Music!
Someone on my FList turned me on to Pandora which is a collection of ... radio stations that you can seed with whatever or whomever you want to.
I have mixed feelings about it. Some things it does very well, but it falls down (perhaps understandably) on others.
(+) I seeded one station with Stan Rogers, and they've played some songs by artists either whom I've not thought of in quite a while, or whom I've actually never heard of.
(1/2) I tried to seed one with Flanders & Swann, and they played some non-funny English vocalist, and never played F&S, so I deleted that one, seeding another with Tom Lehrer. I've gotten some pretty funny stuff -- including F&S (go figure!) but it doesn't understand that I want funny/wry/cynical.
(1/2) I seeded an Elvis Costello station -- I'm moving interesting Rock into that one when they appear on my folk stations. I seeded a station with Wreckless Eric, and have been trying to populate it with Stiff artists, and it's doing okay, but about half the tunes don't belong, and some of the ones they play I don't like.
(1/2) I populated one station by requesting the Boomtown Rats. Unfortunately, they aren't yet playing the older stuff that I like better, and I only really like about half of the other stuff that it stick in.
(-) Since they'd recognized the B-Rats, I tried to try them out on Klark Kent (or however he spells his name) -- I have a single by him, so I only recognize 2 tunes. They actually recognized the name -- and have been playing a lot of songs that are "similar"... but after listening to about 50 songs on that channel, while I liked a lot of them, none of them were KK. I may try again, or I may delete this one.
(+) Tried a Martha & The Muffins tune -- and they have actually pulled some very cool songs -- most that I didn't recognize -- into this station.
(1/2) Back when the music sharing craze started, NPR was saying that "You can find ANY album/song you want out there" -- I was never convinced, but decided to try it out here -- I looked for Rosy's Bar and Grill. Nope -- they found a few songs with similar names, but hadn't heard of the group. I tried the Womenfolk. Nope. Ok, how about someone more recent and more popular -- Deidre McCalla -- haven't heard of her either. How about someone with a more distinctive name: Lavender Jane Loves Women. Nope. Hmph. Finally went for Malvina Reynolds. That one worked. And I've been trying to train it to play me female vocalist music. -- and have experienced limited success. Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, interspersed with Peter, Paul & Mary and a few dozen groups I've never heard of.
My analysis is that it is not (yet) up to my particular eclectic taste (yes, I _do_ want a Womenfolk and a Stiff Records and a Flanders & Swann channel!) but that it is a really cool toy/tool.
I have mixed feelings about it. Some things it does very well, but it falls down (perhaps understandably) on others.
(+) I seeded one station with Stan Rogers, and they've played some songs by artists either whom I've not thought of in quite a while, or whom I've actually never heard of.
(1/2) I tried to seed one with Flanders & Swann, and they played some non-funny English vocalist, and never played F&S, so I deleted that one, seeding another with Tom Lehrer. I've gotten some pretty funny stuff -- including F&S (go figure!) but it doesn't understand that I want funny/wry/cynical.
(1/2) I seeded an Elvis Costello station -- I'm moving interesting Rock into that one when they appear on my folk stations. I seeded a station with Wreckless Eric, and have been trying to populate it with Stiff artists, and it's doing okay, but about half the tunes don't belong, and some of the ones they play I don't like.
(1/2) I populated one station by requesting the Boomtown Rats. Unfortunately, they aren't yet playing the older stuff that I like better, and I only really like about half of the other stuff that it stick in.
(-) Since they'd recognized the B-Rats, I tried to try them out on Klark Kent (or however he spells his name) -- I have a single by him, so I only recognize 2 tunes. They actually recognized the name -- and have been playing a lot of songs that are "similar"... but after listening to about 50 songs on that channel, while I liked a lot of them, none of them were KK. I may try again, or I may delete this one.
(+) Tried a Martha & The Muffins tune -- and they have actually pulled some very cool songs -- most that I didn't recognize -- into this station.
(1/2) Back when the music sharing craze started, NPR was saying that "You can find ANY album/song you want out there" -- I was never convinced, but decided to try it out here -- I looked for Rosy's Bar and Grill. Nope -- they found a few songs with similar names, but hadn't heard of the group. I tried the Womenfolk. Nope. Ok, how about someone more recent and more popular -- Deidre McCalla -- haven't heard of her either. How about someone with a more distinctive name: Lavender Jane Loves Women. Nope. Hmph. Finally went for Malvina Reynolds. That one worked. And I've been trying to train it to play me female vocalist music. -- and have experienced limited success. Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, interspersed with Peter, Paul & Mary and a few dozen groups I've never heard of.
My analysis is that it is not (yet) up to my particular eclectic taste (yes, I _do_ want a Womenfolk and a Stiff Records and a Flanders & Swann channel!) but that it is a really cool toy/tool.