So that's today's memory lane, with all the pathos and pain

[raybear]

It's fairly obvious that I think and talk and do a lot with music. The subject line of nearly every entry is a song lyric and it's not even the song that's listed under "current music". Usually the current music is what's actually playing, while the song lyric just fits the topic at hand. Or maybe it's just stuck in my head and doesn't seem related though later I'll make a connection.

So is it possibly for me to say I'm obsessed with music lately? I mean, I suppose it's all relative. I'm sure part of this comes from a few days without hearing much, when in the midst of moving I only had a couple CDs out from the boxes, the computer was packed away, and the car and truck I was driving had limited radio capabilities. Even my iPod was MIA a couple days due to lack of charging or accidentally leaving it on all day.

My iPod is supposedly randomly choosing songs from the 1800 stored inside, but I swear it favors some. Damon and I actually recently discussed how computers actually must be programmed to be random because they're incapable of it. Only humans can do it, which I don't even actually believe because there's always some variable that tips the scale. So does this mean the pure concept of random does not exist except in a vaccum? I'll write about that another time.

Here are songs my iPod loves and plays often and always near the beginning:
Viennese Lift -- Future Bible Heroes
Believed You Were Lucky -- Til Tuesday
Song for the Lonely & Half-Breed -- Cher
P.I.M.P. -- 50 Cent
You Don't Bring Me Flowers -- Barbra and Neil
That Is Why -- Jellyfish
Starkville -- Indigo Girls
Ricki Don't Lose That Number -- Steely Dan
A Girl Like You -- Edwyn Collins
Feel Good Time -- Pink
anything by Everything But the Girl

Here are the songs I would be playing "at random" because I'm obsessed with them:

Cross My Heart & Each and Every One -- Everything but the Girl
Amateur & Fourth of July & You're With Stupid Now -- Aimee Mann
El Metro & El Ciclon-- Cafe Tacvba
Play Dead & Possibly Maybe (strings remixes from Family Tree) -- Bjork
Muzik -- Knoc'-turnal
Scapegoat -- Atmosphere
Complexity -- The Roots
Whatever Lola Wants -- Sarah Vaughn
Quittin' Time (live) -- Mary Chapin Carpenter
The Difficult Kind -- Sheryl Crow
Estoy Aqui -- Shakira

Comments

[drood.livejournal.com]

Does your iPod ever do psychic picks? That is, four or five random songs in a row that are all interrelated by artists or their relationships to each other?

This morning mine did, in exact succession:

"Wooster Will Entertain You" from By Jeeves!, an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical
Sarah Brightman, "Yesterday" (ALW's ex-wife singing a song by Aimee Mann)
Aimee Mann, "Ghost World"
Dusty Springfield, "Spooky"
Carole Pope (one of Springfield's lovers), "High School Confidential"

Luckily I got out of the car then, before it could creep me out any more.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

YES. sometimes my iPod seems to take requests. It will play a song by an artist and when the song is over, I think "ooh, that sounded good I want more of ____," and then several times it will go back to that artist for the following song. Which is sort of crazy considering there's maybe 12 songs by the group out of nearly 2,000.

Sometimes my iPod gets on genre kicks, playing four or five songs in a row.

[thedemonnemo.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly the randomness of an number in a computer is determined by an algorithm, number of variables and length of the equation of the algorithm would determine the degree of randomness, therefore after a given number of attempts the song to be played should become more and more predictable. Then of course there is the theory that peoples' attention or "psychic energy" may influence inanimate objects such as a computer program. But then again, perhaps the little fairy that lives inside the iPOD prefers certain songs. Cheers, Nemo

[raybear.livejournal.com]

In the realm of supernatural/psychic explanations, I would theorize that the energy is flowing in reverse. The computer is random and stable but we pick up on IT'S energy, then we interpret the sensation as an inanimate object reading our minds, rather than us picking up on the patterns of an inanimate object.

Sort of like how when you open the freezer and it looks like cold white air is rushing out when in reality warm outside air is rushing in and transpiring.