Is it me, or are iTunes and iPods terrible at playing random?

Imagination, heh. I feel the same way, but then I realized I only notice it when it’s not playing the songs I like, otherwise it just doesn’t bother me. :P might be the same…

I agree! I have nearly 80gb of music and I seem to hear the same 1,000 songs when there are 200,000 to choose from.

Genius is the best feature on ITunes now. you can just play a random playlist off one song and the rest match the first song. Its my favorite new way of playing songs on my computer, now I just wish I had it on my ipod. Ah well.

Yeah, that will happen a lot and it can make me hella angry. I don’t like genius at all… I don’t think it does it well at all.

Genius is not random. If I start off with the same song I always get the same playlist.

I’ve noticed with my iPod Touch that the songs I’ve listened to tend to come up more frequently, even when all the songs on the thing are shuffled. I sort of figured there was some wizardry behind it, in that it keeps an internal play count or something and serves me up more of the songs I like.

@LightlySeared, I do not see that behavior with Genius.

And it looks like CNet Australia is of the opinion that iTunes is not random.

Great question. I also have the same issue with my 30GB iPod.

glad to hear i am not just crazy

@AlenaD I’ve always thought the same thing too!!

It always seems like when i play my iPod on random i will hear back to back songs from the same artist quite often. I have a rather extensive music collection, that shouldnt happen as often as it does.

I know there is a preference setting about playing higher rated songs and songs with higher play counts more often… I just don’t know exactly where it is/how to change it.

you can also go into itunes and clear the play count on the songs. that helps randomize it a bit…

I think party playlist is what you’re looking for. It gives you more control over what songs are played more often (by rating, for example). Shuffle is truely random and, as you’ve discovered, random means “every track is equally likely to be played next” – which is not typically the same definition the human brain wants.

There’s an option you can check on iTunes Preferences where you can select to play high rated songs more often. If you chose your favorite songs and rate them 5 stars they will be playing more often.