DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Apple made a big splash with its iPod Shuffle, the primary feature of which is that it allows users to listen to a playlist in random order:

Random is the New Order

Welcome to a life less orderly. As official soundtrack to the random revolution, the iPod Shuffle Songs setting takes you on a unique journey through your music collection — you never know what’s around the next tune. Meet your new ride. More roadster than Rolls, iPod shuffle rejects routine by serving up your favorite songs in a different order every time.

But here’s the thing they don’t tell you: random order can suck. Sure, your collection of Matchbox 20 or Prince songs can be played back-to-front, in alphabetical order, sorted by length, randomly, or, my favorite, not at all. It scarcely matters.

But if your CD collection looks like this:

…then you’re going to want to listen to songs in album order, the way God and progressive rock musicians intended. (Yes, I grew up with vinyl.)

Fortunately, iTunes can reveal the dark neglected corners of your iTunes Music Library without forcing you to suffer indignities like listening to “Thick as a Brick (pt. 2)” before “Thick as a Brick (pt. 1).” It’s a feature called “Smart Playlists,” which is a way to make a playlist whose contents change moment-to-moment based on criteria you define. In this particular case, the important criteria is to called “Least Recently Played.”

Because iTunes keeps track of the time you’ve most recently played each song in the library, it’s a simple matter to find the ones you haven’t heard in a long time, or more to the point, in the longest time.

So, for the past couple days I’ve been enjoying many hours of music I ripped in 2003-2004 but haven’t listened to since. It’s an equal-opportunity playlist. And it’s a nice break from the stuff I seem to listen to every two days.