Yes, the newest iTunes does suck. It will take you about 15 minutes of poking around with it, but you can force it into a configuration nearly identical to the previous version.

Sleeping Where I Want – Veruca Salt
Arctic Hysteria – The Residents
Exploring The Secrets of Treating Deaf Mutes – Severed Heads
Day After Day – The Pretenders
Un Poco Allegretto Gracioso – Brahms Symphony#1 in C Minor
All the X’s Have Wings – Helium
Daphnis (Keeler’s Gap) – X-102
Lost Weekend – Wall of Voodoo
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 23 in A major, K. 488 – Mozart
Porcelain – Pretenders

Why exactly does the new iTunes suck? Because I’ve been using it and actually rather liking it. Maybe it’s just that I’m using it on a Mac as God Steve Jobs intended, but it’s pretty nice for me.

I’m using it on a Mac. It’s just a pain to put on a simple song without this “play next” bullshit and lots of extra clicking that you didn’t need to do before.

Boom shaka laka.

Big Red – The Toasters
Virgen Madre de Dios – SAVAE
Omegaman – The Police
Every Little Thing She Does is Magic – The Police (!)
Exit Music (For a Film) – Radiohead
Midnight Lullaby – Tom Waits
Without Hope You Cannot Start The Day – Yes
I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better – The Byrds
Too Drunk to Dream – The Magnetic Fields
Maggie M’Gill – The Doors
Aquestando Toneceria – SAVAE

The rare double-repeat. Must mean I need more music.

Dog Days Are Over – Florence + the Machine
The Asteroid Field – John Williams
A Cold, Cold Christmas – Stephen Colbert
Mastermind – Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Gaeta’s Lament – Bear McCreary
King of Anything – Sara Bareilles
All the Roadrunning – Emmylou Harris & Mark Knopfler
Tomorrow Is A Long Time – Nickel Creek
Hush, Hush – Erin McCarley
Doppio movimento – Aaron Copland

I guess the old iTunes just reminded me too much of using iTunes on Windows, which blew great steaming goat balls.

Hello, is this thing on? Did it just eat my 10?

It’s just Steve Jobs giving you the middle finger from the grave…

“Famous Blue Raincoat” — Leonard Cohen
“Baby, I’m Yours” — Barbara Lewis
“Noise” — The Diodes
“You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” — The Miracles
“No Money Down” — Chuck Berry
“Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)” — Ben E. King
“The Calloway Boogie” — Cab Calloway
“Two Weeks Since You’ve Gone” — Scott Walker
“Main Title from The Carpetbaggers” — Jimmy Smith
“Mini-Skirt Minnie” — The Plimsouls

I haven’t updated iTunes since a few weeks ago, but it now seems impossible to do keyword searches on my iPod (as opposed to my hard drive). That the sort of thing people are complaining about?

I agree new iTunes sux hard. I tend(ed) to just put things on DJ play and listen to whatever I have on the machine as it came up. My music ranges from the ’30s to the ’00s. I wound up setting up a ‘playlist’ called “Everything”, copied the entire library and pasted it in then set it to “shuffle” Way too many hoops to jump through. Anyway:

1. Doolin’ Dalton – The Eagles
2. Strange Brew – Cream
3. Buffalo Soldier – Bob Marley
4. Right or Wrong – Asleep at the Wheel
5. Jesus Is On the Mainline – Mississippi Fred McDowell
6. Manic Depression – Seal & Jeff Beck
7. Riding with the King – Eric Clapton & BB King
8. Don’t Keep Me Wondering – The Allman Brothers Band
9. Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues – Bob Dylan
10. Ten Degrees and Getting Colder – Nanci Griffith
Bonus: Faded Love – Barefoot Jerry

No need for that if you just go into shuffle mode on your music library, the little file list icon thingy on the right of the top song window opens up the list of what will be playing next.

Private Life – The Pretenders
Steve McQueen – Drive-By Truckers
Baggage Claim – The Bottle Rockets
Overlap – Ani DiFranco
Slave To Love – Willy DeVille
Lovers Unloved – Black Dub
The Picture Of Heath – Jimmy Heath
Why Don't You Try? – Leonard Cohen
You Rise And Meet The Day – Dar Williams
Crow Jane Alley (For Jack) – Wiily DeVille (yes my iTunes also seems to have Spaghetti Lee's repeat problem today)
Bonus: It's Too Late – Carole King

Pregnant Shakira.

The arbitrary feature changes on the new iTunes do suck, but it’s handling large databases much better than before. I’ve pirated painstakingly collected a library of over 100,000 songs, and it handles the workload pretty well. But still no iTunes DJ so I used Tom Waits as my jumping off point to create a random list:

Jeepers Creepers (take 2) – Django Reinhardt
Ouaga Saga – Mokhtar Samba
Nandarou – Studio Ghibli
Key to the Highway – John Lee Hooker
Love for Sale – Cannonball Adderley
Don’t Take It Out – The Funky Muchachos
Resignation – Brad Mehldau
Rose Room – Sidney Bechet
Night and Day – Ella Fitzgerald
Levi’s commercial – Jefferson Airplane
and Alpha et Omega by Hermas Zopoula (no, I never heard of him before either but there he was on iTunes staring back at me)

Sometime around mid-last year, I experienced a burglary (while I was cranking off some zzz’s, no less). Among the items liberated from my greedy, running-dog-lackey-of-the-bourgeoisie, capitalist clutches was my iPod-type music contraption gadget thingie. There were plenty of tunes on there, including this one from Anna Maria Jopek. Um…Yup.

Post Script: Shakira’s Ass…Shake it but don’t break it. Um…Yup.

School of Seven Bells sounds like the Cocteau Twins 2013.

Me likey.

Aneurysm – Nirvana
Maybelline – Chuck Berry
Alone Again Or – Love
This Damn Nation – The Godfathers
Clean Steve – Robyn Hitchcock
I Think She Likes Me – Treat Her Right
Bullet – Misfits
Ages Of You – R.E.M.
(What’s So Funny About)Peace, Love and Understanding – Elvis Costello and The Attractions
White Light/White Heat – Velvet Underground

BONUS: Southern Girls – Cheap Trick

Thee Modern Lovers – Dance With Me
Thee Matt Pond PA – The Moviegoer
Thee Howlin Wolf – Built For Comfort
Thee Men – Ex-Dreams
Thee Duran Duran – Planet Earth
Thee Harlem – Cloud Pleaser
Thee Bad Company – Weady Puh Nub
Thee Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man – Mysteries
Thee Lilys – A Tab For The Holiday
Thee Uncle Tupelo – I Got Drunk…

…And I fell down.