Music Genome Project - Cool site

[UD_Delt]

I'm probably just late on the uptake again but for those of you who haven't seen it yet:

http://www.pandora.com/

Works really well as an internet jukebox and reasonable well to find new music but much is based on the obscurity of the band you reference. Putting in a band like Kaiser Chiefs brings up a bunch of UK new-punk bands I've never heard before. Putting in Jack Johnson brings up mostly hippie/folk rock I already now.

YMMV

[voodoolily]

This is really cool, but part of me wonders, "what's the catch?". I can't figure out how they can do this for free and without ads on their site.

[UD_Delt]

Read in their FAQ: http://blog.pandora.com/faq/

It just started. They are going to be "ramping up" their advertising over the next few months. Otherwise you can buy a yearly license fairly cheap ($36/year) that gets rid of all advertising. I have no idea what "ramping up" means and the free version could quickly become useless. But right now it's pretty nice.

Edit: Should say really nice in that I haven't heard an add yet in over an hour of listening.

The more I read through the FAQ the more it sounds like a cool concept. It all depends on how well it works and learns. Up till this point I had been creating a bunch of different stations to test it out but supposedly you can rank each song that plays and it will learn from those rankings to tailor the station to your tastes. I've now started a station with Sublime (seemed like a good choice to combine various musical styles) and we'll see how well it really learns over the next day or so.

[voodoolily]

I should add that with dial-up, it's almost not worth it, but I'm still listening to a (laggy as hell) alternative version to Gone for Good by the SHins that's pretty nice.

[Sky]

Ecch. Jimmy Page. No Jimmy Page, just Page & Plant. Similar artists: Eddie Money, Great White, Bon Jovi. Ehh...fuck that noise.

Better results with the song "Since I've Been Loving You" : Drinkin' Blues by Blues Creation, which is an almost exact match, I Put A Spell On You by CCR, a great song. I love the minor tonality and triple feel. Pretty cool toy that will be utterly crushed when word gets around.

[voodoolily]

I Put A Spell On You by CCR, a great song.

That's one of my favorite oft-covered songs. My personal faves are the versions by Crazy World of Arthur Brown (my avatar), Nina Simone and Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

[UD_Delt]

Pretty cool toy that will be utterly crushed when word gets around.

Why? They've been around since August in the subscription only format. This version came out 2 days ago. They at least claim to be licensed which is why they don't offer exact songs on demand, or rewind ability. The best you can do is pause and skip.

Or do you mean crushed by Bandwidth? I guess I automatically just assume the RIAA will try to crush any new technology that makes listening to music enjoyable again.

[Sky]

I just meant the RIAA tends to crap on anything cool.

I've been bursting to get some new music lately, this site tipped me over the edge, though only a couple were songs from Pandora.

Stuff I ordered, not in any way eclectic:

Scab Dates - The Mars Volta
Maggot Brain - Funkadelic
Quintette du Hot Club de France - Django Reinhard
The Essential Chet Atkins
When Negroes Walked the Earth - Otis Taylor
Greatest Animals Hits - Eric Burdon
The Progressive Blues Experiment - Johnny Winter
Live in Boston, Vol 1 - Fleetwood Mac
Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival - The Allman Brothers Band

Some notes: The Burdon disc is live with War, doing Animals songs. Brings a nice soul/funk feel with Burdon's great voice. The Fleetwood Mac disc is early on, with Peter Green, extended blues/jazz jams, not the later pop/folk crap (well, relatively imo). The ABB live stuff is always great, this disc features Johnny Winter on a few tracks. Those three and the Winter disc were prompted by Pandora. Nice site, great to remind me of stuff I forget when I go to order music.

12/8 time, minor tonality, syncopation, blues influence, extensive vamping, prominent organ, electric guitar solo and vocal-oriented melodies seem to be my thing.

[Evangolis]

Raph has some links to this stuff on his blog in a post on Thinking Like the Audience, in response to a post on another blog.  The original topic didn't interest me half so much as the sources cited.

In particular, the emergence of software that picks hits in recent years and this analysis of what makes all time top sellers, like Stairway to Heaven suggests that taste in music can be accounted for, and that people have predictable patterns they will listen to.

Which in the short term produces new concerns for me in the area of innovation being stifled by prediction.  In the longer term, one wonders, if music does have successful patterns in its design, is there the real possibility that computers could write songs, just as computers play chess?  And if so, does it follow that humans will one day cease to be the primary creators of art?

[Sairon]

They didn't regocnize a single group which I asked it for. Anyway, I usualy just tune in to an internet radio playing music of genres I like. Winamp takes up fairly small ammount of system resource and by plugin enables global hotkeys, which owns when you're gaming. http://shoutcast.com for those who haven't tried it.

[Samwise]

This thing is awesome.  I wholeheartedly approve.

[lamaros]

This has made my day. Awesome.

[Merusk]

Which in the short term produces new concerns for me in the area of innovation being stifled by prediction.  In the longer term, one wonders, if music does have successful patterns in its design, is there the real possibility that computers could write songs, just as computers play chess?  And if so, does it follow that humans will one day cease to be the primary creators of art?

