The Musical Box

[dje2004]

Music fans (and I'm thinking specifically of feanor1138 and mamcdowell) may be interested in this site:

http://www.pandora.com/Basically, you type in an artist or song title, and Pandora will find and play music that (it thinks) is similar to what you selected, the idea being to expose you to new music you might like (it also mixes in the song and/or songs by the

Comments

[feanor1138]

I actually read about this in Wired a while back, but I'd never checked it out until now. It actually looks to be pretty cool. Thanks for the rec.

[dje2004]

It's definitely interesting. I have to admit though that I haven't been thrilled with it - I typed in Genesis and most of the songs its returned don't sound anything like Genesis to me. However, I know that I have pretty narrow musical tastes, so that didn't surprise me. I know your tastes are much more broad, and that you're also more into non-mainstream music, so I thought it might be something you'd like.

Also, I created a second station based around Sly and the Family Stone's "Dance to the Music," and the songs that its brought up have been fairly similar. Maybe that's because Genesis crosses over into a lot of different genres (prog rock, classic rock, 80s music, 60s-flavored acoustic rock, all of which have come up), and so Pandora is bringing up a lot of stuff that's only tangentially related to the band. Right now, for instance, it brought up "Suddenly Last Summer" by the Motels, which I would say doesn't sound like Genesis at all.

[feanor1138]

Hmm. Well, my Radiohead station is turning out pretty well. Although I fear this will lead me to buy many more CDs than I already do...

[mamcdowell]

I have to say this is actually pretty fuckin cool. I've already got a few selections that I may need to look at further.