out of sequence can disrupt this experience. This is not always the case, but the best artists and albums typically work this way. Even if you are not paying particularly close attention to the music you are listening to, background music while working for instance, there is still little reason to disrupt the flow of an album by skipping around among songs on the album or among albums in a way in which the artist probably did not intend. This analysis would not apply, I suppose, to Paris Hilton's music.

No Ipod here either, but I often have Win media player or Winamp going on my PC. In both cases I mostly use the shuffle, but sometimes play an album in sequence.

Kevin, you wouldn't have this problem if you just bought a Mac ;-)

I own an iPod Shuffle. Take a guess.

I usually slap a pile of 45's on the turntable and let 'er buck! Does this answer yer question?

I never use shuffle. I'm a control freak I guess.

Ordered playlists more often than not. I've begun using global shuffle more often than listening to albums though, as scrolling through a long list of artists is becoming tedious.

all shuffle, at work.

at home, i pick specific albums.

no playlists in either place (except the huge playlist which contains everything on my 30G iPod, since my whole collection won't fit).

Specific songs, definitely!

Always playlists. And I never use the rating feature.

It depends on the playlist. If it's random music, I shuffle. If it's music specifically made to be played in a certain order, then I turn the shuffle off. Who wants to listen to the fourth movement of a symphony before the first movement?

I'm old-school. I still purchase and listen to full albums. Typically I'll think, "I'm in the mood for genre X", and then see what I have in that genre. I'll then listen to the complete album.

I also have an iPod shuffle, which I use when working out or doing yard work. I'll set that on shuffle, but only after I load it with essentially a single genre of music. If I'm in a punk mood I'll fill my iPod shuffle with punk music and let it randomly pick. Or if I feel like electronic I'll do that. It boils down to a genre shuffle, which maybe Apple should add as a feature...

Rio Carbon user here, but regardless...

Shuffle within playlists assembled from related genres.

When I do shuffle all, I skip about 80% of what pops up. But, in theory, I love the idea of having random access to my entire collection!

mostly i pick specific playlists or songs or albums. My collection on here is eclectic enough (and includes bootlegs, home recordings and other low/odd sound quality items) that shuffle can be a chancy proposition, especially in the car or hooked up to the stereo if anyone else is in the room. I gess tht i'm also not smart/patient enough to figure out how to use the "shuffle within playlists" feature yet.

depends--i'll listen to albums when they are new. once i'm familiar with them its all shuffle.
don't use playlists since my tastes change too often.

I've had my iPod (40 GB) for a year and a half and have never used shuffle. About 80% of the music on my iPod is classical. I mostly listen while I eat and read at lunch time. I pick something, often a symphony, that suits my mood and listen from start to finish.

Shuffle the whole thing, baby. All 4,538 songs. If a song comes up that I'm not into at the moment, I just hit next.

I had multiple music genres plus audiobooks and podcasts on my iPod, so selecting a playlist was really the ONLY way to go. But if I was going to ever use shuffle it would be within a playlist of similar music styles since for me, music really is just a mood thing.

Shuffle within my smart playlists. The "Haven't Heard in a While" smart playlist is always a winner. Each song is punctuated with "Oh, I haven't heard this in ages."

Shuffle. It's like listening to a radio station of all my own music.

I have so far 1500 songs divided among 9 play lists: eg. 60s, 70s, Now, Classical, Punk.

I also have 2 books, 15 music videos and half a doz. podcasts.

I have used about 1/3 of its capasity.

I never shuffle. Always choose something to go with my mood--and moods I have aplenty!

I shuffle my 4 and 5 star playlists, or just play albums. I was all happy when my new one had shuffle as a main menu item, but it's useless, as it just randomly plays all my stuff, including iTrip chirrups and other not-actually-a-song crap. It'd be so much more useful if it were a shuffle toggle, so that it didn't take as many button pushes to turn it on and off.

Shuffle, unless I have a yen for a particular song. I hit next pretty often though.

All shuffle, all the time. Occasionally, I'll skip a song or three.

I make playlists to order, and listen to them--but my major use of my ipod is for listening to podcasts from left-wing radio while I ride the bus. I suppose that makes me "complicit," according to Alan D.'s continuum, while I ride the number 11 Adams Ave. in the morning. Some of the other guys on the bus are already pretty bombed.

I make playlists, which for the most part are albums in their entirety, but I also make different mixes like "Jogging Mix" or "British Pop" mix.

Usually I know what music will suit my mood, and choose a corresponding playlist. I only go the Shuffle when I can't really determine what mood I'm in, and am up for a suprise.

Half 'n' half. I like stuff to come up randomly, but I'll usually create a specific list of songs or albums I want to be coming up, and then play from that. And then re-do the list every few weeks.

But I have a very large collection, and a small 4-gig iPod, so I'm pretty much forced to do that. I doubt I'd do it differently if my whole library were on my iPod, though, because even in iTunes I make playlists with my "favorite stuff of the moment" and then play randomly from them.

So, it's a sort of controlled randomness. Like choosing what songs I want to hear on the radio, but then letting someone else pick the order for me.

shuffle, but lots of skipping.

shuffle is for jello heads that can't make a decision, don't know how they feel, lack imagination and motivation, and are lazy...or maybe not.

