The "This & That" Mix

As an experiment in the workings of chaos and order, I created a mix today (ok, well, iTunes playlist) whose songs would be derived from a similar trait found in the song title, but then randomly sorted (first try goes) to see what would happen. I decided to choose songs whose titles match the structure of "Something & Something" and could tell early on it was going to go well. When I did the random shuffle, it placed them in a sequence that I couldn't have organized any better myself.

#	Song	Artist	Album
1	One Angry Dwarf & 200 Solemn Faces	Ben Folds Five	Whatever & Ever Amen
2	Matthew & Son	Cat Stevens	Matthew & Son
3	Bottle Up & Explode	Elliott Smith	XO
4	Jenny & The Ess-Dog	Stephen Malkmus	Stephen Malkmus
5	Scream & Shout	The Polyphonic Spree	Thumbsucker Soundtrack
6	Dollars & Cents	Radiohead	Amnesiac
7	Sports & Wine	Ben Folds Five	Ben Folds Five
8	Misogomy & The Object	Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet	Dim The Lights, Chill The Ham
9	Hannah & Gabi	The Lemonheads	It's A Shame About Ray
10	Snowflakes & Heartaches	Zumpano	Look What The Rookie Did
11	Iggy & Angus	Sloan	Navy Blues
12	Wraith Pinned to the Mist & Other Games	Of Montreal	The Sunlandic Twins
13	Cigarettes & Alcohol	Oasis	Definitely Maybe
14	Me & My Head	Quasi	Field Studies
15	Peace & Quiet	The Well Wishers	Under The Arrows
16	Windy & Warm	The Ventures	Surfing

It's such a good mix. How did it know how well Cat Stevens and Elliott Smith would blend into each other? Or to put the most indie-sounding bands in the mix (Quasi, The Well Wishers) together at the bottom? Or put a nice Canadiana section together in the middle, covering the west coast (Zumpano) to the east coast (Sloan)? And The Ventures' as the last track is a great mix finisher, too.

Maybe iTunes is smarter than we think it is.