You type in your favorite song or artist and the website creates a radio station based on other music it thinks you might enjoy.
The recommendations are not always obviously linear, but has been pretty dead on for me.
For example, I picked "Leaving on a Jetplane" by Peter, Paul & Mary for my starting point.
The station started playing:
Outloud by Dispatch The Quiet Nora Lee by New Idea Society Blowing in the Wind by Peter, Paul & Mary Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye, by Leonard Cohen
I think I'll start a Deep Purple station next.
quote:with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.
Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.
Over the past 5 years, we've carefully listened to the songs of over 10,000 different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.
It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.
posted
Wow. This is amazing. I'm so mesmerized by the internet today. What amazing things they can do these days.
Posts: 1789 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
There's something disturbing about the connection to "opening Pandora's box", don't you think?
*grin*
I wonder if they'd put together the mixes I used to create back in the good ole days of cassette to cassette (or *gasp* record to cassette).
I have some compilations that jump between Iron Maiden, Metallica, and old 1400's renaissance music - do you suppose they'd understand the modality connections?
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Why didn't anyone tell me I liked the new Gwen Stefani album? I am SO picky about music, and on the second try it chose a song I've never heard and loved! I entered a random song I liked (Let Go by Frou Frou) and it picked light techno.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
You can only go so far before you have to register. And then you get the choice of paying or getting the free version. And you only get a certain number of skips per hour. So it's really a lot more like Launch than I thought. O well
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
So I type in my favorite band: Tegan and Sara. Pandora plays a song by Tegan and Sara. Actually, it's the first TandS song I heard. And then it tells me they're not playing TandS, it's a band that sounds like them! so much so that it's the same band. silly radio.
posted
Yay, it's working now! And it knows who most of my favorite artists are, which most of these things don't. So far, so good. I'll report back when I get a little further.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
AND they don't know John McCusker. Even Yahoo knows John McCusker. (They did say they'd check him out, but still.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Connie Dover, either! And they want me to pick another Connie instead! This is starting to annoy me. *narrows eyes*
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
It doesn't do as well with songs as with artists. Although when it doesn't know half the artists I type in, that puts a kink in things. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Quote: these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song
I will be in the minority in saying this, but frankly I find this to be absolutely SICK
I am a 3rd year music student at UC Davis, so for me knowing, or trying to know what makes a peice of music is what i do ALL DAY, and turning our minds and our creative energy over to letting computers tell us what we like is disturbing to me in a deep and unsettlingly foreboding way.
I have no problem with the use of computers in helping us create music, but I have a HUGE problem with computers creating it FOR us, and telling us what makes us like it, or not.
As hard as this is probably to understand from the more relaxed perspective enjoyed by most people, I can only suggest imagining a computer which has been digesting the greatest novels of our times. This machine has started to tell us things like what words and what length of sentences suggest greatness in the works of Falkner or what punctuation will make a novel truly great. This computational analysis of music is just great and fun for laymen, but for people like me it is the distant pounding of Mongol feet in the nearby hills. For shame!
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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It really is, though. You tell this thing the music you like, and it's able to find similar music. That's it. It doesn't tell you what to like or why, it makes suggestions.
I grow more and more disenchanted. There's an e-mail to suggest artists, but not one for general complaints about a thing that's bugging me.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Orincoro, the application doesn't create music, it merely streams music created by humans that is similar to other bands that we like. The only thing the computer is doing is associated one band with another due to human input.
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
The reason they don't search by song names as well is because their licenses do not allow them to play a song immediately after you request it. They can only play songs in the same musical style category as the one you asked for, though since your song is in that category, they will probably end up playing that song. Better to search by artist.
They had a song I wanted and played it, but it only found it after I searched by artist. When I searched by name, it said it didn't exist.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
It's too bad they don't have classical music. I mostly listen to instrumental stuff.
Still, it looks pretty cool! I played with it a bit, but then remembered that streaming music is a no-no here at work (someone got in trouble for it once because it takes too many system resources). I'll have to play with it some more at home.
Posts: 1805 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
Hmm.. I asked I created a station based on Green Day's Time of Your Life. Its giving me a whole bunch of Greendaylike punk. The problem is that Time of Your Life is a rather unique Green Day song. Its layed back, sentimental and acoustic. I think they only analyse by artist rather than by individual songs. And they probably pick songs at random from records by artists that fall in the same category.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
some people have responded to my comment, and their responses have not been to my complaint, so I haven't been clear obviously.