When I get new songs, I rate them all at 4 stars. Over time, I tweak them up or down depending on how much I like them or how often I want to hear them.

I have a set of smart playlists with 'n stars and up'. (ie, 3 stars and up, 4 stars and up, etc) that also exclude classical music.

Usually, I listen to the 3+ or 4+ playlists on shuffle. Sometimes I'll I'll make a playlist of recently-purchased music and shuffle that.

I don't make a fetish of albums.

Full albums and the occasional mood-oriented playlist. Haven't bothered to figure out smart playlists yet -- seems like a good idea, but I'm happy enough with what I've got not to want to spend any more time organizing.

I'm a jellohead, then. Definitely shuffle. I love the strange combos of songs you get.

I am, apparently, the one single person on earth who uses my iPod to listen to lectures and talks, not songs, so, shuffle really wouldn't make sense. (Neither would anything else except a playlist with the talks ordered appropriately.)

Oh, in iTunes you can rate multiple songs at the same time.

So instead of being a matter of taking hours to go through and rate all your music, what you can do is set them all to, say, 3, then when a song is playing and the impulse strikes you, you can tweak its rating up or down as you see fit.

Eventually, your collection of songs will all be rated.

Shuffle, and for the reason stated earlier--it's like having a radio station programmed to my taste. But if I'm listening to a long piece of classical music, I don't shuffle. But if I'm listening to pop songs, shuffle makes a lot of sense to my ears.

"Haven't bothered to figure out smart playlists yet -- seems like a good idea, but I'm happy enough with what I've got not to want to spend any more time organizing."

That's kind of the point of a smart playlist: it does the organizing work based on rules you specify - "all songs I listen to the most", "Music I bought last year", "Songs with 'beer' in the title", etc.

It all depends. Some days I do one things other days different, but lately, all I ever play over and over is Sympathy For the Devil, full blast, over and over. May someday change to N.I.B.

Playlists. No way am I going to listen to my four zillion things -- songs, French and Italian lessons, and maybe even quotes from bullfrogs -- in some random order. I do use the shuffle option for my playlists, though.

Both!! Like many here have said--I shuffle, but not the whole collection, within albums, or artists, or playlists depending on my musical needs.

Currently shuffling: All of Elvis Costello, Dixie Chicks' "Home", early Beatles (through Rubber Soul)

After rooting out the Christmas music and stuff I don't care to listen to more than twice, I shuffle my entire playlist more than ever. I may listen to specific albums or artists if the mood is right. I shuffle more now that I've finally got all of my news and tech podcasts in the "Podcast" area (out of the main playing library).

I love shuffle - that's the reason I got my iPod. But I do wish there was an external switch to turn it on and off. It would be nice, when I hear a song I like, to be able to switch to normal ordering, so I could move between other songs on that album.

What I really want is a Shuffle which will pick a random artist or album, then pick three random songs from that artist or album. After it plays them, it'll pick another artist or album, and so on.

Often when I'm using shuffle, a song will come on and I'll want to hear more from that artist. But not too much from that artist. 3 songs would be just about right. Shuffling by album would be too much.

iTunes added a feature where you can make it more or less likely that an artist will repeat, but I actually find that kind of annoying.

I shuffle 'cause love the thrill of not knowin' what's comin' on next, and how this new stream of song will affect my being, man. Like never heard Gone To Moses after Kalidescopectry and sometimes it blows your mind man and creates you a different reality for those precious moments, man!

50-50

I tend to shuffle w/in smart playlists. I have one that contains anything with a 4 or 5 rating that I haven't listened to in the last month that gets used a lot, as does the one with everything from 2006 in it. If I get in the mood for a particular song, though, I'll probably listen to that whole album. Very occasionally I'll just use the full shuffle, but not too often.

I typically use shuffle on a large-ish playlist, but then I skip a lot of songs according to my mood. So I use the playlist creation to narrow down my choices, skip to narrow them further, but still have it on shuffle to maintain some unpredictability.

Shuffle with playlists, and on long trips I like to play the complete works by a favorite artist, shuffling by album.

never used shuffle. don't get the appeal

I was a big record collector growing up so it's nothing but complete album listening for me. Very rarely will I do shuffle or even single songs. Though it probably went out in the 80s, albums were made by many as a "whole" rather than a collection of singles. My 2 cents.

I never use shuffle on my whole collection because its just too much variety and I don't like the aural whiplash that would ensure, but generally I'll have both large playlists on the iPod that I shuffle and some smaller, more specific ones, that I play in a certain order, depending on my mood.

Albums, generally. Albums reflect the artist's vision - and I like to respect that vision by listening to them in their entirety and in order. That way I can appreciate the music as they intend.

That said, when I have music playing in the background and am not actively listening, I use shuffle.

never used shuffle. don't get the appeal

as a poster said above, shuffle is like a radio station that only plays music you like.

plsu, without shuffle, you can't do Monday Random 10 lists.

I own a 512 MB iPod Shuffle and I load it up completely randomly with about 100 songs, listen to them all once (in alphabetical order so that I have a chance of remembering the titles), and then reload it. My music collection is primarily jazz and rock/pop with significant amounts of classical, Indian classical, world, etc. I listen to it all in order and am often surprised by things I haven't heard in a long while. My iPod, which was a gift I never would have bought for myself, has brought me absurd amounts of pleasure.

