It’s that time again, to add a new wrinkle to the iTunes shuffle-play
system. Something about this week’s selection seemed a little bit
stale, and when I looked it over, there were a number of tunes from
way back in 2004 that I remember fondly, but a little too over-fondly.
The system’s goal is to extract a fairly random set of 45 hours of
music from the sonoteca, which today encompasses about 1,778
hours of tunes. That’s 2.5% for those of you keeping track. The
fundamental ratio is 8:2:5–or eight hours of tunes I like, two hours
of stuff that I thought was just OK, and five hours of new-to-me stuff
I haven’t rated yet (and probably haven’t heard). The 45 hours of
music lasts about two weeks over here in the secret city. When it’s
finished I plug the player back into the computer, resynchronize
everything, and generate a new set to listen to.
A lot of these tunes that seem to have been coming up, like Fase’s
“Nadie,” or Le Roy’s “Good Time,” or Dudu Nobre’s “A Grande Familia,”
aren’t that great except for certain portions, but I rated them highly
years ago and can’t bring myself to downgrade them (I really like the
line about “squirrels smoking crack” from “Good Time,” but that comes
in the first 45 seconds and nothing else reaches that pinnacle). So by
adjusting the recipe so that I limit this particular group of tunes to
an hour’s worth (down from two hours), I should create correspondingly
more room in the other 44 hours for slightly less worn-shiny favorites
from the collection.
So, to come to the interesting part, what comes in and what went out?
From this week’s data, I find the following songs added:
Kékélé, “Ponton La Belle ft Loko Massengo“
Kanda Bongo Man, “Assali“
Nine Horses, “Wonderful World“
Mory Kanté, “Courougnegne“
Jimmy Rushing, “Take Me Back, Baby“
Bugotak, “Maadai-Kara (Mission Impossible)“
Bonga, “Monta Ki Ngi Xica“
Patty Griffin, “Rowing Song“
Pretty Girls Make Graves, “All Medicated Geniuses“
Rilo Kiley, “It Just Is“
Norah Jones, “Don’t Know Why“
Reis ensemble, “Bô Dame Canja“
Brenda Holloway, “Trapped In A Love Affair“
Abbey Lincoln & Hank Jones, “Close Your Eyes”