Pandora: Music Genome Project

My friend told me about this site and now I'm totally addicted.

Pandora

It's an internet radio station created just for you based on your favorite artists. They then suggest other bands you may like based on similar musical attributes, known as the Music Genome.

The Music Genome Project

On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together 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.

We hope you enjoy the journey.

Tim Westergren
Founder
The Music Genome Project

It is so crazy! I'm loving typing in weird random bands and seeing what they come up with. You can also delete a song from your "radio station" if you don't like it.

Is anyone else here hep to this site?

I have been listening to it for a few weeks now at work and I think its a really cool idea. Its a great way to find out about new music in similar genre's to what you enter. I wish they had a wider variety of the things I listen to however, but its free, so I guess beggars cannot be choosers. :)

I have been meaning to post about this forever. There was a big article about this in the East Bay Express a few months ago.

It's really amazing, and I'm freqently shamed by the kind of music it pulls up for me.

It decided I would like a New Kids song the other day.

Oh, the humanity.

Actually, I had a link about this project in the art thread in this Beyond Tiki section a few days ago:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=18671&forum=6&5

As I keep saying, this mapping of personal tastes to attributes is the upcoming thing. There are numerous patents and patent applications out now for such algorithms for virtual jukeboxes. All this is related to data mining, which is a modern offshoot of artificial intelligence. It's just an extension of eBay recommendations, Amazon.com recommendations, cookies, and so on, applied to music. It's exciting, but since nobody solved the representation problem and knowledge bottleneck problems in A.I., all those problems have been carried into this new technology as well, which is why you're getting recommendations for New Kids.

...and why I was given Britany Fox!

I tried it for a couple hours a while ago and quickly got bored. I started with Western Swing (Bob Wills) and in only a couple songs was diverged to awful new country music. I kept skipping songs I didn't like (most of them) and eventually gave up. I think they need to add way more music on there before it's enjoyable for me. I might try it again for Jazz someday but using Napster is what I'm doing now - a million songs and growing rapidly and for only $10 a month. If any Napster members wants to listen to my Napster library my user name is thejab1. I have found some great music on there. To use Bob Wills again as an example, they have all 10 volumes of the Tiffany Transcription albums in Napster, among many other albums of his work on Capitol Records.

I tried it for a couple hours a while ago and quickly got bored. I started with Western Swing (Bob Wills) and in only a couple songs was diverged to awful new country music. I kept skipping songs I didn't like (most of them) and eventually gave up. I think they need to add way more music on there before it's enjoyable for me. I might try it again for Jazz someday but using Napster is what I'm doing now - a million songs and growing rapidly and for only $10 a month. If any Napster members wants to listen to my Napster library my user name is thejab1. I have found some great music on there. To use Bob Wills again as an example, they have all 10 volumes of the Tiffany Transcription albums in Napster, among many other albums of his work on Capitol Records.

i tried it out and think it's a great idea - but yeah - inevitably the soft jazz subjugates the exotic dreamer's airwaves with BS - in a few more years programming will be able to adhere more tenaciously

Bump. Because I just found this myself.

What a fantastic site! Put in a couple of artists or songs and instantly there's a never-ending loop of not only songs by these artists, but other songs that are in the same vein and mood.

For example, I put in "Martin Denny" and "Esquivel." And so far today it's generated this string:

The Sunny Side Of The Street / James Booker
Fugal's Blues / Professor Longhair
Lee Allen & His Band
Palms / Town And Country
Rhumboogie / Andrews Sisters
Que Sera Mi China / Tito Puente
Madness (Stereo) / Martin Denny
Remove This Favorite
Street Scene / Esquivel

Highly recommended!

I just found this site also. I agree that for exotica it really doesn't work.

I love punk though especially 80's punk. I put Dead Kennedy's in the search and have been listening for a couple days now. For some genres I think it works great.

Another thing I like is that my Mac iTunes cuts out all the time and need to rebuffer but Pandora never cuts out.

Has anyone found enough exotica and Hawaiiana music to make a good station? If so please share your station with me.

Thanks
Flounder

Cool site. Just try a search for the Blue Hawaiians!!!!

So, I've been trying to work the exotica tip on Pandora lately.

I seeded with Martin Denny and Tom Jones and it's coming up with Les Baxter, Stan Getz, and Cal Tjader, with only the occasional tardo 70s song. They may have added something to the algo"rhythms", perhaps?

I've been using Pandora lately when I have the hi-speed access. For the most part I like it and I've been turned on to several modern pop bands I'd never heard before.

Pandora does tend to play some of my "I like this song" selections every time I log in so I have to pick the "Don't play this song for a month" option.

The stations also can seem to get sidetracked. To a station I started with BR549, Wayne Hancock, and Dwight Yoakam I added Hank Snow, Bob Wills, and Ernest Tubb and now the station is playing nothing but pre-65 country instead of mixing it up.

And, as I just found out, Pandora's not so good with the modern rockabilly.

But for free it's great. Sounds good and with the modern music does a nice job matching the music I like.

woofmutt

[ Edited by: woofmutt 2009-01-09 15:18 ]

Just put in Otis Redding. The magic that is Pandora will take care of the rest. Also, putting in cumbia music does real well.