Cheers,

Alan Tomlinson

I love using shuffle on my whole 7000-song list. It pops up all the stuff I collected but have forgotten, and it's easy to skip a song I'm not in the mood for. It's my favorite feature of ITunes/IPod.

Shuffle.

90% pure, 10% playlist.

Subways inspire randomness.

I don't have an iPod, but I do compose music. Since the idea of using music as (in Zappa's wonderful phrase) lifestyle wallpaper, the idea of listening music while doing *anything* else -- including being lost in thought -- is utterly repellent to me.

When I listen to music -- even at tiny volume so as not to disturb my housemates and I want the full depth of my speakers -- I do so with my full, undivided attention. Even if I've heard the piece a jilliion times before.

I see Shuffle as a deeply pernicious and Orwellian innovation. It *appears* to be enabling diversity, but all it winds up doing in the final result is to reduce all genres (and, especially and intentionally, commercial genres) to functional sameness.

Gee, it's "all so good" if you only listen to it with a tenth of your freakin' attention ...

Color me a hardass musical ideologue.

Bob

Specific, usually, although I've been known to set shuffle to 'Album' and let it randomly pick an album for me.

Shuffle at home. Playlists for driving and workouts.

Shuffle at home. Playlists for driving and workouts. The only problem with the shuffle feature is if you listen to jam bands (i.e. Grateful Dead). They often segue from one song to the next which would be, more or less, one song on the CD. However, ipod treats the two songs separately so you miss the transistion on shuffle.

I listen song by song in alpha order (I've been through the rotation several times). Might sound kind of weird but it works well for my psyche. Strangest thing is that with over 600 songs currently loaded, I have 2 by the Stanley Brothers and they happen to be back-to-back. That's the only thing that bugs me. If anyone knows a great song that would fit between "How" and "I'm" - please let me know.

Playlists with shuffle. Like picking a radio station where you determine the content. You've got a general idea what's coming. But the DJ/Ipod picks the specific song.

And if one wanted to be dogmatic about it, shuffle challenges you, within modest parameters, to accept and enjoy what the world/cosmos/Steve Jobs give you. Which is, when you think about it, less emotionally authortarian then the rather Stalinist approach bruited about by Bob.

Also it allows me to be surprised by how cool Robert Johnson, the Jurassic 5, and Astor Piazzola sound when played one after the other.

Depends on my mood. If I'm in the mood for specific music or a specific artist, I will play a playlist. If I'm in a "surprise me" mood, I use shuffle (not just shuffle within a playlist, but shuffle my entire 5,000+ song library).

Shuffle.

"If anyone knows a great song that would fit between "How" and "I'm" - please let me know."

"Hyperactive" by Thomas Dolby.

I shuffle all the time. Shuffling allows me to hear music that's been buried in my CD collection for years. I have huge collection of music: jazz, blues, rock, reggae, ska, african, celtic, some misc folk, and some selected Classical. Hopping between genres doesn't bother me. Sure I hit FF frequently to skip something that doesn't match my mood, but I always end up discovering a gem that I had forgotten about. My only complaint is that the shuffle algorithm isn't random enough -- once I get on shuffle run, I notice that songs from the same albums come up frequently. But dropping into Miles Davis from Pearl Jam provides interesting counterpoints for me.

I'm amazed at Bob's anti-shuffle sentiments, but on the other hand he admits that he doesn't own an iPod, so he obviously hasn't discovered the true joys of shuffling. Don't you think describing the shuffle mode as Orwellian seems just a trifle excessive, Bob? Somebody needs a cookie an and a nap... ;-) Myself, I get tired of hearing the same songs over and over -- which is what tends to happen if I rely on my playlists. I can't tell how many good songs have been ruined for me by overplay on the radio, and playlists are starting to do the same for me on my iPod. Shuffling close to 10,000 songs keeps me interested in the music! 48 Gigs and growing.

One downside to shuffling. I hear a song by Hendrix or Traffic or the Stones and I usually know what track comes next. There's something nice about that, holding the album in your head, already knowing how one song moves into the next.

Matthew Sweet is singing 'Someone to Pull the Trigger' on the stereo as I write this. I have no idea what comes next.

I have mostly album-playlists or podcasts. It is rare but I do use the shuffle option. Also I have one playlist that is just a bunch of mongrel cuts some new some old some commercial some not that I picked up off the net or people emailed me. That one is in no particular order - other than when I loaded each cut so in a sense that is a shuffle in its normal state.

I have spent a lot of time assigning ratings and organizing the library. I have a playlist ofr 5*s, then 4+*, then 3+* and "rarely heard", and many variations of this kind. In many playlists I set the search to hide any songs which I have recently heard (last 15 days). This gives other songs an opportunity. And if I am not in the mood to experiment, there is always "Most played" which I have set to select top 200 songs.

I primarily use shuffle, and skip over something which does not match the mood.

Once in a while, I look at the songs I played in the last week / month, and re-assign ratings.

The best part of shuffle is finding songs which you had sort of forgotten. The worst part of shuffle is waiting to hear a specific song and hoping it will come by skipping 10-20 songs ... rather than going to the specific album and just playing it.

Well, I use a Creative Nomad Zen 40GB player and always keep it on shuffle. Sometimes I may shuffle a particualr artist, but I rarely play specific discs.

