From The New York Times, an article on the iPod shuffle feature —
Such are the perils of using Shuffle, a genre-defying option that has transformed the way people listen to their music in a digital age. The problem is, now that people are rigging up their iPods to stereos at home and in their cars, they may have to think twice about what they have casually added to their music library.
Shuffle commands have been around since the dawn of the CD player. But the sheer quantity of music on an MP3 player like the iPod – and in its desktop application, iTunes – has enabled the function to take on an entirely new sense of scale and scope. It also heightens the risk that a long-forgotten favorite song will pop up, for better or for worse, in mixed company.
There is an unintended consequence of the allure of Shuffle: it is causing iPod users to question whether their devices “prefer” certain types of music.
NewMexiKen adapted to shuffle when he bought a CD jukebox (now two jukeboxes with 8,984 tracks on line). Howling Wolf to Mozart works, but it takes some getting used to — and occasionally use of the disc skip button.