What I am talking about, and what I think is extremely sick, is thinking that the "unique identity" of a peice of music can be "captured"
Not only that, but this computer analysis absolutely does violate some standards I hold very deeply as someone who writes and listens to music. I'll repeat the analogy, as no-one adressed it earlier, this is like entering the text of a great work of literary fiction into a computer program, and asking it to determine which books are similar in quality or style.
Anyone who doesn't see the negative effects of allowing our tastes to be defined by computer analyses is far less cautious than I. I do not assert that the computer tells you WHAT TO LIKE, but simply tells you WHAT YOU DO LIKE. This should not be quantified IMO. I am not "weird" for thinking this, I am someone who knows very well that if you define your future listening/ reading habits based on past success only, this does not a scintilating intellect create.
People need randomness, chance, variety and organic evolution in their lives and their mind, computers hinder this human need
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
As to the above, yes I realize computers enhance our ability to be creative, I said that earlier, but this is a different quality and a different argument
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
This is exactly the sort of thing the music industry needs to do more of. Within 24 hours of being introduced to this, I had already bought an album that only discovered through pandora.
I am really enjoying it.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:but simply tells you WHAT YOU DO LIKE. This should not be quantified IMO. I am not "weird" for thinking this, I am someone who knows very well that if you define your future listening/ reading habits based on past success only, this does not a scintilating intellect create.
Actually, it doesn't tell you what you do like. You tell *it* what you like and it tries to find you some similar music. And now those who think this is cool lack a scintillating intellect?
Not sure what to say....
We'll just agree to disagree on that one.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I really hate to get nit picky with people, but do not twist my words please.
I didn't say people who use this are not interesting, I said using this will not MAKE you interesting, nor will it, (IMO! IMO! IMO! IMO!) a particularly broad person. If you want to critique me, please be clear about what I have and have not said.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Did you happen to spend enough time using Pandora to find the "Why are you playing this song" button? It'll tell you what it is gauging the list on, and it not the mystical identities of the song, it's the quantifiable pieces. Jazz influences, brass lines, three-four time, acoustical or piano accompaniment. These are all things I can tell by looking at a sheet of music, or heaven forbid listening to it once.
I don't see this as anything different than asking a friend for a song (or in your example, a novel) recommendation. Odds are they know my taste, and will pick something that isn't going to be a complete 180 from what I happen to like and enjoy listening to. All this does is start with something I like, and look for some obvious commonality. No, it's not going to be foolproof. No, it's not going to be perfect. And no, despite having a fairly musical background (12 years or so in it), I don't find it particularly malevolent or evil.
And as for addressing what you have said, that site in absolutely no way is creating the music it plays. (Playlist, yes. Music, no.)
quote:Originally posted by Architraz Warden: And as for addressing what you have said, that site in absolutely no way is creating the music it plays. (Playlist, yes. Music, no.)
Feyd Baron, DoC
I know the sight doesn't create music, and I know the music it shows you has to do with the computer analysis of the piece, my kneejerk scared reaction to reading about "capturing the MUSICAL (not mystical) identity of a song" compelled me to say this was a really bad and scary idea.
I still think it is, and I think everyone so far has reacted as if I don't understand what the program/site is doing. I do get it; I actually found out about a similiar project several years ago when a computer was used to analyze the greatest hits of the 20th century, making allowance for all manner of variables (tempos, length, structure, melody, lyrical content etc...) The computer was then used to predict the sucess of a particular song, and succeeded in accurately predicting good sales numbers for a couple of very popular albums from previously unheard artists.
What really scared me then, and scares me still, is that the potential is in this technology to analize and start to actually create music based on what sells. This kind of like hearing about a robot that is really great at YOUR JOB, and pretty soon your going to start seeing this robot everywhere, and everybody is talking about it, and you are scared to death of being outstripped by the machines. But the thing is you know that if the robot takes your job (lets say you work on the containment systems of a giant nuclear reactor) he is going to make a mistake because you are pretty sure the people who designed him don't know anything about nuclear reactors.
This has basically turned into my phobic rant against intrusive technology
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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