I have more than 600 cd's and about 7,000 sonigs on mine with about 10GB left. I like surprises and sometimes it's great to hear the "Adagio from Concierto de Aranjuez" followed by Janis Joplin singing "Piece of My Heart."

It depends. If I'm in a certain mood, I'll select a specific artist or playlist (this happens most often right when I'm coming off of work). Otherwise, I mostly just put it on shuffle.

Although, I guess should point out that my "shuffle" consists of shuffling a specific playlist I've set up that plays higher-rated songs more often than non (it works better in iTunes in general, but the iPod does alright). So I guess you can say I'm for a controlled randomness.

Shuffle, because I miss the days of free-form radio, and because there's a whole lot more great songs than there are great albums.

If anyone knows a great song that would fit between "How" and "I'm" - please let me know.

Just off the top of my head - choose one or more to taste:

"Hungry Heart", Bruce Springsteen
"Hurt", either the Nine Inch Nails original or Johnny Cash's killer cover
"I'll Be There", Jackson Five (Mariah Carey's cover wasn't too bad, either)
"I'll Stand By You", the Pretenders

Specific songs or albums most of the time, but sometimes I set it to shuffle.

I use a shuffle precisely because it's a manageable amount of music to load up and let rip. My "base" is my hard drive and iTunes on my laptop and/or my G5. I think people who mess with their little playlists on their iPods are very strange indeed. About ten or a dozen albums worth (and of course I rarely load albums) is all the music I need to carry in my shirt pocket. (Another reason why the shuffle totally rocks - it's indestructible. Not so the fragile Nano - and the other iPods are just too big to drop in a shirt pocket, which is the only one I've generally got left for another object.) I'm a music freak and have thousands of albums, thousands of cds and a couple of hard drives loaded with music, but once I leave the house I like to leave my compulsions at home and let the little shuffle do it's job.

One more thing, if anyone ever catches me paying to download and watch TV on an iPod screen, do that very special favor and shoot me.

When I am not listening to podcasts I have my iPod in shuffle mode. I may get a bunch of stuff coming up that I don't want to listen to from time to time, but it is very easy to hit the skip track button.

BTW, I only listen to my iPod in my car so keeping it on shuffle is safer than trying to navigate through the playlists while driving.

One more thing - almost all of the music I listen to, save classical and some international genres, is blues-based to some extent - jazz, gospel, classic r&b and soul, the cream of classic rock, the cream of honky-tonk "country". And that which isn't - say Ralph Stanley - has some equivalence. It isn't at all weird for me to hear Van Morrison or Dylan or Solomon Burke or Merle Haggard and then launch into Cannonball Adderly, Coltrane or Miles. For that matter, it doesn't bother me to hear a classic by Sinatra next to Armstrong or - what the hell - Bruce. Could also probably mix Mingus with Beethoven and Bird with Mozart, but to be honest I haven't tried that yet. I guess if I listened to a lot of the inferior genres that began dominating pop music starting in the late '70s, I'd be having problems. But who the hell listens to that crap? Oh, yeah. Millions...

Shuffle. Skip when it gets to a song I've heard too much lately. Never by album.

I shuffle playlists, or genres.

Well, technically I don't use an iPod, I use a different brand of MP3 player, but I am in the "playlist only" camp. I specifically design playlists to create different moods at different points in the playlist, and using shuffle fucks it up.

8,000+ songs on the little white crackbox and I probably go 75% shuffle and 25% specific albums. I like not knowing what is coming up next.

I'm old school. Albums when I'm just listening.

When I am exercising, I created a playlist called "Run for Your Life" with about 200 upbeat songs and I play that on shuffle.

If you have kids (under 7) and they put their songs on the itunes then there is no way you could use shuffle. Too many Barney and Wee Sing songs. (The Backyardigan songs, I kinda like though.)

Specific songs. But then again, I have the tiniest Shuffle, so I can only fit 110 or so songs on at a time, but my Itunes has 7500, and there's no way I'd trust it to shuffle for me.

I have 800 albums on global per-track shuffle. This is great because it reintroduces me to marginal tracks (sometimes whole albums) I would forget about or not give a chance to if I just picked favorites. (I'm using CDs in 2 linked jukeboxes, but you could do the same with a 560 Gig ipod, which must be just around the corner.)

Depends. Shuffle on either of my two iPod Shuffles (one for working out and one for work) by album on my iPod Video.

I started out selecting specific albums, and I did that for several months. Lately, I've been setting the iPod on shuffle, and if I don't like the song, I skip to the next one.

Create many playlists (almost 100) to suit every possible mood, select playlist, shuffle within the selected list.

I always shuffle, but I always press the "fwd" button if a song comes up that I don't feel like listening to. I'm weird like that.

never ever use Shuffle mode. usually play playlists, but sometimes will just scroll down to a letter in the alphabet at random & hit play. sometimes surprised at music on my iPod that i had forgotten was on it.

Albums and playlists, only occasionally do I use the shuffle. I find that I can choose a specific album (or playlist) to suit my mood, shuffle not so much.

I never ever shuffle.

Well, mostly shuffle within a playlist.

