Ipod Shuffle Screed August 1

I have a 30 gig ipod; one of the older pre-click wheel ones like the one in the picture. The mass of journalism and hype about the ipod has generally missed what makes it great. The ipod takes something you already own, your music, and makes it incredibly easy to access and enjoy. Anyone who calls it the "new walkman" totally misses the point. Its' the new walkman' only in the sense that it is a headphone-using music player. The walkman could only play one cassette at at time. The greatness of the ipod is not what it is; rather its greatness is what it does. I haven't bought more than 50 songs from the itunes store, but I have ripped about 4,200 songs from my own CDs (and maybe even a few I don't own). Assuming 15 songs an album (which is generous) that's 280 albums. When you have 280 albums that you like on one gadget, that's revolutionary and a real source of pleasure. Like the best radio station you ever heard.

Tonight while pulling weeds in the twilight and getting bitten by mosquitos I put the ipod on "shuffle songs." I've read several accounts of the creepy way the ipod on shuffle often "reads its user's mind" and hits upon a perfect chain of songs. Somebody wrote about the phenomenon this week in the New York Times. Mine did tonight. My ipod "picked" mostly 60's rock /early 70's American rock, which constitues considerably less than 10% of the ipod's contents.

Here's what I listened to in about an hour-- all on "shuffle songs:"

Mama Tried from "Grateful Dead"-- live version of the Merle Haggard song. Classic Americana. Read the Lyrics.
Helpless by Sugar (Copper Blue). Nice Bob Mould chestnut from the early 90s.
Carry On -- live version by Crosby Stills Nash & Young from 4 Way Street, 14:19. That rarest of things; a great instrumental jam that's not too long. One of the few groups aside from the Allmans who can pull this sort of thing off.
Sandusky-- Uncle Tupelo from March 16-20 1992 (instrumental)
Why Should I Care-- Beck Bogart and Appice. As per usual for Jeff Beck, a throwaway third rate song with incredible, impossible to duplicate multiple-track guitar.
Slide Away-- Oasis from Definitely Maybe-- tonight's hidden gem. (Hidden Gem: when listening to a huge shuffle, about 1 in every 10 or 12 songs you find a track buried somewhere on an album you never noticed before in the context of the original album-- this one is tonight's. Oasis was as good as the hype for their first 2 albums; maybe better.
Here I Go-- Eugenius from Ooomalama. Eugenius was allegedly Kurt Cobain's favorite bad-- kind of acidic sweet pop. I've never seen another Eugenius album aside from the ones I .
Long Time Gone-- live by Crosby Stills Nash & Young from 4 Way Street -- tonight's weird coincidence second track from one album-- from 4500 songs, what are the odds of that?
Hawaiian Island World by World Party from Private Revolution-- runner up for hidden gem.
The Very Thing that Makes You Rich Makes Me Poor-- Ry Cooder from Bop Till You Drop-- Best track of the night; a brilliant tour de force of perfect guitar and vocal. It may be the best JJ Cale song ever and JJ had nothing to do with it.
Funeral in My Brain by the Wayfaring Strangers from Shifting Sands of Time-- just got a bit of this before the bug bites ran me inside. This is a terrific, genre-defying record. You can find it on itunes listed under "country," which is dead wrong. Check it out.

That was all I listened to. Next would have been U-2 Schnieder by Bowie from Heroes.