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The Amazing World of iTunes Celebrity Playlists

I'm sure every one of us has, during some moment of curiosity, weakness, or both, investigated the "Celebrity Playlists" section of iTunes. It's occasionally interesting, but after seeing that Frank Black is listening to nothing but Burl Ives, I grew bored. Until I hit the last page.

Now, I'm not sure what the criteria is to get your playlist featured on iTunes as a celebrity playlist, but the last page of them (page 15 when I checked this morning) is full of some amazing playlists. I'm not even sure how or why some of these people have playlists on here. I mean, David Oreck? The vacuum-cleaner mogul? Lawrence Lessig? Alan Greenspan? More amazing than that he's even here is that, apparently, Alan Greenspan listens to almost nothing but the Black-Eyed Peas.

Some of the entries offer no surprises at all: David Duke likes Skrewdriver and Prussian Blue? No shit. Frank Gehry likes Kraftwork? I can see that. But sometimes you think some of the selections are just picked to be, you know, seen. Like how Kofi Annan's huge list of U2 songs really seems just like some Bono-ass kissing.

Then there's the really baffling ones: Fidel Castro and the Shins, Betsey Johnson and Thin Lizzie, and the fact that Fran Tarkenton (ex NFLer who once co-hosted That's Incredible) is on the list at all.

Anyway, this makes for some fascinating time-wasting.