My playlist is a "smart playlist" in iTunes which combines essentially all my "absolute favorite" songs (5-star), about 25% of my 4-star songs, and 5% of the 3-star songs, plus a handful of songs which haven't been played in the past 90 days, plus any 4- or 5-star song added in the past 90 days. It's a good mix, and it makes me happy. The specific songs going into those percentages get reset every day, so I get a good random playlist every day.

I never, ever, do shuffle on the entire iPod, as I am a "completist" when listening to albums, and if I'm in the mood to listen to an album then I'm most likely going to listen to the clunkers as well as the ones I really like. As a result, all those clunkers are in the overall library, and since they severely outnumber the "favorite" songs, a full-library shuffle would find me reaching for the "next" button constantly.

The other mode I spend a lot of time in is podcasts. There, I have another smart playlist which includes all podcasts which haven't been played yet, and I shuffle through them.

A vast minority of the time, though, I program in a playlist either prior to leaving or right when I get into the car (before I hit the road).

Oh, and as for the kid music: I've got two different playlists for when the kids are in the car: one equal to the "High Rotation" one above, except filtering out any "explicit" songs (I mark them myself using comments), and another which is "Kid's Favorites" which they get to torture me with when and only when they have been spectacularly good :) The latter is made a bit more simply than High Rotation, just grabbing all 4+-star songs included in the "Kid Songs" playlist and a small spattering of other random songs to keep them "alive".

By the way, my approach to keeping the kid songs out of my shuffle is that I have a "blacklist" playlist called "Kids Only". Any song on that is automatically excluded from consideration in the "High Rotation" playlist. That having been said, I'm young at heart enough to occasionally enjoy getting a blast of They Might Be Giants as a total thematic counterweight to the preceding Dylan or Ministry song, so only the "obnoxious" songs go into the blacklist.

From a philosophical perspective, I will almost always listen to a song the first dozen or so times in the context of its album (there are exceptions to this, though); after that, the best song of an album coming up in shuffle is a surrogate for the entire album, giving me the same thrill as I had listening to the album in total. Also, my musical tastes change enough that I will often find myself happening upon an older song I'd rated lowly, only to decide that I would like to hear that song a bit more often, and perhaps even from there go on to re-judge the album or collection from which it had come. That's the area where I feel something is still missing: I can't "seamlesly" go from listening to a song to listening to just the other songs on the album, then perhaps return back to the "High Rotation" playlist, and I also can't (aside from messing up song ratings) flag a song for later categorization in iTunes (ie, to add the rest of the album to the "Forced High Rotation" playlist which songs always appear in High Rotation as though they were 5-star rated ...

But, that's it. I have a huge collection, and while I truly love many albums, I most often enjoy the happenstance nature of shuffle too much to try to pre-program a playlist or album list.

almost always use shuffle when listening to my ipod. i guess my selection comes when i choose what songs to put on my 4gb nano since i have to leave off most of my 80+gb music collection . when i listen to itunes on my computer i usually choose albums or artists.

Shuffle within my playlists, which are usually agglomerations of related genres.

I like to use the shuffle feature to "re-discover" music that I have forgotten about. With more than 5,000 songs on my iPod, it's hard to navigate through song lists and album lists to find exactly what I'm in the mood for. There have been many times when the shuffle allowed me to re-discover a gem of a song that I had forgotten all about. And if the song is not one I'm in the mood for, I just hit next and wait for the next surprise. It's a pretty cool feature.

机票\北京机票\北京飞机票\北京打折机票\北京特价机票\北京航班查询\北京学生机票\北京国际机票\航空公司

90% shuffle. I do use a playlist that excludes christmas songs, but that still leaves me with almost 8,000 tunes of randomness. Gershwin followed by Public Enemy followed Kermit the Frog is my idea of a great radio station.

I shuffle 80% of the time and use playlists for the rest...

I don't ever shuffle, except within very-large (and specific) playlists that I've set up. So I have a playlist that's all of my motown/stax/eccentric soul material, and that I shuffle, because too much Martha & the Vandelles might make my head explode, but taking a brief trip down Otis Redding boulevard by way of some unknown Miami soul singer? Awesome.

I do the same the for music to drive to.

But in general, it's specific songs and albums. Right now, it's actually not getting much use, as I use the subway to read a book I need to read for an upcoming directing gig.

Almost always complete albums. I used shuffle for the first time yesterday during a 950-mile drive. The variety helped keep at bay boredom/sleep.

Mostly shuffle - unless I am in the mood for a specific album

I shuffle within music genre. Usually, reggae/dancehall music then I'll select shuffle.

Shuffle w/in playlists. Bing Crosby's White Christmas coming on in the middle of a heat wave is just too depressing.

I used to shuffle songs (70GB iTunes library), but now I shuffle albums (which you can set in iTunes prefs).

You could shuffle "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (the album), but it would be wrong.

beowulf888:

> I'm amazed at Bob's anti-shuffle sentiments, but on the
> other hand he admits that he doesn't own an iPod, so he
> obviously hasn't discovered the true joys of shuffling.
> Don't you think describing the shuffle mode as
> Orwellian seems just a trifle excessive, Bob?

Which part of "hard-ass musical ideologue" don't you understand? :)

Of course my message was over-the-top; I wrote it to be
deliberately provocative. Not to say I was being dishonest in
any way, but I stated it with a savage lack of equivocation :)

Have you ever read any Frank Zappa interviews? The man
was *such* a grouch. I share his perspective on this.

