# Plays random songs my ass **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 25, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-random-songs-my-ass/575988 "2011-03-25T17:54:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-random-songs-my-ass/575988/41 "2011-03-28T17:30:02Z")
☹ My ass only makes occasional single-toned noises. I don’t get songs at all. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2011, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-random-songs-my-ass/575988/42 "2011-03-28T17:45:00Z")
> [@DooWahDiddy](#): > > _That’s_ the problem, if you ask me. If I restart iTunes or turn my iPod back on, it should be able to remember where the shuffle left off (in an ideal world). 9 times out of 10 that’s why people don’t think it’s truly random; they’re looking at the big picture and wondering why they’re hearing the same songs over several days… well that’s why. I have the opposite problem with WMP. When you randomize it only selects less than 100 random songs, but then if you have it on long enough it will start to replay that list in the same order again. I have to restart WMP to re-randomize. Plus it also seems to play stuff from the same album pretty well-grouped together but like others in this thread I write that off as faulty human perception of randomness. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-random-songs-my-ass/575988/43 "2011-03-28T18:56:59Z")
My iPod has a fetish for David Byrne, other than that, I’m happy. 5000 songs, 2 Byrne albums, and who comes up every other damn time? I’ve had to gradually whittle out the Byrne songs from my library, and now have deleted them completely. Even after deleting them all, merely passing by another iPod user on the street causes a Byrne song to play. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-random-songs-my-ass/575988/44 "2011-03-28T20:19:32Z")
I never noticed it with my iPod or iTunes, but I recall a few years back I had a non-apple mp3 player, the make of which is eluding me at the moment, and it was decidedly not random … but it faked it well. It happened more than once where I was listening to a random shuffle one day and then a few days, and few other random shuffles, later I ended up listening to the exact same sequence of random songs as before. It seemed like it made up its own playlists and only played a pseudo-random sampling of the lists instead of individual songs. Hell if I know what criteria was used to set up the lists … but they were pretty easy to spot, especially when I only had a few 100 mp3s on the thing. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-random-songs-my-ass/575988/45 "2011-03-29T19:49:44Z")
Same problem with my Samsung MP3 player… I only have 600 songs. I hear about the same 100 of them all the time. It does at least assume that new songs I put on it should be played a bit before dropping off into the music ether. It seems more like the random feature works like this; if song #23 plays it’s either going to play song #453 next or song #67. If song #67 plays it is either going to play song #5 or song #278. If song #5 plays than next will be either song # 54 or song #243 and if song # 243 plays than either song #23 is going to play or song #21…and if song #23 plays it’s either going to play song #453 next or song #67…etc. etc. etc. It loops. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-random-songs-my-ass/575988/46 "2011-03-29T23:21:51Z")
Before I got my Droid I had a Sony MP3 player I had gotten as a service anniversary from work. Underpowered - only 2 Gig - but when it shuffled it really shuffled, and I never had a problem with repeating songs. I think the more modern ones are trying to be too clever. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-random-songs-my-ass/575988/47 "2011-03-30T02:30:43Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Before I got my Droid I had a Sony MP3 player I had gotten as a service anniversary from work. Underpowered - only 2 Gig - but when it shuffled it really shuffled, and I never had a problem with repeating songs. > > I think the more modern ones are trying to be too clever. That’s probably the problem - when I put the whole playlist on shuffle, I want the WHOLE playlist shuffled, and each song played in a random order. Then next time I put it on shuffle, I want the whole playlist shuffled again. I don’t want it giving various weights to songs that I have rated higher, and songs that I have played more often, etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-random-songs-my-ass/575988.md?page=2)