I am perplexed by this request.

I am soliciting song suggestions to put on my iPod; all genres are welcome.

Why would one ask such a question? If one wanted to simply know what other people were listening to, it's a funny -- nothing wrong with it, mind you, just funny -- way to phrase it. It struck me as similar to asking what one should have for breakfast. I just don't get it. Doesn't he already have a collection of CDs? etc? Maybe it's some sort of reference to Heinlein's hero.

Comments

[JRoth]

May I suggest that this is a factor of the iPod's capacity? I feel like I have a decent CD collection, but it wouldn't make a dent in even the smallest "full size" iPod (20 GB). So why not solicit suggestions for things that are "out there?" It's less of a commitment than buying a CD qua CD, to which you then listen in a one hour chunk. Instead, buy it on iTunes, or rip a CD onto the iPod, and it just gets added to the mix - infiltrating your musical mind 3 or 5 minutes at a time.

A couple months ago I visited a friend who took all of the music off my iPod to put on her laptop, then did the same with a neighbor's laptop. She ended up with over a hundred hours of new music, some of which she'll no doubt chuck, but her attitude was - why not? It's possible to test drive more music than ever before, because you're not saddled with the paraphrenalia, and the material guilt of having CDs (or even taped copies) that you don't care for.

[J]

I'm perplexed by your perplexity. Do you really see no value in ever exposing yourself to new music? Or is it just the fact that he's proposing to put it on his iPod, where he might listen to it, instead of just asking generally what people listen to?

[David Sucher]

Of course I like new music.
My perplexity lies in his linking the request specifically to what he should place on his IPod rather than on what is simply new and interesting.
No big deal.