I also wrote it that way to get a response, because this thread
is doing a good job to help make my point. Music listening
is becoming more and more a completely private act -- pure
subjectivity. What Joe likes is not connected in any way to
what Jane likes -- or so it seems. That's why nobody's engaging
anyone else's opinions here (save for, heh, me). With the iPod
and digital music storage (with which, of course, I have no
fundamental objections per se), there's also this huge illusion
of diversity. Though there are other players that play MP3s, and
you can get most anything in digital format on the right sites,
iTunes carries very little true progressive/avant garde rock or 20th
century classical -- two of my favorite types of music. Or free
jazz. Or Balkan folk music. Or microtonal (what's that?) music.

It's kind of like radio prior to the digital age. Just because
there was a diversity of stations and formats doesn't mean what
was played on the radio represented the alpha and omega of music.
What the corporations call "classic rock" is -- gee, I wonder
why? -- not the rock music I listened to growing up in the 70s.

Beyond this, there's a wider effect on music itself as more and more
people take to the earbuds. Music becomes a kind of auditory Zoloft
-- a mood stabilizer/enhancer, or an alternate quasi-reality one
carries around in places where the reality itself is less-than-
engaging, like the subway. Which, you know, is *fine*, I suppose
-- but then don't act too shocked when people speak loudly and with
self-absorbed abandon on their cellphones in public places. Carrying
around this illusory nimbus of a private space with us into public
places accretes a socal cost. It also has a cost to music itself.

Isn't attempting to withdraw into an illusory private sphere
precisely what we object to most strongly in Republican ideology?

And if ecsape into music is a salutory thing, that's why I like to
treat the experience with the respect and attention it deserves.

Music, like any art, demands a certain amount of engagement in order
to be fully appreciated. Often, things we didn't like at all at
first listen can grow on us as our experience widens (some of my
favorite music -- Stravinsky, Captain Beefheart, Hatfield and
the North -- was completely opaque to me at first). Music is a
language, and as with any language, a bigger vocabulary yields
a deeper understanding. That's why I bless my elementary school
teachers for making me sit through all those boring symphonies.

But doesn't Shuffle aid and abet just this exposure to the otherwise
unchosen, one might rebut. But ahh -- there's the escape hatch,
which Shuffle fans have duly noted. Just hit the *next* button if
the tune in question doesn't happen to fit your mood like a glove ...

There's a wide, raucous world out there, with tunings,
scales and timings undreamed of in Steve Job's philosophy ...

Bob

No iPod, but I use shuffle with lots of skipping with my CD MP3 player in the car and with Winamp at home.

酒店
北京五星级酒店
北京四星级酒店
北京三星级酒店
北京酒店
如家快捷酒店
200元以下酒店
可上网酒店

女性，照片，妇女，图像
美女图片
美女写真
美女图片
美女写真美女图片美女图片
美女
美女图片美女图片
美女写真
美女
女性，照片，妇女，图像
美女写真
美女写真美女写真美女图片
美女写真
美女
美女图片
美女写真

I've never used random on my ipod or winamp on my computer, which I actually use far more often than my ipod. (Not a fan of the itunes player/interface.) I have about a dozen playlists, 8 by artist, the others by music type, and since 90% of my ipod use comes at the gym, I use the several fast/hard compilations (Marilyn Manson, NIN, Pantera, Slayer, etc) most of the time. I couldn't hear tinkling, mellow stuff over the noisy workout machines and piped in music even if I wanted to.

I have an eclectic mix of rock, pop, fo9lk, show tunes, Celtic and classical music on my iPod. When it comes to classical music, the iPod treats each movement as a separate song, so shuffling could give me a consecutive list of Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road," the second movement of the Brahms Violin Concerto and Carole King's "It's Too Late."

Haven't bought an IPod (I won a Shuffle -- it's quite lame), but I use ITunes all the time.

a) At home and at the office I mostly listen to radio on the web. I've grown particularly fond of AOL Messengner's product ("AIM with XM" or somesuch). I'm listening to one of my staples stations right now, their Bossa Nova option. I'm not a big IM'er, but this free product (well over 150 stations -- something for every, and I mean EVERY taste -- virtually commercial free) is well worth downloading AIM even if you never instant message.

b) I do listen the my own music collection via ITunes on occassion, but mostly I use ITunes to stuff 100-200 songs on a CD and use the MP3-compatible stereo (6 CD bays) in my car to listen to my own collection.

c) I know a lot of people like IPods because they can dispense with stereo equipment, but I prefer to just use my PC and connect it directly to my receiver. Shelling out $300 for an IPod would simply duplicate a task that's being adequately handles by ITunes and a cheap Dell.

d) I'm just not a big fan of the small, convenient device known as the IPod for storing several thousand tunes. You still have to back up your songs using another storgage medium (at least you should if you're prudent). If you're a subway rider or take lots of long flights, I guess they're a Godsend, but if you do much driving, you've got to deal with having to connect that damn little box to your stereo -- and then worrying about taking it with you after you park (lest your entire music collection gets stolen). Living in the city and parking on the street, it's just not for me. I think it's much easier to keep a dozen, cheap and expendable self-made MP3 CDs in one's auto, because you'll be carrying around, what, 2000 songs, and all you're risking is a few bucks worth of plastic. I realize not everyone's car stereo is MP3 compatible -- mine wasn't until I got rid of my old Toyota a few months back -- but when it is time to buy a new car, do yourself a favor and spring for this option -- it'll be well worth it, especially on long trips.

e) I do value MP3 portability for purposes of working out (I'm a pretty serious runner) and here, too, I'm less than impressed with Apple's (and the industry's) offerings. I simply don't want wires running from my arm to my head. I want someone to come up with a headphones-only MP3 player made specifically for atheletes, similar to the 5-year old Walkman I still use for my runs. Once Apple or Soney or Microsoft does that, I'll be first in line for a shiny new MP3 player.

iPod in the car - iTunes in the house.