Music is just math at a certain level, so yes, I can see computers writing the notes.  However, the lyrics are always the important part to me (and I know I'm not alone even if I'm not in the majority there.)  If a song has a good beat and I can get into it but the lyrics are insipid poppy nothing I just can't stand it.  This is why I dislike Kiss, even though it fits well into my musical tastes.  Repetition of the same few phrases for 3-5 minutes bores the shit out of me.  I don't see computers writing poetry or meaningful song lyrics for some time to come.

[Sky]

Which in the short term produces new concerns for me in the area of innovation being stifled by prediction.  In the longer term, one wonders, if music does have successful patterns in its design, is there the real possibility that computers could write songs, just as computers play chess?  And if so, does it follow that humans will one day cease to be the primary creators of art?

Radio/tv/billboard != the totality of music, just a very thin veneer.

As long as there are people making instruments, and people playing them, there will be people writing music. Even if humans are no longer the primary providers of the capitalist revenue stream entertainment outlets. But who gives a shit who is writing Ashlee Simpson's songs, anyway?

[Samwise]

I for one welcome our new mechanical composer overlords.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Well, it can't be all that bad.  I put in "Iron Maiden" and the first song Pandora came back with was "Paschendale."  I win. 

Still, when I listen to music on my computer, it's either my iTunes play list (soundtracks or metal usually) or Digitally Imported for trance when I'm working.  For whatever reason, I love listening to trance while I'm working at the computer, but unless I'm at a club, I wouldn't really listen to it at any other time.

[Fabricated]

I love this thing, it found similar stuff to pretty much every song I entered. Even not really mainstream stuff like "The Light Before We Land" by the Delgados.

[stray]

Which in the short term produces new concerns for me in the area of innovation being stifled by prediction. In the longer term, one wonders, if music does have successful patterns in its design, is there the real possibility that computers could write songs, just as computers play chess? And if so, does it follow that humans will one day cease to be the primary creators of art?

Music is just as much an expression of the human will as it is the numbers and degrees of notes, timbre, and other technical features associated with it.

AI (eventually/possibly) wouldn't have many problems making use of and/or replicating the phenomenal/technical aspects, but any non-materialist* would hold that the creative will would be completely out of reach for an artificial intelligence. That AI would be no different than a Zombie when it comes this area. Whether they're right is another thing. Is the Will unique, or merely an aspect of the consciousness that can it be replicated too?

* Yup, there's that word that I was using in that Politics thread. This isn't a crosspost though. Just coincidental, and what I believe applies here. Point being: A materialist considers the consciousness itself as a construct, and the metaphysical will of man to be irrelevant. I don't. For a broader definition of what I'm talking about (pertaining to art, as well as the will in general), this has always been a good place to start.

[Margalis]

Software that predicts hits is not a surprise - music (aside from lyrics and vocals) is easy to analyze. Most people with an understanind of music can predict hits well already. There are certain people in the music business that produce all kinds of songs - if you look at the people who write Britney Spears music, a lot of them write for a ton of other popular performers. A good example is that woman Meredith Brooks who sang "I'm a a bitch, I'm a lover." She writes a lot of pop hits. There is a small circle of people who write the majority of pop hits.

Likewise something like this is not that surprising. Again music is fairly easy to analyze. What is the signiature, the chord structure, etc? Finding music that sounds a lot like other music (again minus the vocals and lyrics) isn't too difficult.

Computers *writing* music is another story. I think you could have a computer write music that sounds decent to a lot of listeners. But could a computer create a new genre or wave of music? That would be a lot harder.

Reading about this service, it appears the analysis is not done by computer but done by hand - crazy!

Edit: I tried KMFDM and got back some pretty reasonable stuff like Ministry. Then I tried Queensryche - first result back is Sammy Hagar. Oops. The two are superficially similar but QR is a pretty intellectual band and Sammy Hagar is....Sammy Hagar. (And I'm out of fast forwards ack!) It would be interesting to compare this to the Amazon "people who bought this also bought this other thing" which contains no actual analysis whatsoever.

Damn now I'm on Warrant...ok this is losing it's luster!

I'm going to sign up and play with the "more like this" and "less like this" buttons to see if I can get it to conform to my tastes. Will report back.

Edit: My queensryche experiment is interesting - about 1/3 of it is good, 1/3 is emo music, and 1/3 is 80s slut rock like Ratt and Warrant. One of my problems is that I can't enter any songs from Queensryche's best album. I guess they haven't gotten around to cataloging the best concept album of all time - lazy bastards!

Final edit: Most of the music I like isn't on the site. I tried entering some KMFDM but they only have their recent stuff. Same with Queensryche. I randomly tried Veruca Salt (don't ask), same deal there. I guess for someone like me who is stuck in the late 70s to mid 90s it isn't so great. It seems heavily biased towards more recent albums.

[Evangolis]

I loved Veruca Salt, but I'm a slut for girls with guitars.  Always have been.

The thing that got me thinking about computers writing music was the article on mastering albums.  The point about a small group of people making most of the hits actually reinforces my thinking on this.  If you are basically working to a set of formulas, then you are likely to be machine replacable.  I agree that machines might be more challenged when it comes to becoming a new genre.

