The Big Shuffle
The newest addition to The Hideaway is located at the bottom of the right hand column, just below the link to the now year long dormant Shuffle Shame site: The Big Shuffle. It is the last five tracks from HERC's ultimate ongoing shuffle of his digital library which includes both files ripped from his CD collection and a few thousand of the 39,194,575 tracks available via Spotify. The tracks are scrobbled by the Last.fm Windows plug-in monitoring the media players HERC uses most often. Shortly after originally posting this entry on The Hideaway, last.fm updated their site functionality and completely obliterated the sweet little plugin.
HERC's specific reason for posting this widget is twofold: 1) he is fascinated by the library shuffle concept and 2) as his once mighty mental prowess continues its slow and steady decline, he needed a single place to track his history across the different players, computers and portable devices he uses on a daily basis. HERC figures that if the NSA has access to his music listening habits then so should his viewers - complete transparency is what makes America great. You'll notice that sometimes HERC abandons his favored shuffle practice altogether as he builds or enjoys a playlist, has a hankering for a single artist's discography or even a single album or song on Repeat for an hour. Feel free to contact HERC about any song(s) you see listed - every track has the potential to be a conversation starter.
While he ain't the most social primate in the monkey house (no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other pooh-flinging accounts), you can view HERC's Last.fm profile HERE and his Spotify profile HERE.
I like the idea of the Shuffle indicator. I used to shuffle a ton with my iPod, but when I shifted over to doing album reviews about five years back I put my player into album mode. Something about looking at the songs in the context that they were originally presented totally appeals to me. I am sure I will tire of it sooner or later though. I am like that. ;)
ReplyDeleteContext is definitely key when reviewing albums, I agree. Another context is your life lived thus far and how all the music you've made the concious choice to gather digitally colors and shades your many memories.
DeleteI admittedly go off shuffle frequently and onto tangents. My ongoing unexplained obsession with ABBA's 1982 non-hit "The Visitors" and the need to hear it on repeat an hour at a time is a prime example.
Another cool thing about Last.fm's Profile Page is it tells you where the music is playing, whether it be hi-def music in foobar2000, playlists in Spotify or just straight up shuffle from my iTunes lossless library. The iOS Spotify app even tracks when I stream to my iPad around the house or my iPhone out on a walk or a drive.
Love the shuffle. In fact, unless I'm listening to a full album while writing for a blog, I almost always shuffle. My preferred mode is full library shuffle so that all my favorite genres are in the mix.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what a scrobble is, but it sounds like some sort of countrified dessert: "After I had my chicken fried steak and sweet tea, I enjoyed a piece of homemade apple scrobble."
I prefer the full library shuffle as well though I'm sure I skip more than the average person not because I do not like the song (like I've said before, why on God's green Earth would I have a song I don't like in my library?) but rather the song does not fit my current mood or frame of mind. My ulitmate goal is to have all my favorite music playing on shuffle everywhere I go and I'm pretty damn close.
DeleteScrobble, scrobbling and scrobbler are indeed funny, unique words. Apple Scrobbler would have been too easy in your example, I presume. Every scrobble is homemade, you got that part right.
Here's a recent decent example of how scrobbling benefitted me. Generally, if I don't pass out smoking and drinking in my smelly old recliner with the TV on the ID channel, I make an effort to enjoy what has become my nighttime ritual: a couple of vitamins and prescription pills, a couple tablets of melatonin, brush the teeth, Breatheright® strip across bridge of nose and then lay down on the ol' Tempurpedic®, resting my head on a nest of three Tempurpedic® pillows. I put the Grados® on and punch up a playlist on the iPad. As I drifted off just last night, I was listening to a beautiful song I had never heard before which is what happens when you listen to playlists other people make. It made such an impression on me that I had to find out what it was this morning when I awoke. With Spotify, I could have just checked the History but with Last.fm enabled, I could tell exactly when I listened to the song which made figuring it out that much easier as I have a peculiar habit of looking at clock just before I fall asleep.
The song was "Prologue" from the score to Birth by Alexandre Desplat.