Mostly shuffle - if I don't like the song I slam down another shot of whatever's available and, if my attention span perseveres, I go in the house and skip forward.

I don't drink in the car of course but I do like most of my music and don't like commercials, so I ask the machine to pick for me. iTunes says I have 10336 songs - it does repeat 'cause I restart things several times a week - If I don't drive for 48 hours the iPod goes to sleep and doesn't remember where it was. I also don't run iTunes continuously.

I do have one play list for the dogs (they seem to like classical music - but what the hell they're poodles.

Anyway this is a much better subject to consider in lieu of Global Warming - Record Heat Wave in America - Iraq - Lebanon.

jb

Always specifics. Never shuffle. They could disable shuffle, and I'd never know the difference.

don't have an ipod - i have a 200 cd "jukebox" player - USUALLY i put it on shuffle play - that way it surprises me with a mix of blues, bluegrass,
gospel, led zepp, doors, old time, beatles, CCR, girl groups, sixties soul, stones -- whatever is in there - if it hits something really cool like Peg Leg Sam (harmonica) or the staples singers I might switch it over to the single cd - "shuffle" makes the treadmill walking more interesting

shuffle

My daughter chooses shuffle and lets iPod do the work.

I pick a predetermined song list, then let iPod pick the tunes off that list at random. I get the music I want to hear, but at random. I don't know what tune is coming next. Sounds fresher that way for some reason.

When you live on a 30' boat, iPod saves a LOT of space by storing sooooo many CDs.

50%: shuffle
50%: playlists

100% shuffle on my iPod shuffle. It's the greatest thing since that sliced bread Guiness commercial.

I'm looking forward to the day 5-7 years from now when flash memory is tiny enough where all the music will fit in the headphones themselves.

i never use shuffle.

i'm a producer/songwriter and use my iPod for both professional and personal use.

therefore, it would be inconvenient to use that feature because it would not guarantee me of the ability to partition the music i listen to and reference for business, from the music i listen to for pleasure.

I use ratings in iTunes, and usually only listen to songs that are 3 or better (those are the ones I put on my iPod). I almost always do the shuffle on iPod. On iTunes, most of the time I'll either shuffle the iPod songs, or shuffle the ones that I haven't listened to in the past month or two (using a smart playlist), or shuffle the songs that are rated 4 or better. Sometimes I listen to a particular song or an album in order, or I shuffle an artist or a genre. And I spend some time listening to unrated songs, either by artist or with the shuffle, so that I can rate them.

CWLV, here's what I have from How through I'm:

Jefferson Airplane - How Do You Feel (Rock)
Isaac Hayes - Hung Up on My Baby (Funk/Soul)
Common - Hungry (Hip-Hop)
Bob Dylan - Hurricane (Folk/Rock)
James Brown - I'm A Soul Man (Funk/Soul)
Dee Dee Warwick - I'm Glad I'm a Woman (Funk/Soul)
Wallflowers - I'm Looking Through You (Rock)
Beatles - I'm So Tired (Rock)
Marva Whitney - I'm Tired I'm Tired I'm Tired (Funk/Soul)

Shuffle - my car has an integrated iPod adapter so I am able to shuffle within 5 different playlists or my entire collection. Although when hooked in to the stereo at home, I use the regular shuffle feature, which as noted above, plays anything and everything - sometimes this works out well, and other times I wonder how a particular song ended up on my iPod!

I have an iPod Shuffle, but I only use it to listen to podcasts.. so I don't care about the track order.

Trust the big shuffle over all songs. The ipod acts like a radio station, playing artists that I like. And it is OK having a Bach piece follow Led Zeppelin.

Actually, the big shuffle has helped me appreciate some tunes that I would never get to, listening only to the CD. And there are some artists (DMB) that are enjoyable only in small doses (one song per week).

Almost all shuffle when cooking or socializing, but specific stuff when I'm really listening.

The shufflers among us might enjoy Pandora.com. Plug in a few of your favorite artists and they have some algorithm for matching up similar artists/songs. Also can create a number of custom "radio stations", depending on inputs.

Hit or miss sometimes, depending on what you input (and like), but you can modify by giving a thumbs up or down to selected songs (sort of like TiVo suggestions) to improve future offerings.

Good way to hear new music without sorting through most of the bad stuff.

I took every album in the collection, and went track by track, putting each track into the mix playlist that fit the tone of the music. Every weekday at work I use the iTrip to stream to the old fashioned Sony radio under my monitor; I choose the mix that best suits the way I feel that day, and it's always on shuffle. During the workday I can't be bothered to constantly choose one album to play after another. Once in a while I will choose an artist, but again, it's always on shuffle.

