My problem with iTunes genius playlists

Predictability and repetition. To illustrate the first, here's what iTunes genius came up with when I used U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" as a seed track. This is using an iTunes library with 8404 tracks, by the way, nearly all of which should be indexed iTunes genius since they're music that's generally available--so there shouldn't be any lack of options for iTunes to choose from.)

iTunes Genius: Sunday Bloody Sunday
	Track	Time	Artist	Album
1	Knockin' On Heaven's Door	2:30	Bob Dylan	The Essential Bob Dylan
2	Blowin' In The Wind	2:49	Bob Dylan	The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
3	Just What I Needed	3:43	The Cars	"The Cars"
4	A Long December	4:58	Counting Crows	Recovering The Satellites
5	Lovesong	3:29	The Cure	Disintegration
6	Close To Me	3:23	The Cure	The Head On The Door
7	Boys Don't Cry	2:35	The Cure	Standing On the Beach: The Singles 1979-1985
8	Heroes	6:08	David Bowie	Heroes
9	Let's Dance	7:37	David Bowie	Let's Dance
10	Monkey Wrench	3:51	Foo Fighters	The Colour and the Shape
11	Can't Stand Losing You	3:00	The Police	Outlandos d'Amour
12	King of Pain	4:59	The Police	Synchronicity
13	Don't Stand So Close To Me	4:04	The Police	Zenyatta Mondatta
14	Nightswimming	4:18	R. E. M.	Automatic for the People
15	Fake Plastic Trees	4:51	Radiohead	The Bends (Collector's Edition)
16	Paranoid Android	6:23	Radiohead	OK Computer
17	Karma Police	4:22	Radiohead	OK Computer
18	Higher Ground	3:23	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Mother's Milk
19	America	3:36	Simon & Garfunkel	The Best of Simon & Garfunkel
20	Tonight, Tonight	4:15	Smashing Pumpkins	Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness: Dawn To Dusk
21	Today	3:20	Smashing Pumpkins	Siamese Dream
22	Desire [Hollywood Remix]	5:23	U2	Desire (Single)
23	Sweetest Thing [B-Side Version]	3:05	U2	The Joshua Tree (bonus disc)
24	Sunday Bloody Sunday	4:39	U2	War
25	New Year's Day	5:36	U2	War

This playlist at least does a good job with diversity of genre and decade--there's 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s music all represented, and while most of it is alternative rock, there is some classic as well (Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel.) However, my issue with this selection of songs is that it's a lot of pretty predictable, burnt selections. With only a few exceptions, most of these songs you could still hear these songs on good ol' FM radio. 

Of course, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was a pretty big song for U2, so let's try a more obscure track from the same album.

iTunes Genius: Surrender
	Track	Time	Artist	Album
1	You're All I've Got Tonight	4:14	The Cars	"The Cars"
2	Since You're Gone	3:30	The Cars	Shake It Up
3	Rain	3:57	The Cult	Love
4	A Night Like This	4:16	The Cure	The Head On The Door
5	The Hanging Garden	4:34	The Cure	Pornography
6	Jumping Someone Else's Train	2:56	The Cure	Standing On the Beach: The Singles 1979-1985
7	The Perfect Kiss	4:50	New Order	Low-Life
8	Shellshock	6:31	New Order	Low-Life (bonus disc)
9	Secret Journey	3:34	The Police	Ghost In The Machine
10	Synchronicity I	3:23	The Police	Synchronicity
11	Walking In Your Footsteps	3:37	The Police	Synchronicity
12	Message of Love (Live At the Santa Monica Civic, CA, 1981)	3:28	Pretenders	Pretenders II (bonus disc)
13	Talk of the Town (Live At the Santa Monica Civic, CA, 1981)	3:18	Pretenders	Pretenders II (bonus disc)
14	Finest Worksong	3:50	R. E. M.	Document
15	Driver 8	3:24	R. E. M.	Fables Of The Reconstruction
16	Can't Get There From Here	3:40	R. E. M.	Fables Of The Reconstruction
17	Talk About The Passion	3:22	R. E. M.	Murmur
18	We Work The Black Seam	7:01	Sting	Bring On The Night
19	Love Is the Seventh Wave	3:32	Sting	The Dream of the Blue Turtles
20	Swamp	4:30	Talking Heads	Stop Making Sense
21	Girlfriend Is Better	5:06	Talking Heads	Stop Making Sense
22	Wire	4:18	U2	The Unforgettable Fire
23	Seconds	3:11	U2	War
24	Two Hearts Beat As One	4:03	U2	War
25	Surrender	5:34	U2	War

This time, genius does a better job with predictability. Instead of picking the biggest hit from the album, it seems to have gone with the second or third biggest hits (which, in a sense, is a bit predictable, so perhaps I should have said that iTunes did a better job of not picking burnt songs.)

The other problem I have with these two playlists is lack of artist variety. This may not be true for all iTunes users, but if I pick a U2 song, that doesn't mean I want to a playlist of all U2 songs. In fact, I would prefer that in a playlist of 25 songs, there be no artist repetition at all. In the first playlist, there are 13 unique artists, and in the second only 10. To me, that feels like a lack of imagination. Especially since in my library there are many artists that I think relate to U2 in style, genre and era. 

There are some things I really like about the genius feature, like it's convenience and the idea of quickly generating a playlist of related tracks, but I wish it allowed a bit more granularity in its controls. I'm thinking of sliders (or even checkboxes) that would allow one to adjust the variety of artists and the relative obscurity of the tracks it plays.