Are you a Genius?

When I'm alone in the car I typically set my iPod to play an album or occasionally shuffle my whole library. The library shuffle tends to require a lot of song skipping which can get annoying. At home, I play whole albums almost exclusively.

That is, until the new iTunes introduced Genius. I'm back in the shuffle game now! It is simple to use. Pick a song and hit the Genius button. ITunes will try to find 25 songs that it thinks you will like. It doesn't just base its selection on genre, it also looks at era the song was released, mood, etc. I'm not really sure all the criteria it uses, but it works pretty darn well for a quick and dirty playlist. Of course, it does have issues. Rare songs give it heartburn and will tell you that Genius does not have any recommendations. It also won't include arcane or rare songs in the playlists it generates. But overall, when you don't know what to listen to, it works very well. I've been surprised by some of the playlist selections and it has the grand effect of digging out songs I have forgotten or never listened to.