It's like having an XM Radio, but without the NPR.

Shuffel. I just skip any song that comes up that I am not in the mood for. Sometimes I just listen to favorites.

Some advice for people with categories (Kids, Christmas, Classical) they wouldn't want coming up in a global shuffle, or only want occasional access to:

Put them in their own iTunes playlist, then "Uncheck" every song in that playlist. (Highlight all the songs, right-click, and select "Uncheck selection.")

Then set your iPod options to only update Checked selections. The songs will still be organized in iTunes, but will come off your iPod and stay off until you check them and update your iPod again.

Shuffle all the way. Skip the ones you dont like. It makes you not only listen to music you wouldnt hear ordinarily but also exposes you to your own connections in disparate musical generes.

All shuffle, all the time. This morning on my commute, I got to go from the Jupiter Symphony to the Clash. And, to my surprise and delight, the little intro to "Jimmy Jazz" uses the same intervals as the third movement in the Jupiter Symphony. It then got run straight into Johnny Cash's cover of U2's "One."

I'd never put all of those together as a playlist, but it certainly kept me interested the whole way to work.

I have a quick skip button finger. If I'm not in the mood for whatever comes up next, I just go forward. But putting my musical future into the hands of the great MP3 randomizer in the sky works for me.

When playing ipod, I'm on shuffle; on itunes, I play albums. A great feature, which I don't think Apple has added, would be sjuffle within a genre.

我向大家推荐:文件柜 网上批发市场，为您提供优质低价的文件柜,丰富文件柜行业资讯助您成交。北京 保险箱上海 厂向广大客户提供保险箱上海产品及保险箱上海服务。北京 办公用品 厂向广大客户提供办公用品产品及办公用品服务。要想寻找窃听器信息请访问 窃听器 网，各种窃听器应有尽有。要想寻找窃听器信息请访问 窃听器 网，各种窃听器应有尽有。北京 PANTONE色卡 厂向广大客户提供PANTONE色卡产品及PANTONE色卡服务。要想寻找窃听器信息请访问 窃听器 网，各种窃听器应有尽有。北京 手机监听器 厂向广大客户提供手机监听器产品及手机监听器服务。餐饮软件 网上批发市场，为您提供优质低价的餐饮软件,丰富餐饮软件行业资讯助您成交。您想要了解 餐饮管理系统 吗？请到中国餐饮管理系统网来寻找餐饮管理系统。北京 无线点菜 厂向广大客户提供无线点菜产品及无线点菜服务。北京 传奇私服网 厂向广大客户提供传奇私服网产品及传奇私服网服务。投影机灯泡 网上批发市场，为您提供优质低价的投影机灯泡,丰富投影机灯泡行业资讯助您成交。北京 投影机维修 厂向广大客户提供投影机维修产品及投影机维修服务。北京 窃听器 厂向广大客户提供窃听器产品及窃听器服务。北京 上海笔记本维修 厂向广大客户提供上海笔记本维修产品及上海笔记本维修服务。中国 餐饮管理系统 网，打造餐饮管理系统领域专业搜索平台，提供全球餐饮管理系统品牌公司及产品展示。中国 餐饮软件 网，打造餐饮软件领域专业搜索平台，提供全球餐饮软件品牌公司及产品展示。您想要了解 办公用品 吗？请到中国办公用品网来寻找办公用品。中国 二手笔记本电脑 网，打造二手笔记本电脑领域专业搜索平台，提供全球二手笔记本电脑品牌公司及产品展示。您想要了解 笔记本租赁 吗？请到中国笔记本租赁网来寻找笔记本租赁。条形码打印机 网上批发市场，为您提供优质低价的条形码打印机,丰富条形码打印机行业资讯助您成交。中国 移动硬盘 网，打造移动硬盘领域专业搜索平台，提供全球移动硬盘品牌公司及产品展示。北京 上海集团电话 厂向广大客户提供上海集团电话产品及上海集团电话服务。上海 窃听器 公司专业生产窃听器产品，欢迎选择窃听器。北京 贴纸相机 厂向广大客户提供贴纸相机产品及贴纸相机服务。北京 对讲机 厂向广大客户提供对讲机产品及对讲机服务。北京 对讲机 厂向广大客户提供对讲机产品及对讲机服务。北京 机柜 厂向广大客户提供机柜产品及机柜服务。您想要了解 复印机租赁 吗？请到中国复印机租赁网来寻找复印机租赁。北京 窃听器 厂向广大客户提供窃听器产品及窃听器服务。上海 手机信号屏蔽器 公司专业生产手机信号屏蔽器产品，欢迎选择手机信号屏蔽器。要想寻找笔记本维修上海信息请访问 笔记本维修上海 网，各种笔记本维修上海应有尽有。

I make big use of the ratings, so I largely use the playlists of four- and five-star songs. So I listen to playlists, but they're large enough that it's a random collection of music I know I like.

Bill, re: shuffling within genres:

You can create a smart playlist that includes everything from one genre. Then in Party Shuffle mode in iTunes, you can select that smart playlist as the source playlist from which party shuffle will draw (there's a drop-down box just above where you can select number of upcoming and past songs to display).

Similarly, you can import your smart playlist onto your iPod, and then shuffle from there.