How are you selecting music for the iPod? Are you syncing a playlist, or choosing for it to be filled automatically? The way that the shuffle is synced was changed from Gen 2 to Gen 3. The way that you are used to using the Gen 2 shuffle, where you have a list of songs inside the iPod under "devices," is simply not available with the newer shuffles. I have a 3rd gen Shuffle, and there is no way for me to reorder the songs inside "music" or inside the playlists within the "devices" area - the only way I can set the order of songs is to create a playlist for syncing, and reorder that playlist the way I want within the iTunes playlists. When I go in through devices, and look at the contents of my Shuffle, I can see the songs, but I can't change the playlists in any way. I think this is the behaviour that Apple has designed for the shuffles after 2nd gen. If you just play the music files in straight-through order, it plays alphabetically by artist name. The only way around this is to create a playlist of the right size to fit on your iPod, preferably a smart playlist unless you always want the same music on there, and sync that playlist across. (Or multiple playlists.)