[Sky]

Margalis: see my first post. I've had much better results using a song as the basis, artists tend to pop up some wildly varied stuff.

Evangolis: I was in school for studio engineering (64 track recording) for about a year. I eventually dropped out when the band relocated from LA to SF, but I was about to switch majors to improvisational instrumentation, because the entire recording program was aimed at being 'the guy behind the hits'. Used to be a core of band musicians that sat in the back of the class mocking stuff, but I guess if you're in it for the money, that's where the money is. Being the guy who writes, produces, arranges and plays instrumentation on the track that gets Ashlee to #1.

Because of the multi-royalty dipping, mostly. Ashlee gets performance royalties, but the Wizard of Oz gets the lion's share.

[lamaros]

I sure as hell don't think that most of the music I enjoy and consider good could ever be produced by a small group of music guru's, let alone a computer.

Sure you can come up with a lot of filler music according to the dominant tastes of the time, but that's not much of an achievment; it's not "making music" in a real sense IMHO.

I was listening to my Xiu Xiu radio before and heard some songs I liked (by Momus, The Church, & Casiotone For The Painfully Alone), some I didn't have much of an opinion on, and some I really didn't like (Depeche Mode, Human League, Britney Spears). They all had many similar elements, but that didn't stop half of them being total rubbish. Even with music there are many many aspects which cannot be picked up without some form of intelligence, and even among those who can pick them up opinions can differ. There's one quality I noticed when listening to 'Patsy Cline Radio' they they called "heartbreaking lyrics". Who decides what the hell that means?

The site's music library is a bit small, too many repeats. Otherwise it's great. Talking about machinemademusic or whatever is just a waste of time.

[UD_Delt]

The site's music library is a bit small, too many repeats. Otherwise it's great. Talking about machinemademusic or whatever is just a waste of time.

I've noticed that as well. As of right now they only have abou 10,000 artists which broken down across different genre's isn't really a whole lot. Hopefully that will grow more quickly as this thing becomes more popular and they start generating some revenue. Then again as someone above mentioned they've been cataloging music by hand so maybe the growth won't be that fast after all....

[Margalis]

I've tried using songs I like but most of the songs I like they don't have. I've tried KMFDM, Veruca Salt, Cathedral and Queensryche, couldn't get any songs I liked from any of those.

[Sky]

Heh. When I put in "Since I've Been Loving You", I got two solid days worth of great music with almost no overlap!

[Samwise]

They take suggestions for additions to their library too.  I got a non-form email back within about a day of requesting some Pirate Jenny, so human beings do review the suggestions.

[Nebu]

This is a cool site.  If nothing else, I've discovered just how many really shitty bands are able to make a living in music.  When I say shitty, I don't mean style... I mean musicianship.  Some REALLY bad groups out there... I mean worse_than_garage_band bad.

Thanks for the link.  I signed up!

[Pococurante]

This is a cool site.  If nothing else, I've discovered just how many really shitty bands are able to make a living in music.  When I say shitty, I don't mean style... I mean musicianship.  Some REALLY bad groups out there... I mean worse_than_garage_band bad.

Thanks for the link.  I signed up!

Those two statements aren't related right? ;)

[Nebu]

Those two statements aren't related right? ;)

I guess I should have stated that the good outweighs the bad.  Good, bad, or indifferent, being exposed to new things is a plus.  I'm hearing bands that I would have never had a chance to otherwise.  For that, I was thanking UD_Delt.

Note to self: Don't post while in the middle of 3 other projects... it will help me make more sense.

[Pococurante]

Hehe - I saw the opening and took it. ;)

[Samwise]

It just occurred to me that although in some respects this isn't as good as having one's own music library, it is superior in every way imaginable to conventional radio stations.  If they could make a version of this that I could install in my car, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

[Merusk]

It just occurred to me that although in some respects this isn't as good as having one's own music library, it is superior in every way imaginable to conventional radio stations.  If they could make a version of this that I could install in my car, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Music Match has been doing this same service for the last 5 years.  It was a good deal until they were bought-out by yahoo and they turned the software into a bloated piece of crap.   They also let you match up to 10 groups for your streaming stations.

[UD_Delt]

It just occurred to me that although in some respects this isn't as good as having one's own music library, it is superior in every way imaginable to conventional radio stations.  If they could make a version of this that I could install in my car, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

My thought is that Sirius (or XM but I have Sirius) needs to jump on this thing as soon as possible. They need some web front end to create your stations and then to let you stream them on certain channels of your receiver in your car. I can't really see anything that would prevent this from happening technology wise. At this point you wouldn't be able to rank the songs and skip and such but on future receivers I could see them adding more bandwidth to the upstream to facilitate that.

[Sky]

I just got in the live Scab Dates by The Mars Volta. Holy shit, I think they just might be the best modern band I've heard. It's a bit of a listen to digest, but yet another amazing disc from the band, and the fact that it's live puts them up at the top of the list of my favorite modern bands. Three thumbs up.

[Lt.Dan]

This is quite possible the coolest thing on the internet ever.  Thanks for sharing :)