The Random Shuffle Chronicles, Week 8 - Damn that James Taylor

I’ve got nothing against James Taylor. His songs have accompanied me many a night on the patio at my parents’ house, a beer in one hand and a good book in another, but he sure knows how to kill a workout.

It’s not just James Taylor, though. He’s only the latest in a line of numerous artists whose quiet, mellow tracks have popped up in the middle of a particularly vigorous workout.

The most recent interruption occurred over the weekend at the gym while I was pedaling furiously on the stationary bicycle. The machine had just switched to its highest resistance as a Deep Purple track (probably “Space Truckin’”) faded out, and the sounds of the Christmas season entered my ears as James Taylor began to croon “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”

Let’s keep in mind that it’s the middle of March, and as much as I like Taylor’s James Taylor at Christmas disc (and Christmas), the last song I want to hear as spring struggles to make its way to Buffalo is a blue-eyed folkie celebration of jolly-old St. Nick. And, it’s certainly not what I want to hear while I’m trying to keep my heart rate up at 160.

But, as I wrote earlier, this isn’t limited to James Taylor. With such a large number of songs on my iPod, it’s a given that songs like “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” or Styx’s “Don’t Let It End” will play at any time, but it’s still just as jarring and disappointing when they do. How is it that my iPod can string Bob Dylan, The Band and Carole King together while I’m drifting off to sleep - and bunch Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden and Mountain together while I’m driving - yet follow Black Sabbath with Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” while I’m at the gym?

I guess I could stop complaining and deal with the fact that I’m trying to listen to every song at least once on random shuffle and take it as par for the course, but it irks me. I thought iTunes and iPods counted listening statistics. Don’t they know what’s been played before and what hasn’t? I mean, I liked Kansas and Styx when I was 14, and I still had the CDs when I got to college. They eventually made their way onto my computer, but I don’t think I’ve sought out a song from either of those bands since I was 15. Based on my listening patterns, there’s no reason for my iPod to play a Styx or Kansas song (or a Christmas song for that matter, since I listen to those mainly on CD, not on my iPod).

Well, I sure strayed off topic fast. A paranoid rant about how my iPod was out to ruin my workouts was not what I intended when I sat down, but apparently that was more important than a discussion about the psychological effects of a mellow song on a vigorous workout. The good news, at least, is that there has to have been enough Styx and Kansas played to make the rest of their stay in the shuffle rotation brief. They can’t hang around forever, right?

Total songs listened to (of 6237): 1018 - 16.3%

Top five songs of the week:

1. Poem 58 - Chicago
2. Five Years - David Bowie
3. Let Me Roll It - Paul McCartney & Wings
4. The 59th Street Bridge Song - Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper
5. Bitter Fingers - Elton John

The Random Shuffle Chronicles - Weeks 5,6,7 - A lame summary before getting back into it next week

It’s been a while. I’ve heard plenty of music over the last three weeks, and have had very little time to write about it. The iPod went on a pretty good run since I last wrote, sticking to the bluesy and the heavy, following Led Zeppelin with Pete Brown and Piblokto! and stringing together jazz tracks from the likes of Herbie Hancock, Charles Mingus and Freddie Hubbard.

And, there was nary a Styx song to be heard. Whatever mechanical mind the iPod has decided it didn’t want to listen to Dennis DeYoung and company bury rock and roll under pretentious orchestral pomp.

The past three weeks also contained a few notable first appearances from the likes of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, Moby Grape and Santana. Bloomfield and Kooper got multiple plays, and the live versions of “Together ‘Til the End of Time” and “The Weight” made me long for the return of summer.

If there was a shuffle MVP of the last three weeks, however, it was Iron Maiden. The beasts of British heavy metal didn’t appear a lot during the shuffle, but hearing “Remember Tomorrow” as I dozed off one night launched a week long Maiden kick, culminating in a screeching trip down the highway to a ski resort as the debut album blasted through (and probably destroyed) my car’s speakers.

That’s it for now. In the future weeks I hope to find more topics as I listen that I can explore in depth, and avoid writing uninteresting summaries because I’ve been too busy to devote a proper amount of time to writing. Expect CD reviews to return in the near future.