Before iTunes 8, there was a great feature in Preferences, allowing users to set the frequency of how often you hear artists in Shuffle. This was a very nice feature to use because sometimes iTunes will play several songs by the same artist in a row or after one or two songs, and there's no other way to control it but to create your own playlist and shuffle from within that.You can download the previous version of iTunes which has this feature at the Apple website. However, if you try to install it while you already have iTunes 8 on your machine, it will tell you that you cannot downgrade iTunes. There's a few things you can do to get around this and have iTunes 7.7.1 again.
Here is the process:
First, go to your iTunes music folder and move the iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml files to a safe folder somewhere.
Go to the Applications folder, and throw iTunes.app into the Trash. Empty the Trash.
Now, run the downloaded DMG file and install iTunes 7.7.1.
Once it is installed and running, go to the File menu, and choose Import. Choose the iTunes Music Library.xml you moved before. Now it will rebuild all of your library, playlists, etc.
Now in Preferences you will find the ability to set the frequency in how often you hear a particular artist on Shuffle!
