I'll Feed You Fruit That Don't Exist

Thanks for your input.  After some tinkering, here's the Stay of Execution High-Energy Treadmill Playlist:

1) Start me up -- Rolling Stones
2) You Sexy Thing -- Hot Chocolate
3) Every Time I See You Falling -- New Order
4) Take A Chance on Me -- ABBA
5) Nicotine & Gravy -- Beck
6) Indefinitely -- Old 97s
7) Sweet Child of Mine -- Guns N Roses
8) I Need You Tonight -- INXS
9) I Will Survive -- Gloria Gaynor
10) Get Up Offa That Thing -- James Brown

11) Rock The Casbah -- The Clash
12) Dancing Queen -- ABBA
13) Panama -- Van Halen
14) You Got Lucky -- Tom Petty
15) True Faith -- New Order
16) Where It's At -- Beck
17) Super Freak -- Rick James
18) Don't Stop Me Now -- Queen
19) Ch-Check It Out -- Beastie Boys
20) Brick House -- Commodores
21) Little T&A -- Rolling Stones
22) Mr. Brightside -- The Killers
23) Hey Ya -- Outkast
24) Devil's Haircut -- Beck
25) Let Me Entertain You -- Robbie Williams
26) Bizarre Love Triangle -- New Order
27) Pass the Mic -- Beastie Boys
28) Get on the Good Foot -- James Brown
29) All That She Wants -- Ace of Base
30) Breakdown -- Tom Petty
31) Never Tear Us Apart -- INXS

But there's a problem.  Somehow in the transfer of the tunes to my little mp3 player, the order of the files changes.  So all the songs seem to be there, but they aren't played in the order above.  Ace of Base was first, then Beastie Boys, then the Clash.  It took me a while to figure out what was going on.  The files were playing in alphabetical order.  The peculiar thing, though was the alphabetical order sometimes went by song name and other times by band name.  The Beasties' Ch-Check It Out was early on, right before the Clash, but Pass the Mic didn't show up until after the New Order songs, which followed the Rolling Stones' Little T&A, although sometimes it was alphabetical by song title, and sometimes by artist.  It was definitely not the order you see above.   Order matters in a playlist! 

I guess I'll have to go in and change the actual filenames of the tracks and the artists to ensure that the songs will play in the order I want them to.  I think there's a distinction between the filename that the computer reads and the identifying information that displays on my jukebox software.  In the jukebox, I can make a neatly ordered playlist, and sort by band or by song length or by song title.  The mp3 player, though, has no such bells and whistles, and I think the files are stored in alphabetical order and played back that way.  The tagging of the songs must vary -- some may be tagged with artist info first, others with song title first.   Anyway, I'm going to dive in and tinker some more. 

Comments

[matt]

< begin apple bigot alert > S -- when you get an iPod, these interface issues will vanish over the horizon behind you forever. That playlist makes for a long workout!

[pjm]

Looks like it will work quite well. I bet you'll keep changing it, though... I keep "road-testing" new songs (OK, "mill-testing") and one of the great things about digital music players (iPod et al) is that you can continually tweak it as the songs gain (or lose) the power to motivate.

Interested to hear how "Never Tear Us Apart" works, given that it's one of those slightly-less-normal songs in 12/8 time (i.e. all triplets). I've not yet dared to hit the treadmill with a proper waltz (3/4)...

[CM]

Great list! But aren't "Every time I see you falling" and "Bizarre Love Triangle" the same song?

[JOs3xiTO]

;D!