This thread has made me think about the music I prefer to listen to. I know the Ipod has had a huge influence recently - I can almost instantly find and listen to any sounds that I want to, and the things I want to hear surprise me. Echoes of my childhood (50s pop, occasionally 40s big band - from AM radio when I was a kid??), echoes of my childrens' childhood (lots of road trips and I worked HARD to find tapes we all could listen to), music from my young adult life (60s and 70s, a great era for all sorts of things) and some music I've found here on Mudcat (how could I have missed Art Thieme?) all come into it. I learned to hear modern jazz while rocking babies to late night radio, but there's certainly not much on my Ipod. My kids bring me music now, and some of it is great - William Elliott Whittemore, Great Big Sea, the Wiyos, Natalie McMaster, Michael Franti, Rani Arbo and Daisy Mahem, Gogol Bordello, among others - the kids know my tastes, but they bought it first.

The things that surprise me are: Robert Frost reading his poems, Julie Harris reading Emily Dickinson, Frank Crummit singing "The Prune Song," a proper rendering of "Nola" on piano (that took lots of browsing, I settled on Mark Tavener's version), and most recently, Beethoven's 9th conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Also the original 3 Hitchhiker's Guides, Richard Feynman telling about Los Alamos, and a reading of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

I rarely listen to a whole album anymore, but just let itunes shuffle it all up. I do edit occasionally to remove introductions, long unbroken tracks (I know they can be edited, but I haven't got there yet) and whatever doesn't suit today's mood. Do you guys listen by the "album" (coherent recording of one group) or do you shuffle?

If you shuffle, what are the next five tracks to hear? Mine are:
The Honeydipper, Gamble Rogers
Sometimes, Michael Franti
Matinicus, Bok, Trickett, Muir
Every Living Thing, Four Bitchin' Babes
All of Me, Billie Holiday