October 03, 2008
Friday random ten: How station managers do it these days

For my next Genius playlist, I went more mainstream, with Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out" as the seed song. That wasn't my first choice, but it was the first song I tried that didn't report "no Genius information is available", so it'll have to do. When I saw the 100-song list that the iTunes Genius created based on it, my first thought was that you could use it in place of whatever they've got on the local Jack FM station and no one would notice anything odd. Maybe they mean it literally when they say the station's concept is "like an iPod on shuffle".

The first ten songs in the order given:

1. "Steppin' Out" - Joe Jackson
2. "Tempted" - Squeeze
3. "Burning Down the House" - Talking Heads
4. "Shock the Monkey" - Peter Gabriel
5. "Good Thing" - Fine Young Cannibals
6. "Sultans of Swing" - Dire Straits
7. "You've Made Me So Very Happy" - Blood, Sweat & Tears
8. "Fox On The Run" - Sweet
9. "If I Can't Have You" - Yvonne Elliman
10. "Psycho Killer" - Talking Heads

Randomized:

1. "Steppin' Out" - Joe Jackson
2. "Shock the Monkey" - Peter Gabriel
3. "Solsbury Hill" - Peter Gabriel
4. "Blister In The Sun" - Violent Femmes
5. "Once In A Lifetime" - Talking Heads
6. "You Can Call Me Al" - Paul Simon
7. "New York State of Mind" - Billy Joel
8. "Rocky Mountain Way" - Joe Walsh
9. "America" - Simon & Garfunkel
10. "Spinning Wheel" - Blood, Sweat & Tears

Not too shabby, really. It's clear that combining a couple of these lists will be a decent way to fill up a Mini like mine. I will say that my first suggestion to Apple will be to allow for some customization of Genius, so that you can specify things like "Max number of songs from any album" and "Max number of songs from any one artist". Not that it made bad choices here, just that one may prefer more variety. And I still think it needs to broaden its view of compatible music, but that will be a subject for next time.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on October 03, 2008 to Music
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