I lied about reviewing Rocky Votolato. It just isn't happening.
So a few weeks ago I discovered Pandora radio. It's a website linked to the Music Genome Project. This is what Tim Westergren, the founder, has to say about the project
...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.
Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of 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.
They accomplish this be giving you a customized free radio station. You go to the website, www.pandora.com, and tell them your favorite band. They play songs by that band, but also other songs they think you will like, and they are very good at it. They have introduced me to several songs by bands I've never heard of that I quite like. More surprising is that they play songs from my music collection that I didn't tell them I like yet. They have even a few times managed to pick the one song by an obscure artist that I like, and play only that one. Pandora plays songs I’ve loved for years but never new the artist.
You can add additional bands to a given station to make it smarter, or create separate stations for different moods. You get the option of rating each song as good or bad. I use good a lot, but I have only had to use bad twice. Perhaps the coolest thing about the program is asking it why it decided to play a particular song. It identifies what traits about the song made the system think you would like it. It is very cool to see how detailed they get.
My one complaint is that the program doesn't always remember how long it's been since it played a song last. I once got a song played twice in a half an hour, but that was extreme. It's not too bad, because you can skip songs at any time (also did I mention no commercials?), and you cab even ask the system to not play the song for a certain period without lowering it's rating. I find that particularly handy for songs I like that are very long.
Anyway, everybody should check it out, and spread the word, because it's great. Perhaps most telling is that since discovering it, I have listened to almost nothing else.
...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.
Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of 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.
They accomplish this be giving you a customized free radio station. You go to the website, www.pandora.com, and tell them your favorite band. They play songs by that band, but also other songs they think you will like, and they are very good at it. They have introduced me to several songs by bands I've never heard of that I quite like. More surprising is that they play songs from my music collection that I didn't tell them I like yet. They have even a few times managed to pick the one song by an obscure artist that I like, and play only that one. Pandora plays songs I’ve loved for years but never new the artist.
You can add additional bands to a given station to make it smarter, or create separate stations for different moods. You get the option of rating each song as good or bad. I use good a lot, but I have only had to use bad twice. Perhaps the coolest thing about the program is asking it why it decided to play a particular song. It identifies what traits about the song made the system think you would like it. It is very cool to see how detailed they get.
My one complaint is that the program doesn't always remember how long it's been since it played a song last. I once got a song played twice in a half an hour, but that was extreme. It's not too bad, because you can skip songs at any time (also did I mention no commercials?), and you cab even ask the system to not play the song for a certain period without lowering it's rating. I find that particularly handy for songs I like that are very long.
Anyway, everybody should check it out, and spread the word, because it's great. Perhaps most telling is that since discovering it, I have listened to almost nothing else.